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Black Wolf (kth)

Summary: The dossier on your target is dismally thin, a couple of pages mostly about The Black Room, a rumored facility located deep in the Vietnamese jungle that trains children to become deadly weapons. You're looking for a chameleon, a man known as Kim Taehyung along with a host of other aliases. You consider yourself good at your job, but in the end, you don't find him. He finds you.

This has been a long time coming so I hope you like this indulgent Black Widow Taehyung fic! Ft. Loki!Jimin and WinterSoldier!Yoongi because I think they're neat for plot points

Warnings: Violence, blood, knife fights, shooting, mentions of hospitals and death, childhood trauma (briefly mentioned), smut, some degradation, oral (both m and f receiving), cumplay, unprotected vaginal sex (wrap it up folks), lots of sexual tension

Word Count: 15995 (I used to be in the Marvel fandom I have a lot of feelings)

You blink once, twice, but it doesn't help the fogginess that's taken over your vision. You sigh and close your laptop.

The room is filled with pictures of the same man: a lean body and half hidden face, coming out of a convenience store, something like a smirk at the mouth as if he knows you can't get a clear shot from the CCTV footage if he keeps looking down. There's almost as many crime scene photos pinned up next to those pictures. Whenever he is sighted, death follows. Always someone high up in society, a political figure, sometimes an athlete, sometimes an organized crime boss. Men. Women. Never children.

You absently rub the inside of your wrist, over a raised scar he'd given you five years ago. You still don't know how you got the drop on him. You wonder if maybe it was the other way around and for some reason, he decided not to kill you.

It isn't like you'd heard him. No, he'd been utterly silent, like a shadow. You hadn't seen him, either, not that you would have had time to react if you had.

It was almost like you felt him, some change in the air around you.

No time to draw your gun, all you could do was reach inside your leather jacket and pull out your knife, slicing through the air before you could think, your heart pounding.

The knife bounced uselessly off an arm gauntlet, nothing like you've ever encountered, too lightweight to be Kevlar but maybe stronger.

That's when you'd seen him.

You'd been looking for the Wolf a year at that point, and in all your research you'd imagined what he would look like.

For one thing, you'd thought he'd be older.

He looked younger than you do, boyish smirk and all. The bright red hair that was slicked back from his forehead looked soft and clean.

You'd imagined he must be handsome, given that you'd referred to him as a honeypot assassin, often his victims are found in general states of undress. You couldn't have imagined how handsome, how sharp the line of his jaw, half smirk on his face. Everyone's type.

"Hello there, little bird."

When he spoke, the tip of his knife was so close to your throat that you'd swear you could feel the vibration of his baritone through it.

You were holding him back or at least you think you were, but from how relaxed his stance is, you think it's likely he's letting you hold him back.

Panicked, you tried to remember your training. Keep them talking.

"Bird?" You croaked out.

The Wolf gives you just the slightest tilt of his chin. "Flitting around, here and there, taking your pictures."

Fuck.

He knew you'd been tailing him. Probably knew your name, your age, your family's names. You'd built his profile, you know how he worked.

"I just wanted to talk to you," you started, and his eyes narrowed just a split second before you pushed him back as hard as you could and ducked, narrowly avoiding the slash of his knife.

You scrambled backwards and he kept coming, and you didn't even know he'd cut you until you felt the blood trailing down your arm.

“Shouldn’t lie, little bird,” he warned, and you knew he could move faster than this, knew he was holding back for some reason, but if you could just get to the street then your partner could see you and-

The Wolf’s knife was a silver flash in the dark and it was at your throat again, his other arm caging you against the alley wall.

“I know your name!” You blurted out, desperate, and his dark eyes widened in shock. He doesn’t move away but he doesn’t cut you either, so you keep talking.

“Kim Taehyung. Born in Daegu, given up by your mother hours after labor. Presumed dead at 10 hours old.”

“How do you know that?” He demanded, voice raspy, but then your partner shined a flashlight down the alley, called your name, and the Wolf dropped his knife, vaulted over your partner, and disappeared into the night.

You’d needed ten stitches to close the wound he’d given you, but you know it could have been much worse.

That had been years ago, and there’d only been these little glimpses of them. You’re the only agent that’s gotten that close, though, so you stay on the case. He gives you just enough to keep you chasing him through Korea, Japan, China. Right now, you’re at a motel in Los Angeles because he’d been spotted outside a club, or at least that one side of his face had been.

You’d been here three days with very little sleep and no other sightings. It’s time to hang it up and go to bed.

You flop down on the hard, motel bed and think that your agency could spring for a nicer hotel before sleep overtakes you.

It feels like thirty seconds before you wake up and you can’t breathe.

Kohl rimmed dark eyes look down at you, one large hand clamped over your mouth.

He half smirks at you. “Hello again, little bird.”

Taehyung’s first memory is of a 10x10 cell with a folded mattress in one corner and a thin blanket. He remembers being hungry and food being slid in through a tray, ramen and beef and he eats as if he’s never eaten before.

Maybe he hasn’t. He doesn’t remember.

He doesn’t know how long he was in his cell but all he can remember from that time is a low, gravelly voice through the chute.

“Eat up, kid.”

Sometimes the voice would tell him stories (mostly war stories that somehow had a happy ending), and sometimes the voice would just grunt, tell him to eat. Taehyung could always sense him outside the door, though, as if he were guarding him.

Eventually, he gets to meet the man with the voice, but for the longest time, he doesn’t know his name. They just call him The Soldier.

Taehyung doesn’t know how old he is but the Soldier always seems wise, so much older than him. As Taehyung grows, though, the Soldier doesn’t get any older. His face remains the same as does his gravelly voice and the mechanic whirring of his prosthetic arm.

Breakfast is first, then training. So much training. With knives. With guns. With sticks and bats and with just their fists. The Soldier oversees all of it and he’s sparing with praise but he always seems to have a bit for Taehyung, even if it’s just a nod or a slight smile on his full mouth.

When Taehyung’s cell seems to grow smaller because he’s grown taller, become a man, The Soldier attacks him the second he steps out of the cell, and Taehyung gasps, ducks and spins as he’s been taught to avoid attack. The Soldier doesn’t stop coming, doesn’t change his face, dead serious and silent, until finally Taehyung tackles him around the waist, takes him to the ground, with all the others watching in awe.

The Soldier doesn’t try to get up and Taehyung stays there, holding him down, for a long moment, panting. The Soldier leans up to whisper in Taehyung’s ear.

“You’ve earned my name, kid. I’m Min Yoongi.”

Taehyung doesn’t know what that means, doesn’t know the secret that really is, until years later.

He hasn’t seen Yoongi or the black room in three years now, working for whoever pays the most and avoiding contact with any other agencies, especially yours. It rankles him that you’d been able to find him, been able to find out his name of all things. Taehyung himself hadn’t known his name until he was out of the Black Room, after the rebellion. Someone had sent him his birth certificate and death certificate in an unmarked envelope.

Possibly the same someone who had outed his location to you. Possibly the same person who had sent a burn notice to his agency.

Taehyung had woken up when his hotel window had slid open. Whoever had done it must have thought they were being quiet but they were an amateur, the sound waking him immediately.

Taehyung slid off the bed as if he didn't have bones, and when the intruder had one foot on the floor, Taehyung stood up and took him by the knee, hanging him over the fire escape.

The intruder yells but the sound is lost among the sounds of the city and the wind.

"Who sent you?" Taehyung yells, over the wind, because now it doesn't matter that someone might hear him, the whole hotel is a wash, he'll have to bolt without scrubbing the place, they'll know where he was but not where he's going.

The intruder yells something and Taehyung can't make it out but then he sees the foam trailing in the air he scoffs and let's go of the intruder's foot.

He's dead before he hits the ground, has burst a cyanide capsule with a back tooth. Taehyung knows now (or thinks he knows, as he finds out later), who's after him.

Hydra.

"Please," you whimper, tears forming in your wide eyes, and Taehyung removes his hand only for you to draw in a deep breath and he clamps his hand over your mouth again.

"Ah, ah, little bird."

He's smiling, almost fondly, and your heart is battering your chest plate because that's almost more frightening than a hard stare.

If he wanted to kill you, you'd be dead already, your inner voice reminds you, and you start to breathe slowly through your nose, knowing this is true.

You try your best to keep calm and eventually he removes his hand. You don't scream, and when you try to sit up, he moves away from you, but only slightly. He looks calm and unbothered but he's stiff, tense, and you know that you don't have time to reach for your gun, which you keep just under your bed.

"Why are you here?" You ask, and it comes out like a croak.

He shrugs, and it does nothing to lessen how tense he looks. "Had some free time."

Your eyebrow quirks up. "Oh? Thought you'd spend it with an enemy?"

Taehyung pouts, and it's truly frightening how cute he looks, disarming and boyish, no more dangerous than the young men you'd fallen into bed with in college.

"We aren't exactly enemies, dove. I'd call us...colleagues."

"Hm," you respond, and look around the room. He's shuffled your papers around your desk and you wonder how long he'd been in your room without you waking, how that was even possible.

"What were you looking for?"

"Maybe I just wanted some company," he responds, shifting on your bed to lean toward you.

His face is inches from yours, as if he might brush his mouth against your lips, but you know he's more likely to draw his knife while you're busy staring at his pout.

