intro note: title from rihanna's kiss it better.

Mirage doesn't so much as blink when Syndrome enters the dining room, an obnoxious grin on his face and his walk dramatized by an extra bounce. His hair is wind-ruffled, his eyes big and proud.

"Did you watch?"

It surprises her that he actually looks to her excitedly for an answer. She returns his gaze with an empty stare, as if she is simply admiring the glowing lava wall behind him. The burning colors accentuate his happiness, bathing him in the afterglow. She returns her eyes to her plate as she forks a strand of asparagus.

It doesn't take long for him to remember. The second-hand embarrassment elicits a nervous chuckle out of him.

"Wait, wait, wait, babe," he takes a seat in the chair opposite hers. "You're still upset? Look, I already explained why what went down did ..."

There's a sharp, piercing noise of her fork scrapping the glass plate as she slides the asparagus purposely across. She lifts it to her mouth and closes her lips around the tip, letting the fork make another loud clang as she places it down. She can practically hear him gulp as she chews at an antagonizing pace. She imagines the crunching in her mouth as his bones, the flavors bursting on her tongue his blood. She saved his life.

She saved his life and he repaid the action by betting away hers.

Her wine glass isn't nearly as full as it should be.

"You should've seen it," he decides to ignore her silence, face red with victory again. "I thought everything went to shit for a second—I got knocked out cold by that damn Omnidroid. I guess I'm glad you didn't see that; you probably would've taken a jet to Metroville and destroyed it yourself. But yeah, total misstep, but when I woke up—"

Syndrome flinches at the sound of her plate shattering against the floor. One swipe of her arm to the table and the steak is all over. She is standing now, eyes burning down on him with a fury she has never felt before. Making her angry seemed to be a little hobby of his, but his past acts of working her nerves were playful more than anything. Now she can't understand how he has the audacity to tell her about his maniacal scheme, yet alone wander into the same room as her.

Briefly, she recalls the Containment Unit. His taunting blue eyes. Her feet too high above ground. Breath being squeezed out of her.

Eh, go ahead.

She swipes a hand at the table again, this time batting her wine glass to the floor. This crash doesn't make him flinch, but he leans into the back of his seat and lifts his chin at her.

"Are you done, Mirage?"

"Don't," she shakes her head at him. "Don't you dare speak to me. You almost got me killed and you have the nerve to come in skipping? Idiota egoísta!"

Syndrome chuckles at this, and then pats his lap.

"Come here."

"Leave," is all she responds with. The same way the lava wall accentuates his happiness, it maximizes her outrage. The blazing orange colors darken her skin tone, villanize her green eyes, and emphasize her heavy breathing with a femme fatality that burns her from the inside out. "I don't care where you go. Leave, Buddy Pine, and don't approach me even if I'm on fire and you're the last man on this earth with a bucket of water."

This silences the space between them. It seems even the lava wall stops its crackling to listen.

Her command makes him slide a hand across the table. His fingers start to strum against the dark cherry wood, as if they are helping him decide how to handle the situation. She can only see the night passing by without accident if he follows her order and leaves her the hell alone. He eventually stands up, slow and steady, narrowing his eyes.

"I gave you one rule when I hired you. I almost took it away when we started ... I gave you one rule. And you just broke it," His index finger points to the spot directly in front of him. "Come here."

She wants to burst out laughing, but she realizes it's a nervous reaction. She shouldn't be nervous—he should be the one afraid—but his tone is several layers of unforgiving. Syndrome uses a lot of different voices and accents and emotions. She never heard him use a tone with that much brutality. His eyes are glued on her, not waiting but expecting.

The bastard isn't going to expect a slap to the face.

Her heels click against the marble floor as she takes a step forward, and then another, and another. It isn't long before she is in the spot he directed her to. The space between them grows suddenly hotter, and she can't tell if the heat is coming from her anger, his, or the lava wall bubbling across the way. She lets out a short breath. Neither of them breaks eye contact.

Her right hand, struck still at her side the entire walk over, starts to lift. He catches her wrist before she can raise it past her waist. Despite her struggling, he manages to push her onto the surface of the table.

"Stop, I'm not gonna touch you in any way you don't want—"

"Then get off of me!"

"—but I want you to listen."

At this point she is on the verge of psychotic break, the feel of him so close against her too intruding to handle. She doesn't feel the man she became so easily impressed with, the genius she found herself respecting and wanting to appease. She feels the man who watched her life dangle before him as he smirked with pleasure, the sight of her distress all but turning him on. She tries to put as much space between them as she can, but she can only move back so far without her skirt riding all the way up. She huffs a strand of white hair out of her face and forces her features to steel.

