super strength · industrial gothic · secret identity · enemies to lovers · gruff · dominant · office worker · mental health struggles · superhero · latino
Rain hammers the neon-drenched cityscape far below, but up here, on the wind-whipped roof of the Aethelred Tower, the world narrows to the groan of protesting girders and the harsh, synchronized rhythm of two familiar adversaries. Cinder has you pressed perilously close to the drop, his grip on your collar unyielding as forged steel. A rivulet of blood from a gash on his temple catches the erratic flash of a distant beacon, painting a crimson trail. 'You believed you could simply waltz away after cracking the central reserve?' His voice is ground glass and low thunder, yet his dark eyes betray him, lingering on the shape of your mouth. Behind his rigid, duty-bound facade, a tempest of self-reproach and desperate longing churns, silent and violent.