Dangerous, how handsome he is, how charming. The very definition of a honeypot assassin, drawing the marks in like flies.

"Wouldn't think you'd have too much time for love," you say dryly, and he laughs, an open, happy sound that shocks you.

"Oh, little bird. That's what I'm hired for the most."

"Love?"

He nods. "Love or hate, it's all the same in the end. Can't have one without the other. Wives who want their husbands dead, husbands who can't stand seeing their wives with other men."

"Have you ever been in love?" You ask, shifting toward him this time, one of your feet dangling off the bed, hoping to distract him.

His mouth crooks in a half smile. "Oh, about a hundred times."

He's looking at your mouth and you lean in closer before darting your hand down to the floor.

He grabs your wrist before you get halfway there. He doesn't twist, his hand strong around your wrist but not hard enough to leave a bruise.

"Come now, little bird. I've used that trick a hundred times." He chides, smiling as if you're old friends and he hadn't tried to kill you previously.

"Why are you here?" You demand, your voice shaking in spite of yourself.

Taehyung sighs, as if inconvenienced by the question. "I need your help," he says finally, tone soft, and of all the things you'd thought he'd say, that wasn't in the realm of imagination.

"Why?"

You keep pushing him even though he's a killer, even though you know he could decide to end your life at any moment.

You think it might be because you feel as if you know him, after all these years researching him. The company that you work for wants to imprison him, use him for their own goals, but maybe deep down you want to help him.

"I've been burned," he says, flatly, and your eyes widen in shock.

It isn't exactly true, but so little of what Taehyung says is.

He doesn't need your help. The Black Room and to a better effect, Yoongi, had taught him above all else, self sufficiency. A burn notice means that instead of half the world trying to kill him, most of the world is, and while that makes things harder, it isn't impossible to do alone.

But you know things about him. Lots of things. Things he himself hadn't known until he was an adult, like his real name.

"How..what could I possibly-" You stammer out, and it's really quite endearing how your eyes keep widening.

"You know my name."

"Taehyung."

He points at you, as if you've just won a prize. "You know my history."

"Just bits and pieces, you're a spy, a lone-"

He rolls his eyes. "Wolf, yes, I know. I tired of the Black Wolf moniker very quickly. It's a bit dramatic, don't you think?"

"Yeah, you're not dramatic in the least," you drawl, and Taehyung's eyes snap to yours, a smile stretching the corner of his mouth.

It feels odd, this smile, one of the first genuine ones in years.

"Are you making fun of me, little bird?"

"I wouldn't dare." Your eyes don't match your words. You've even relaxed just a bit, no longer poised as if to go for your knife or strike him over the head with a lamp.

"You can help me."

"Help you...what? Hide out?"

Taehyung scoffs. "No. Help me find out who burned me."

He stands up and stretches and your eyes follow his every move.

"Why does it matter?"

"I have to kill them, of course." He smiles at you quizzically and you swallow hard.

Taehyung thinks that if fear had a smell it'd be pungent, like sweat. It doesn't though, at least not to human senses, and for all his training Taehyung is after all, human, not the fabled Black Wolf he's been called. Fear has a feeling, though, hanging in the air. Fear has a look, a slight widening of the eyes, wrinkle in the forehead, excessive swallowing.

Fight or flight response.

Which will you choose?

You stare at him for a moment longer.

"Do I have a choice?"

"You always have a choice, little bird." Taehyung draws his knife, now, and the air feels heavy with your fear. He flips it idly in one hand, catching it by the hilt once, twice, three times before you answer.

"What do you need me to do?"

You go into work later that day as if you hadn't spent the night with the Black Wolf, the very man you'd sworn to bring in.

You could talk to your superiors, tell them what happened, but something tells you that he'd find out, that maybe he'd be taken in but not before he'd slit your throat in your sleep, leaving you there for the hotel manager to find.

You take all your files on the Black Wolf and while you’re leaving the office your coworker puts his hand on your arm.

Well. Not coworker. Boss, you suppose, or what passes for it.

"Is everything all right, Agent?"

There's a rock in your throat, fear making your heart race.

You nod, hurry towards the elevator.

"We appreciate what you do for the organization." He says in response, and your heart lurches as the elevator moves.

You’ve always known that your job isn’t one that you walk away from. It seems more clear than ever that one wrong step could lead to your disappearance.

On your walk back to the apartment where the Black Wolf was waiting for you, you think about how there is no one to miss you. You're an orphan and you were never able to find your siblings, even though you tried when you came of age.

You wonder if everyone who works for the organization is replaceable.

Taehyung isn’t in your hotel room when you arrive and you’re not sure if you’re relieved or concerned.

As you walk toward the bed, he swoops in through the window and you stumble backward, a scream turning into a squeak in your throat.

He’s dressed in a white t-shirt and gray sweats now, barefoot so that he doesn’t make a sound when he jumps down onto the carpet. He’s barefaced, even a little bit of stubble on his chin and jaw but no less attractive. You have no idea where he’s gotten the clothes, and you’re still trying to catch your breath when he smiles at you, tilting his head in that way he has. It’s alarmingly disarming.

“You’re still here,” you gasp out, and his smile turns to a frown.

“Of course I am. You haven’t helped me yet.” He slips past you easily, his shoulder grazing against yours as he rifles through the minibar, pulling out a handful of the fun sized Snickers and tearing one open with his teeth.

You take in a deep breath, your heart rate finally changing from hummingbird to somewhat human.

“I still don’t know how you expect me to find--”

“You’re good at your job, little bird. You found me,” he says easily, giving you a big smile before opening another Snickers with his teeth.

That’s that, you’re off on a lead that you’ve had for months, a lead about who might have leaked the Black Wolf’s birth certificate.

You head there in the car that you’ve rented, leaving the world’s most notorious assassin sprawled in a robe on the hotel bed and you trying to avert your eyes.

“Don’t leave the room,” you warn.

Taehyung had scoffed at you. “Of course not.”

You have a gun taped to your lower back, the handle just slung into the back of your jeans, but you’re hoping you won’t have to pull it when you see the shadow of a man on the street. It’s nearing dusk and the streetlights have just come on. You pull up several feet behind the shadow and keep your hands free as you walk toward the building, just a small post office where the birth certificate had been postmarked.

You slow just a bit right before you reach the alley where the shadow is coming from, but it’s perceptible enough because you find your wrists pinned above your head in a flash, your back pressed against the brick. He’s so close, almost intimate, and when you look up you recognize the wide brown eyes.

He winks at you, wearing a black mask and a hoodie.

“You scared the hell out of me!” You hiss, and he chuckles but he’s still got you pinned with one hand, chest pressed against yours.

“You’re not very quiet,” he scolds, and then his head ticks just barely to the left, and he leans down closer to you. “Pull the mask down and kiss me,” he orders, voice barely above a whisper, releasing your wrists.

“What?”

Taehyung rolls his eyes and tugs his mask down, pressing his mouth to yours, just barely gliding his tongue over your bottom lip. You gasp, your body instinctively leaning toward him before you pull away and push at his chest.

“Don’t be so cold,” Taehyung complains, staggering backwards as if drunk. “I was only an hour late.”

You finally realize what’s going on when a group of men make a wide berth around the two of you, thinking that you’re a couple having an argument on the street.

When the coast is clear, you feel like you can finally breathe again.

You yank the post office door open a little harshly, unsure if you’re angry or just sexually frustrated. The man had tried to kill you five years ago, and here you are feeling flushed from a kiss.

“You taste good,” Taehyung murmurs in your ear as you approach the post office boxes lined up on the wall and you nearly stumble.

“I thought you were staying at the hotel,” you mutter, eyes scanning the wall. You find the post office box you’re looking for and do a quick dust with a portable fingerprinting kit. You’d tried to explain that you wouldn’t get much from this, that it might have a hundred fingerprints on it, but Taehyung had insisted.

You’re about to tell him this again but when you turn around after putting the kit away in your bag, he’s standing at the doorway, pretending to fill out a change of address form.

Your heart begins to hammer in your chest. You’re no world famous assassin but you are trained to know that something’s wrong, that someone is watching you, maybe both of you.

Your hand itches to reach for your gun but you wait.

Sure enough, about a minute later a man walks into the post office. He walks toward the back wall, where you’re standing, and you turn and try to brush past him.

“Excuse me,” he mumbles, and you think you’re in the clear until you hear the ding of the door as someone else comes in. A woman wearing a mask and sunglasses, at dusk. You pull your gun just as Taehyung tackles the man next to you, pressing him up against the wall and the woman reaches for something in her purse and you bark at her to keep her hands up.

You move toward her slowly, training your eye and gun on her so that she can’t move away.

She seems familiar to you but you can’t quite place where and you get closer she starts to back away to the door.

“Don’t let her get away, little bird,” Taehyung calls to you, his voice calm, almost lilting. “She’s our canary.”

Taehyung doesn’t care what kind of interpersonal politics are going on in the company you work for, but he knows you don’t seem much like a spy. You’re quiet, of course, stealthy, probably good with firearms instead of knives like he is, but it’s your attitude.

You’re upbeat, almost...trusting. You don't flinch when he comes toward you, don't jump when he calls your name, or more often, "little bird." If you're a bird, you're one of those unafraid pigeons in the common square, coming up to anyone who might offer a bite of bread.