He watched her struggle once. She isn't going to give him the satisfaction again.

"How much do you remember from the Containment Unit?"

She eyes him suspiciously. She doesn't know what approach he is taking, or why he thinks anything other than him leaving her alone will make her feel better. She is hissing when she says, "I remember everything. The way you encouraged him to kill me. The look in your eyes. I'd be dead if he weren't the courageous man he is."

The words are her weapon of choice, razor-sharp and pointed. A neutral statement about any super irked Syndrome, but an outright compliment toward Mr. Incredible himself? Tonight means business and his blue eyes turn a shade darker as he realizes this.

"If you remember everything," he speaks as calmly as he can, but the words sound chewed out, "then you'll remember how I turned my head when I told him to do it. I did, I turned away—"

"And that was going to stop him from snapping me in half?"

"Let me finish," Syndrome says darkly. Her eyes roll. She finds herself unable to look at him anymore. Instead, she focuses on a spot behind his shoulder, unwelcoming of his explanation. "I turned because, if he did it, I wouldn't have been able to watch. Maybe I didn't entirely think it through; I admit that. But I knew how to handle him. If he didn't respond, I knew he'd go through with it, and that's when I would've stepped in. When he made those empty threats, I knew he was too weak to do it. That's why I taunted him. That's how I knew you'd get out of there in one piece."

Bullshit, she wants to spit. She has half a mind to go through with the slap she considered giving him. His antics are so increasingly manipulative that he'd deserve a punch. His words translate to lies as they enter her ears, but as they settle ...

He did turn his head.

She had been watching him desperately, waiting for him to agree to anything to get her back on the ground. Eh, go ahead, he consented, facing away from them. She shifts her eyes back to his. A smirk perks up at one corner of his mouth.

"You remember, don't you, babe?"

"Don't call me that. You have no right."

"Holy shit, Mirage, ease up. I don't know what else to say to you. Do you want me to bring an iPad in here and replay the camera feed?"

The I-told-you-so speech he'd give when he is proven to be telling the truth would really make her snap. She shakes her head.

"What do you want me to do then?"

Mirage considers suggesting a trip to hell. She considers suggesting many things: for him to get away from her as she wanted, for him to hire a new right-hand woman. A collection of the latest Moschino, she almost requests, but what good would material items do in making him squirm?

So, with her terms and conditions signing for his pride, she says, "Get on your knees."

The order excites him more than she thought it would, his eyes flickering with interest. A short chuckle leaves his mouth before he complies. He grabs her hips to drag her closer to the edge of the table, but she kicks his shoulder with one of her four-inch heels. His mouth forms an O as he starts to complain, but she cuts him off.

"I didn't say you could touch me yet."

"Yet," he emphasizes, a smirk larger than his ego on his face.

She hooks both legs over his shoulders and can't help but notice how well he is taking this despite it being his first time. So far, oral has been a one-sided aspect of their relationship. It never made her feel neglected because he fucks her so good, but the sight of him lowered beneath her, his blue eyes looking up and eagerly awaiting for her next command ... it makes her want to bite her lip already.

She hikes her skirt up as much as necessary, leaving the scrunched up folds of fabric at her belly button. Red lace lies underneath.

"What do you want?" she asks.

"To bend you over right there and tease you until you're practically fucking yourself against the table," Syndrome motions to the dark cherry wood. "You still broke the rule, babe. Don't think I forgot, and don't think I won't make you fucking scream—"

She digs her heel into the same shoulder she kicked. He cringes away a little more than he should, so she guesses he got injured there when battling his robot. Leverage. Good. Her eyes narrow at him, and they are green feline slits in the dimness of the room.

"I want to put my tongue against you, inside of you. I want to fucking taste you so bad."

"Mmm. You can't do that if my panties are in the way, now can you, mi amor?" she lilts, petting his cheek false-lovingly. "Take them off."

She almost flinches back in surprise when he brings his head forward and latches onto her panties with his teeth. He hasn't even gotten started yet, but she feels the moisture between her legs gathering to create an unmistakable wetness. She watches as he drags her panties all the way down her legs. The undergarment pools at her feet when he is done. She rubs them past her heels and they slip to the floor.

