Chapter 1: secret heart
Chapter Text
"You're late."
"You're not my boss."
"Not yet, but practice is important, Tarth."
When Brienne does not quip back, Jaime glances up from the newspaper he's reading, feet propped up on his desk, and grins. She's glaring daggers at him. His grin widens. He goes back to reading.
He watches her from his periphery as she makes her way to her desk just across from him. She's wearing a plain white blouse and another astronomically frumpy skirt, the kind that might be found on a very old librarian or perhaps in someone's grandmother's attic. She hovers over her desk, staring down at a neat stack of papers. Her thick, sapphire-blue glasses have slipped down her nose and she reaches up a hand, almost as though she's going to take them off, but she hesitates and pushes them back up again.
"I was not," she says, and Jaime starts, realizing he was staring. Again.
"What's that?"
"I’m not late. I had an interview."
"With your boyfriend again?"
Brienne's lips tug into a smile that he almost thinks could be called smug. Jaime has put countless hours into dragging a sense of humor out of her over the nearly two years they've been working together. Each time she shows it, he feels a little proud. "You sound quite jealous."
He snorts. Jaime is not jealous. If the right topic came around and he wanted to, he could land an interview with Superman. It's just that he doesn't want to. "Of that guy? Come now, you know me better than that. He'll show his true colors, Brienne. No one is that good of a person."
She turns to face him, thick arms folded across her chest. "That is…supremely unfair. Superman has been nothing but an asset to this city."
"So far. But what's in it for him? Risking your life for strangers is quite the hobby."
"Nothing has to be 'in it' for him. He sees that people need help, and he has the ability to help, so he helps. Why is that so difficult to accept?"
"Do you ever consider that perhaps he's using you to keep his image clean? He's not your friend, Brienne."
"I don't think you're in any position to give advice on friendships," she snaps.
Jaime narrows his eyes. He's made her cross with him, and her words sting, even if he’s earned it by rehashing the same old points in the same old argument. "Why is it that you can be the most impossibly decent person on the planet, and yet the claws come out for him?"
Brienne looks like she's going to respond, but she looks away instead, her face turning an interesting shade of magenta. "You didn't deserve that. I'm sorry."
Jaime smiles weakly, standing up. “Oh, I’m certain that I always deserve your ire, Tarth. Let me take you to breakfast. You can shoot more arrows through my heart over crepes.”
She studies him for a moment, looking like she has more to say. It’s these little moments that exist in the spaces around and between and just under their conversations that keep Jaime awake at night. Something is bubbling beneath the surface of their relationship that neither of them seems to want to speak aloud.
“I should really transcribe this interview. Don’t you have your own work to do?” She arches an eyebrow, the hint of a smile back on her face. She knows him too well, damn her.
Jaime glances over his shoulder. His desk is a mess of reports, graphs, photographs of athletes; his work computer is open to a sports betting website on one monitor and a football game from the previous night on the other. It all leaves a bitter taste on his tongue.
Brienne seems to have followed his train of thought because when he turns back, her smile is tinged with sadness. “Just do the work in front of you and something better will come of it. You’re a good reporter, Jaime.”
Whether he believes he’s earned it from her or not, it is that dogged earnestness that seems to have worked its way under Jaime’s skin. Brienne Tarth truly believes that with enough can-do attitude and good intentions, people can be anything they want to be. It is so naive, and so rare, and so… precious. Brienne’s belief is so precious to him. It’s something he has only recently realized, but cannot stop thinking about now that he has.
“My father likes me where I am. Can’t rock the boat too much from the sports column.”
He doesn’t miss the way her nose wrinkles, even if she quickly schools her face. “Mr. Lannister doesn’t oversee every column or article individually. And surely he wouldn’t want you to fail.”
“It’s sweet you have such faith in my father’s affection toward his children. Not everyone can have a family like yours, Brienne.”
She worries at her lower lip and Jaime can’t help but let his eyes drift to follow the movement of her teeth sinking into the tender flesh—but only for a second. He does at least have the sense to remember that they are at work, and she is his colleague. That doesn’t seem to stop her from noticing, a flush creeping up her neck.
“I just…” She clears her throat and looks him in the eye, recovering. “I just believe that Mr. Lannister is probably a complex man, that’s all.”
Jaime can only smile. Brienne always chooses her words about Tywin Lannister very carefully while working in his building, for his paper, but Jaime knows that she also desperately wants to find something good in him, too. She does not seem to be able to believe that he would treat his children so poorly.
Her eyes are soft behind her glasses, until she shifts them to look at something over Jaime’s shoulder and her expression hardens. He turns to find his uncle Kevan striding toward them.
“Jaime,” Kevan calls, all business as usual.
“Uncle. Did you come down for the donuts? I’m afraid young Podrick might have cleared them out already, but they were just over—” He points toward a corner of the newsroom.
“Your father wishes to see you in his office.” Kevan’s mouth is a thin line, glancing between Jaime and Brienne. “Alone.”
“Oh,” Brienne manages, always awkward around the upper echelons of The Daily Planetos. “I have—writing—anyway.”
“Lunch later,” he tells her. “You can help me with my very important piece on the best-dressed fashion icons of the hockey world.”
Jaime follows Kevan across the expansive newsroom floor and up a flight of stairs on the far end. He’s climbed these stairs more times than he could count. First, as a boy who grew up with a media mogul for a father. Then, as one of Westeros’ most beloved—then most reviled—athletes. And now, as a reluctant sports writer.
The staircase itself is dark and narrow, and Jaime has always wondered if this is on purpose, considering the light and airy feeling the rest of The Daily Planetos building has. His father may put on an act of cold simplicity, but his flair for the dramatic could not be denied.
They reach the landing and Kevan knocks. Tywin Lannister’s voice bids them enter, and so Kevan swings the door open for Jaime before stepping back out, leaving Jaime alone in the lion’s den. Tywin is standing by the floor-to-ceiling window overlooking King’s Landing. His back is to the door and hands clasped behind him. He is, of course, dressed to the nines. No shrugging off the suit jacket for Tywin Lannister, no loosening of the tie. The scene might be intimidating, had Jaime not been party to the same scenario over and over for more than three decades. He fights the urge to roll his eyes, but remains standing expectantly in the middle of the room.
“Close the door,” his father says eventually, and Jaime does as he is told. “And sit.”
At last Tywin turns around, taking in Jaime’s appearance with his usual stern disregard before seating himself behind a massive mahogany desk with a single newspaper sitting atop it. His father’s eyes are on him, as good as x-ray vision. Jaime is not an easily intimidated man; he had been known for his aggression both on and off the field for most of his life. But before his father, he feels like a small boy again, preparing to be scolded. The feeling only makes him angry. He should be past this by now.
Tywin opens the paper on his desk and deliberately flips several pages toward the middle. He stops on a familiar item. The headline, SPORTS GAMBLING: FRIEND OR FOE? stares up at them. Jaime was meant to have taken a favorable position toward placing bets on professional sports, and he knows that he had not. His editor had enjoyed the piece enough to take the risk, but the Lannister family owns one of the largest sports betting companies in Westeros.
“I take it you enjoyed my article so much, you had to call me here personally to rave.”
Tywin does not react. “Would you call this your best work, Jaime?”
“Of course not. It’s far too nuanced in your favor.”
“I see that you remain a child. An insolent, ungrateful child.”
Jaime shifts in his chair. “I’m grateful for this position. But I don’t enjoy being used as a puppet for someone else’s ideas.”
“Lanniscorp has provided for everything in your life. You owe the company your loyalty for that alone.”
“Lanniscorp didn’t make me the highest-paid athlete in Westeros. Lanniscorp didn’t make me a damn good writer.”
“Where do you think you would be without this family? You may have played your little sports games well, but it was Lannister money that paid for your education. It was Lanniscorp connections that ensured you got into the best schools.”
Jaime’s stomach sinks at the reminder. His grades had been acceptable, but he had always believed that his prowess with a football—or a baseball or a hockey puck or any athletic endeavor he set his mind to—had been enough to secure his spot at the prestigious King’s Landing University. It was only into adulthood that Jaime learned his father had pulled strings to ensure he was accepted. He wonders sometimes, whether he even chose a journalism degree of his own accord, or if his father had had some subtle method of pointing him toward the family business in that way, too.
“Is it the family, Father, or is it the business that you prefer I be loyal to? I have never turned my back on you, or Tyrion or Cersei. That is where my loyalty has always lain.”
Tywin’s nostrils flare. “They are one in the same, Jaime. It is well past time that you understood that.”
Jaime realizes he’s clenched his fists and makes himself relax as his father studies him from beneath thick eyebrows. Neither man says anything for what feels to Jaime like half an eternity.
“It has come to my attention that you have not made your disdain for a certain metahuman quiet.”
“I wouldn’t call it disdain—”
“I agree with you.”
Jaime opens and closes his mouth. He isn’t sure he has ever heard those words from his father before. Certainly Tywin had never expressed pride or love toward Jaime; such sentiments were for weaker men. But agreement feels close enough, and there’s a little rush to his head from the thrill of it.
“You agree with me.”
“I do. And I have a proposal, if you are not too adverse to—what did you call it?—acting as a puppet?”
