Work Text:
"You’ve got 30 seconds to get out of here,” O'Conner warned. “After that I’m gonna open my eyes and I’m arresting anyone I see. Got it?”
O'Conner’s eyes were closed beneath the too-tight, ill-fitting makeshift blindfold the thugs had worked over his head, and the cloth was digging into his face. It looked painful, and there was blood just underneath it, like he'd been cut. Dom grimaced in sympathy.
"30 seconds, huh. That’s longer than you usually give me.” Normally Dom was lucky to get a 10 second head start, if he got a head start at all, but this was not a normal situation.
"Yeah, well, I’m feeling generous today,” O'Conner said, and then flinched away from Dom’s hand where he'd made to pull the cloth away from O'Conner's face. “What are you - get out of here, man. I’m not kidding around.”
It wasn't that Dom didn't believe him. It was that up to a minute ago a group of criminals had been holding O'Conner captive while Dom was trying to get him free. It was that one of those criminals had actually levelled a gun at O'Conner's chest and pulled the trigger, and if Dom hadn't been there to block the shot O'Conner would be bleeding out or dead right now.
Dom was the one who couldn't get hurt; O'Conner should never have been involved in the first place.
"Keep your eyes closed," he said, and took the blindfold off. The stark, unnatural lines around O'Conner's eyes would fade with time now that the cloth wasn't biting into his skin anymore, but those frown lines didn't seem like they were going away any time soon.
O'Conner frowned at him a lot when he was faced with Dom's more extracurricular activities, which was a shame, because when he came by the market and Dom was only Dominic Toretto, small business owner, instead of a guy in a flashy, homegrown suit and cowl fighting bad guys, Brian tended to smile at him. The fact that the presence of the cowl changed their dynamic quite a bit, even if Brian was unaware of it, made this encounter slightly... awkward, considering that currently Dom wasn't wearing the cowl thanks to an overzealous and rather talkative thug and his grabby hands.
But O'Conner hadn't opened his eyes yet. Dom had to trust that he wouldn't for at least another 15 seconds.
"You should give me 5 minutes instead of 30 seconds, and then I can get you free and check you out. How else are you gonna get loose? Those cuffs are tight," Dom said. The location the thugs had chosen for their base was old-school, literally. The elementary school had been closed down years ago and the developers hadn't done anything with the property yet; it had been abandoned ever since, and it was unlikely that anyone else would stumble across O'Conner tonight. Dom didn’t think that O’Conner had figured that out yet, though.
"You've got 3," O'Conner said after a moment, and his lips twitched like he was trying to rein in his frown. "Starting now," he added.
Dom had already begun to inspect the cut just above his eyebrow. It had stopped bleeding and didn't look deep, but Dom wasn't accustomed to dealing with wounds. Letty was the one who normally dealt with that, but Letty wasn't here right now. He pulled his glove off and ran a finger across the skin near the cut to see if it was hot to the touch, something Letty had said once about infection running through his head, and O'Conner flinched again.
Dom pulled his hand away, stung despite himself. "It doesn't look bad," he said, his tone flatter than he’d have liked, and he reached for the cuffs that were keeping O'Conner's hands high above his head. He only just made it; he and O’Conner were almost the same height.
"No, it's fine. I just wasn't expecting it," O'Conner said, and Dom focused on the handcuffs instead of the body he was all but pressed up against. He'd never been this close to O'Conner before, and of all the ways he'd thought about it happening, this hadn't been on the list.
He grabbed each side of the metal and pulled, the chain snapping easily between his hands, and stepped back so that O'Conner had space to lower his arms. When he was done Dom reached for his wrist, intending to do the same thing to each cuff, but O'Conner flinched again and Dom immediately let go.
"You can't -" O'Conner cut himself off, and then tilted his head to the side. "Man, I've got my eyes closed. You can't just touch me like that without some warning," he said and lifted his hands up into the space Dom had left between them. The broken cuffs circled his wrists; there would be bruises there tomorrow from where he'd been pulling at them before Dom had found him and taken out the guards. "It's fine," O'Conner said. "Go ahead."
Dom did to the cuffs what he'd done to the chain, stripping off his remaining glove when couldn't get the right kind of purchase on the metal. O'Conner started rubbing at his wrists and Dom reacted without thinking, reaching his hands out again to stop O'Conner from pressing on the worst of the marks and hurting himself.
