A/N: This story takes place pre-Blind Betrayal and prior to making the teleporter in the main storyline, so it's largely spoiler-free. Just a bit of fluffy-ish F!SS/Danse. Enjoy.
(Also apologies for eventual and unavoidable inconsistencies with FO4 in any way.)
Piper was entirely too enthusiastic about the fireworks they'd found in the old factory (and altogether too happy to watch Nora carry them in her power armor all the way to Diamond City—"supervising" she'd called it). Nora could understand needing some down time after all the hard work she had been doing to aid the Commonwealth and search for her son, but the idea of spending a whole night in Diamond City watching fireworks didn't sit right with her. It felt like an unsettling juxtaposition— something so domestic in a world that no longer knew the meaning of the word.
Knowing the man was dead by her own hand, Nora had adopted Kellogg's house as her base on stays in Diamond City. The place was small —efficient— and after installing a power armor station in his hidden room, she felt comfortable spending a night there.
Sitting at the desk, Nora poured over reports from her settlements — every one constantly had some complaint, if only that the place needed more decoration. Sighing, she wrote messages to the settlements she planned to visit in the next few days, and found an unexpected knock at her door to be a welcome reprieve. Even if it was a courser here to hunt her, at least she wouldn't be doing paperwork.
Standing, she opened the door without hesitation; she was ready for friend and foe alike. The sight of a Brotherhood suit of power armor brought a small smile to her face. "Paladin Danse. To what do I owe this pleasure?"
The man looked at her for a moment, brown eyes stoic before his face slipped into an easy smile. "Good to see you too, soldier."
"Would you like to come in?" she offered, standing aside to allow him passage as Righteous Authority again found itself strapped to her back.
"Wouldn't outside be a more apt place for viewing the fireworks?" he inquired, unmoving.
Nora frowned, glancing at her Pip Boy. It was nearing nine PM and dusk was swiftly swallowing the sky. "Piper made you come here for that?"
"Civilians cannot force me to do anything I do not want to do," he explained matter-of-factly.
Nora smirked, crossing her arms. "Then why are you here, Paladin? How are fireworks part of Brotherhood business?"
He looked away sheepishly, pink dusting his cheeks in the twilight. "Even soldiers need a day off."
"Why choose to spend your's here, then? And not on the Prydwen?" She looked at him expectantly, amusement tickling her at his struggle to answer.
"I—" he began, then halting. At last looking back at Nora, he answered, "Is it so bad to want to spend time with a friend?"
Nora smiled, chuckling at Danse. "Not at all." Pausing, she added, "At least leave your suit here while we watch them."
Doubt clouded his eyes as he looked at her, still on the other side of the doorway.
"Okay," she sighed, "Look at it as resource conservation. Save your fusion cores where you can."
"But—"
"You're safe here in the city, Danse. If you're going to take a day off, take a day off."
He faltered another moment before conceding and stepping inside. Hitting the release on his suit, he stepped out and stretched his arms above his head.
She smiled at him. "See? Isn't that better? It's not good to always keep your body cooped up in those suits," she preached.
"Says the woman who is rarely without one of her three suits," he chided, passing her a smile across the small room.
Nora waved a hand through the air, as if to push away his words. "Technicality."
They shared a friendly laugh before she gestured out the still-open door. She watched him nod and followed him out the door onto the deck overlooking the market. Down below, she could see Piper had roped Nick into helping her prepare the show—no doubt so she wouldn't burn down half the city for a few pretty lights. Nick new what he was doing, right?
It suddenly occurred to Nora she was probably the only person in Diamond City to have seen fireworks before. There weren't many July 4th celebrations post-nuclear annihilation, she supposed. There was no more America to speak of, thus rendering the celebration of its independence moot.
Leaning on the balcony's railing, the dim of Diamond City lit the edges of their faces. Nora was contented watching her friends—that's who they were now: practically family—setting up a celebration for the people. Something to remind people that they were still people underneath the grime and radiation sickness. They still sought what every generation of human had before them: happiness.
"What are you thinking about so intensely?"
"Huh?" Nora was startled by Danse's words, looking over at him as she caught her bearings. She laughed amusedly, "Was I using RBF?"
"RBF? I am not familiar with the acronym."
"Resting bitch face."
"I wouldn't—"
Nora laughed as Danse backtracked. "Never mind…" She considered a moment before answering his original question, "I was realizing that this world, these people— deep down, they're no different from the place I knew before the vault. They want the same things."