“I don’t want anyone else’s words in my mouth.”
“You want to be your own man.”
“Yes.” He isn’t sure where his father is going with this, but his answer feels so natural that it could be woven into the very fabric of his being. “I do.”
Tywin leans back in his chair, finally shifting his gaze away from his son. Jaime thinks that if his father was a smoking man, that now would be the time he would pull out a cigar and puff on it thoughtfully.
“And you want to break out of the sports column, do I understand that correctly?”
Where is he hearing all of this? Jaime straightens in his chair and answers in the affirmative, trying to sound as in-control as he can. He feels like this is a game of cevasse but with the rules changed just enough that he cannot quite keep up.
“Very well, then I have a topic for you. You may choose to accept if you wish. Or, if you don’t, then you can continue writing about your former profession and perhaps one day when the needs of the paper permit, you can find a more elevated role for yourself the old fashioned way.”
“Are you attempting to bribe me?”
“No, Jaime, I’m giving you a professional opportunity. That’s how this world works.” His gaze is back on him, intent and scornful. The room is dead silent, free from the sounds of traffic several stories below, no noise from the press room. Just father and son staring one another down as though they are gunslingers of old, maintaining eye contact in order to stay alive. “I want you to write a piece on Superman. With all of your doubts, all of your concerns, all of your fears. Your thoughts, no one else’s.”
It’s certainly not what he was expecting. “Why?”
“Because it’s true, Jaime. And because it will sell.”
That’s it, Jaime realizes. It’s subversive and provocative and millions of people would buy a headline like that from a paper like theirs. It could potentially make his father more money than anything else that The Daily Planetos had ever published. It would put Jaime on the map as a serious journalist.
“I’ll consider it,” he finds himself saying.
Tywin steeples his fingers atop his desk. “I want an answer by the end of the week. And you’ll speak of this to no one.”
Jaime nods and stands to leave.
“Jaime,” Tywin warns. “No one.”
“Right. No one.”
After leaving his father’s office and subsequently getting nothing done at his desk, Jaime convinces Brienne to go to lunch with him. It is their usual dynamic. He worries that she would not eat or take any kind of break if he doesn’t pester her into leaving the office, and pestering seems to be the only thing that breaks through her determination to work far too hard.
He thinks sometimes that perhaps he should try harder to spend time with her outside of work. It seems unlikely that she takes much time for herself; she’s never mentioned hobbies or family or pets or… significant others. He can’t dwell on that last one too much, but he does wonder what it is that she does outside of his company. Maybe he could, one day when he is through with being an inexperienced coward about it, ask her to go somewhere besides work and lunch with him.
It’s late summer—or early autumn depending on your perspective. Jaime prefers to cling to warmth and sunshine, so even with the receding days and the turning leaves, to him the day is still a summer one. Brienne knows this about him, and requests the patio table for them herself. As the hostess leads them outside, it appears that they are the only ones to have done so. It must already be autumn to everyone else in King’s Landing.
Brienne sits across from him and immediately peruses the menu. He takes the unwatched moment to peruse her. She has her short-cropped hair tucked behind her ears and her brow is scrunched behind her glasses. Jaime isn’t sure exactly when it became such a pleasure to simply watch her, to appreciate that she is there with him. He has never felt so comfortable with another human being before, not even Cersei. Well, especially not Cersei now, after his athletic career had ground to a halt and she had stopped speaking to him.
Brienne, though. Brienne has never stopped believing in him.
“You’re very quiet today,” she eventually says, still scanning the menu like she’s never seen it before. A breeze kicks up, and Jaime watches wisps of her coarse blond hair wave in the wind.
“I’ve never known you to complain about my silences, Tarth.”
“Not complaining.” She looks up, and his heart stutters at the hint of a smile she’s wearing. “But I will admit I’m curious what’s got your tongue.”
Jaime sighs, recalling his father’s final words that morning. Tywin Lannister is not a man to be crossed, even if Jaime is in fact itching to get the conversation off his chest.
“What did he say to you?” There’s a dark tinge to her voice as she seems to infer the problem.
“My father? Oh, he hated my sports betting article.”
She frowns, and he can see the internal battle she’s fighting. She wants to believe Tywin at the very least has Jaime’s best interests at heart, even if she personally and privately cannot stand the man herself. It is an interesting weak point in the armor of goodness she wears around. “Hated it? Surely he didn’t hate it.”
“Well, he’s certainly not going to hang it on the refrigerator with a cute little magnet and a gold star sticker anytime soon. No, he made his thoughts quite clear.”
“He shouldn’t be tearing you down, though. The piece was thoughtful and nuanced without crossing whatever line in the sand he’s drawn for you.”
“He wasn’t exactly tearing me down though. It was—” he breaks off, considering how much he should tell her. He knows that she can be trusted. That she would never put him in his father's line of fire.
The waiter opens the door onto the patio at that moment, and Jaime exhales heavily. Brienne is still watching him with those big calf eyes of hers, even as the server sets down drinks and takes their orders.
When the waiter is gone, she's still silent, still watching him. Jaime pretends not to notice, sipping his coffee and looking out at the city’s central park across the street. A woman is wrangling three small children, Mother have mercy upon her.
"You were about to say something earlier," Brienne says softly, as though she does not want to push. As though she is not a dog with a bone when she makes up her mind about something. And she's clearly made up her mind today.
Jaime tugs at the tie around his neck, already loose but feeling far too constricting nevertheless. "Was I?"
The look she gives him is unamused and Jaime is not immune to it. He has been terribly vulnerable to that expression, and to her, for longer than he cares to think about. Perhaps even since the day he'd punched commissioner Aerys Targaryen across the jaw, shattering his hand and ending his career more thoroughly than any professional athlete ever had. Every paper in Westeros had derided his actions. But not Brienne. The tall, awkward reporter who had grilled him ceaselessly for years at every post-game interview, every press tour, every event — was suddenly his strongest defender. Aerys had been a terrible man in every possible way. It seemed to Jaime, at the time, he'd been the only one who cared. He knows now that he hadn't been alone. He'd just been the only one anyone had paid attention to, the only man with the right last name and right amount of clout to do anything.
Perhaps he'd lost his immunity even further back than that, though. He'd enjoyed their tete a tete during pressers, if he was honest. And the fact that she'd spoken up for him, and that she was here with him now… Maybe she'd enjoyed them too.
"He wants me to write a piece about Superman."
"Mr. Lannister? You?"
"Don't sound so shocked," he grumbles.
"I don't doubt your skill. I'm questioning his motives. And why he'd want his own son involved."
Jaime quirks an eyebrow. "Involved? What do you mean? My father isn't exactly involved with Superman."
Brienne's expression is unreadable; a rarity for her. She's typically giving away her game to him every time he looks at her. "I wouldn't be so sure. What did he want you to write?"
This, he does not want to tell her. He has half a mind to just stop now. "Confidential, I'm afraid."
"Jaime." The word 'confidential' has not existed between them in quite some time.
"He can't know I told you."
"You have my word as a credentialed member of the press." She smiles, and it's infectious. He'd give her anything she wanted from him just now, but first he glances around to ensure they are alone.
"He wants an exposé, I think. 'The Real Motives of Superman' or something of that nature."
Brienne sharply inhales and Jaime watches with a frown as she composes herself. Then to his surprise, she laughs. "Well, that's a bold request. How did he respond when you turned him down?"
Jaime sets his coffee cup down and leans back in his chair, unable to meet her eye.
"Jaime. You told him no, didn't you?"
"I told him I would consider it."
The face she makes turns his stomach to lead. "But how could you? You know your father only means to push his own agenda. This isn't about you at all. Surely you see that?"
"I see a chance to write something big for the first time in my career. I see a side to all of this that hasn't been explored."
"A side? There's no side. There's only the truth, and unnecessarily bringing Superman's motives into question will only cause problems."
"There are always two sides, Brienne. And each one deserves to be told."
"No, there aren't, and no, they don't. An angle like the one you're proposing would be conspiracy and little else."
"Look, I know he's your friend—or whatever he is—and that his interviews are important to you, but—"
"Don't." The scrape of her chair across the concrete as she stands grates across Jaime's pride. She's standing over him now, an angry giantess from legend. "You're better than this," she says before she walks away from him.
He's left stunned; they've never argued quite like this before. Not since his first weeks at the paper have they argued quite like this. Annoyed with himself and with his father, Jaime asks for the check. Brienne doesn't come back into the newsroom for the rest of the day, and he finds himself staring at her empty desk until he packs it up and takes himself home, too.
Jaime unlocks the door to his condo, still kicking himself for the way he handled the conversation at lunch. He should have known she would be less than receptive to the idea of anyone investigating her caped friend. Let alone his father. Brienne was generous and kind, always willing to give anyone and everyone the benefit of the doubt. But he'd brought up her blind spots—Superman and Tywin Lannister—and allowed them to overlap. Then just for good measure, he'd thrown himself in the middle.
And why does she care so much anyway? He toes off his shoes and allows his thoughts to fester as he raids his kitchen. Superman is an alien; they could hardly have anything in common. Jaime doesn't know or understand how they had met in the first place—Brienne is as likely to give up any information about a source as she is to start shooting lasers out of her eyes. And Superman is the ultimate source. He might give a word or two to other reporters, but Brienne gets the real interviews. The candid discussions. The closely guarded secrets, fears, hopes, dreams. It was all so intimate.
