If You Think I'm Gonna Come Up With A Title For This, You're Dead Wrong

Chapter 17

"Of course it does." He laughs— you are always the more confident of you two in this sort of situation. "But there are greater emotional and psychological risks in us not being together."

Your body tenses slightly as he grabs your hand. You swallow. "I don't—"

"Every night," he speaks quieter now, "We go out and we put ourselves in danger. By associating with us, you're putting yourself in danger. That is irrevocable. Agreed?"

Slowly, you nod.

"If something happened to me," he continues, "if something happened to you, and we didn't at least try this, I, personally, would hate myself for it, for not exploring this while we still have time. Does the same go for you?"

The back of your legs are against the counter. You nod again.

He sets his hand on the countertop next to you. "I wish that I was a normal human." He breaks eye contact. "I wish that I was in a position where I wasn't telling you all this after you just went through what must have been a terrifying, traumatizing ordeal. I wish that we both didn't have to do this like this, that what happened over the past few months didn't happen and that I could just do this like they do in the movies and ask you out to look at the stars or whatever." He takes a breath. "But I can't. Because I'm not."

You are not moving, now. Your eyes are focused on every micro-expression, every flinch in his face, mesmerized for a moment by the way his eyes shine under the fluorescent light. When did the room get so quiet?

"We're in a situation where both of us are in a lot of trouble with an organization that wants our heads. That's partly my fault." He looks back at you. "We don't have the luxury of worrying about that. Us being together isn't going to increase the danger at all: if they plan to use you as leverage, that is not going to change because we're honest with each other about our feelings."

You swallow again. "Can I say something?"

"Please."

You clear your throat. "I want to be in a situation where I can do what you described." Your fingers clench and unclench as you try to articulate. "I just don't want you to get yourself hurt because you're worried about me, or get distracted when you're in such a high-risk situation, or to do something irrational on my account."

"Y/N," he takes your hands gently, still on the counter. "I'm going to do that regardless. That just comes with the job."

"But would you do it at a higher frequency if we were together?"

"Probably not."

"How?"

"Because I'm going to care about you regardless."

"So whether I say no or not—"

"The irrational behavior is a given, yeah."

You look up at him. "I hope you know that this will come with its own complications. Neither of us knows the first thing about maintaining a romantic relationship."

"Are you familiar with the scientific method?"

You nod. "Question, background research—"

"We've both done plenty of that."

"Hypothesize, test, analyze, conclude, repeat until you get a result."

"That's what we'll do, then." He smiles. "If something doesn't work, we'll look over the problem, analyze the data, make a conclusion, and try something else with that in mind."

You pull your hands off, gently pushing at his chest. "This isn't fair," you mumble, "having me like this. It's hard to think enough as is."

He blinks. "Huh?" He looks between the two of you, backs off. "Oh, right, sorry," he sputters, rubbing the back of his head. "Personal— I— sorry."