It took Danse a moment to respond, "Do you miss it? Your life before?"
Nora bit her lip, sighing and resting her forehead on the railing. "In some ways, yes; in some ways, no. But my life, surprisingly, is not fundamentally different now as it was before the war. Yes, there's more danger in the physical sense, but I still spend my days fighting for who and what I believe in. Did I tell you I went to Law School?"
Danse shook his head.
"I wanted to be the best damn lawyer in Boston. I wanted the hard cases—the ones where innocent people needed justice that the system could not afford them. My work now with the Minutemen is no different. These people deserve homes. Clean water. A steady source of food and a safe place to sleep. That is what this world has not afforded them that I can change. Sure, it's my use of a rifle, not a law book, which gets those things, but it achieves the same goal in the grand scheme of things." She paused, turning to lean her hip against the railing and to cross her arms.
"I do not regret the life I have led here, but yes." She looked away from him as she continued, instead watching Piper gesticulating wildly at a city security guard down below. "I miss the nights I got to spend with my family. They were not numerous, but they were invaluable to me." Piper finally managed to convince the guard —likely that the fireworks were safe— and as he walked away, she flipped him off.
"Nate was in the military when we met," she continued. "He wasn't home much, and I was filled with a ceaseless anxiety that he would someday come home in a coffin. I never imagined he would die the way he did. He survived three tours, only to have a bullet put in his brain so close to home."
"You loved him immensely," Danse commented.
Nora chuckled. "Yes. We were perfect—so much it scared us both. We rarely fought and never got tired of loving each other." For some reason, she still couldn't shake the ache in her chest at the mention of the man who now left her a widow. Of the father their son would never know.
"He sounds like an upstanding man."
"He was," she agreed, the ghost of a smile on her lips. "He was a lot like you in many respects, actually."
"Like me—?" Danse sputtered, scratching the back of his head.
Nora laughed. For someone so confident in the line of duty, Danse sure had some things to work on in the personal realm. Nevertheless, she found his awkwardness endearing most of the time, and sure was a refreshing break from Hancock's self-assuredness or Maccready's self-pity. Nora smiled to herself, wondering if her thoughts had conjured her friends as the two sauntered down the steps towards Piper together. It pleased her that Hancock was welcome, despite his ghoulish status, in Diamond City.
"Danse," Nora whispered, breaking the silence that had formed between them. "I've been meaning to thank you, actually." Turning her head to look at him, he greeted her with curious eyes.
"What for, soldier?"
"For bringing me into the Brotherhood. Your people have helped me so immensely in the search for my son. Their assistance has been instrumental in my progress towards creating a teleporter to hunt the Institute. If not for your seemingly blind faith in me, I— I don't dare think where I might be. So thank you."
"It was not blind faith, Knight," he answered.
"Then what was it that made you offer me a position? Rhys would have readily given me a handful of caps for my trouble and sent me on my way," Nora pointed out, a frown on her lips at the mention of the Knight who, to this day, disliked her for no apparent reason.
Danse was quiet, and she watched him closely as he considered how to answer. "The way you jumped in to help us defend the police station from those ferals was foolish, but you demonstrated dedication and compassion for the Brotherhood by assisting in our efforts to boost our radio signal."
Nora laughed. "I just helped out because you seemed to need it. But whatever your reasons—I appreciate being given the chance to prove myself as an asset to the Brotherhood— to you. To prove that for all the help you've given me, I can return the favor."
"The Brotherhood takes care of its own," Danse stated.
"Seriously though, Danse, I'm not sure you realize the leap of faith you took with me. I was aligned with multiple factions prior to meeting you who aren't particularly compatible with Brotherhood ideals. But you didn't question my allegiances nor my origins. I value the way you appraised me as a person by my actions and not by my past. After all, who in all seriousness wants a recently widowed vault dweller with no combat experience and only a Law Degree who was cryogenically frozen for more than two hundred years as a wingman in the Commonwealth?"
Dan grinned, letting a small laugh slip from his lips. "If you phrase it in that manner, it sounds as though I made a foolish decision offering you a position."
Nora laughed, nudging him with her elbow playfully. "See? On paper I sound like a huge liability."
"I don't think anyone could ever see you as a liability, Nora." The sound of her name on his lips made her uncomfortable… She wanted to hear it again. "Even if you've only lived in this world for a few months, I meant it when I said you were born to be a soldier. Whether the weapons are words or bullets, you were meant for combat. To fight for a better world."