"You're already going to have bruises," he said. "Stop messing around.”
"You know, you're not a very good vigilante," O'Conner replied, matching Dom's scolding tone. "Don't you know there's an order to arrest you on sight?"
Dom raised an eyebrow and then realized he'd have to verbalize his scorn at that idea, considering that O'Conner was still playing along and was effectively blind right now. "No one is close to arresting me," he said, and chuckled at the mix of emotions that played over O'Conner's face.
"I could," O'Conner said, and it looked like he'd decided to go with 'sulky' over everything else Dom had seen in him. He moved so that he was holding onto one of Dom's wrists instead, and Dom glanced down at it out of habit before deciding to leave it be. "If I wanted to," O'Conner said, and he didn't sound petulant anymore.
"Hmm."
The only warning he had was the slight twitch at the corner of O’Conner’s mouth, the barest hint of a smirk, and then it was too late; he’d already felt cold metal around his wrist. The snick of the cuff closing was loud in the sudden silence of the room.
“I told you,” O’Conner said. He was grinning.
Dom lifted his hand enough to see a loose cuff dangling from the one that had been attached to him. “I can tear this off like it’s made of paper. You haven’t proved anything.” He paused. “Where were you even hiding these?” he asked incredulously.
O’Conner shrugged. “You have a minute to get out of here before I do it for real,” he said instead of answering Dom. He was still smiling. “Thanks for not letting me get shot, but seriously, take off. I’m not kidding about the warrant.”
“Arrest on sight,” Dom repeated. “O’Conner, you’ve got your eyes closed.”
“Yeah, well.” O’Conner swallowed; licked his lips. “That thing that changes your voice is in your hood,” he said, and it took Dom a moment to realize what he’d said, and another to understand why he’d said it. Dom wasn’t wearing his cowl, and Special Agent Brian O’Conner didn’t need his eyes to know who he was. Because, of course, if he’d never seen Dom’s face he still had plausible deniability.
So many possibilities had just opened up in front of him; all Dom had to do was pick the one he wanted most.
“You’re right,” Dom said, and brushed the fingers of his free hand against O’Conner’s cheek. If O’Conner was startled by the touch he wasn’t showing it, but Dom still waited a moment before he ran his thumb along the edge of O’Conner’s lips.
“Twenty seconds,” O’Conner said, and he was still smiling when Dom kissed him for a handful of heartbeats before he broke the kiss and headed for the door.
Even he knew better than to think that O’Connor’s threats were ever idle.
The next afternoon Dom headed to the market to look over the P&L. He’d been tempted to stay at the garage and work on cars instead, to put his frustrations into something concrete that he could look at and know he’d made better, but Brian had a habit of arriving at the market in the late afternoon - if he showed up at all - and Dom had forced himself to stick to his routine, just in case.
“Hey, Leon,” Brian’s voice said from the main room, and the rush of pointless adrenaline in Dom’s body made his heart rate spike and drowned out the sound of Leon’s reply. He heard Brian say, “Yeah, thanks, man. That’d be awesome. Hey, is Dom around?” There was a pause, and then Leon’s low voice saying something Dom couldn’t hear. “Nah, it’s cool. I’ll knock.”
Dom looked up just as Brian knocked on the open door. “Hi,” Brian said. “Are you busy?”
It was only financial statements and quarterly earnings reports; they would keep. It wasn’t like Dom had been doing all that much with them today anyway. “No,” Dom said, and pushed past the awkward feeling in his chest. “Come in.”
He’d forgotten how bright Brian’s eyes could be when he was amused.
“Listen,” Brian was saying, “I know this is kinda out of the blue, but do you want to have dinner with me?”
“Yes,” Dom said, without needing to think about it at all, and Brian seemed to relax a little; Dom hadn’t realized just how tense he’d been up until that point. And then: “What do you mean, out of the blue? You’ve been coming here for a month. I know for a fact the coffee isn’t that good.”
“Yeah,” Brian said, and laughed. God, he was beautiful. “You could do with an upgrade. So. Dinner?”
Dom stood up and stepped forward a few paces; Brian’s gaze tracked him as he moved, but his easy sprawl against the door didn’t change. “That’s hours away,” Dom said, and once he was within arm’s reach Brian pulled him in even closer, slowly shifting them until Dom’s back was against the door instead.
“I guess you’ll have to entertain me until then,” Brian said, and kissed him.