You’re wary around him, but not afraid, and that concerns him. He’s not sure why, exactly. It isn’t as if he couldn’t slit your throat and leave you bleeding out in your hotel bed. That was, after all, his plan after he got the information he needed.

Somehow, though, your lack of fear is a bit...intoxicating. Even just moments ago, when he’d had you pressed against the wall and could so easily slide his knife into your side, right into your liver just above your ribs, you hadn’t flinched. You’d kept your eyes on his.

Maybe not a pigeon at all, more like a hawk with your sharp eyes. Maybe that’s how you’d gotten hired.

Sure enough, when he picks out the woman who looks like she knows things, you get her arms behind her back, shove her towards him and he holds her while you tug out a zip tie from your bag and tie her hands.

“Look in my back pocket,” the woman gasps. “I have an identification card. I work for-”

Before she can finish, you tug the ID out and your eyes widen.

“They told me to follow you,” she says.

“She’s lying,’ Taehyung says, like he’s bored, and draws the woman’s hands higher up her back, straining her muscles so that she cries out.

“I know,” you answer, and he’s surprised, although he doesn’t show it.

Not showing emotions unless you can use it for your own gain is rule number one of the Black Room, and he’s learned it earlier than most.

“Not about who she is,” you continue. “Or where she works.”

You pace around them, watching the woman intently, and Taehyung finds himself oddly attracted to you.

It isn’t as if he’s immune to such things, he’d had his fair share of dalliances that he enjoyed despite it being a means to an end, but he’d never found himself attracted to anyone in the midst of a mission that wasn’t solely a honeypot mission. You’re easy enough on the eyes, the curve of your body meant for a hand at your waist, your eyes fringed with black lashes that you look up at him under with those shrewd eyes of yours. Taehyung feels alarmed at being distracted by this feeling, this attraction, and he shakes his head a bit, realizing where he is, what he’s doing.

“We can’t do this here,” he rasps, nodding toward the dead man on the floor and you startle, as if you were also distracted, only by finding out the truth rather than attraction.

Taehyung leans down, whispers in the woman’s ear, presses a blade against the base of her spine. “If I cut you deep enough, you’ll never walk again. So don’t do anything stupid, yeah?”

To her credit, the woman he’s been thinking of as the canary doesn’t make a peep as he leads her to the car, but he doesn’t move the blade until he’s thrown her in the backseat.

“What are you going to do to me?” She asks, voice shaky, in the elevator, and she’s either really afraid or a good actress. Maybe both.

Taehyung shrugs, but you answer for him.

“Nothing. You just have to be honest with me.”

Taehyung doesn’t believe you’re lying, but, again, maybe you’re a better actress than he knows.

He tosses the woman on the bed and she wiggles to flip over onto her back, scrambling up against the headboard.

“Why were you at that post office?” You demand to know, taking a step toward the bed. You don’t have any weapons on you, but you seem a bit intimidating nonetheless.

“I told you, I was told to follow you-”

You strike her across the face and it makes his dick twitch in the hotel gift shop sweats he’s wearing. It’s a little distressing.

The canary cries out but softly, as if she knows better. “I...I was supposed to meet someone,” she admits, and a line of blood runs from her left nostril.

“Who?” You ask, and Taehyung sits down in the office chair, watching you with pointed interest, not that it would show on his face.

“I can’t-”

Another strike across the face and Taehyung wants to groan.

“Some canary,” he comments. “Not much of a singer.”

“Okay, okay, stop hitting me!” The canary yells, looking more angry than afraid now. “Someone paid me half a million dollars to deliver a package. All I had to do was drop it off at the door, but my partner wanted to go inside since you guys were in there, wanted to kill you so there weren’t witnesses.”

“What package?” Taehyung asks, sitting up now, no longer distracted.

“I don’t know. It was heavy, but I wasn’t supposed to look in it. I dropped it at the front door.”

Taehyung curses his own worry about being burned and you being distracting that he hadn’t noticed it. It will surely be gone now.

“He’ll come for me, you know.” The canary says, smiling now, and Taehyung realizes her fear and anger both were an act all along.

“Who?” He asks, standing up to look out the window. It’s closed and locked tight, ever since he’d slid his way inside.

The canary smiles wider. “You’ll see.”

As if she’d caused it to happen, the fire alarm starts to go off, ringing impossibly shrill in Taehyung’s ears and he curses.

“Leave her,” he tells you and you start to protest until he takes your upper arm and drags you toward the stairwell.

You open your mouth and he thinks briefly that he wishes there was time to kiss you again before he puts a finger to your lips to make you be quiet, opens the stairwell door and shoves you inside before closing it and putting his back against the door.

He can hear you banging on the door but he drowns it out, listens for the sound of footsteps that he knows are coming.

If he’s right (and the Black Wolf always prides himself on being right), the man he’s looking for and might be the cause of all of this, of why he’s hiding out in a two star hotel instead of at one of the apartments he has scattered across Seoul, will be heading straight for the hotel room. Straight for the canary.

Sure enough, thirty seconds later there’s still no smoke and he sees a man in a trenchcoat heading toward the door of the hotel room.

Taehyung springs out from the doorway of the stairwell and pushes the man against the wall, taking him by the collar. Taehyung is shocked when he sees the man’s face, having seen it all over the news just a few months before.

“Ooh,” the man says, laughing a little. “Like a bit of rough trade, do you?”

“Loki,” Taehyung accuses, shoving him up against the wall again although the man has made no move to slip away or fight back.

There’s just the hint of a flash of something like anger in Loki’s eyes, something anyone but Taehyung would have missed.

“I don’t go by that name anymore. Call me Jimin.” His eyebrow raises slightly, still making no move to escape. “You’re the Black Wolf, right? Surprised to see you here.”

“The hell you are,” Taehyung growls, and pulls him close only to shove him back against the wall harder.

Jimin groans and laughs. “Rough trade indeed. I only heard a friend of mine was in trouble.”

“Jimin?” There’s a call from the hotel room, the canary that you and Taehyung had left tied up on the bed.

There’s another flash, nearly imperceptible, across the god’s face, concern this time.

“Loki Odinsson cares for someone other than himself?” Taehyung taunts, and this time the god slips out from under Taehyung’s arm, shoves the taller man against the far wall.

“I told you. That’s not my name,” he hisses, and then he’s gone, a twist of black smoke in his place.

Taehyung curses and runs into the hotel room, and Jimin is there, releasing the woman on the bed. She puts her hands comfortably around her neck but Taehyung manages to grab the god around the waist, pulling him backward to offset his balance, and as soon as the two separate, Taehyung has the woman pulled up against his chest, a knife at her throat.

That’s when you make it into the room, your cheeks red and your hair flying out of your ponytail, looking angry and confused in equal measures. You take in the scene and freeze.

“Now now, wolfie,” Jimin says calmly, but there’s a tightness in his features, rage or fear or both. “What good is all this conflict? Just let go of the girl-”

“Give you what’s yours?” Taehyung retorts, pressing the tip of the blade into the woman’s throat. She makes a whimpering sound in the back of her throat, something Taehyung has to tune out in order to do what he needs to do. He’d never liked killing women, never liked killing at all, really, but it’s what he’s best at, what keeps him alive and keeps food in his mouth, a roof over his head.

Jimin shrugs. “She’s useful to me. If you kill her, it would greatly inconvenience me.”

“Is that so? Maybe I want to inconvenience you.” A small line of blood starts to trickle down the woman’s throat.

The god stands there for a moment, throat working. “What, then? What do you want from me?”

You have absolutely no idea how you got roped into a road trip with a rogue agent, the Black Wolf, and a fucking trickster god, but here you are, sitting in the backseat with your gun pressed into the agent’s back.

She goes by Star, apparently, although you’re sure that’s not her real name, and she’s been the bane of your existence this whole ride, constantly trying to get away, once even opening the car door and trying to roll out on the interstate.

She finally calms down when Loki (Jimin, you remind yourself, he gets awfully pissed off when you or Taehyung refer to him as his given name), turns his head to smile at her.

“I know it’s not the best situation, pet, but stay calm for me?”

It isn’t an order, more like a request, and Star relaxes, nodding a little.

Taehyung drives like an absolute maniac and you can’t imagine how this is good for any kind of stealth mission, but you make it to one of his so called safe houses in under two hours that way, him throwing a tarp over the car and parking it in the garage so that you all can get into the house.

He’s warned you to never take your eyes off Star, she had been after all, the canary, just like he said, so you take her into the bathroom and keep the gun on her while she glares at you.

“You even have to watch me pee?”

You shrug. “Since your boyfriend is literally a god, seems smart to keep an eye on you at all times

She washes her hands, averting her eyes. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

You don’t respond, it’s none of your business what weird shit they have going on, but you assume Taehyung must think that Jimin has something to do with why he was burned, given how insistent he is.

You take Star into one of the bedrooms in the large safehouse, keeping your gun on her at all times, and she just shrugs and starts to watch television.

You can’t help but wonder, despite knowing that it might not be pertinent to your current situation.

“How did you end up involved in all this?”

Star gives you a look. “It doesn’t matter. It has nothing to do with this.”

“You don’t know that.” You shoot back.

“You can put down the gun, you know. He’s not gonna come in here unless he thinks I’m in real danger.”

“Why does he protect you?” You ask, unable to stop being curious. You suppose it’s a lifetime of being in a job in which you have to find out information, ask a lot of questions. Or maybe just because you’re hoping you’ll find out how to help Taehyung and he’ll get out of your hair.

