Chapter Text
jun’s weight was barely felt by dylan as he ran across the garden.
the rain didn’t stop for a second, the muddy ground made him stumble countless times, but dylan still ran as if his entire life depended on it — because worse than that, jun’s life depended on it. he was drenched to the bones, gray hair sticking on his face, affecting his view of the small white house at the end of the garden.
still, he ran, even as his legs threatened to give up.
the loud thunder wasn’t even enough to scare him anymore, he found out a new, worse fear. his heart was beating loudly in his ears, the only thing keeping his hands from shaking more was the need to hold jun’s limp body firmly.
when he finally reached the well lit wooden porch, he kicked it with his feet, not stopping until he heard shuffling coming from inside the house. the wait of less than five minutes was excruciating, each second was bleeding out between his fingers and it terrified him.
it was too much.
when the door was unlocked, he saw pepper’s sweet smile drop and his eyes widened in horror behind the glasses.
“dylan–”
“help him, please!” he begged, voice trembling with sheer desperation.
shocked, pepper just nodded and dropped the fluffy blanket that was wrapped around his shoulders. he shoved the door to lock it and ran upstairs, clearly distressed. dylan followed him, the soft orange lights barely did anything to calm him down like it usually did, he was too focused on the bleeding body on his arms this time.
pepper ran down the corridor until he reached a black metal door with a digital lock. he quickly typed the password and held it open for dylan to enter with jun. the inside of the room was familiar, he spent countless nights there, enough to remember each detail of the medical room without needing to look. he placed jun’s body gently on the bed and sped up the process by removing his bloodied suit.
behind him, pepper put on his gloves and mask, turning on every equipment he could reach. without needing to be told, dylan went ahead and turned on the others and pulled the tool cart closer.
“what happened?”
“he was shot, right side of his stomach. i don’t know how much—”
“it’s okay, just help me out here and everything will be fine.” even without seeing his full face, dylan knew that the calming smile he was so familiar with was there. dylan swallowed down the tears and let pepper do what he was better at: fix them up.
—
as secret agents, dylan and jun were raised to not trust anyone.
whenever they had any problems, the most they could do was rely on each other — and that didn’t exactly work when you’re trained to compete with everyone in your field. dylan was aware he should follow what the protocol told him, but it was so, so hard when his whole being felt like it could collapse on jun’s annoyingly secure arms.
growing up like that was hell.
each mission could be his last, thus trust was not something he could afford to have. still, he found himself trusting too much in jun. that was his first mistake.
the second was pepper.
he was a new doctor, a prodigy of some sort, praised by heavens and hell in their agency. whenever things went wrong, there he was, with his little scary tools and hello kitty band-aids for dylan and snoopy band-aids for jun, no matter how much they complained that it didn’t fit their whole secret agent almost mercenary agenda, he hid all the normal band-aids from them.
unlike jun, dylan wasn’t aware when everything happened. when he came to himself, he was already at pepper’s office, slumping on his comfortable couch and being lulled to sleep by his non-stop typing on the computer and soft hum of old melodies.
whenever he got hurt on a mission, pepper was there, ready to patch him up and offer him a hot cup of tea. dylan was almost killed at least three times in the first year pepper worked for them. he was used to the scolding he got, the head slaps and when he got really mad, he gave him the normal band-aid instead of the hello-kitty one.
the fourth time dylan ended up at his surgery table, all bloodied and about to die, and was somehow brought back to life, he saw pepper cry for the first time by his side when he woke up.
“you can’t keep doing that to me, dylan. what if i’m not good enough to save you next time?”
that was like a punch in his gut. he didn’t know how to react to a sobbing pepper. he was always composed, calm, competent, never wavered.
impulsively, dylan kissed him. that was the first time he kissed someone else other than jun.
it was a slow, tear stained kiss that made everything hurt and feel better at the same time. they didn’t confess at that time, it wasn’t really how dylan ran with things, but jun caught them kissing sometime around midnight when he came back from a mission with food and gasped, pointing an accusatory finger at dylan.
“you fucker!” he had yelled, but the glint of mischievousness in his eyes didn’t go unnoticed by dylan. “you think almost dying is enough of an excuse to kiss my man?!”
that night, a groggy dylan found out that jun had confessed — that sly snake — to pepper a few minutes before he was hospitalized, and the doctor had to run away from his confession to, basically, save his life. dylan laughed more than he should at that even if it meant his whole body spasmed in pain.
they spent the entire night discussing what they could possibly do with their feelings. neither dylan nor jun were used to this kind of thing, they were created to act, not to think, not to feel. they were already going above and beyond what they should. but pepper wasn’t like that, raised as a civilian and an emotionally mature person, made him sit for hours explaining what he felt for each of them — admiration, care, empathy, love.
dylan didn’t know what to do with all that. with jun, things were impulsive, hot, fast, and unpredictable. he was used to it, used to just doing whatever they felt like doing, be it kissing or having sex, they never discussed what they were or what they felt for each other. he thought it was fine like that.
apparently, for pepper, it was not.
“i don’t want to have a careless thing with you. any of you,” he had said holding their hands, shiny sweet eyes staring up at them as if they had any possibility of contradicting him when he looked like that to them. “what i feel is real, and deeper than i thought it could be. i want both of you, i truly love you, and i want to have a life with you. and i know it’s a wild dream given our reality, but i want to try anyway. i’m willing to try.”
both dylan and jun had turned away to hide the tears that fell after that. their lives were made to be used, their abilities and skills were weapons that once they stopped working wouldn’t matter to anyone.
pepper didn’t see them like this. they were loved as people for the first time.
and if he was willing to try, they were too.
right now, they were still trying — they would forever try, because pepper was worth the effort.
