5SOS Imagines

Luke - Crime Fighters AU

Author: Rhine

-

You were a team.

You were always with him, back to the very beginning during your training days when you'd sit by yourself in the cafeteria, only to have some tall blonde slip down in the seat in front of you with a sparkle in his bright blue eyes despite the dim lighting; an introduction on his quirked lips – I'm Luke.

You went back to the cutthroat academy where you and him were unstoppable when it came to the drawing board, solving the timed scenarios in a matter of seconds; late nights where your roommate rigged a floorboard with a rope trap, Luke being the only one tall enough to untie your ankle and catch you before you crash-landed on the diabolically set Lego pieces on the floor.

God, you hated the academy.

You hated the high competition of the people who wanted to save the world but didn't mind destroying another's to do so; the sweat that never seemed to stop running and the tears you had to swallow and the blood you had to bite back.

You hated the fear of being kicked out in the middle of the night without an explanation except for the sudden realization that you weren't good enough, that they were weeding out the weak and you were just that – weak.

You saw too many fellow trainees smile one morning and disappear the next and there's no questions asked, no explanations given, no goodbyes.

It was your biggest fear – working and working all to have it be ripped away from you like something you never should've had in the first place.

And you were afraid that one day you would wake up and take your seat in the horribly dreary cafeteria and you'd wait and wait and wait for a blonde-haired boy who would never come back.

You don't think you would've survived without him.

Because he was there to whisper encouragement before you took that leap into the weightless air below you, he was there to counteract whatever poison you chose wrong before the instructor saw, he was there to put in the final puzzle piece you were missing to the simulation case that you couldn't find yourself.

He was there for you, just as you were for him.

It was just how the two of you worked – you had a bond that surpassed just polite acquaintances, you were partners that knew the inside out of each other's minds and reflexed towards each other the way you would to yourself.

It was something they never taught but they always prized and it was why they kept the two of you, this inseparable bond between the gangly boy and quick-witted girl – it's why they kept the two of you together, simply because they knew they couldn't tear you apart.

You made up for the things he lacked and vise versa and you were his compliment and he was your match.

It's why you graduated that goddamn hellhole with Luke's fingers interlaced with yours as you pumped your joined fists to the setting sky, it's why the very next day when the two of you showed up to the agency, you were called in together to see the boss and would leave as one from then on.

You were a team – the deadly duo, he would joke when he's talking to the other agents, a fond ruffle of your hair – and that's how it always was, how it always would be.

You forget that would be and should be are two very different things.

-

It wasn't a job, it was a duty.

It was more than just a file on a desk, it was more than a five-minute debriefing and a clean slate on the drawing board.

It was doing what you could for the people and it was stopping the danger and it was returning what was stolen.