Redemption (Midas x Reader)

• XXVII •

🚨 Smut Warning

A loud metallic clang in the distance startled me awake.

I lay on my side, facing the wall, having cried myself to sleep hours earlier. My eyes were puffy and raw, my body stiff from laying in the same position for so long. I hadn't even changed clothes, still wearing the same somber black outfit, gun holster still strapped to my thigh.

The second my conscious awareness returned, so did the sorrow, the memories from the evening prior still fresh in my mind. I had been inconsolable after Tek left, and although the logical side of my brain understood why he'd walked away, my new, deeply rooted abandonment issues did not, leaving me a sniveling mess on the floor in his absence.

Tina had been the one who eventually found me, everyone having split up to search for me after Skye filled them in on what had happened. Although I appreciated her helping me up from the floor and into my room, she was nosy as hell, and it hadn't taken her long to start sniffing around considering what she'd recently witnessed.

"So...Skye told me everything," she'd said, sitting behind me on the bed, one hand rubbing my back as I lay in almost the exact same position I was in now. "You'll have to forgive her, she's been through, well...a lot in her life, I know she seems a bit strange but she's harmless really. I mean, we all practically raised her, I guess we've just learned to overlook her...quirks."

I didn't doubt that Skye had been through something incredibly traumatic in her past, more than likely regarding the fate of her original parents. She had referred to Midas as her adoptive father, and I felt a twinge of pain at the fact that Midas had never thought to mention this to me. Instead I had been blindsided, led straight into his jaws, baited by the naivete of someone much more important to him than I'd ever been.

"And as for Midas," she'd continued, "we honestly don't know what to believe. Any of us. Well, except for Skye, she worships the ground he walks on. Hell, he rescued all of us in a way...he pulled me out of prison, Maya was a drug addict, Tek was literally on the brink of death when Midas saved him and gave him a new arm...we're all kind of like one big deranged family."

She paused briefly and cleared her throat before continuing. "But anyway...speaking of Tek though..."

And here it fucking comes.

"...I'm kinda surprised he's not here with you, you guys seem to have really hit it off lately."

"He was here," I'd snapped back. There was no sense in lying when I knew she was too observant to believe me.

"Ahh, ok......I see," she'd said, in a tone that insinuated she'd somehow gleaned enough information from those three words to deduce the rest. "Well listen, just stay here for awhile and try to relax, and if you need anything, I'll be close by."

She'd squeezed my shoulder in a reassuring manner before she left, shutting the heavy metal door, the sound reverberating throughout the emptiness of my room. It may not have been locked, but I still felt incarcerated, my emotions keeping me immured within my own version of solitary confinement.

My only connection to the outside world was the single barred window near the top of the door, through which I could hear the various goings-on of the prison. It was through this opening that I'd heard the sound which had awakened me, and I was now listening intently as the bustling movements seemed to be increasing in frequency, an odd occurrence since I was relatively sure it was still the middle of the night.

The muffled sound of voices was what eventually piqued my curiosity enough that I dragged myself out of bed, wiping the tears from my eyes before sitting on the edge and listening hard to try to figure out the source of the commotion. It sounded frantic, as though everyone suddenly had to be somewhere in a hurry, and when I saw a henchman dart by the window I took the opportunity to find out.