But Jaime can't think about that right now. Because if he thought about it, he'd find himself thinking other, related thoughts. And he cannot afford to picture Brienne sitting somewhere dark and quiet with the actual Superman—although the underwear over tights situation does ease his mind just a little.
He settles eventually on a sandwich and moves over to the expansive window overlooking the central park. Barely one bite in, Jaime drops the sandwich to his side and says around a mouthful, "son of a bitch."
A blue and red blur streaks across his field of vision: a big, muscular blonde man flying around the park. Following along with his mere mortal eyes as best he can, Jaime watches as Superman blocks the onslaught of a trio of masked men. Down below, the mother from earlier in the day is huddled around her three children, her head craned up toward the sky. There's no way for him to know exactly what's going on, but it's clear the men were making some kind of trouble for the woman and possibly other park-goers. Shots from the men ring out, but if any of them hit Superman, he is undeterred.
There's a sudden flash of red, but directed nowhere near the assailants. Jaime follows Superman's path toward a swing set, where he's used his laser vision to cut down a pair of swings. With another quick flash, he seems to have melted the chains together because the next thing Jaime knows, there's one long chain sailing through the air. Superman has one end of it in his hand as he makes a spiral around the three men, drawing them together and squeezing them up in the chain. The men struggle against their bondage but without success, and at once half a dozen King's Landing police officers come rushing forward to place the three men in proper handcuffs.
But Jaime isn't watching any of that. His eyes are on Superman, who has landed and is consoling the family on the ground. The smallest girl rushes up to him and hugs him around the leg. Even from the distance he's at, Jaime can see the little girl's face light up into a smile. The mother, too, is practically folding over in thanks. Superman seems to be waving it all off, as though he is not keen on accepting praise. Jaime can practically hear him saying just doing my job! in that confident, faux-bashful way he has. There's only one person he's ever known to be so principled and so humble, and Superman is not her. Superman wishes he was her.
Jaime turns away from the window, putting the scene out of his mind. He tries for the rest of the night to work on the piece he was given, but after staring at the screen of his laptop for hours, he's barely managed a single sentence. At last he gives in, taking himself to bed early. Once there, he glances at his phone to find a series of memes from Tyrion. He replies with the proper laughing-face emojis before opening his text stream with Brienne, as though expecting to find something he'd overlooked the dozen other times he'd checked it since lunch. It was not like her not to message him all day. He couldn't even recall the last time they'd gone so long without talking. Either about what they're working on, or about office gossip, or sports, or current events—he felt like they could talk about anything.
Except one thing.
Jaime sets his phone down on the nightstand and turns over in bed, hoping with his foolish heart that Brienne is alone tonight.
Chapter 2: what are you made of?
Summary:
"Jaime." She doesn't move from the door frame. And she doesn't sound angry. "You should've said you were coming. I would have made tea."
"I didn't come here for tea, Brienne."
Notes:
I forgot to mention in the first chapter that I yoinked the title for this from the song Secret Heart by Feist ♥️
Chapter Text
The next day, Jaime enters the press room to find Brienne sitting at her desk once more. Her neck is already craned over her computer and she's wearing a look of deep concentration. He mentally pats himself on the back for keeping his mouth shut as he passes and instead makes his way to the back of the room where breakfast is set out as usual. The donuts are fresh from Hot Pie's and admittedly fun. Each one is decorated as though it's a little round work of art rather than a fried-dough pastry. The theme today seems to be "beach" judging by what's left on the table: a fat jelly-filled one with a sugary shark fin poking up out of blue icing, a strawberry ring decorated to look like a pink flamingo pool float. After careful consideration, Jaime scoops up a beach scene with a rowboat piped onto it for himself, and the strawberry for Brienne.
"Brought you a flamingo," he says as he places the treat on her desk. He isn't sure if she'll want anything to do with him today, but it feels wrong to ignore their routine. Occasionally, if she knows he's been up late working, she'll place a cup of coffee on his desk. Likewise, he ensures she's had breakfast.
This time though, Brienne only briefly glances up. "Thank you," she says, and she sounds like she means it even if she's still upset with him. "That's very thoughtful."
Jaime holds back a sigh and manages a half-hearted smile. At least she's willing to acknowledge his existence. He wants to ask if their standing lunch date is still on for later, but decides not to press his luck.
Instead he heads back to his desk and pulls up press items about Superman, clicking through each one a little more forcefully than is called for.
THE BOY SCOUT IN BLUE DOES IT AGAIN! SCHOOL BUS OF CHILDREN SAVED
CRISIS IN WESTEROS AVERTED
IT'S A BIRD! IT'S A PLANE! IT'S KING'S LANDING'S FAVORITE ALIEN!
There's only one piece that even remotely digs into the subject he's been tasked to write. Someone named Petyr Baelish had managed to publish a frankly appalling piece about immigration, and somehow worked in a dig at Superman. Where is he even from? Baelish had pondered. How do we know he has our best interests at heart? The rest of the article is about Dothraki migrant workers and the entirety of the piece makes Jaime clench his teeth. He can examine Superman from all sides without resorting to this. Surely there is a better way.
"What did you do to her?"
Jaime doesn't need to look up to know the voice behind his computer screen belongs to Podrick, one of the paper's green reporters. Podrick had been on assignment with Brienne during his first week on the job, and had subsequently become stuck to her like glue. Jaime thinks he can understand the impulse.
He glances up at the boy and leans back in his chair, placing his hands behind his head. For a moment, he considers telling the lad the truth—or at least some version of it. It is a phenomenally bad idea, for both Jaime's sanity and Podrick's wellbeing if Tywin found out.
"We aren't, ah, seeing eye to eye on a piece I'm writing."
"What's the piece?"
"You don't want to know."
Podrick seems a little more interested and a little less annoyed with him. His eyes are still suspicious, but he leans in closer.
Jaime chuckles in spite of himself. "The last person I discussed this with is no longer speaking to me. I can't afford to lose anymore friends, Pod."
The lad straightens again and crosses his arms over his chest. "Mr. Lannister—"
"Jaime."
"Jaime, you should fix whatever is going on." He frowns, letting his gaze drop to the floor. "She's barely speaking to me, either."
"Yeah," Jaime agrees, eyes on Brienne's back where she's turned away from him. "Yeah I should."
It takes another two days of minimal conversation and Podrick glaring at him from across the newsroom, but Jaime finally resolves to do something either very stupid or very brave about it.
It's a Wednesday evening, and although he does not know exactly what Brienne does when they're apart, he does know that she doesn't seem to have much going on on Wednesdays. She's mentioned sports she's watched and books she's read, often on Wednesday nights. So Jaime does what any reasonable person whose only real friend in the world is angry with them would do: he trims his beard, slips on a nice linen shirt, applies the smallest bit of cologne, and hails a taxi to her apartment.
The driver seems to recognize him when he gets into the vehicle, but only grunts his name like he's unimpressed. Either he's used to asshole sports personalities, or Jaime's playing career had made this man's favorite team very miserable. It's just as well though, as Jaime is certainly in no mood for small talk.
The ride is excruciatingly slow in early evening traffic. Jaime leans his forehead into the window, eyes on the gathering clouds overhead. It looks like rain and the air is crisp. Summer is finally slipping away from him, which pairs well with his mood lately.
Jaime considers that he has not found himself in a position quite like this before. He’s never truly dated; Cersei has monopolized all of his time for more or less his entire life. Certainly there have been plenty of rumors linking him to this woman or that man—almost none of them true. And still, even now, he does not want to examine the way he feels about Brienne too closely. Thinking about it is like trying to look directly into the sun: something too bright, too big, too terrifying is burning between them. He knows he can't avoid it forever. He's known that for a while. Just like the sunrise every morning, it feels inevitable.
He can't say what has kept him from saying anything before now. Maybe it's his lack of any real experience. Maybe he's afraid to ruin what they already have. Maybe he thinks his reputation would tarnish hers, that she is too good for him in some way or another. But now she's not speaking to him, she's frequently talking to a man that no one else has been able to become close to, and he's losing sleep over the thought that time is running out; that he's already missed any chance he might have had. All of it scares him more than anything in his life ever has.
The taxi stops outside her building and Jaime sits in the backseat for the span of several deep breaths. The ride from his place to hers is the most he's ever allowed himself to think about Brienne in this way—about the possibility of them—and perhaps it was too much thinking because he's as nervous as a rookie about to take the field for the first time.
"Lady trouble?" the driver asks, making eye contact through the rear view mirror.
"Of a sort."
"Yeah, well, for a copper star a minute, you can sit here with me all night while you freak yourself out."
Jaime glares at the man's reflection in the mirror but digs into his pocket and deposits his payment and tip into the machine between the seats.
"Never thought I'd be saying this to the likes of you, but good luck in there, pal," the driver says before he pulls away.
