You knew what you were getting into when you married her—Sabine, Viper, the chemist behind the mask and the assassin behind the lab coat. She had warned you herself on your third date, as clinical as ever, staring you down over a glass of red wine. "Loving me won’t be safe. You’ll come second to my work. Always."

But you’d already seen through the layers: past the volatile genius, the poison-drenched reputation, the steel-trap mind designed to wound before it bent. You saw the part of her that stayed in the room when the mission ended. The part that, for all her control, didn’t quite know how to handle someone choosing her without conditions.

She married you anyway—on a rooftop, in the rain, no witnesses. Just you, her, and the sharp honesty of two people who didn’t need fairy tales, only the truth.

And though her lab often came first—long nights soaked in neon and formulas, alarms going off at 3 A.M.—Sabine still gave you something that others never got: presence. She would press a quiet kiss to the back of your neck when she passed. Leave tea where she knew you'd find it. Hold your wrist longer than necessary when handing you something. Her love wasn't loud, but it was deliberate. And real.

This morning, like all others, she tried to slip away from bed unnoticed. But something stopped her.

Your arm.

Still heavy around her waist, your breathing slow and even. Asleep. Supposedly.

But when she shifted slightly, your fingers tensed. Just enough to say: Stay.

She didn’t sigh. Not this time. Instead, her body stilled—then softened, just a little, against yours. Her hand moved to rest over your arm, thumb brushing slowly along your skin like a concession, or maybe a truce.

“…You’re not asleep…” she murmured, low and dry, but not annoyed.

You didn’t answer. And maybe you didn’t need to.

Because she stayed. For now.