Chapter Text
Yor stood vigil at the stove. Or crouched vigil. She brought her face close to the glass of the oven, her eyes almost watering at the heat and bright lamp. She hadn’t blinked in about five minutes. Anya, her sweetest and most adorable cheerleader, was crouched next to her, without the same level of balance. Yor felt her grasp her knee from time to time to keep from falling, until she was essentially leaning on her. Bond was seated by the door, his tail swishing as he stared curiously at them.
In her periphery, she saw Bond leap out of his sitting position and spin around himself a few times, which caught Anya’s attention. A few moments later, the door opened and Loid walked in. “I’m-”
“Shh!” Anya immediately hushed him, using Yor to pull herself up and run up to him. She scolded him in a loud whisper. “Mama needs to focus!”
She felt his eyes dart to her and could imagine his confused expression, but he lowered his voice compliantly. “I see…”
Yor listened distantly as Anya explained how well she did on her floating trains project, which wasn’t a surprise to either of them with how dazed she’d been after her weekend with the physicist. Something about the good news had motivated Yor to try again with the casserole. She was feeling a lot more confident this time. She’d cut the bones out, cooked the chicken before putting it in the casserole dish, and pre-heated the oven. All she had to worry about now was it getting burnt. So she would remain here, not taking her eyes off of it until she was absolutely sure it was ready, and not a minute longer.
Loid returned from putting away his suit jacket and watched her from the doorway. Her eyes shifted to him for a second. Unfortunately, just one glance of him leaning against the doorway with his sleeve rolled up on toned arms, his hair ruffled out of its slicked back styling and his analytical stark blue eyes on her was enough to make her cheeks warm up.
“Do you need any help?” he asked at a more normal volume.
She felt inexplicably nervous and tried her best to hide it. “It’s fine. There are about two minutes left before I take it out.”
“It certainly smells very good.”
“I just… I really wanted to do it better this time.
He hummed in response and remained silent for the rest of the wait. His presence was a lot more distracting than Anya’s had been. She could feel him staring. She wished she could know what he was thinking. Did he think it was silly that she was so attentive? He never had to watch the oven like this when he baked something.
And besides that, it was nice to have him feeling so… himself again. She feels like the old Loid might have been tempted to fill the silence with an anecdote from work (that would probably be fake). She’s always been sensitive to Loid watching her, but he seems to be hiding it less often. She supposes he has no reason to, now that she knows why his mind is always racing. And yet when he looks at her like this, like he’s thinking deeply about her… she gets butterflies. She knows she shouldn’t but she does.
“Yor.” Her head whipped to him instinctively before she could stop it. He was wearing that smile again, the small, private one. The real one. “I appreciate you being willing to try again.”
The blood vessels in her cheeks may have been about to explode. Then the egg timer rang and she almost burned her hand in her panic to get the casserole out. He calmly shifted her to the side, put on a glove and pulled it out for her. To her relief, the crust was even and perfectly brown.
“Don’t worry, I won’t take the credit,” he told her with that smile and a wink. He took his hand off her waist, where it had been burning a hole in her sweater, and turned around to pull some plates out of the cabinet behind them.
Yor fought a dormant urge to lash out with a spin kick. It had been a while since she felt like that, since his touch had made her so overwhelmed. A part of her wondered if Loid knew what he was doing, speaking so softly with that small winning smile. She shook her head at herself.
“Anya! Dinner’s ready!”
“And it was pretty good this time! Both Loid and Anya asked for seconds. Thanks for the recipe, Sharon!” Yor’s smile falters when she looks up from her typewriter.
The ladies at work once again surprise her with their reactions. They’ve been chatting again at their desks but this time with a lot more freedom since it’s the end of the day and things are winding down anyway. As she finishes her story, omitting mostly all but the success of her casserole and the rave reviews from Anya and Loid, they don’t look very happy at all. She’s met with disgusted scowls as though she just dumped a decomposing body under their noses.
“So you make up with Loid and now you’re bragging to us about your perfect life again?” Camilla asks.
Yor’s jaw drops. “That’s not what I was trying to do at all!” she says, frantically waving her hands in defense. “I-I just-”
“We get it, Yor. Your husband is just so sweet and perfect and willing to put in the effort with you,” Millie says airily, inspecting her nails.
“You’ve been blushing this whole time like a newlywed,” Sharon adds. “It’s cute, but kind of gross.”
Yor’s hands fly up to her cheeks. Sharon’s right, the skin is red hot. She doesn’t know what to say anymore. It’s as if mentioning how much better things were now at home undid all the closeness she gained from complaining last week.
“Ah, there you are Yor.” Loid pokes his head into their large office at an impossibly bad time.
Nervously, Yor stands up, her chair almost toppling over behind her. “L-Loid! What are you doing here?”
If he notices the glares that the ladies are sending his way, he doesn’t act like it. She did tell him sometime after dinner that her co-workers have developed an awful impression on him. He’d looked very grave about it then. Now he’s put on a bright, artificial smile and approaches their desks with a hand behind his back. “I wrapped up early with my patients today and thought I could pick you up for a date. Here.” He holds out a bouquet of lilies. “I thought these would be lovely on your desk. I wanted you to have something beautiful to look at all day. Besides your co-workers of course,” he adds charmingly.
Yor cycles from befuddlement to understanding to needing to hold her laughter in. She realises it’s been a while since she’s seen this whole… performance of his. It seems a little ridiculous now that she knows why he does it. She really does prefer how he normally is much, much more.