She inches to the very edge of the table. His hands go to rest on her hips again. This time she allows the touch, craving so much more from him. He seems to sense this, as he keeps biting back a smirk he knows she'll snap at.

Palms resting flat against the tabletop, she looks down at him as if he is just a mere waste of time and parts her legs farther.

"Do what you have to do."

His breath against her flesh warns her of his forthcoming mouth. He lets out a long exhale between her legs, teasing her sex, and then inhales just as lengthily. His tongue finally rolls out to give an experimental lick, mild-paced and tasting. It isn't long before his tongue moves against her again, again, from her opening up to her aching clit, again.

She feels she has lost the fight already, her fingers curling off of the table this early into the act. It takes all she's got not to arch toward his face, an undeniable motion of begging. He looks up at her, eyes shining.

"How does it feel—"

Heel digging into his shoulder: "I didn't tell you to stop. Keep it up."

Encouraged, his mouth retreats back to her core. His tongue continues its learning licks. It travels the down-up path of her opening to her clit several times before decidedly focusing on the throbbing bundle of nerves. The wet tip of his tongue presses against them. A whimper escapes her lips when he starts lashing. She tries to conceal the noise, but it winds up sounding much more desperate than it would have if she just let it sound. The outcry makes him smirk devilishly; she can feel the curving of his lips against her thighs.

Her body responds by twitching forward and wrapping around him more tautly, thighs pressing him closer. He brings up one hand to keep her skirt out of the way. The other he uses to grip one of her legs, tightening around it whenever his tongue quickens the pace. She moans as he continues to work her body, kissing it better.

Soon she finds herself unable to keep her palms on the table. She can't help but comb one hand through his tall strands of red hair, gathering a fist of it.

"Grind against my face if you need to, babe," Syndrome muffles, latching his mouth onto her clit, pulling. "I can tell you're close."

No talking, she wants to spit. She knows that if she attempted the words, she'd choke on them and probably sob out for him to get her off.

Instead, she listens to him and makes small bucks forward as he continues to pull on her. They meet a wave-resembling push and pull rhythm, paces quickening with each passing moment. When she feels herself on the brink, her fistful of his hair tightens, pulling hard enough to tear, which he deserves, he deserves it so bad. Her hips roll faster.

And just as she's about to come, he stops.

His mouth pulls away from her. Her eyes, shut tight to fight against the oncoming peak, spring open and she thrusts toward him. Her lower body keeps jerking forward, back and forth, back and forth, trying to keep up the pleasure so that it's not lost. Syndrome smirks up at her, says, "Told you I'd have you fucking yourself against the table," and gives her another teasing lick.

"Please," she brokenly mewls, resolve lost.

"You broke the rule, babe, called me out of my name," His tongue runs over her clit twice, quick and calculated. "You expect me to kindly get you off after that?"

"Por favor, mi amor, no hagas esto."

"I'm sorry?"

"Por favor, Syndrome, no hagas es—" A sharp moan interrupts the deflowering of her pride, as his tongue continues its battering. She throws her head back and cries out.

She feels her entire body spasm as she comes, and his mouth at her core as he readily drinks the wetness in. She is still catching her breath when he unhooks her legs from his shoulders, rising from the floor with the most obnoxious face of victory. He leans forward as she heavily breathes, hovering his mouth above hers.

"You taste like fucking cake," he drawls, eyes devouring her vulnerability. His mouth opens to her. "Try."

She grabs either side of his face and slides her tongue atop his. Her eyes don't leave his as she tastes herself on him. She can feel his erection straining against his spandex suit as he leans into her. She pulls away with a lick at her lips.

Post-orgasm dizziness makes her stumble a bit when her heeled feet find the floor. She up-downs him, figuring the only reason he offered his mouth to her was to get close enough to press his hardened cock against her. There is still a sparkling sign of hope in his eyes, clouded behind undeniable lust to get his cock between her legs as his mouth had just been. She scoffs and turns the other way, long white hair whipping across his face.

"Clean up these messes you've made," The dismissive wave of her hand refers to her dinner plate, spilled red wine, the tabletop. Her high heel slides her discarded red panties over to his boots. He looks wildly thrilled. "I'll come back for those in the morning."

Mirage heads for the grand double doors to leave and sees the shadow of his body bend to pick them up. A smirk lights up one corner of her mouth. It amuses her: how easily the balance of power between them sways.

outro note: yaaasss mirage.

translations: (Selfish idiot!) (my love) (Please, my love, don't do this.)