Before he can talk himself out of it, Jaime finds himself at her door, knocking. There's silence on the other side and he stands there wondering if he was wrong, if she's not home tonight after all. But just as he's raising his fist to knock again, the door swings open and Brienne is standing there. She doesn't look as confused to see him as he might have expected. On the contrary, she seems to have been bracing herself for it. There is a gleam in her eyes, behind those spectacles she's always wearing, that tells him everything he needs to know.
"Jaime." She doesn't move from the door frame. And she doesn't sound angry. "You should've said you were coming. I would have made tea."
"I didn't come here for tea, Brienne."
He watches her throat bob as she swallows his words down. He isn't sure he meant to be so direct; Brienne has always seemed to him like the sort of creature he would need to handle gently, lest she startle and retreat into the underbrush. But looking at her now, in her work blouse with the top buttons undone and her frumpy skirt traded in for tight leggings, all thoughts of gentleness have escaped him.
"Then what—"
"Can I come in? Please."
Brienne swings the door open a little more and after a brief exchange of purposeful glances carrying the weight of a thousand words, Jaime steps across the threshold.
In all the years of their acquaintance, he has never actually been in her apartment. Their friendship has been one forged at work, in public parks and restaurants, over the phone, and during rare walks up to her front door with hurried good-nights and farewells. Actually entering would be crossing a line that he hasn't been so sure they should cross. He thinks she knows that too. He hopes she knows that too.
Brienne quickly excuses herself into the kitchen while Jaime is left to look around. Her apartment is neat and tidily decorated in light blues and pristine white fabrics. It reminds him of the seaside, of walks on the beach with his mother as a small boy back at Casterly. The thought jars him. He hasn't thought of his mother in so long. And now his father… Well. Tywin Lannister is not the man he was before losing his wife.
Jaime moves from the doorway toward a fireplace along the back wall. Lining the mantle are photographs of people that Jaime doesn't know. A couple with dark hair have their arms wrapped around an extraordinarily tall girl with missing front teeth. Brienne could not have been more than ten years old, but she's already taller than the woman in the photograph and threatening to gain on the man, too. She doesn't look at all like either of them—she barely looks like herself, although Jaime can't say exactly what's different beyond age.
Brienne's home is such a sharp contrast to his own. It's softly lit and inviting, where his own is all rough brick and gleaming appliances. He certainly has no family photos, no quilts that appear to be hand-made draped over his sofa, no plush rugs on the floors or bookshelves tucked into the corners. Jaime's condo is for sleeping and preparing his depressing bachelor meals for one. Whatever he'd expected workaholic Brienne's living space to look like, he's impressed and a little relieved that it's this.
Jaime is still standing in the middle of Brienne's living room when the door goes flying off the hinges so violently that the frame shatters and sends shards of wood sailing across the apartment.
Standing where the door had once been is a giant hulk of a man. Larger than Brienne—larger even than Superman. Jaime thinks that even this man's neck must be of a size with his thigh, and Jaime works very hard on the size of his thighs, thank-you-very-much. There is only one person that this can be. But why would the Mountain be here?
It takes only a second for reality to sink in and Jaime has his mouth open to call for Brienne to run! when something even more surprising happens instead: Superman bolts out of Brienne's kitchen.
There is barely time to process any of what he's seeing before the man of steel throws himself in front of Jaime. The tailwind from the speed of his movement blows Jaime's curls across his eyes. He takes an involuntary step back, nearly tripping over the edge of the fireplace. He feels off-balanced in more ways than one; Jaime has always been the savior for the people in his life, never the saved. The feeling is new and strange.
Time seems to warp before his eyes, passing slowly even as the two metahumans in the room move around one another as little more than a set of differently-colored blurs. It should be fascinating, or terrifying, but all Jaime can think about is Brienne, and whether she can escape from her kitchen. The entry is just to his right, maybe ten or twelve feet, and he needs to get there. He has to warn her, to help her leave. Across the room, though, the Mountain has picked up the oversized chair next to Brienne's door and is swinging it around like it weighs nothing. The window directly behind him is the fire escape; he can see the railing just outside. It would be so easy to just leave, but he doesn't even consider it. Not without her first.
Jaime takes several steps backward, hoping to blend into the wall. He knows it's a stupid thought. The Mountain isn't a dinosaur. It isn't like he's incapable of seeing people as long as they hold very still. Well, that isn't the case as far as Jaime knows, but he's been wrong about people before. He wishes in that moment that he was metahuman. Perhaps then he could teleport himself to Brienne and fly them both out of there. Not for the first time, he finds himself a little jealous of Superman.
As he inches closer to the kitchen, back pressed to the wall as much as possible, he thinks this might be the most absurd he's ever felt. And why is any of this happening, anyway? Jaime tries to keep himself focused on what's immediately relevant—the Mountain in his periphery and the image of Brienne having to hide, alone, in her kitchen. If he was able to spare a thought for it, he'd be furious at having to trust Superman to hold off the attacker while Jaime looks for Brienne. If he could think about it properly at all, he'd wish that he could save her on his own. It is bravado and it is foolishness, but nothing he's never been accused of before.
After several calculated steps, Jaime finally makes it to the entryway to the kitchen. He chances a glance to the other side of the room where Superman has both his fists wrapped around the Mountain's, pushing him back and splintering the hardwood under their feet as he does. The Mountain makes a feral sort of growling sound as he fights to overtake the caped superhero and Jaime thinks that he should be terrified. But all he feels in that moment is a righteous sort of anger. These people do not belong here, in her home, in the soft and safe place where he had come to tell her… Jaime swallows hard, pushing down the growing sense of alarm for Brienne's safety and willing himself to stay calm and focused.
With one step back and to the side, he's finally in the kitchen. On the counter, he spots two mugs she'd pulled down from the cabinet overhead, no doubt to make the tea she'd mentioned. He spins around in a circle, looking for the largest woman he's ever seen in a rather small room. She isn't under the table, pressed to the other side of the refrigerator, and he's fairly certain she wouldn't fit in either the dishwasher or the oven. As a loud crash that sounds like more furniture busting into pieces reverberates from the next room, Jaime makes his way to the kitchen window. It's small, and still locked from the inside.
What the hell?
None of this is making any sense to him. He saw her go into the kitchen. Did Superman do something with her? But what could he have done? And where had he come from?
Jaime is once again standing in the middle of the room, his hands on his hips and a sinking feeling in his gut, when suddenly a table is flying directly at him.
"Look out!"
Something very solid that is not a table collides into Jaime without warning. There's another crash from somewhere nearby—overhead, maybe, because he's on his back. For a dizzying moment, Jaime feels as though he's back on the playing field, the wind knocked out of him and prevented from scoring a goal he was so sure he was going to make. But reality comes back to him in a rush as blinding, white-hot pain erupts from his right arm. He glances down where his arm is curled halfway under him and finds the worst part of himself in a pool of bright red blood. Darkness is creeping in at the edges of his field of vision, and he has the ridiculous thought that this hand has been nothing but trouble for him. It is as though it does not want to stay attached to his body.
The heavy thing that collided into him is, he realizes, still there: Superman is kneeling by his hip. Just beyond them, the Mountain is trying to shake off the absolute demolition of Brienne's refrigerator. The door is caved completely in and ice is spilling out of the freezer onto his head. He's bleeding from a deep gash across his shoulder and his head is lolling to one side as though dazed.
"Leave, Gregor."
The Mountain seems to grind out something presumably in the same language, or a ballpark estimate of it. It doesn't sound like he's agreeing with the command. Superman puts a hand to Jaime's shoulder, eyes still focused on their opponent.
"Can you stand? You should go, now, while he's incapacitated. I'll hold him here."
Jaime cradles his arm closer to his body, his teeth gnashed together in pain. "Not—without—Brienne—where—?" His arm slips from his grip and blood runs into his lap.
"Oh gods," he hears Superman say, as though genuinely panicked, but Jaime is already losing his hold on consciousness and cannot quite see his face. "You're going to be okay, Jaime. I've got you."
The last thing that Jaime sees before he slides into darkness are the blue, blue eyes of Superman flashing red.
When Jaime awakens again, his right hand is throbbing. His vision is bleary, so he uses his left hand to scrub sleep from his eyes. After blinking several times, he can see a long red line running from his palm, over his thumb, and down the length of the underside of his arm. The line intersects with the more jagged scar from several years ago, faded much more than the memory of his shattered hand and career.
When he looks away to take in the room he's in—clearly a hospital room at KLU Medical Center—his eyes land on a familiar form dozing in the too-small chair next to his bed. Relief courses through him as potent as any drug and all thought of pain leaves him. Brienne is safe and whole and with him. Her hair is a mess and she's got a jacket wrapped backwards around her shoulders. Her head is tipped half onto her shoulder and half onto the back of the chair, her glasses askew, and her mouth is hanging open just the slightest. Jaime thinks she's never looked better to him.
She seems to feel his eyes upon her because she scrunches her brow a little and stretches out her legs all the way down to her toes.
When she opens her eyes, she smiles wider than Jaime has ever seen from her, all buck teeth and red cheeks. The thought suddenly invades his mind that he would very much like to kiss her right here and now, to run his fingers through her hair and pull her big body into his and never let her go. He swallows the idea down before his imagination runs away from him.
"Jaime," she says, groggy and voice scratchy. "You're awake."