“Why does the Wolf protect you?” Star asks.

You scoff. “He doesn’t.”

“Could have fooled me. He slit that guy’s throat because he was trying to shoot you, earlier in the post office.”

“He didn’t…” You pause, flustered. “He didn’t do that for me.”

Star shrugs. “Suit yourself.”

The Black Wolf has only ever protected himself and his own interests. He hasn’t been protecting you, but using you to get information about what’s happened to him, why he’s been burned. Right?

You slowly lower your gun when it seems that she won’t be running out of the room any time soon, and your eyelids grow heavy.

Jimin is doing his level best to appear calm, but Taehyung has been trained in the slightest expressions and body language, and the god is tense all over, shoulders stiff.

“How do I know that the girl is safe?” He asks.

“She’s safe,” Taehyung assures him, sitting down across from him.

Jimin frowns. “And I’m supposed to just believe you?”

Taehyung shrugs. “If you want to keep her alive, you don’t have any other choice.”

“I don’t know what you want from me.”

“The truth. Tell me why your girl was at the post office. Tell me what she was looking for.”

“She was looking for me. I told her that I would meet her there.” Jimin says easily, and Taehyung watches his face but it could just be a half truth instead of a whole truth. Usually, if people are telling part of the truth, they don’t bely on their face that they’re holding back. At least, the good liars, and all the press would indicate that Jimin is possibly one of the best liars.

“Who burned me?” Taehyung asks, leaning forward in his seat.

Jimin blinks. “I have no idea. Didn’t even know it had happened until you threw me up against that wall.”

Taehyung glares at him, but it doesn’t appear as though he’s lying.

Jimin finally sits back in his seat, seeming more relaxed, and it makes Taehyung frown.

“That girl of yours, you care for her?”

Taehyung scoffs. “I barely know her.”

“But you love her?”

Taehyung makes eye contact with the god across from him, repeating the words his trainers had drilled into him most of his life.

“Love is weakness.”

“We all have weaknesses, wolfie. Man and god alike.”

Jimin stands, brushing off some invisible speck of dust from his black trenchcoat, and Taehyung doesn’t move to stop him.

“It’s been fun, really it has, but it’s time I be going.”

“I don’t think so,” Taehyung scowls, but before he can get to him, the god has disappeared, leaving behind only those tendrils of black smoke.

Taehyung curses and runs toward the other bedroom, but all he sees is that you’re asleep in the chair and Star and Jimin are gone.

He’s full of rage, suddenly, because he’s been displaced from the solitary life he’d known and because you look almost cute with your head thrown back on the chair, full mouth parted, and he kicks your chair hard enough to scoot it slightly across the hardwood floor.

You wake with a start, standing and automatically pull your gun and then it’s all reflex, he gets your hand behind your back to make you drop the gun and you let out a surprised cry even though he hasn’t hurt you.

“You couldn’t do one thing I ask of you,” he growls into your ear and you buck in his arms, propelling yourself forward so that you get out of his grasp and turn to face him.

Your face is puffy but your eyes are flashing.

“I have done everything you asked me to, and I don’t owe you a goddamn thing! You broke into my hotel room and-”

“Because you were stalking me!” He shoots back.

“I was doing my job!”

Your chest is heaving with anger, cheeks flushed, almost like you would look…

Taehyung takes a couple of steps toward you and you circle around him instead of backing up and he feels a rush of heat through his body as you stalk around him like a predator instead of being afraid.

“You don’t give a shit about anything but yourself, Kim Taehyung.”

His name on your lips makes him startle a little. It’s not one he’s heard very often, since he prefers to keep his true identity to himself, going by a big list of other aliases when he has to blend in.

“Of course I don’t,” he scoffs. “That’s how you survive.”

“I don’t want to just survive. I want to live my life,” you retort, and he laughs and it sounds bitter even to his own ears.

“You? Living? Holed up in shitty hotel rooms across the country looking for people who do your job better than you do?”

Your anger slips just for a moment, a microexpression, but Taehyung catches it. It’s something like hurt and he takes another two steps toward you.

“Admit it, chickadee. You’re no better than I am. We’re both alone.”

“You know, for all the time I spent ‘stalking’ you, I had no idea you’d be like this.”

“Like what?” He’s close enough to kiss you, now, to see the way your tongue wets your lips before you speak.

“I knew you were a killer. I knew you were ruthless, seductive...but I never knew you were such an asshole.”

Taehyung chuckles, takes the final step toward you so that your breasts are almost touching his chest.

“What’s wrong, little bird? You want me to seduce you?”

He half expects you to strike him across the face, to shove at his chest, but instead you lean up just slightly, just barely brush your lips against his and he draws in a breath through his nostrils, leaning down toward you instinctively.

“I think you want me to seduce you,” you murmur, dropping your head to press a soft, wet kiss against his collarbone and Taehyung lets out a moan, puts his arms around your waist.

That’s when you shove him hard, both palms on his chest and he stumbles backward, caught off guard for the first time in years.

“Too bad.”

You storm out and lock yourself in the other room while Taehyung stands there staring at the space that you occupied seconds ago.

It’s another few moments before he curses and sits down on the bed and that’s when he sees it: a piece of paper, folded intricately into a swan.

It says, simply: Daegu.

The next morning, you wake up to Taehyung humming softly, sitting on the chair next to your bed and you scramble upright, pulling the covers up over your body.

“Wouldn’t have pegged you as the type to sleep nude, chickadee,” He drawls, raising one thick eyebrow, and you groan.

“It isn’t even daylight.”

“I knocked first, but you must be a heavy sleeper. Had to pick the lock.” He holds up a bobby pin and then grins and sticks it into his back pocket.

“You’re a fucking maniac,” you mutter, and start to get out of bed.

He just keeps sitting there and you turn to look at him.

“Get out!” You yell, throwing a pillow in his direction and he ducks it, still grinning.

“You’re grumpy in the mornings,” he chuckles as he walks out, closing the door behind him.

You take your other pillow and put it to your face to scream into it.

The Black Wolf is the most infuriating, possibly insane, and most attractive person you’d ever met, and you’re sure that by the end of this, you’ll be just as crazy as he is. The night before, everything in you had wanted to melt into him when he’d put his arms around you, if only because the rage inside you would probably be helped by primal hate sex.

It isn’t as if you’re any kind of prude or virgin, far from it, but you don’t make a habit of sleeping with men who murder for hire. It’s been quite a while since you’d been able to sleep with anyone, given the nature of your job and what you’d been doing to find Taehyung in the first place.

Your eyes widen as your thoughts circle back to your job, and you pick up your phone and wince at the three voicemails and ten text messages.

Taehyung bangs on your door again and you cry out.

“Wheels up in ten!”

“Oh fuck off,” you mutter, and when he knocks again you yell it and you hear him laughing through the door.

You call your superior, a man you only know as Francis, and he picks up on the first ring.

“Where the fuck have you been, Y/n?”

You could tell him now. You could tell him that you’ve been taken by the Black Wolf, have Francis send in a team to extract him, but that also means that if Taehyung were listening by the door he’d probably kill you before he got the words out. There’s a code you could use, but you’d be surprised if there were any code that Taehyung didn’t know, given his background with the Black Room.

Instead, you make up a story about having to have your appendix out and needing some sick leave, and in the end, Francis buys it.

Maybe you’re a better liar than you’d thought, or maybe when you got back home Francis would…

You stop that train of thought in its tracks. You have to focus on the tasks at hand and that’s 1. Surviving this road trip with an international killer, and 2. Not making out with said international killer.

Which means you have to find who burned him, and fast, before you give in to your baser impulses or he decides he doesn’t need you anymore.

You get dressed in a simple patterned jumper and Taehyung smirks at you.

“Look at you, chickadee. You look good enough to eat.”

“Where are we going?” You demand, and he hands you the slip of paper.

It’s a three hour drive this time and you spend the first thirty minutes of it in silence while Taehyung drives.

“Jesus Christ don’t you ever listen to music?”

Taehyung frowns. “Sure I do. Sometimes.”

You flip on the radio and he hums along with one of the tunes in a surprisingly clear baritone.

“You seem almost human sometimes. It’s weird.” You comment.

Taehyung snorts. “Is that supposed to be a compliment?”

“Nope,” you respond.

He turns his head to stare at you for so long he slightly runs off the road slightly before righting the steering wheel.

“You may be the most infuriating person I’ve ever met,” he says. “And I’ve met a lot of infuriating people.”

“Is that supposed to be a compliment?” You parrot back at him, smiling, and he groans as if put out but his mouth turns up at one corner, as if he’s hiding a smile.

Since the god has given Taehyung no more information than the city itself, he picks the most expensive hotel in town, pays with cash and he only carries a small duffel bag that must be stuffed with money and weapons.

You have no idea where he’s getting clothes, and at this point you’re afraid to ask.

At least he gets a suite so that you have your own room. You’d have expected the romcom trope of the hotel only having single rooms available, but in this, at least, you’re lucky.

“I’m going out to run an errand,” Taehyung says as soon as you sit your bag on the bed to unpack.

“What? You can’t-” You turn around, and he’s already walking out the door, waving at you as he closes it behind him.

You let out a long groan and contemplate screaming into the pillow again but decide against it, opting to take a long shower instead.

