A/N: So! I finished the first draft of my novel! WOOOOOHOOOOO! Anyway, while trying to figure out what to do with my life now, I came across an idea on Tumblr for a trapped in a bank during a robbery AU. And, what better way to celebrate completing something so huge than by coming back to my favorite OTP?
Enjoy~!
"Freeze! Nobody move! This is a robbery!"
The words echoed through the room and everyone immediately started murmuring and trying to discreetly move towards the exits. The man who first yelled fired a gun into the air and everyone stopped. Someone could be heard moaning and breathing heavily, on the verge of panic. "All right! The next person to make any sudden movements gets a bullet to the head!"
The breathing sped up and echoed through the whole room. The man looked around, irritated. "Who's doing that?"
His gun settled on the forehead of a man curled against a wall in a button-down shirt and khakis, with ginger hair that looked like he might pull out at any second. "Hey, Ginger! Enough with the panting!"
A woman a few feet away from him with long brown hair and nervous brown eyes said quietly, "He's having a panic attack, I think. He can't help it."
The robber looked at her. "You a doctor?"
She hesitated, but nodded.
The robber tilted his gun from her in the man's direction. "Get him to shut up, will ya?"
The woman walked over to the man and knelt next to him speaking in soft tones one the robber moved away. "Hey, you're going to be fine, all right? The tellers can let the police know what's happening through the alarm system, I bet someone's coming to get us out already. My name's Molly. What's yours?"
The man flicked his eyes up to hers, nervous sky blue meeting concerned amber brown. He swallowed. "M-Mycroft…" he stammered out.
Molly smiled kindly. "Listen, Mycroft. You're going to be fine. I know you probably are trying to convince yourself of that already, but…" she trailed off. "I know panic attacks are hard, but you'll get through it."
He looked at her with a mix of relief and doubt on his face.
"Is there anything you usually do to help you calm down? Are you having problems breathing?"
"I…I…m-music s-s-somet-times…"
Molly knew what he was trying to say and reached into her pocket discreetly, pulling out a pair of earbuds, and putting one in her ear and handing the other to Mycroft. "All my songs are on shuffle and I don't want to risk bringing my phone out to change it, so bear with me on this, all right?"
Mycroft nodded and put the earbud in just as an 8-bit version of Maroon 5's Payphone came on. He smiled as the calming notes started to drown out all the screaming thoughts in his head and Molly smiled as his shoulders relaxed a fraction. It wasn't much, but it was a start.