"I live to see another day," he says as valiantly as he can, eliciting a laugh from her. "Have you—been here long?"
She is silent for a moment, struggling to maintain eye contact. "The whole time."
He can't help but grin at that. He feels as though he's won a very coveted prize. He wants to tease, to gloat, to tell her he wishes she never would leave again. But he manages to keep all those thoughts to himself.
"How did I get here?" he asks instead.
Brienne sighs, running a broad hand through her hair. "There was an ambulance. The Mountain injured your hand pretty badly, but—they said—they said Superman cauterized the wound enough to stop the bleeding before the paramedics arrived. You've been pretty out of it since last night but you should be okay."
"Last night?" It's dark outside the window already, the soft yellow sconces of the hospital room allowing them to see one another.
"They gave you medicine to help you rest. You were—talking." Again she dips her head and Jaime quirks an eyebrow.
"Talking."
"Yes."
"Talking about what?"
There's that gleam in her eye again, expectant, as though she is on the precipice of something. "It was silly—doesn't matter."
Ah-ha. He isn't going to let her off so easily on this. "It sounds very interesting to me. Tell me, what did I say?"
Her voice is little more than a whisper. "My name. You just kept saying my name."
Jaime sucks in a deep breath, nodding. He finds that he is unsurprised to learn that, even as it makes his heart ache. He needs to know the whole story, but he will be circling back around to this piece of it in particular.
"And the Mountain?"
"Gone. He was injured, too."
"What was he doing in your apartment?"
"Looking for Superman," Brienne says, much more levelly than any other answer she's given him. She seems to be meeting his eye very deliberately now. "I'm sorry I brought you into this, Jaime, I should not have—"
"Brienne," he says in a low tone, trying to impress upon her just how serious he is. "I'm glad you're okay. You have no idea how worried I was for you."
Even in the low lamplight, the blush that creeps up her neck illuminates her skin, revealing a violent shade of red. He watches her recover her composure, hoping she understands exactly what he wants her to understand. It would be so much easier, he thinks, if she could only read his mind. If he didn't have to find a way, all on his own, to tell her how he feels.
Jaime isn't sure when exactly Brienne became the most important person in his life. He has placed so many people on a pedestal for as long as he can remember, and one by one, he has failed to live up to their expectations. And now, with time and age and maybe even a little bit of wisdom, he can see how they have all failed him, too. But not her. Never her.
"Has anyone else been here?"
"Tyrion visited this morning. I think perhaps it was difficult for him to see you here, like this."
"Do I look so bad as all that?"
She laughs, and the room seems to brighten a little with it. "To be fair to him, you were receiving a blood transfusion at the time, among other things. It was a bit scary for a little while."
Jaime doesn't feel afraid. At least not of something as trivial as dying, not as long as Brienne is here and in one piece.
"My father?" he asks, and then more quietly, "Cersei?"
The shame that crosses Brienne's face tells him all he needs to know, and some part of him is livid that they would make her feel ashamed for them. "Kevan sent a card on behalf of your father. I… haven't seen Cersei."
Jaime nods. It's more or less the answer he was expecting, even if he wishes it wasn't the answer he was getting. A card. But it's all easy enough to set aside because beneath it is the reminder of what she'd just told him: Brienne has not left him. Tyrion tries to remain his loyal little brother even as he covets Jaime's position as their father's heir, and Cersei remains as distant as she always has been. No version of Tywin would visit Jaime in a hospital bed. And aside from some scattered, distant friendships that Jaime has neglected since the Aerys incident—there is Brienne. Brienne, who has never truly left his side. His chest swells with the full realization of it, with—something he has not yet named.
And then he remembers. He had been so single-minded in his need to get her out of her apartment, and yet she had not been there. He had looked high and low, and she had not been there.
"Where did you go?"
"What?"
"In your apartment earlier—yesterday?—where did you go? I was searching for you in the kitchen before the Mountain came in."
Brienne's chair emits a plasticky squeak as she shifts and leans away from him. Her face doesn't seem so pale or so square and mannish in the soft glow of his room. Under different circumstances, Jaime thinks the moment could be quite sweet.
"I can answer that. But first I need to know where you stand on something."
Jaime furrows his brow, at a loss for the first time in their conversation. It is such an odd response.
"For you, Tarth, I'm an open book." He manages a weak smile, and blood rushes to his head to pound in his ears when she smiles back.
But she licks her lips and leans forward again, and the smile is gone. "I need to know what you're going to do about the Superman article."
Jaime grimaces and he rolls his head back to the center of the pillow to stare up at the ceiling. There's a sign overhead that reads "call, don't fall!" with a picture of the remote control that allows him to call his nurse for help standing. Jaime thinks it's probably too late for falling. He thinks he's been past that for a long time now.
"If you don't want me to write it, I won't."
Brienne sighs and he hears more than sees her lean back in her chair. "It should be your decision."
He turns back to look at her. The exhaustion and worry on her face, the frown tugging her plump lips down at the corners. It could be his decision to make her happy. She couldn't tell him what to decide any more than she could tell him why to decide. And looking at her now, the answer has never been more clear to Jaime. It had been percolating in his thoughts all day, and he’d wanted to talk it over with her at her apartment. She’d been right to be disgusted with him for considering it–because his father didn’t care about his career, because the topic was only for selling papers, and because Brienne was almost always right. He knows that now, and he should have known it from the beginning.
"No," he whispers, "No, I'm not going to write it."
"Your father will be angry."
"He will."
"He may never allow you to write for anything but the sports column for the rest of his career." He doesn't miss that it's the rest of Tywin's career, not Jaime's, that she's talking about. As though he might outlast his father. What a concept.
"Well, it's lucky I love sports so very much, then." He laughs, sending a jolt of pain through ribs he suspects must be very bruised.
"Jaime," she says, so seriously that he snaps his jaw shut. The way she's looking at him from behind her glasses is intense enough to make him want to turn his head from her again, but he doesn't look away. "I need to know that you're sure."
"I'm sure." He says it forcefully enough to leave no room for further questions. He hopes that she can hear everything he's putting into those two words: everything he'd come to say to her at her apartment, everything he wants to say and do still.
"Okay." Her voice is just this side of shaky, and for the first time, he's a little worried. Nothing shook Brienne Tarth. No one and nothing. "Okay."
She is still maintaining eye contact when she reaches a cautious hand up to her face to rest upon the arm of her thick-rimmed glasses. Then, slowly and carefully, she slides them down the bridge of her crooked nose. She holds them midair for a moment, still hooked to the back of her ears, before she inhales deeply and pulls them off.
For a split second, Jaime is confused. But then he's looking Brienne directly in the eye for the first time in all the time he's known her and suddenly Jaime is transfixed.
He sits up a little in his hospital bed, ignoring the protest from his injured flank. He has always thought Brienne's eyes to be pretty, but not something he had been able to see quite clearly. It is odd, now that he realizes it, the way she had never been entirely in focus when he looked at her. It's as though he is seeing her for the first time.
Her eyes are as brilliantly blue as the first sunny day after a month of rain, her lashes as long and blonde as fields of autumn wheat, and they are so wide and vulnerable just now that he could become lost in them. Jaime blinks several times in rapid succession, feeling like he’s falling head first into something for which there is no floor. As though he may fall forever. Whatever he thought he'd felt for her five minutes earlier seems so small now.
When he manages to tear his eyes from hers, something very jarring happens. He is seeing her, all of her, clearly for the first time. But that isn't entirely true, because Jaime has seen this face before. But it's different, somehow. It is Brienne's face, but it's also—
"Superman," he breathes before his mind can catch up to what he is seeing, to what he’s realizing. He sits up fully in bed, heart pounding from his toes to his fingertips.
Brienne's answering smile is bashful, one Jaime has seen before so many times. It's the smile Brienne wears when he's come on a little strong while openly flirting with her. It's the smile he's seen on Superman after every "thank you" from a citizen he’s rescued. It is both. She is both.
"You can call me Brienne," she manages weakly.
Jaime laughs. Jaime lets his head hit the pillow as he laughs and laughs.
Chapter 3: what are you so afraid of?
Summary:
Brienne looks more afraid than he's ever seen her and despite the situation, he still wants to soothe her. He wants to soothe Superman. But Jaime has never been very good at such tenderness, with either human women or superbeings.
“Tarth,” he says, “come do me a favor and pinch my arm. I need to be sure the drugs you've allowed them to pump me full of aren't causing hallucinations. Because it would appear that I've uncovered Superman's secret identity, and he's you.”
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
When the last sounds of Jaime’s near-hysterical laughter have died away, all that’s left is Brienne silently peering at him, wide-eyed. It is startling how much he can see Superman in her now, how the two people have merged in his mind so seamlessly. Jaime thinks it might actually be the seamlessness that makes it so jarring. Shouldn’t entirely re-forming one’s world view be much more difficult?
Brienne looks more afraid than he's ever seen her and despite the situation, he still wants to soothe her. He wants to soothe Superman. But Jaime has never been very good at such tenderness, with either human women or superbeings.
“Tarth,” he says, “come do me a favor and pinch my arm. I need to be sure the drugs you've allowed them to pump me full of aren't causing hallucinations. Because it would appear that I've uncovered Superman's secret identity, and he's you.”
