Bulletproof | A BTS Gang AU

Mic Drop

"I don't get what you're not getting," I finally said with a groan. "Is it my plan, or is it me?" I looked around the room at the guy's faces, but no one wanted to be the first to speak. I leaned away from the table and propped up on my hands behind me. "I get that I'm the new girl and you all have issues that you're dealing with from your past," I looked straight at Hoseok on that one, "but I'd appreciate it if you would at least talk to me about what you're thinking."

Jin caught the way Hoseok and I were staring at each other. I could see him looking between the two of us, but he didn't say anything. Namjoon sighed and leaned forward on his knees. He was the first to speak.

"It's not that we don't trust you, Morgan, it's just that this is outside of our realm of expertise. We're the type to go in somewhere, guns blazing, do what we need to do and get out."

"Yeah, we're not used to doing things so carefully," Jimin added with a strong cut of his eyes to where Joon was sitting, though the older missed the look. Hobi didn't and tore his eyes away from me to give Jimin a death glare that I wouldn't have wanted to be on the other end of.

"Well, that's just not going to work this time," I said. I got the feeling that something had been bubbling under the surface with these guys for a while and I was going to do my best to diffuse it. At least for now. I needed to see what the Baron was hiding in his archives as much as the boys did. Maybe more so. Their lives weren't hinging on what that man knew like mine was.

"We need to use a little finesse this time." I leaned forward and grabbed another piece of pizza. I felt like I hadn't eaten in about three years. Of course, I had been surviving mostly on coffee and whatever Yoongi could snag for me from the kitchen since my self-imposed isolation from the boys. After hearing Hoseok and Jimin's argument, I wasn't sure where I fit in with them anymore and I couldn't bear the thoughts that popped in my head whenever I looked at them. It was hard to miss the occasional hurt glance from Jungkook though. He didn't understand why I was choosing the floor in Yoongi's office over his bed and even though I constantly told him it had nothing to do with what happened between us, I could tell he thought it did. I just couldn't come out with my insecurities without telling them that I'd seen Hobi beating the shit out of Jimin in the basement and then basically called them out on the secrets they were keeping from me about what had happened in their past.

At least I didn't know what all I'd done. Of course, deep down I wasn't sure if I would tell them anyway. Part of me could almost understand why they were keeping everything close to the vest while the rest of me wanted to stay hurt and self-conscious about the whole Natalia revelation.

"We're going to have to discuss this a little more before we decide what to do," Jin said in his most diplomatic voice. He was still casting glances between me, Hobi, and Jimin as he tried to figure out what was going on there, but I wasn't telling and I didn't think either of them were planning on it, either. Jimin's bruises had mostly gone away and he'd blew them off as something he'd got in a bar brawl, but I could tell Jin wasn't buying it.

"Fine," I said, pushing up from the floor and stretching out my legs. "Talk it over until you're blue in the face for all I fucking care." I grabbed the tablet Yoongi had given me and turned toward the basement door. I heard some muffled discussion behind me but I didn't care enough to listen to what they were saying. Someone whisper-yelled at someone else and then a pair of feet came shuffling up being me. Just before my hand landed on the door to go to the basement, someone else's latched around my wrist. It was Taehyung.

"Wait. Please don't go back down there. Why have you been hiding from us?"

I rolled my eyes and pulled my wrist from his grip easily. "Ask Hobi and Jimin."

Taehyung's eyebrows wrinkled together for a moment before he turned back to look at the rest of the guys. Hobi was staring intently, but Jimin had already left the room. Taehyung turned back to me. His features hadn't relaxed. "I don't understand."

I dropped my head to the side and wrapped my arms around the tablet like a shield. "Who's Natalia?"

Taehyung looked like he'd been shot. Somewhere down the hall, something glass fell on the floor and shattered. I didn't bother looking at the other guys. I could feel their eyes on me. Nobody said a word. I laughed mirthlessly and grabbed the door handle. "That's why, Tae." Without another word, I stomped down the stairs to the office where I pulled out the blanket Yoongi had been letting me use and wrapped it around my body before sitting in my chair and pulling my legs up while I went through the information I'd found for the thousandth time.

I wanted to be upset. To cry and throw things and get everything I was feeling out of my system, but I just couldn't. I was confused about their actions, about their silence, and about my own feelings over it all. I felt like a replacement part. Like Taehyung and Namjoon, and even Jungkook, had used me as a stepping stone to get over their own grief over a girl that they obviously cared more about. I could see it on Taehyung's face when I'd said her name. The hurt and the anguish. I was nothing compared to her and I didn't even know who she was. She was just a ghost of a memory that was haunting everyone and everything under that roof.

And as I curled up and forced sleep to take me, one thing became painfully obvious.

I was never going to stay with them with her memory tainting all the ones I was trying to make. Once this job was over, in whatever capacity they decided to act on it, I was going to leave and never look back.