She chokes on a giggle while she takes the flowers. “Thank you. They’re gorgeous,” she says with a shaky voice. “I’ll go get some water for them, then we can go.”
She feels a little guilty leaving him there, considering the ladies are all still glaring at him, but she figures he has a plan to soften them up. By the time she’s put the flowers in a vase and is returning to their table, she can tell she was right. They look wary, but not as mad as before, and Loid is telling them something they approve of.
“... Such a pillar of any office,” she hears him saying. He lets out a thoughtful sigh. “If it weren’t for my secretary and the other ladies of the administrative staff, the hospital would cease to function."
The corner of Camilla’s lips quirks up slightly and she flips her hair. “Damn right it would.”
He leans in conspiratorially and lowers his voice. “In my professional opinion - now you shouldn’t quote me on this, it’s not covered in very much psychiatric literature other than some Western papers floating around - but I believe the intelligence of the female mind is greatly undervalued. The scope of memory and attention to detail that’s needed for clerical work is much more than people give it credit for.”
“I read in a magazine that little girls are actually smarter than little boys,” Millie quickly adds.
“I think there’s some credence to that theory, though it’s still a controversial statement in the industry,” he tells her. “I may be biased but I’m pretty sure my wife and daughter are perfect examples.” That pulls some approving laughter from the three of them, even as Camilla rolls her eyes at the thought.
Yor lets a giggle slip, but not for the same reason. It’s not what he’s saying but the way he’s saying it. Has he always acted like this? There is undoubtedly a light in his eyes, but nothing close to the bright glimmer she sees when they’re at home. It’s almost as if that’s just for her and Anya.
Oh, she’s about to start blushing again. If anything does count as ‘inappropriate conduct’, it’s where her thoughts have been leading her lately.
She puts the vase down on her desk and straightens up with her bag in hand. “Okay Loid, I’m ready to go.”
A flicker of the genuine light passes over his eyes before he turns back to her colleagues again. “Well ladies, it was great seeing you as always. Have a good evening.”
“It’s great seeing you too, Dr Forger,” Millie says cheerfully.
“Great chat,” Sharon adds with a grin.
They all smile at him, his previous transgressions forgotten. How on earth does he do that? She finds it twice as hard to lessen their suspicions. She keeps from flinching as he settles his hand on her lower back to lead her out of the office. He does that until they’re out of the building and a street away before he pulls away and slumps slightly.
“I think that worked. I was worried that mentioning Western publications would be a step too far but they were receptive at the very least.”
Yor finally lets herself laugh. “You were so different again back there! You really lay it on thick, don’t you?”
“It’s simply a case of reading the room,” he says matter-of-factly. He offers her his arm and she loops it through automatically. “Not that I said anything untrue. There are no recorded cognitive differences between genders that can’t be explained psychosocially, but some more radical psycho-analysts have said that-”
“I just mean it’s just interesting to see you do that,” Yor muses. “It’s probably easier for me to see the differences now in hindsight.”
“Ah. Well,” his expression falters, a frown dipping his brow for a second, “in theory you shouldn’t be able to notice it either. But I suppose you and Anya have a unique ability to see through me.”
The last statement comes off as more of a grumble but Yor can’t help but flush at the implication. She can’t really deny it - she does feel like she knows him really, really well. It’s another thing for him to agree. Can he see through her the same way? Can he tell how flustered she gets in his moments of sweet honesty?
Both of them halt in their steps as an old man crossing the road accidentally knocks his cane on the curb and falls onto the pavement in front of them. It’s quite a tumble for anyone his age, so Yor lets go of Loid's arm and hurriedly rushes forward to help him up. “Oh my goodness! Are you okay?” she asks him, controlling her strength so she doesn’t pull him up too quickly.
“I’ll be alright, young lady. Thank you.” He offers her a warm smile. Loid comes to her side with the cane offering it to the man silently. The man smiles at him too and doffs his cap, which Loid returns with a similar tip of his hat, and then he hobbles off.
Loid’s jaw tightens, shooting a look at the man before his eyes return to Yor apologetically. “It would seem that duty calls.”
“What?” Yor pauses to figure out what he means, then tries to recontextualise what just happened. “Huh?! How-?”
“I really do apologise for that,” he continues with a sigh. “And for the delay in our date. It’s been a while since our last.”
“No, no, it’s fine!” Yor says, her mind still absorbed by the odd thing that just happened. She thinks of coded grocery lists and newspapers and falling agents. She’s suddenly grateful her assignments come to her in a more conventional way, in the simple language of flowers that she understands. “You’ve been preoccupied with Barton anyway. Don’t let me keep you from your work.”
His brow furrows again and he turns to her with serious eyes. “I don’t believe I properly apologised for how I handled that. I’m sorry for being so difficult back then,” he says to a Yor completely unprepared for his intense sincerity.
“I-it’s fine,” Yor tells him, over an uneven heartbeat. She smiles tightly. “Just… more honesty from now on, okay?”
“It’s getting difficult to keep anything from you anyway.” He winces, which is how she knows he’s telling the truth.
She beams at him and the slight pinkness on his cheeks. “Good. I’ll see you at home then.”
He offers her a final, slanted, real, heart-fluttering smile. “I’ll try to make it home as soon as I can. I’ll bring takeout.”