Brienne wrings her big, mannish hands in her lap. He can’t even draw a scowl or eyeroll from her with his terrific sense of humor, which is worrisome.
“I'll understand if you never want to speak to me again,” she says quietly.
Jaime wants to laugh once more. The situation is unimaginably strange. The idea of never speaking to Brienne again is even stranger.
“Don't be ridiculous.” He sighs heavily. “I should have known it was you. Running around saving orphans and kittens from burning buildings. It's a very Brienne sort of extracurricular activity.”
“Still,” she counters, “I would understand.”
Jaime stares at her. He doesn’t quite know how he should feel. His pride is wounded; she’d kept him in the dark for so long, and he wonders how many times he’s inadvertently put his foot in his mouth. More than once just this week to be sure. That ill-advised article… But it’s also an exhilarating rush to know so much more about her now, to understand her so much better. All of her caginess, her awkward answers to basic questions, her unusual anger at his half-hearted insults of Superman, her goodness and her honor. It’s as though he had known a two-dimensional version of Brienne and now he is able to observe her from every angle.
And what he has found in his observation is a woman he does not want to live without.
“Brienne.” Jaime winces a little as he sits up straight in the bed again. “You’ll have to try a lot harder than this to get rid of me.”
She allows herself the ghost of a smile. One palm is pressed against her elbow, rubbing at it distractedly. “We should talk about it more when you’re better rested.”
“We should, but you don’t have to leave. I’d rather have you here than not. If you want to be, I mean.”
Brienne appears to think this over, still clearly a bundle of nerves. Her demeanor is so contradictory to the hard-hitting reporter he is most used to; contradictory even to mild-mannered but confident Superman. In this moment, he thinks she is the version of herself that is prone to blushes and shy smiles. She is all human.
Jaime thinks she's going to answer when there's a knock on the door to his room. Brienne slides her glasses back into her face just in time for a man in blue scrubs to enter. He introduces himself as the night shift nurse and is in the middle of asking if Jaime needs anything when he trails off, looking between Jaime and Brienne as they stare at one another. Jaime is silently asking again for her to stay, certain that if she does, everything left between them would fall into place. Her expression remains implacable.
“I'll come back,” Jaime hears the nurse saying, “after you've had a chance to, erm, visit with your company.”
“Oh, you don't have to do that.” Brienne stands, and even in the middle of a moment tense enough to reach out and touch, he is amazed by the sheer size of her. But then she frowns down at him before quickly looking away. “I was–I was just going.”
Jaime wants to ask her to stay again, to tell her how much he needs her with him. But the words stick in his throat. Instead, he returns her whispered good night and watches her leave .
The next morning, Jaime manages to talk the hospital staff into releasing him. His nurse for the day says he's not allowed to leave without a driver, which Jaime is offended by. He is perfectly capable of driving himself, or calling a taxi, but the nurse crosses her arms and Jaime knows there is no arguing. He doesn’t want to ask Brienne for anything just now and knows she must be working, so he takes out his phone to call Podrick instead. Always a good lad, the boy appears promptly with a change of clothes and asks Jaime where he wants to go.
"The moon," Jaime says first, pressing his forehead to the glass of the passenger seat window. "The bottom of the ocean."
Podrick arches an eyebrow that Jaime can see in the window's reflection, and he sighs. Nobody reacts to his little jokes and dramatizations the way Brienne does.
"The Daily Planetos."
"You want to go to work? Now?"
"Just drive, Pod."
"You know, you asked me for the favor, Mr. Lannister. You could at least be nice about it."
"Just drive, Pod, please." He's still staring out the window, taking in the hospital parking lot.
The lad grumbles something about Lannisters that Jaime graciously chooses to ignore and he puts the car in gear.
After a while of silence, Podrick clears his throat. "Is it true what everyone's saying?"
"Depends. Does it make me look good or bad?"
"That you fought the Mountain? And lived?"
Jaime snorts. "The Mountain fought near me and I lived. No, I did nothing but look an absolute fool while Superman ensured I didn't stumble into my own untimely death."
"So that part is true, that Superman saved you? And you were—" he turns his head to look at him briefly, eyebrows raised, "—at Miss Tarth's apartment?"
"It isn't what you're thinking."
"I'm not thinking anything, Mr. Lannister."
"Podrick, for the last time, please call me Jaime."
"Right. Jaime." He seems to chew on that for a moment. "But what happened? The Mountain appeared and Superman just started fighting him?"
"Yes. You have painted the exact picture of the event."
"Are you going to write about it?"
"No."
"Is Miss Tarth going to write about it?"
"Are you interviewing me? This is a damned lot of questions."
"Sorry, Mister—Jaime. I just think it's really cool. I mean," he adds hastily, "I'm sorry you got hurt, and you and Miss Tarth are fighting, but—"
"We aren't fighting, Pod." Why does he feel like he's consoling a very young Tyrion, fresh from crying because he'd overhead Jaime and Cersei yelling at one another again? "We've made up and everything is fine."
Podrick shoots him a skeptical look but doesn't express whatever he's thinking.
"More than fine," Jaime says after a moment of protracted brooding. "This is the most fine the two of us have ever been with one another."
It’s at least technically true. His thoughts are as jumbled this morning as they’d been the previous night, but at least everything is on the table between them now. Everything except his unsaid words still hanging over their heads. But still he does not feel entirely fine. He suspects he won’t until he’s had a chance to speak with her properly, to better understand why she would hide herself from him.
"Do you think she's still in danger?"
"No. I think she's perfectly capable of handling herself."
Traffic is stalled ahead of them and Pod turns his head to study Jaime. "It's still good you were there, to protect her."
"She doesn't need me, Podrick."
The younger man shrugs his shoulders. "I dunno, Mister—Jaime. Lots of ways that people need each other."
Podrick accelerates and Jaime considers his words. He thinks of the glances they've shared; the way she's sought him out, built him up, kept him afloat in many ways. And he wonders why, but it isn’t exactly a new question. It's the same one he'd had yesterday, before he'd known the truth about her. Why would Brienne Tarth seek out the company of someone such as him? His question hasn't changed even as his feelings for her seem to have only grown, and there's only one person who can answer any of it.
But there's something he must do first.
Podrick drops Jaime off in front of the bustling Daily Planetos building, asking again if Jaime is certain that he doesn't want company going inside.Jaime declines and thanks him, suspicious that Podrick knows what Jaime is up to with his visit to the office today.
When he enters the newsroom, all eyes are upon him. Word has traveled fast, it would seem.
"Jaime!" one of the staff photographers, Pia, calls out to him with a wave. "So glad to see you doing okay."
Jaime smiles, wondering exactly what everyone here has heard happened. "Thanks, Pia. It's nothing, really." He turns his hand over and clenches it into a fist. There's still pain, but it's beginning to subside.
She's smiling up at him a little too brightly, though Jaime's glad to see she's steadily replacing the teeth that the Mountain had knocked out of her the previous year. Jaime had been around for that too, trying to protect his photographer until Superman had intervened. It had seemed to him for a long time that Superman was always near anything Jaime was doing, almost as though he could not escape him. Now he can't help but wonder if that had been intentional. If Brienne had been—what, watching out for him? His chest expands and aches at the thought.
"Well, anyway, everyone here was rooting for you and Brienne to be okay." Her smile tips down a millimeter or two. Jaime can practically hear what she isn't saying: most of us were, anyway.
Jaime spots Kevan pacing by the window at the other end of the room, a cell phone pressed to his ear and his brow wrinkled. He bids Pia good day and thanks her for the well wishes, surprised to find he's genuinely touched at the thoughtfulness. When Kevan makes eye contact, his eyebrows shoot up and he ends his call.
"Morning, Uncle."
"Jaime. I'm glad to see you in one piece." Kevan looks him up and down, frowning.
"Only short a little pride, but it'll grow back, I'm sure. Is my father in today?"
Something passes over his uncle's face that Jaime can't entirely place. There's a little fear, but that's par for the course when discussing the Lannister patriarch even on a good day. Something else is there too. Pity? Shame? Jaime can't quite put his finger on it.
"Yes, and he'll be wanting to speak to you."
"Delightful. I shall show myself up."
Kevan still looks uneasy but he gestures toward the staircase leading up to Tywin's office all the same.
It's difficult for Jaime to believe it was only earlier in the week that he'd last ventured up this path. It seems like a lifetime ago. Brienne hadn't been Superman then. He hadn't even fully decided to tell her that he wanted to be more than friends with her yet. The two ideas mingle in his thoughts as he makes his way up the stairs and finds himself again at the ornate wooden door at the top of the landing.
Jaime knocks a quick melody against the door with his knuckles, already certain his father will be annoyed by it.
"Come in, Jaime," he hears from the other side and he smiles to himself before opening the door.
"How'd you know it was me?"
"Because your brother cannot reach high enough to produce such a sound."
Jaime resists letting his lip curl. He's been so submissive to his father for so long, but he's always tried to defend Tyrion wherever possible. He's going to have to choose his battles wisely today, however.
"Nevertheless," Tywin says in a clipped tone from where he's standing behind his enormous desk, "you should sit. We have much to discuss."