You’ve just barely put on your robe when Taehyung bursts into your room.

“I found something,” he says, words quick and almost excited, an emotion you’re not familiar with when it comes to him.

You turn away quickly to cinch the robe sash around you but he’s barely paying attention, his energy oddly nervous.

“I was just walking around, surveying the area,” he says, as if this is something normal people do when they’re in a new city. “I came across these apartments - a shithole, really, but I slid in behind someone that got buzzed in to check the mailboxes.”

You pause and perch on the edge of the hotel bed, watching him pace around the room almost in awe.

“There was a name there, a name I knew.” He looks at you sideways, as if he can’t reveal the name. “Someone that I...that I worked with. I think he has something to do with this.”

“Then we need to find him?” You ask, slowly.

Taehyung shakes his head vehemently.

“No. No, we can’t ask him. He’s not…” He lets out a frustrated breath and sits down on the bed next to you, his thigh against yours and it makes your skin feel hot.

“So what do we do next?”

“We wait until nightfall, go back, see if we can find someone that wants to talk to me about it. It’s mostly a retirement area. Elderly people love me.”

You stare at him in disbelief.

“I’m very respectful,” he explains, and you burst out a laugh before covering your mouth.

You stand up and head to your closet but Taehyung keeps sitting on your bed.

You start packing your things back into your suitcase and Taehyung frowns at you, calling your name softly. It’s unusual, hearing it instead of “little bird” or “chickadee.”

You turn to look at him. “You won’t need me now, right? You’ve got your lead, you’re a lone wolf or whatever. I can go home.”

Taehyung keeps frowning and stands up, walks up behind you.

You freeze with your hand on the closet door.

“You think you’re in control here?” He murmurs against your ear and it makes you shiver but it also makes you angry.

“No, I’m well aware that I’ve been being held hostage for weeks.” You snap. “But I’m tired and I want to go home.”

You turn around to face him, looking up at him. There’s a moment where you’re struck by how beautiful his eyes are but you won’t be fooled by a pretty face.

“Kill me or let me go.” You demand.

“There’s no third option?” Taehyung asks voice softer than usual, and he doesn’t move, so close to you that if he did decide to kill you he’d have a knife in your ribs before you could take another breath.

“What third option?” You ask, and that’s when he slowly raises his hand, as if you’re some wounded animal that might bite him, and traces his index finger along your cheek.

“You could stay and help me.”

“Why would I do that?”

Taehyung swallows, his eyes searching your face.

“Because you were right.”

You don’t speak, waiting for him to continue but his hand is still on your face, his thumb brushing the underside of your jaw and it’s hard to think about your next move.

“I...I am human,” he admits, as if it physically pains him to say it. “I feel things, just like you do, and this is...this might be...my family. Where I come from.”

“And where do I fit in?”

Taehyung sighs, presses his forehead to yours and something in you swells as if you might burst.

“I don’t know yet. I just know that you do. Fit in, I mean.” He almost stammers the last part and you’ve never heard him be unsure of his words.

You open your mouth to say something, you’re not even sure what, and then he tilts your chin up, covers your mouth with his, slow and deep and you make a noise into his mouth, your hands going to the buttons on his shirt instinctively.

He moves his hands to your ass, lifting you up, and your legs, traitors that they are, go around his waist automatically.

There’s this alarm in your brain that keeps getting fainter and fainter as he kisses you, slow and deep and thorough, as if there’s all the time in the world.

He presses against you, moves his mouth down to your throat and leaves wet kisses down to the tops of your breasts, pausing only to shove aside your robe and run his thumbs across your nipples while he catches your mouth again.

Taehyung, quiet all this time, lets out a low groan against your ear that makes you gasp into his mouth and rock your hips against his, feeling him hard and thick against you.

It goes quicker after that, he picks you up and pivots you to the bed, covering your body with his and pushing your robe apart impatiently, leaving kisses down your body until you’re trembling.

Those alarm bells have silenced, now, replaced with need and a growing pressure in your stomach. You can’t help moaning when he parts your thighs and then spreads your lower lips, staring at your pussy as if it’s some delicious meal he’s about to devour.

He doesn’t just eat you out, he buries his face in you, inhales you before licking the flat of his tongue against your entrance and up to your clit, no teasing.

Your hips buck and your hands go into his hair and for all his control he moans against you when you tug on his hair, buries his face deeper, sticking his tongue just barely into your entrance before replacing it with a long finger.

He breathes in through his nose, stiffening his tongue to flick across your clit, looking up at you and you arch your back when he adds a second finger, crying out.

“Taehyung,” you gasp as you hurtle toward your orgasm, but he doesn’t answer, curling his fingers inside you to hit just the right spot and you cover your mouth when you cum, your moans muffled against your hand.

He lifts his head as you’re still clenching around his fingers but he doesn’t stop pumping them in and out of you, his chin covered in your slick.

He frowns, licking his lips, and leans forward, his fingers going deeper inside you and making you cry out again. He circles your wrist and tugs it away from your face.

“Don’t hide. Wanna hear you,” he rasps.

“Fuck me,” you plead, and you’ve never been one to beg but you’re so hot all over, you need more even though you’re bucking against his hand.

“Patience, chickadee.” He says, calm now, focused on your face.

You groan in frustration when his thumb just barely brushes your clit and lean up to kiss him, tasting yourself on his tongue and he makes a sound in the back of his throat like a growl when you shift to bite down on the base of his throat.

“Just gotta have it, do you?” He asks, flirty but he’s not smiling, eyes dark with lust and you bite back a sigh of relief when he moves his fingers from you to unbuckle his belt, shoving his pants down his ass to reveal his cock, standing curved against his tight stomach.

Thicker than you’d imagined (and you’ll admit that you had imagined), bigger than you’d imagined and you’ve never been a size queen but your mouth waters just a bit.

“Gonna keep being a tease or are you gonna put that thing to use?” You taunt, feeling empty now that his fingers are gone.

Taehyung smirks briefly and then goes serious again, his hands rough on your thighs as he yanks you to the end of the bed.

“If I had more time, I’d shove it down your throat,” he mumbles. “Make you choke on it.”

“Not a punishment,” you gasp as he teases your entrance with the head of his cock.

Taehyung chuckles. “I guess it wouldn’t be, not for you, little bird. You’re an eager thing, aren’t you? Cock hungry.”

“Yes, fuck, hurry up!” You moan, rolling your hips up so that just the tip of him slides inside you.

Taehyung hisses and his grip on your thighs tightens as he rocks inside you, slow at first but only for a moment before he’s fucking you hard and rough and dirty, just how you’ve always liked it.

“You hate me but you wanted this, didn’t you?” He asks, his gaze flickering from where he’s fucking you to your breasts to your face. “Wanted me to fuck you so hard you’d forget your own name.”

“You wanted to fuck me,” you shoot back, but it’s in a strangled gasp as he fucks you harder, rocking you forward on the bed only to yank you back by your thighs or hips, whichever is easier.

Taehyung grunts. “I did,” he admits. “Wanted to know how your cunt tasted the first night we met.”

You’re so close to your orgasm you’ve lost the ability to speak, your eyes rolling back in your head as you arch up beneath him.

When you come down, he’s slowed inside you, rolling his hips now instead of the jerky rhythm he’d had before.

You focus on his face, aftershocks of your orgasm making you shudder.

Taehyung crawls onto the bed, managing to mostly stay inside you as he leans down to kiss you, slow and thorough like before and this time it’s a different kind of pressure, building slow from your throat down to your cunt.

“Jesus fuck you’re tight,” Taehyung growls against your mouth. “I’m close.”

You open your mouth to speak but he kisses you harder, his teeth nipping at your bottom lip, starts to fuck you hard again and you’re cumming and then he’s pulling out, grunting as he paints your belly and breasts with cum.

You look down at yourself, shocked at what has just happened, at how you’ve just been fucked (very well) by an international assassin.

You expect Taehyung to disappear into his room but he doesn’t, leaves only to go to the bathroom, bringing back a warm, wet towel that he cleans you off with, surprisingly gentle.

He sits on the edge of the bed for a long moment before you touch him on the shoulder.

“Stay?” You ask, and you can see by his side profile that he’s smiling a little.

“Aw, chickadee, you want to cuddle?”

You scoff and fall flat on your back on the bed.

“It’s aftercare. Don’t get it twisted.”

Taehyung shrugs and removes his shirt and you can’t help staring at the expanse of his back, seeing the white scars across his lower back and when he lies down, a circle of scarred flesh on his lower abdomen, a bullet hole, it seems.

Taehyung catches you staring.

“Not as pretty as my face, huh?”

You shake your head, shifting on the bed to put your head on his chest. “Just wondering who did that to you.”

He shrugs. “Don’t remember most of them.” He runs his finger across the bullet scar. “Just this one.”

You stare at his face but he doesn’t turn to look at you and so you focus on the clench of his jaw.

“How’d you get that one?” You ask when he doesn’t explain.

“A friend,” he says simply, like it doesn’t matter, and you don’t ask again, resting your head on his chest again and his heart is beating too hard.

It’s alarmingly easy to fall asleep like that, listening to his heartbeat slow and his breathing, and you think you must be dreaming when his hand drops into your hair, smoothing down the strands.

“Little bird,” he murmurs, in what must be your dream. “I’m not sure I was human until I met you.”