—
“hey, wake up.” dylan startled awake, shocked that he fell asleep on the chair he had sat down on after pepper finished patching jun up.
he only heard that he was not dying anymore; the wound was a bloody mess, but not too risky, and that was enough to calm him enough to finally sit down. his legs couldn’t hold him up anymore. pepper told him to rest while he finished everything with jun’s iv and whatever else he had to do. he didn’t expect to fall asleep.
“and jun?” he asked as pepper knelt by his side, pulling down his drenched white button-up.
“he is fine. all vitals are stable. i’m just waiting for him to wake up.” pepper’s calm voice made dylan’s shoulder sag in relief. everything was fine. “now, let me take care of you.”
“what– why?” he was dumbfounded, but kept himself still as pepper undressed him from his wet clothes and covered him with a fluffy towel.
“don’t think i didn’t see your arm bleeding.”
“it was nothing much, jun was–”
“worse, i know,” he interrupted, bringing a cotton ball and the wound cleaner liquid that stung closer. dylan shuffled uncomfortably just by seeing it, the memories of pepper using it were worse than the ones from the moment he was hurt. “don’t make that face, it’s going to be quick.”
“you always say that.” dylan didn’t mean to pout, but he was so exhausted that keeping up his indifference mask felt like a huge, pointless task. pepper smiled and kissed his pout.
as always, the cleaning hurt as if a new wound was being made. dylan closed his eyes tightly, waiting for it to end. pepper cleaned it well and even stitched it — apparently, it was deeper than any of them thought at first — and when it was bandaged and a hello-kitty band-aid was put on top of it, pepper smiled satisfied.
“see? not that bad.” he ruffled his hair and got from his table a painkiller and a bottle of water, handing it to him. dylan quickly swallowed the pill and finished the water, sagging tiredly on the chair.
“it was terrible,” he complained, but used his good arm to pull pepper close. the doctor let himself be guided to dylan’s lap and checked if there was no visible wound before sitting down. he never trusted them to be truthful about it, probably too used to their antics by now. dylan hugged his waist and laid his head on his chest, relaxing under the soft touch, the familiar smell of coffee and baked goods, and the calming drumming of his heart. “sorry for scaring you.”
they always apologized after something like that happened. pepper never asked for it, but they felt like they should.
“it’s okay, you did your best.” the doctor smiled, his fluffy hair falling all over his face like a cute puppy. dylan smiled too. “i’m glad you came back to me today as well.” he held his cheeks, eyes roaming all over his face until dylan felt shy under the stare. “i love you.”
pepper kissed him. unhurried, soft, deep, safe — the way it was with him.
dylan slid his hands under his oversized hoodie, not with any sexual intent, just to feel him. to feel like this was real, to feel like he was back home.
he let pepper control the kiss, let his tongue explore his mouth, and gave access to everything that was his anyway. it felt good to hand him the control of his entire body in moments like this — going against everything he was raised to know and do.
“whoa, i almost died and that’s how worried my boyfriends are?” jun’s weak voice was as teasing and annoying as ever. pepper broke the kiss and giggled at his overdramatic complaints, standing up from dylan’s lap to cross the room to his bed. “i think i just follow the light at the end of the tunnel!”
“i will kick you to the end of the tunnel myself next time.” dylan rolled his eyes, but followed pepper and sat on the other side of the bed. “how are you, stupid?”
“feeling like a zombie, my love.”
“stop you two,” pepper interrupted, checking jun’s vitals like the professional he was. jun slithered his free hand away from under the heavy covers to intertwine his fingers with dylan’s. “looks like you’re all stable, jun. how do you feel? do i need to increase the pain medicine dose?”
“no, per, i’m good,” he sighed and held his hands too when he was finally done with all the checking up. he brought up one of their hands to his lips and kissed their knuckles, gently — lovingly. “sorry for the scare. and thank you.”
“it’s okay, you did your best,” pepper repeated what had said to dylan a few minutes ago, and he could see in real time the effect of those words on jun. his eyes softened, his smile was less forced and more genuine, his little breath of relief escaped his lips before he could control it. pepper had that effect on them. “thank you for coming back to me.”
“i will never leave you two alone,” jun assured them with a smug smile.
“is that a threat?” dylan arched an eyebrow, and pepper was too late to muffle the laugh that bubbled out of him. jun tried to gasp in offense, but it hurt and he whined in pain instead. pepper kissed the top of his head mid-laugh and then his cheeks.
just to be sure, their boyfriend checked everything once more, administered a slightly higher dose of pain medicine and, finally, he relaxed. both of them climbed on the bed with jun and laid each on his side, careful to not hit his wounds accidentally.
“i love you two, you know?” pepper whispered in the silent room, making jun and dylan laugh a bit.
“we know,” jun answered, not an ounce of doubt in his voice.
“we love you too, per,” dylan said, and jun nodded in agreement.
pepper smiled and leaned down to kiss both of them, before whispering for them to rest.
dylan knew that the life pepper would have by their side was an unsure one, certain to wound and bleed. he decided to stay, nevertheless, decided to try.
he was raised to not trust anyone, but, well, he was willing to try with them — try to be happy, try to love, try to be loved.