No question about his health, no good cheer at finding him mostly unharmed. Directly to business. It would hurt if Jaime hadn't been both expecting and long used to it.
"I'm fine standing. I won't be long."
Tywin meets Jaime's gaze, cut emerald flashing gold. He's rattled him. Good.
"Suit yourself. You are your own man, after all."
Jaime ignores the barb, places his hands on his hips, and takes a deep breath.
"I'm not writing the Superman article. At least not the way you want me to."
Tywin does not move. His eyes continue to bore into Jaime's and his mouth is a taut line. The only sign that he's heard Jaime at all is a flare of his nostrils. Silence fills and swells the room, pressing down upon Jaime as heavily as the bottom of the ocean he’d wished for earlier. He feels squeezed by it, suffocated. But he stands his ground. He can be every inch the Lannister block of ice that his father has always wanted him to grow into.
After what feels like an eternity, Tywin inhales and turns away from Jaime to stand by the windows. Jaime wonders if he's meant to feel disrespected by the turn of his father's back to him.
"You've certainly made a mess of things."
"I've done nothing but my job since the day you hired me here."
"Have you?" Tywin turns again. A vein pulses in his neck and Jaime focuses on this evidence of his father's humanity. "Your job was to learn this business so that you may inherit Lanniscorp, to ensure the Lannister dynasty carries on—"
"Dynasty?" Jaime says around a laugh, but Tywin ignores him.
"—and yet you have squandered your potential at every turn. You instead find yourself in the worst possible place any son of mine could be, and now the Mountain is injured because of you."
The words reverberate in Jaime's skull. "What concern is it of yours what happens to the Mountain?"
"Gods, Jaime. Think for one moment. The Mountain is my creature. He does only as I say, and it is to your great fortune that he does, else you would not be standing here."
Jaime’s blood goes cold and for several long seconds he is so numb that he thinks he could be floating in space. But the feeling is rapidly replaced by white-hot rage. The Mountain has been nothing but a violent menace to King's Landing.
No, not only the Mountain.
His father.
It is another shift to his reality that Jaime must rapidly make accommodations for.
"Superman is the reason I'm standing here,” he says through gritted teeth.
Tywin's eyes narrow. A muscle works in his jaw. "Superman is an outsider to this city. He is a threat to everything we value. He will turn against us, and you will have to live with the consequences of your inaction when it happens. You will write this article, using every bit of misguided reverence this country holds for you, or you can walk out of that door and never return."
Misguided. Even when bullying him into doing his dirty work for him, his father could not resist an opportunity to take him down a peg. To remind him of his place. Jaime is shaking with fury he has never felt towards anyone in his family before.
"I would rather live on the street, penniless with no name at all, than to help you destroy Superman," he says in a low, forceful whisper. "I have a duty to the integrity of this profession. I have a duty to the people of King's Landing to tell the truth. And so do you."
Tywin looks as though he could spit venom. "Very well. Do your duty. But you will not do it here."
His father flicks his wrist toward the door but Jaime stands stock still, flexing and releasing his fingers into fists. Pain shoots through his right hand and up his arm like jolts of lightning. He relishes the sensation.
“You'll regret this,” Jaime grinds out before he can think better of it. He turns away, obeying a command that his father has given him for the last time.
Jaime spends much of the rest of the day pacing around his condo, willing his blood pressure to return to normal levels. It is one thing to learn that his father had sent the Mountain after Superman, but it is an entirely other thing to realize that his father has been orchestrating attacks on Brienne. Brienne, who is all that is good and right in the world; Brienne, who is Tywin’s best employee; Brienne, who Jaime has fantasized about draping in a Lannister cloak on more than one occasion. It is too much to bear.
While he doesn't think Tywin knows that she is Superman, Jaime does have a horrible sinking feeling in his stomach when he considers how close he must be to finding out. As he paces, he tries to piece the situation together. Brienne must have returned to her apartment as Superman when someone working for his father had spotted her. And it is lucky that Jaime had been there when the Mountain had arrived; he hopes his presence had thrown his father for enough of a loop that he’s not considering Brienne at all. And why should he, when Superman is a man and Brienne is not? It isn’t as though Brienne’s “friendship” with the metahuman isn’t known; the interviews she’d written up had been wildly popular for The Daily Planetos.
His father may suss out a connection of some sort, but Jaime is determined to protect her from the worst of Tywin’s snooping. He will do whatever it takes.
All at once, the thrill of having something to do to help her overtakes him. His mood lifts several degrees.
It's mid-afternoon and he knows Brienne is in the field for work today but he can't resist calling her anyway. Brienne had wanted to postpone talking until after he'd healed and rested, and although he had mostly spent the previous night staring at the ceiling, he doesn't think he can wait any longer. She sounds anxious on the phone, but he asks her for the favor of dropping what she’s doing to come talk to him and she doesn’t miss a beat before agreeing.
It isn’t long before there’s a knock on his door and he bolts across the room to unlock it. Brienne is standing there, looking uncertain, and he can't help but smile when he sees her.
"Good evening, Brienne. I think you'll be pleased to know I've told my father to fuck off," he announces by way of greeting.
"Did you?" She steps inside and Jaime shuts the door behind her. "I'm not sure if I should be proud of you or concerned."
"Both, probably. Did you know he's been conducting attacks against you?" He's trying to keep his tone casual, but unsure whether he's succeeding. Seeing Brienne again helps. She's wearing her glasses again but the concern behind them is evident.
"I did."
"But you didn't tell me."
"Would you have wanted to know?"
Jaime considers this. He wants to say yes. But if she'd told him a week ago that his father was responsible for trying to bring down Superman, he isn't sure he would have believed her. Tywin has always been many things to him, but a larger than life villain had never been one of those things.
"I should have known already. My father’s a miserable, cynical bastard. Second to none in that regard. And I'm sure you had your reasons."
"Blending my life as Brienne and my life as Superman is… well, it's never seemed like a particularly good idea. I didn't want to risk involving you."
"And then I involved myself anyway." Jaime huffs a laugh.
She gives him a small smile. "You seem in rather good spirits about all of this."
"Tarth, I am barely contained rage,” he says brightly. “Not toward you. I just can't believe this is who my father is. I can't believe how blind to it I've been.”
She grimaces. “I feel I’ve been very selfish about this. There’s a lot you deserve to know–have deserved to know the entire time. And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you–”
"Don't apologize. It doesn't suit you, Boy Scout."
"You must have a thousand questions,” she offers instead.
"Oh, at least." Jaime moves to sit down and pats the seat on his couch next to him. He's very aware of Brienne not moving away from his front door and turns to look at her.
She's looking at him expectantly so Jaime takes a deep breath and runs a hand through his hair.
"Is your name really Brienne?"
Her answering laugh relaxes her shoulders and loosens the lines on her face. A wave of relief washes over him when she finally comes to sit next to him.
"Yes. My parents are smallfolk from the Stormlands. My father owns a small fishing operation." Brienne chews the inside of her cheek, and Jaime gives her a moment to gather her thoughts. He is far from a patient man, but for the duration of this conversation he thinks he could be. "But I was adopted. My parents found me when I was a baby. With a message." She looks at him from beneath pale lashes.
"What did the message say?" He's trying for gentle again, which should by all rights feel very silly when the person he's speaking to is often called "Man of Steel." But Jaime knows her better than that, knows her soft heart.
"My birth parents—from a now-destroyed planet very far away—sent me here to save me, and to save our people. They told me to be a good steward to this planet, to be a good example of their name, and that's all been—perhaps not easy, but it's been straightforward."
"But there was more." Jaime leans toward her, his arm on the back of the couch behind her head.
"Yes." She's beginning to blush again. "I'm the last of my people, Jaime. They knew they were going to die when they sent me here. All of them, the entire planet."
"That sounds very lonely."
"In many ways it has been. Which I think is part of why they asked me to make sure that I'm not the last."
"The last—" oh.
Jaime snaps his jaw shut and it takes him a moment to formulate his next words.
"And you can… do that?" He clears his throat. "With anyone?"
"Gods I can't believe I'm discussing this with you."
Jaime grins.
Brienne pinches the bridge of her nose. "Yes. They say that humans and metahumans are… compatible."
His grin widens and he knows he must look a feral sort of beast. "I'm glad to hear that."
"You are a thorn in my side," she says, but there's a little smile that could almost be called mischievous playing at the corners of her lips that gives her away. It is deeply intoxicating.
"Thank you." Jaime schools his features, only for her benefit. He would very much like to pause to consider Brienne as a mother, but he's fairly certain that way lies madness. "I have other questions."
"Anything."
"Are these magical or something?" He reaches his hand from the back of the sofa up to touch the arm of her glasses.
She chuckles and places her fingertips to his own. His skin prickles and his heart leaps at the surprise contact, but she drops her hand again. "No. They're called—well, I call them HypnoSpecs."
"Charming."
"I thought so. They're technology from my planet. It allows me to remain a little obscured when I'm wearing them, so I don't always have to be Superman."
"What would be so bad about that?"
She shrugs. "I like having a life separate from him. Wouldn't you want that?"