Taehyung wakes up just before dawn, like clockwork, like always. They’d unlocked the doors of the cells in the Black Room at 5:30AM, and he’s conditioned.

He’d always wanted to be the first out of his cell, the best student, especially when The Soldier was training them.

Taehyung had been 16 when the Soldier stopped showing up for training, and 20 the last time he’d seen him, in a black mask, hair hanging loose, and absolutely nothing in his eyes.

A sniper rifle bullet makes no sound, and Taehyung was off his game when he’d recognized The Soldier, and spent three weeks in the hospital with his liver bleeding.

Since then, he has tried not to think about it. Not thinking about things has always been how he’d gotten through his life, pushing everything dark and useless to some hidden locked corner of his mind.

Last night, he’d seen the soldier’s name. His real one. Min Yoongi. On a mailbox in Daegu, of all places. This of course, means that Jimin knew a lot more about Taehyung’s burn notice than he let on, but Taehyung had never been one to hold a grudge.

He hadn’t expected for this to become a journey about finding out his past. He didn’t even know he was interested in finding out about his past.

He’d been happy. Hadn’t he?

He sits up on the edge of the bed and you whine before rolling over, tugging the blanket around you in a burrito, only tufts of hair poking out the top, and it makes him smile.

Taehyung wasn’t lying when he told you that you made him feel human. Of course he’d always felt things. Anger, betrayal….fear.

Fear, most of all. The first memory he has is being so afraid he can’t breathe, sobbing so hard doubled over in a cell.

The Black Room had not turned him into a perfect assassin. He isn’t sure such a thing exists. Except for The Soldier with his dead brown eyes, stalking toward him as he’d scrambled backward, bleeding into his stomach, part of his liver severed by the bullet.

Taehyung shakes his head to rid himself of the memory, locking it away again. He’d felt anger at first, with you, because you’d gotten into his life in a way that no one else had. You’d known his true name, after all, something that he hadn’t even known most of his life. He’d felt interest, that’s for sure, because you’re beautiful and smart and wily, things that he values in himself. He hadn’t felt fear until you’d been attacked at the post office, and even then, he wasn’t sure why.

It isn’t as if he’d never felt desire for a mark, but that’s all they were. Marks.

You’re something else, and he has to admit to himself that it’s not just about your skills anymore. It isn’t that he needs you anymore, he’s gotten the information he needs. He wants you around, likes having someone to bounce ideas off of, go on road trips, hide out in hotels with room service.

Taehyung realizes, slowly, that the thing he’s felt most of his life isn’t fear after all, but loneliness.

He stands at the doorway to the bathroom, watching the tufts of hair he can see of you, hearing the way you snore lightly, for longer than he should.

Taehyung is gone when you wake up, the spot where he’d been still warm from his body.

You order breakfast, two plates just in case, having flashbacks from the night before that leave a blush on your cheeks.

You’ve really gotten yourself into a mess.

Something inside your chest aches when you think about his hand in your hair, the way he’d said “little bird” softly, instead of mocking.

You groan and plop down on the bed.

You wonder if he’ll find what he’s looking for and then you’ll never see him again.

You wonder if he’s gone already, after all there’s nothing he’s left behind that he couldn’t replace. That’s what he does, after all, gets the job done and disappears like smoke.

You don’t even have a way to contact him. There’s a burner phone that the two of you have been using but it’s at the hotel, sitting on the desk.

You’ve been sitting there trying to figure out how to feel about everything for a couple of hours when there’s a knock on the door.

When you look out the peephole there’s a bellboy standing there and you frown, wary.

“Sorry to bother you,” he calls. “Just bringing fresh towels.”

He is holding towels, after all, so you open the door, and when he looks up his face changes, smile turning wicked.

The towel is pressed up against your face before you can scream and everything goes black.

You come to inside a pitch black room. You’re tied to a chair and your mouth feels like cotton.

“Fuck,” you try to say, but it comes out slow and slurred.

“There you are,” the voice comes floating through the darkness and you recognize it, although you’re not sure from where. There’s footsteps and you’re not sure you’ve ever been more afraid in your life.

Instead of a punch to the face though there’s just a light touch on your tied hands.

“What do you want with me?” You ask, willing your voice not to crack.

There’s a lilting laugh and that you recognize.

“I don’t want anything to do with you, darling. I want your wolf.”

You hold back a laugh that’s more of a sob but it’s a near thing.

“You think he’s going to come for me?”

The lights come on, so bright that you shut your eyes before opening them again, looking into Jimin’s handsome face, with a familiar wicked smile.

“I know he will.”

Taehyung spends the early morning scouting the apartment complex, and he finds information even easier than he’d thought he would. Old men like to talk, and their wives like to feed him and talk even more, going on and on about how handsome he is and asking why he isn’t married himself.

Turns out that The Soldier had been some kind of war hero half a century ago, and Taehyung assumes it must be a grandfather or great-grandfather until one of the old women shows him a picture.

“He took up with that girl after she….” the old woman pauses and lowers her voice, as if telling him something scandalous. “After she was in the family way.” She must see the look on Taehyung’s face so she shakes her head and explains. “Couldn’t have been his, she was six months gone before she ever moved here. He was real sweet with her, though, never let anyone say an unkind word about her. Him and his buddy, they kept her fed and sheltered up until she had to go away.”

“Away?” Taehyung asks, fascinated, and the woman’s husband grunts at him when he misses his turn at dominoes.

“To have the little one, of course,” she says, as if Taehyung might be some kind of idiot.

Taehyung just nods, dumbly, finally playing his hand.

“What happened to her?”

The old woman sighs. “Poor thing died in childbirth, I believe. I was young at the time, and if you want to know the truth….” She leans down to whisper in Taehyung’s ear. “I had my eye on the Min boy myself, so I asked around about it. Never heard what happened to the baby, but there’s a place nearby that takes in young ones that need homes. You could try there.”

Taehyung stands up abruptly.

“Thank you, ahjumma,” he says gratefully, and bows, apologizing to the older man for ending the game prematurely as well.

It isn’t as if Taehyung is surprised, exactly. After all, he’d come face to face with a god recently, so the fact that his old friend might be some kind of immortal doesn’t shock him. What does shock him is that he might have known Taehyung’s mother, might have something to do with why he’d been burned.

In fact, there are a lot of strange things afoot. He hasn’t been attacked by anyone from The Black Room despite a burn notice, and of course he’s careful but he hadn’t expected them to give up so easily just because he left down or wasn’t staying in one of his normal areas.

It’s only a couple of blocks to the church, a sign that reads: Safe Haven above the double doors.

He finds out without much difficulty that there are records of the babies brought in, and gets a copy with a sob story about being orphaned.

It might, after all, be true.

His name is on the tenth page from 1996,and he finds it while riding in the cab on the way back to the hotel.

Kim Taehyung, male, arrived December 30, 1995. The young man who brought him says he was born a few hours before and his mother has passed on.

There’s no more information than that, and Taehyung huffs out a frustrated breath as he keeps searching through the document on the way up the elevator.

He knows something is wrong before he ever reaches the door.

There isn’t much amiss, but he doesn’t miss any small detail, and there’a a plant turned over by the window in the hallway of the hotel and it’s cracked enough that he can feel a breeze come through.

Taehyung doesn’t pause, heads to the door as if everything is normal but when he opens it, he draws his knife before stepping inside.

There’s clear evidence of a struggle and he isn’t sure why his heart is in his throat until he gets to the bed where a single sheet of paper has been weighed down with a stone.

In the same handwriting that had brought him here, there’s simply an address.

Taehyung spends an inordinately long amount of time stalking around the hotel room. This is clearly a trap, clearly set by the god who obviously knows all about Taehyung’s burn notice. Taehyung had already been fooled once, something that hadn’t happened to him since he was a boy. Not only is it obviously a trap, but it’s a trap that’s been deliberately set because Jimin believes that Taehyung will come for you, believes that Taehyung has some kind of feelings for you.

Taehyung had already been through this with himself more than once, about how he does feel something, about how he’d always felt things, maybe even more deeply than most people. However, his training had taught him that making decisions based on feelings doesn’t result in survival, and Taehyung had always survived. No matter what.

Even when the only friend he’d ever had shot him in cold blood, even when he was bleeding out on the pavement he managed to break The Soldier’s left tibia with a side kick and scramble beneath a car, hiding until he felt strong enough to get away. He hadn’t even hesitated.

Now, his feet want to carry him to an address where a god with unimaginable powers is waiting for him, all because of a person he barely knows.

Taehyung keeps remembering you this morning with your hair poking out of the blanket, the way you grunted as you rolled over in it. He keeps thinking of how you looked right into his eyes, arching up beneath him, how you were never afraid.

Taehyung doesn’t dare walk the ten blocks to the address but calls a cab after suiting up, all black leather which has the benefit of looking good as well as serving as a kind of armor.

The cab driver raises an eyebrow at him and Taehyung gives the older man a dazzling smile that seems to disarm him.

Taehyung is uncharacteristically antsy, and that’s nothing new given he’s felt that way since the burn notice, but he feels as if he might explode if he doesn’t get to you soon. He’s not even sure that he’ll survive this, given he has no idea what the god wants from him, but he’s determined to take someone down with him.

You can’t seem to stop crying and finally Jimin rolls his eyes.

“Please stop your blubbering, it’s giving me a migraine.” He pinches the bridge of his nose with his fingertips.

