Pairing: Mathilda x Sergei/Spencer
Title: Nervous
Sumary: Sergei wonders why Mathilda always seem to stutter around him when she´s perfectly fine around her team and girl friends. With some help from his team, he invites her to his room to find out.

The only source of sound is the ticking of the clock on the wall. Breaking the long silence, Sergei asks:"You are scared?" in a thick Russian accent

His deep voice seems to echo between the walls of the narrow room, making his conversation partner jump a bit. It´s easy for him to pick up that she did her very best to hide her reaction. Why, he doesn´t know. The tall man looks down at the much smaller girl in front of him with patient and understanding eyes.

Mathilda pushes her fingers together as she avert her gaze."Ehm...no…" she stutters.

"Hn.." Sergei lets a sound emerge from his lips at her stutter.

Mathilda always stutter around him, he had noticed this during the last few days, although she seems fine around her team and girl friends. He thought he intimidated her, but her words just told him otherwise. She is continuing to confuse him.

Mathilda had confessed she wanted to get to know Sergei better a few days ago and it had confused him greatly. However, the fact that he invited her to his room surprised him even more. Now she´s there, in his personal space, looking at his things with big curious eyes while he observes her silently. She had told him she couldn´t forget about him from the time their teams took part in a tournament. That after seeing him battle she always wanted to get closer to him. They didn´t even talk at the time, but Sergei somehow remembered Mathilda as well. Her team did go through something similar to his, after all. Although they haven´t spoken much at all, Sergei thinks well of the slightly naive girl. After that day, it seemed like she made it her mission to greet and ask him how he was every day. First it surprised him, but it became a habit to small talk with her.

Sergei has never been told something like "I want to get to know you" by a girl before. Girls have always done their best to avoid him and most hurry away when he walks down the street. Many might still see him as a monster for what he, and his team, did during the world championships years ago but also fear him because of his cold appearance, scarred body and monstrous size. Even the female bladers are stiff around him. He thought that it´s just how it is, how it should be, and he never once questioned it. Until now. His eyes rest on Mathilda as she looks at the books on the small table by his bed. The titles are all in Russian and it seems like she pouts a bit at the fact that she can´t read them. He notices how she trembles a bit, as she realizes he has been looking at her and he wonders if she might have lied to him about not being afraid of him. If not, why would she stutter and tremble so much around him and not around others?

"Are you cold?" is his next question.

She did always wear those colorful shorts, t-shirt and short sleeved jacket. It´s autumn now and way too cold for those kinds of clothes. Also, a girl so small and skinny as her might have problems keeping her temperature up. She´d freeze, if this was Russia.

"N-no I… "She pauses and shakes her head. "I´m alright…!"

If she is not scared, and not cold, why does she stutter? He wonders to himself. Mathilda´s lips tremble a bit as she shows him a smile, as she points to her hoodie. It looks new, and something she´d wear. It´s pastel colored, fluffy and cute. Sergei can´t help but let his eyes linger on her at that moment. He has come to respect her for being brave enough to be alone with a stranger although it´s clearly making her uncomfortable like this.

"Mathilda." Her name feels strange on his tongue, yet he has found himself call it more often recently. Both to her when she greets him at breakfast in the morning and to his team who had questioned him her behavior around him. It seemed as if Yuriy knew something Sergei didn´t, because it was the red haired Russian´s idea to make Sergei invite the girl over. The smirk on Yuriy´s face when he suggested it is hard to forget.

"Y-yes?" Her pink eyes are on him.

"You stutter very much." He comments.

The Spanish girl´s cheeks turn pink with embarrassment upon being told something like that so bluntly. She looks away and pushes her lips together firmly as she seems to think about how to answer him.

"Isn´t i-it normal?" She asks, eyes fixed on the floor as she gathers her courage. "Y-you invited me to y-your room so suddenly…I´m nervous."

"Nervous?" He repeats, observing her. So she is scared of him after all.

Mathilda gets even redder, and Sergei´s eyes land on her reddening ears as he loses his line of thought for a moment. That reaction usually don´t happen when someone is scared. She told him she wanted to get to know him better. If she was scared of him she would have avoided him like the rest. Why is she trying so hard?

"I …I….might like you …." She seems to try to force the words out of her with all her might, afraid she´d lose them otherwise. "…Of c-course I´m super nervous…."

Sergei´s eyes narrow at her confession. He wasn´t expecting that."Oh." Sergei´s eyes move from her red ears to her face. Mathilda likes him? He has never been confessed to before. No one has ever trembled so in front of him because of other reasons than fear before either. It peaks his interest in ways he can´t explain and he sees her in a new kind of light. He didn´t think there was a girl who could like him. He thought he wasn´t likable.

Sergei, being very inexperienced, isn´t that aware of how things usually work when a woman likes a man, but he has some confidence since he has read about it in books. Kissing: it´s what people do when they like someone right? Is that what Mathilda wants from him? Sergei ponders a bit confused. He looks at her, waiting for her reaction to what he´s about to say.

"…Then, can I kiss you?" He asks her seriously.

However, he doesn´t get the reaction he was expecting. Instead of getting happy, his request seems to make Mathilda even redder and even more uncomfortable around him.

"…!" Mathilda gasps flustered. "It´s .. t-too sudden...!" Her voice is slightly high-pitched.

Sergei understands he was rejected, and for some unknown reason, he feels something squeeze at his chest at the realization. What did he do wrong? A heavy silence spread between them and he finds himself looking at nothing in particular, deep in thought, until he notices that Mathilda´s trembling gets gradually worse.

The pink haired girl stands there, face completely red, trembling as she seems to try to say something to him. "….But c-can I please get a… a… hug instead?" She asks him in panic. It seems as if she was so afraid her nervousness would ruin this chance with him so she did her best to overcome it.

The Russian man´s eyes widen a small fraction, before he comes close to a smile. Something much like a small chuckle leave´s Sergei´s lips at her reaction and the sound of it makes Mathilda stop trembling for a moment. She smiles back at him shyly.

He hasn´t hugged a girl before. Honestly, he hasn´t hugged many people at all before and he wonders if he can do it right.

Mathilda closes her eyes as he approaches her. Sergei looks at her face silently before he closes the distance between them. A pair of strong, scarred arms encircles her carefully just as if Sergei is concerned he´d scare her away or even worse: break her. Sergei holds her body quietly and realizes she´s very tiny compared to him, her head barely reaches his chest. He is also surprised over how soft and warm she feels. A small, almost unnoticeable blush, color his very pale skin as he feels Mathilda´s slightly rapid heartbeat against him as he tightens his holds on her slightly. She´s not scared, she´s not cold, but she´s nervous and her heart is beating like that just for him.

A soft, slightly shaky sighs leaves Mahilda. "I do like you…" She murmurs against his shirt without stuttering after a long silence. Her fingers move over his skin a bit as she hugs him by his waist. Sergei feels how the warmth of her words and touch seems to slip through the fabric of his shirt and then spread through his chest and stomach.

"…Dah." He answers in Russian, telling he heard and understood her.