Jaime thinks back to his time as one of the most famous athletes on the planet. The paparazzi, the inability to go anywhere without people tripping over themselves to take a photograph with him, the multiple occasions grown men had stalked or tried to fight him because he'd "ruined" a bet they'd made. No, that part he can understand.
"About that," Jaime says. "You call yourself Superman. You refer to that part of yourself as 'him' but you're—" he trails off, vaguely gesturing a hand toward her.
"I've been called a man my entire life, Jaime. I didn't fit in well at school, and I think that before I decided to do this, the only people who liked me for me were my parents. Leaning into the mockery seemed like the best strategy if I was going to be taken seriously."
"I know you're far too principled for it, but point me to anyone who's mocked you and I'll kill them for you, no problem." He doesn't think he's joking.
She laughs. "They're just misguided, probably hurting somewhere deep down and uncertain what to do with that pain so they turn it around on someone else."
Jaime tilts his head, smiling. "You are such a wonder. I would have laser visioned them into dust."
"No you wouldn't have. You forget, I know you well by now, Jaime."
"Too well, Tarth. Which leads me to my next question. Have you been following me? Because it has seemed to me for some time now that wherever I am, Superman is nearby."
Brienne's ears go a tremendous shade of fuscia. "I wouldn't call it following. I just—have a sense about some people more than others."
"A sense."
"I think if I'm—close to someone, I can sometimes feel what they're feeling, in a way."
"You mean you've been reading my mind?" he teases.
"Gods no. I do not want to know what goes on in that head of yours."
"Why not?" Jaime waggles his eyebrows. "You might like it."
She laughs, her face entirely scarlet now, and she shoves his chest with the palm of her hand. It's incongruously forceful for how lightly she'd moved, and Jaime wonders how he'd never noticed what is obviously superhuman strength before now.
"I'm sure it's all sports and pretty women."
Jaime goes very still. "I assure you it's only one woman, Brienne."
Brienne is studying him carefully, her face returning to its normal color, and Jaime wonders if she's sensing him right now. He wonders if she could always feel what he wanted to say to her every time he hasn't said it. He's always thought Brienne was an open book to him, but he'd never considered that she might see him the same way.
"I was hoping you would say that," she says softly and Jaime's heart lurches toward her. It takes him several deep breaths before he can speak again.
"I have one last question." Jaime licks his lips, presses them together, tilts his chin up an inch or two as though readying himself for battle. His heart is beating hard enough to escape the confines of his chest. "Why me?"
Brienne swallows. "I'm not that much different from anyone else. I can—develop feelings and friendships the same as anyone." She worries at her bottom lip. "You're a good man, Jaime. I wish you could see yourself as I do."
He bites back the instinct to argue with her. He'd been a selfish prick for most of his adult life, singularly focused on dominating every sport he set his mind to, and Cersei. Along the way, he'd lost sight of himself. As a boy, fresh-faced at eight and ten in journalism school, he'd thought he was going to take on the world. To give the truth a voice. But he'd followed sports all the way to superstardom. He'd followed it to on-field brawls and aggressive machismo in interviews, to becoming nearly as wealthy as his father in his own right. He became a household name across Westeros and beyond, for better or worse. That had been an honor and a thrill, but he wishes now that he'd chosen differently. He wishes he had not spent so much time trying to make Cersei and his father and everyone but himself happy. They had done nothing but criticize him to the point that he'd fully believed every negative thing they'd said to and about him. He’d carried those feelings around like a sword and shield for as long as he could remember.
But now here is Brienne, calling him a good man in spite of it all.
As if it could be so simple.
"Jaime," she says after a moment. "Are you quite well?"
"I don't think I've ever been better."
Brienne smiles that rare, unguarded smile and Jaime knows that with it, she holds his heart in her hands. Maybe now she knows it too, even if he hasn't quite said as much yet.
"I do have one question for you, if it isn't too much to ask."
"As long as it isn't about who I'm rooting for in the World Cup this year, because I haven't made up my mind but I do have a lot of opinions."
Brienne's answering laugh is soft, comfortable. But soon enough she's frowning again. "What did your father say?"
He hums thoughtfully, caught between wanting to be truthful and wanting to spare her the pain of hearing exactly what Tywin had said to him. "I suspect I might be fired. Or disowned? Both, probably."
"He's a fool, then. And you'll be better served getting out from underneath him anyway."
"But who will I annoy every day if I’m not with you?"
"Oh, I'm certain that you'll manage to find someone."
"But none could bring me such joy as you. I’ve grown quite used to your scowls."
Brienne grins at that but looks away after a few beats. He watches the smile slowly disappear from her face, her thoughts appearing to shift.
"I am sorry," she says to her feet, and he knows she's not talking about his father anymore. "I wanted to tell you the truth about me a hundred times."
The guilt in her voice runs straight through him. He cannot endure it any longer.
"Brienne, look at me." He reaches out his good hand and touches the knuckle of his index finger to her chin, gently turning her face toward him. "Do you have any idea—any at all—how incredible you are?"
Her eyes are brilliant clear skies set against the sunset of her blush, but she doesn't look away from him. "I'm only doing what anyone in my position would do. I can help, sometimes, so I do."
Jaime allows his thumb to stroke her jaw, tracing a slow circle against her smooth, freckled skin. "You truly don't know, then. I didn't believe you were possible. I didn't know someone like you could exist. And perhaps for a brief moment, I was upset to realize that I didn't know as much about you as I thought I did. But it occurred to me that… nothing has changed. I came to your apartment that night to tell you how I felt, and I'm glad I didn't because it's so much more now. I feel so much more, and I want to say so much more. Brienne, as far as I'm concerned, you're the best that humanity has to offer."
Her eyes are wide, caught, captivated. "But I'm not—"
"Yes, I know. I know exactly who you are," Jaime murmurs before he leans in to finally, finally kiss her.
His injured hand goes to her knee and he uses the other to guide her face toward his. She has yet to look away from him, her gaze soft and maybe a little scared now. But there is bravery there, too. It only makes him want her more.
He releases her jaw from where he’s cradling it and reaches up to pull her glasses from her face. Brienne startles and moves to try to take the glasses back, surprised. Jaime wraps his fingers around the frame a little more tightly, brushes his lips against the shell of her ear and gives her leg a reassuring squeeze.
"Let me see you," he whispers, and he feels a shiver run through her.
Her reaction is enough to set his skin on fire and suddenly Jaime is burning for her. His thoughts take a sharp turn and it is all he can do not to babble all the things he'd like to do with her. He wants to know how much of Brienne is hard steel and how much of her is warm, yielding flesh. When he pulls back to look her in the eye once more, he finds her breaths coming in ragged waves and those brilliant eyes have gone dark. She looks positively hungry.
Jaime tucks a loose strand of pale blonde hair back behind her ear. There is so much he wants to say, but he doesn't want to move more quickly than she's ready for, so he simply angles his mouth up toward hers. He can feel the warm puffs of her breath against his lips, and at last, at last—
Her phone rings out a shrill, beeping tone.
The sound Brienne makes is a short, low whine. Not at all a sound he would have imagined possible from someone such as her, but it's a sound he can relate to.
"I'm so sorry, Jaime. That'll be Podrick. I should answer."
"Podrick…?" It takes a moment for his brain to register the words she's saying, so focused was he on what his body wanted.
But Brienne is already up and moving to collect her phone from the table by the door. Jaime feels a cold sort of emptiness without her next to him. He watches her answer the phone, screw up her face as though in pain, and hang up again.
"The Mountain. He's back."
"Podrick Payne called to tell you that?"
She offers him a small, guilty smile.
"Pod knows about you, doesn't he?"
"To be fair, he more or less had already figured it out, so I had to tell him. Pod… asks a lot of questions."
"Don't I know it. Still, I can't believe you told him and not me." He's aware he sounds a petulant child while certain danger lurks beyond his door, but at the moment, this seems very important to him.
"I only ever wanted to keep you safe, Jaime. And now—I think it may be too late for that." She pauses, glancing behind her. “Is this your bathroom?”
Jaime nods in the affirmative and Brienne disappears inside. Not more than half a second later, she reappears and Brienne Tarth has transformed. The blue suit hugs every inch of her skin, and the red underwear suddenly don't look quite as ridiculous. The yellow and red S on her chest is almost the shape of the home plate of a baseball field, stretched across her nearly-flat chest. Her hair is slicked back and appears both shiny and less coarse. Brienne seems to stand a little taller, she looks a little stronger. Her jaw is set and her eyes are the same blue, but heightened by the color of the suit and glowing with a forceful determination he's never seen in the Brienne he knows before.
It’s the first time Jaime has seen her while knowing both sides of her, and the effect leaves him speechless. He knows that this is Superman, the same man he's brushed elbows with dozens of times. But now he knows that this is Brienne, his Brienne.
She is the Warrior made flesh. She is a beautiful and formidable legend from a fantasy come to life. Jaime can't decide if he wants to get out of her way, pull her down to him to kiss her until she's begging for more, or fall to her feet in worship.
Before he can decide, she's moving toward the door again, but Jaime jumps up and calls for her to wait.
"I'm coming with you."
Notes:
This chapter came a little later than intended because I ended up needing to work pretty hard on it to get it right. That would not have been possible without sdwolfpup's help and patience. She's a real one ❤️
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