“You should just kill me,” you say, your voice strong instead of breaking despite your tears. “He won’t come. It’s been hours.”

Jimin tilts his head, smiling slightly at you. “You think I don’t have someone at the hotel room to make sure he does come, in the event that I’m wrong?” He pauses, picking some invisible lint off his shirt. “But he’ll come.”

He looks different like this, no trenchcoat, just a white button up shirt and black slacks, hair freshly washed instead of slicked back with product. He looks...almost handsome. Almost human.

“I keep telling you, he won’t!” You cry out. “He doesn’t need me anymore, you gave him what he needed.”

“I did. But yet he’ll still come.” Jimin says, determinedly. He ticks his head toward the metal door of the cell and you hear a man’s cry of pain and a woman’s scream. “Ah, here he comes now.”

Jimin opens the doors wide and Taehyung strikes at him and manages to land a slice across Jimin’s forearm before he pivots, shaking his finger as if to admonish the taller man.

“Ah ah, wolfie. You know how I feel about violence, but I’ll slit her throat before you can even start to untie her.”

Taehyung flips his knife over and Jimin laughs.

“You might be good with that, wolf pup, but I’ve been practicing knife play since before your grandmother was at her mother’s teat.”

Jimin brings out a knife of his own, longer than Taehyung’s with an intricate handle.

“Should I show you how good I am at throwing it?”

“Taehyung,” you gasp but he doesn’t even look at you, likely gauging the distance between the knife and your throat a few feet away.

“You think I came for her?” Taehyung laughs and you hang your head, not wanting to look at him.

Jimin smiles and it’s less mirthful than patronizing. “Of course you did.”

“I told you. I’m not weak.”

“And I told you, everyone has weaknesses.” Jimin tilts the knife toward you as if to point at you. “And she is yours.”

“You’re wrong,” Taehyung insists, and all you can do is sniffle.

You were stupid to ever let your guard down, to ever let him inside you, inside your heart like some kind of easily entranced mark of his. You’d read all about him, about how he works, how he plays sweet and seductive in equal measures, gets people to trust him before he strikes. One case you’d studied, he’d courted a woman for nearly six months before killing her, draining her of all the information he needed before simply slitting her throat in an alleyway. How could you have thought you were different? He’d used you to get to Jimin, to find out what he’d needed to know, and he’s only here to hear the rest.

Jimin turns to aim the knife at you and you gasp out Taehyung’s name, pleading, as if that will save you.

“What do you want?” Taehyung barks, and Jimin slides his knife into the back of his slacks and comes to stand behind you, his hands lighting on your shoulders while you cringe.

“Did you find out where you come from?” Jimin asks, looking at Taehyung almost shrewdly.

“Wh-what?” It’s only the second time you’ve ever heard Taehyung stutter.

“It’s important,” Jimin drawls, “to find out where you come from. Who you are.”

“I...I found out where I was born, yes.”

Jimin nods. “It took me a very long time to find out where I came from, you see, so I wanted to give you that courtesy before I took your life.”

You feel lightheaded from everything that’s happened but you scream when you hear Jimin’s words and his hands tighten painfully on your shoulders.

“Hush now. I might let you live if you keep quiet.”

“I thought you didn’t like violence,” Taehyung says, almost desperately, and Jimin sighs.

“I don’t. But it is sometimes necessary. For example, it’s necessary when someone is trying to imprison you, or kill you.”

“I’m not going to kill you. I don’t even know how to kill you.” Taehyung pleads.

You don’t know why Taehyung seems to be going to bat for you, what possible good it could do him, but you’re grateful, looking up at him with wide eyes.

“Oh, not you, wolfie. Well, not just you. You couldn’t do it on your own, you see. Barely anyone could. But my brother is part of some team building exercise....” Jimin rolls his eyes. “And he can really hold a grudge.”

“A team?”

“A team of elites, I’ve heard. Soldiers. Mutants.” He smiles. “Assassins.”

“I’m not part of any team. I work alone.”

“For now you do. But they’ll come to you. I have someone to take care of, now. Someone to protect. So I can’t let that happen. Congratulations! You’re the first on my list.”

Jiimin spreads his hands as if offering Taehyung some kind of prize.

You’re trying to figure out if you can kick over the chair, give Taehyung some kind of distraction, when Taehyung says something you would have never believed he’d say.

“I won’t put up a fight if you let her go.”

Jimin laughs as if absolutely delighted.

“Wonderful! We can avoid violence altogether.”

“No!” You yell. “Don’t you fucking dare, Kim Taehyung!”

“Before you kill me,” Taehyung says calmly, not even looking at you, “I have a request.”

Jimin tilts his head. “Fair enough. What is it?”

“Untie the girl and indulge me in a bit of knifeplay.”

Jimin looks at you and then back at Taehyung for a moment, and then shrugs, moving to untie your hands and feet.

“As you wish.”

As soon as you’re able to stand you rush to Taehyung but he grabs you by the wrists, avoiding your eyes as he shoves you out the open door.

“No--no, Taehyung, you can’t, he’ll kill you--” You babble, sobs tearing from your throat and you’re not even sure he can understand you.

“Go,” Taehyung says and his face is serious but his voice is strangled. “Run, as far as you can. As fast as you can.”

“No!” You struggle in his grasp but his grip on your wrists is like a vice. “No, you don’t understand what he can do, I spent years studying him-”

You can see Jimin juggling his knives behind Taehyung, calmly, as if he’s barely having to think about it and you try to rush Taehyung again.

Taehyung shoves you again, harder, and you stumble backwards, almost falling.

“Survive,” he orders, and starts to shut the door as you stand there, trembling all over. He pauses, looks at you and his eyes are wide and dark and unbelievably, a little wet. “But stay human,” he finishes, softly, and slams the door.

You try to open it again but it’s been locked from the inside and you pound on the doors, screaming his name, shoving your shoulder against it, but it won’t budge.

Just as your voice is starting to give out, someone bursts through the front door of the abandoned building and a large man stalks toward you, wearing some kind of...cape?

You wonder if you’re going delirious from being dehydrated and held hostage all day until he gets closer and he speaks to you.

“Excuse me, maiden,” he says, smiling politely, before he rips the steel door off its hinges.

When you scream in surprise, he turns to you.

You are frozen in place in shock for a few moments and all you hear is a brief struggle and Jimin cursing in a foreign language before the bigger man comes out with Jimin gagged, carrying him by his collar.

“Don’t worry,” the big man tells you as he comes out. “I’m just here to retrieve my brother, and it looks as if your man will live.”

Just like that, he’s stalking out the door with Jimin barely even struggling, seemingly defeated, and you finally snap out of it and rush into the cell.

Taehyung is slumped against the wall with a hand to his stomach, and his outfit is black but you can still see the blood streaking down the leather.

You rush to him and he gasps out your name, moving a blood streaked hand to your hip as if to check you for injuries.

“You’re all right?” He gasps, and you’re grateful that his voice or breathing don’t sound liquid.

“Taehyung, please tell me you brought the burner phone, we have to get you to a hospital--”

“No hospitals,” he says vehemently. “Shallow cut across the abdomen and a couple of broken ribs. Are you all right?”

You stare at him, crying, for a second before you lean down and kiss him, hard and sloppy because you’re so upset and everything has been so crazy, but the taste of his mouth is something you were sure you’d never taste again.

You look around the building, it’s obvious that Jimin had been using it as some kind of safe house, what with the custom steel cell, but there’s no clothing or bandages, it seems to have been cleared out.

With your help, Taehyung walks with you to a drugstore a couple of blocks away. He waits outside while you bring him bandages and buy him a sweatshirt so that it covers the blood enough that you can use the burner to call a cab.

“We can’t go back to the hotel,” Taehyung says, voice strained with pain.

“Obviously,” you groan, worried and upset, but you keep a tight hold on his hand in the cab.

“Sorry, chickadee,” Taehyung gives you a half smile. “Guess you’re good at your job, after all.” He gives another address to the cab driver, another nice hotel in the area. He must have scoped a few out before deciding on one.

Taehyung shoots back a few mini bottles of vodka and asks you to retrieve a bottle from his duffle bag, taking a pill that you’re positive isn’t aspirin before you start to stitch him up.

It’s certainly not the first time you’d done it, having been trained for this when you first started the job, but it’s the most shaky your hands have been. He ends up finishing the rest himself and you sit back in the chair, emotionally and physically exhausted.

“So what now?” You ask tiredly. “You take off again?”

Taehyung looks at you and it’s almost a glare. “I didn’t take off in the first place.”

“You always take off,” you shoot back.

“I just nearly got my guts spilled on a dirty floor to save your life, and you think I’m just going to fucking take off?” His voice is eerily quiet.

“Isn’t that what you did?” Your voice seems small, now, uncertain, and there’s this boil of emotions in your stomach that are almost making you nauseous.

“No! I went to scope out the apartments, I-” He pauses, sees you staring at him incredulously and points at the bed where he’d thrown down the folder. Suddenly, your work brain switches on, that part of you that’s inquisitive, that loves to solve a mystery and you pick up the book, flipping through it until you find his name and then flipping through the rest. When you reach the end of the book, there’s a note there, newer than the rest of the pages in the folder.

It has his name on it in block letters.

You hand it to him wordlessly and he looks down at it as if it’s a snake that might bite him.