Her heart thundered in her ears at his words and she could feel the heat rise in her cheeks. "Thank you for saying that, Danse. It means a lot." She paused as they stared at each other for a moment which felt like a lifetime. His eyes were dark, a slight crease between his brows and his lips pressed into a taught line, betraying the sincerity in his words. She was unsure anyone could have ever given her any more perfect of a compliment.
He looked as if he was struggling with whether or not to say something, but just as his lips parted to speak, the sound of a gunshot compelled them both to rapid action. Nora's eyes snapped away from him, fingers already on the gun at her back. Instantly she felt foolish, her pulse slowing and the breath returning to her lungs.
Clots of glittery light clung to the sky above the stadium, singeing her retinas. A moment later, she watched the barrel of another firework shoot towards the sky with a soft whizzing noise before it exploded in a shower of white light, laced into the inky night sky.
She sighed as a smile spread across her lips and looked back at Danse, whose face was upturned skyward. A childlike wonder painted his face with an innocence she had not yet seen from him. His lips were parted slightly and as the next firework painted the sky blue, its light danced in his eyes and across the sharp features of his face.
She chuckled as she watched his reaction, finding herself feeling like the way Danse felt as he watched the fireworks was the way she felt watching him. His smile was magnetic, and she felt herself drawn forward. Softly, she slipped her arm through his in a motion that made him jump with more surprise than a gunshot ever could.
"Knight—" he gasped, looking down at her in bewilderment.
Smiling up at him, she told him, "Just for today, you're not my commanding officer. You're just Danse. And I'm just Nora. And we're just two people watching the fireworks." She could feel his fingers tremble as she softly moved her hand to rest on top of his. She smiled wider at the thought that it was probably because of her.
"Just watch the fireworks, Danse," she insisted, and for a moment he complied.
His eyes turned again to the bursts of gold and silver streaking the sky, but the same look of wonder didn't return. He frowned, and turned back to look at her. "How am I supposed to enjoy them if all I can feel is my heart beating furiously in my chest?" he asked, voice nearly drowned out by the sound of the fireworks and the cheers of the people below.
Nora felt as if his words caught her whole body on fire, and her lips bloomed into an unhindered grin. Brotherhood be damned, this man would be the death of her. Even in the quietest moments, he found some way to ruin her. A single look disarmed her completely, and now feeling his hand turn over to hold her own, she knew she didn't want to be without him anymore. He wasn't Nate. He wasn't Shaun's father. But he was so unapologetically genuine, so unconditionally honest that even when it annoyed her, it only made her more attracted to him.
It was as though they had done this for a lifetime, both turning their bodies to face one another in unison. Nora slipped her hand up, tangling it in his hair as one of his hands came to rest on her waist. She was utterly defeated as the other came to cup her cheek, inching their faces closer together. His name ached from her lips at the tenderness in his fingers as they touched her face, whipping her nerves into a frenzy. How could his hands be so gentle against her body when she had seen for herself they could deal out death without a moment's hesitation?
Nora heard a sharp intake of breath from behind clenched teeth, and she realized it was her own only a second after their foreheads came to rest together. His hand on her waist pressed their bodies together. The feeling of Danse against her wiped her mind clean, and she closed her eyes as the feeling of his breath on her skin overwhelmed her. She steeped herself in the smell of him, musky and dirty with the grease of his power armor. The tension rippled between them as the outside world dissolved.
"Nora—" Their lips barely touched as her name whispered across his lips and she couldn't take it anymore. It was her turn to disarm him. Spilling up onto the balls of her feet, she pulled his lips down to meet her own. Leaning into him, their hearts hammered against each other. Her whole body tingled, sparkled like the fireworks above them at the feeling of their kiss. His stubble scratched at her cheeks in a delicious way, making her smile into his lips.
When they broke away, she was smiling at him like a mad woman. He looked down at her with a helpless pout on his lips, and she couldn't help but laugh. So many new expressions from him today, and she wanted so badly to pull every last one out of him before things were over. As if suddenly aware of the situation they were in, a redness rose on his face that wasn't related to the light from the red arch of light that speared its way through the night sky.
She sighed, knowing that after this night, they would go back to Knight and Paladin. But just for that evening, for those moments, he was hers, and hers alone.