“Go on. Open it,” you urge, and he crumbles it, tosses it on the floor.

You scramble to pick it up and give it back to him but he just sits there, shirtless and bandaged, eyes rimmed with kohl liner, and won’t take it from you.

When you finally drop it onto the floor again, he takes your wrists and pulls you toward him.

You squeal but you don’t struggle, letting him pull you into his lap.

He sighs out a breath against your throat when you’re seated, facing him, and it makes gooseflesh break out along your skin.

“Taehyung,” you say, softly, although you are trying to scold him. “You’re hurt, we need to-”

He cuts you off by planting a kiss at the base of your throat, soft, barely brushing his lips along your skin.

“You’re one of the only people alive that knows my true name,” he comments, words soft and slow, from the alcohol and painkiller or just from exhaustion. “I like hearing you say it.”

“Taehyung,” you repeat, and he makes a pleased sound in the back of his throat. “That letter might tell you what you’ve wanted to know, who put out the burn notice, so that-”

Taehyung cuts you off, again, by pressing his mouth against yours and it’s almost hesitant, this time, not like he’d kissed you before, slow and deep. It feels like your first kiss, not just with him but ever, how he breathes out softly against your mouth, how his arms tighten around you, fingers interlocking behind your back as if he wants to keep you here.

You pull away and press your forehead to his so that you can look at him and for the first time it isn’t just that blank face of his, that mask, and he looks open and soft and vulnerable, eyes big and dark and somehow...earnest.

You’re crazy for thinking that Kim Taehyung, The Black Wolf, could ever be earnest, but here you are.

“I don’t care who burned me,” he reveals. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

You open your mouth to speak but he shakes his head and you close it, waiting for him.

“You told me that I wasn’t human,” he starts, and then pauses. “I guess I wasn’t sure I was either, until recently.” He looks away from you, down to the side. “Until I met you.”

“I didn’t-”

“No, you were right. It’s always been about surviving, for me. The first memories I have are being taught how to survive, how to kill, how to give myself over to every base instinct that I have.” He looks back up at you now and his eyes are wet but clear, he is’t as drunk as you would have assumed. “But I feel things, Y/n.”

Your eyes widen in surprise, you think that’s the first time he’s said your name.

“Of course you do.”

He continues as if you hadn’t spoken and his gaze is so intense you almost want to look away.

“I feel everything, fear and loneliness and pain and…” He pauses again, as if the words are difficult to say. “Love.”

You can’t help the tears that well up in your eyes. “Don’t say that. Don’t say that if you’re just going to take off and-”

“Just let me say this,” he pleads and his arms tighten around you again as if he’s afraid you might move away.

You go silent but your chest hurts, something like fear rising in your throat because you’ve never thought about what it might be like to fall in love, certainly never allowed yourself to think of how you might be falling for him.

“I’m not sure what love means, really. I’ve been trained to cover up those kinds of feelings, and God knows I’ve never felt what it’s like to be loved. I’ve been living my whole life just trying to get to the next day, the next job, and I didn’t realize until meeting you how fucking lonely it is.”

“What are you saying?” It comes out in a hoarse whisper.

Taehyung laughs and it seems genuine instead of mocking like the other times you’d heard it.

“I don’t know. I’ve never...done this before. I’ve never felt this way about anyone. When I found out that you’d been taken, every part of me said to run, to get away from here so that they couldn’t come after me instead, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t wait to get to you. I was so afraid that something had happened, that he’d hurt you…”

You put your hand on his face and he turns into it like a cat looking for affection and it makes your heart skip.

“I’m okay,” you promise. “You saved me and you didn’t have to, and I’m grateful, but you don’t have to say all this, you don’t have to pretend-”

Taehyung shoots his gaze to yours. “I’m not pretending. I’m not pretending for the first time in my life. I have feelings for you. I want you with me. I don’t know what that means because I’ve been spending my whole life hiding every emotion I have.”

He shifts back in his seat suddenly, wincing only slightly in pain.

“But I’m a fugitive. I don’t even exist according to the government, so I can’t ask you to-”

“Neither do I,” you say quickly. “I’ve been working for my company for most of my adult life and been scrubbed from any archive. I’m pretty sure they’ll figure out that I’ve defected any day and come after me. I’m dangerous.”

Taehyung has the ghost of a smirk on his lips. “Dangerous, huh?” He leans forward to kiss along your throat. “Maybe I like a little danger.”

You moan softly before pulling back, wiggling to get out of his grasp.

He lets you go with a pout and you brush your hair back from your face, sitting on the edge of the bed instead across from him and taking a deep breath.

“I won’t deny that I feel something for you,” you say, and he breaks into a smile, a real one and it’s something to behold, big and open. It nearly takes your breath but you manage to continue.

“But I don’t really know what love is either,” you admit. “I’ve never been with anyone more than a few weeks and it was usually just for sex.”

“So you’re saying we’re both fucked up and we’re both in constant danger?” Taehyung asks pointedly.

You laugh a little and nod.

Taehyung smiles again. “Guess that means we’re made for each other.”

“Does it?” You ask, your smile faltering.

Taehyung moves as if to get on the bed and then grimaces, holding his ribs and you bite your lip.

“Wait, don’t...I’ll help you.”

“Chickadee. Y/n,” he whines, his arms out to you and you’d never expected to be in this position, with one of the world’s most notorious assassins asking you to cuddle.

You dodge his arms and move your hands to unbutton his pants, yanking the leather down until kneeling to remove them.

“What are you doing?” Taehyung asks, curiosity peaking in his tone and you laugh.

“Stop asking so many questions and let me take care of you,” you demand, putting your hands on his thighs to spread them, moving a hand to kiss at his hip bone.

“Ah,” he breathes out and strokes your hair for a moment before you move his hand, putting it back on the arm of the chair.

“Think of this as a trust building exercise,” you tease.

Taehyung chuckles low in his throat but keeps his hands on the arms of the chair, watching you as you dip your head to run your tongue along his balls.

His dick is thick, even half hard, and when you wrap your fingers around it, he moans softly to encourage you. When you take the head into your mouth he hisses and braces his hands on the arms of the chair.

You only tease for a moment because he’s cursing and whispering your name and because you’ve wanted him in your mouth for longer than you’d like to admit.

By the end there’s saliva on your chin, you’re taking him so deep, and he shouts when he cums down your throat, his thighs trembling under your hands.

“Little bird,” he gasps, after, breathing in shallow breaths to not hurt his ribs. “I knew you had a mouth on you, but-”

You burst out laughing and he grabs at you to pull you into his lap again but you shake your head.

“You should lie down. When the booze wears off you’ll be sore all over.”

You help him onto the bed but he pulls you down with him despite your protests.

Taehyung palms across your ass but you slap at him gently.

“You need to rest,” you insist, and eventually, he does, watching your face as his eyelids start to droop.

You fall asleep more quickly than you would have imagined given the night’s events.

Taehyung doesn’t pick up the letter from the floor when the two of you start to pack your things up, but you do, smoothing it out and sticking it in the side of his duffle bag where you know he’ll find it.

It’s in another hotel room in another country when he finds it while you’re sleeping, and sits in the bathroom on the edge of the tub while he reads.

Hey, kid.

I know it’s been a while since we spoke, and first of all, I want to apologize for shooting you. As I’m sure you’re aware, I wasn’t quite...myself.

I came looking for you when I was myself again, but you were in the wind. Not that I was surprised. I taught you that, after all.

Nevertheless, I got more years on you than you can imagine, so I tracked you down. Saw you living in hotels and studio apartments, saw you working marks and staying hidden, just like I taught you.

I’m sorry that’s all I taught you. There’s so much more to this world than killing and fucking and being alone, Taehyung.

I didn’t mean to sic that god on you. That was just a side effect of me leaving clues. He picked them up and went after you. I knew you could take care of yourself, but I sent that big brother of his to be sure.

I sent your birth certificate out so that you’d know your real name. Names are important, you know. More important than survival, really. Names stay even when we’re gone.

I guess by now you’ve found out that I knew your mother. I’m not your father, it wasn’t like that with her. She was whip smart, just like you, but too sweet for the world she was living in. I thought at first that you were too sweet, too, that the world would just eat you up, first time I saw you. I was wrong.

You have her eyes.

As for the burn notice, you’re smart enough to know that was me, too. I

didn’t do it to harm you. I did it so you could be free, Taehyung. When you grow up in a place like The Black Room, when you’ve never known anything else, been trained by liars and killers (myself among them), you don’t get to experience life, not how it really is.

What you get to experience is loneliness and emptiness, and that’s not enough.

Freedom means feeling things like heartbreak and longing, but it also means feeling things like happiness and love. It’s taken me a long time to realize I might deserve that, despite all the wrong I’ve done.

I think you deserve it, too.

Your friend,

Yoongi

Taehyung doesn’t read you the letter, still wiping tears from his eyes when he brushes his teeth, but you hug him tightly enough to make him groan from the pain in his ribs, anyway, reading his face.

Turns out, you’re good at that, too.

You’re standing in the lobby of the hotel waiting for a cab to the nearest port when you bite your lip and look at him.

“What do we do now? What comes next?”

Taehyung looks at you, and grins.

“For the first time in my life, I have no idea.”

Turns out, not knowing what comes next is the fun part of living, and Yoongi turns out to be right. Freedom is worth any price.

---