IMAGINES ▹ ROSS BUTLER

↳ a nerdy secret

( A NERDY SECRET )
by anaboo96

The comic book you were reading had encapsulated you. You were at the mercy of Captain America's quest to find out what happened to his nemesis, the Red Skull, and you just had to find out the resolution to this narrative. You were supposed to be waiting for you lab partner to come over to your house so you could study together before the practical, however, he got held up at his basketball practice. To remedy the long wait, you curled up with your recently purchased graphic novel.

"Y/N!" your mom called for you from downstairs. The sudden shout of your name made you jump out of your comfortable spot in the corner of your room. "There's somebody here to see you,"

"Shit," you muttered to yourself as you quickly shut your book and hopped out of your seat to race down to see your visitor. Before you rounded the corner of the stairs, you paused to regain your composure; inhaled a deep breath and calmly strode to the front of the house to meet up with Zach Dempsey.

"Hey Zach," you made your presence known and plastered the biggest smile you could muster in order to hid your nerves, "Come on upstairs, all my bio stuff is in my room,"

Zach strode over to you and followed you up the stairs, but you were halted by your mother's instruction.

"Make sure you keep that door open," she gave you a knowing look with a hint of a smirk.

"Yes, ma'am," you groaned and stomped up the stairs, expressing your slight frustration at your mom's dumb rule.

"If it helps, my mom has the same rule at my house," Zach chuckled in an effort to ease the tension from the awkward situation. Surprisingly, it worked. Knowing that somebody like Zach had similar house rules to your own had a calming effect on you. Your muscles relaxed slightly and you laughed at his icebreaker.

"This is my room," you stopped at the doorway to your room and allowed Zach to enter into your medium-sized bedroom. "Go ahead and make yourself comfortable while I go do something real quick,"

You race over to your bathroom one door down from your room. The mirror revealed your slightly disheveled hair. You rummaged through the bathroom cabinets to find a brush to tame your unkempt locks. You made quick work in calming the strands and murmured words of encouragement to yourself before you went back into your room to study with the most attractive guy in school.

Filled with a newfound confidence, you strutted back to your room; however, your jaw dropped and your body froze with wide eyes at the sight of Zach reading over your comic book.

"What are you doing with that?" you finally found the words to express your disbelief and capture Zach's attention.

"Oh, sorry," Zach said sheepishly, "I didn't mean to snoop around like that. I just didn't know you were into comic books,"

It took you three steps to be by Zach's side to take the comic book from him and hide it behind your back. Your cheeks were hot from embarrassment. "Uh, this isn't mine," you lied, "it's my brother's,"

The jock had a smirk on his face in tandem with a raised eyebrow. He wasn't buying the lie one bit. "Funny, why does it have your name on the inside of the cover?"

You let out a sigh of defeat and cursed yourself for doing such a childish thing. "Fine, the comic book is mine. It's just something that I like to read and collect when I'm done,"

"Never would have thought you liked comic books," Zach said with a snicker, "What other characters do you have besides Captain America?"

The question took you by surprise. You never thought that Zach Dempsey of all people would be interest in comics, let alone interested in seeing some of the graphic novels you had accumulated over the past year.

"Well, I have some Deadpool and some Flash," your voice was soft, barely above a whisper, as you were still bashful about your secret being revealed.

"Show me," he said with the biggest smile on his face. The feeling of shame for your interest soon vanished once you saw that toothy grin.

The sense of a mutual interest made helped you become more comfortable with talking to him about anything that had to do with the vast universe of comic books. The two of you bonded over the multiple narratives of the Marvel Universe and the DC Comics Universe and even discussed who could possibly win various fights with various competitors.

"Zach," you sheepishly called for his attention. His head rose from the Deadpool comic to meet your shy demeanor. "Can you not tell anybody about this, please?"

"How about this?" Zach said with confidence as he sat up a little taller from his seat on the floor, "I'll keep your secret if you'll let me borrow one of your volumes of Deadpool,"

You gave his deal a thought and found that Zach would continue to keep your secret as long as you lent him one of your comic books. This meant that he would come over to your house more often than just to study and work on projects together. It was a win-win situation in your favor. You stuck your hand out without a second thought, "Zach, I think we have a deal," you said triumphantly.

Zach's large hand consumed your rather smaller one and gave it one shake to complete the deal. "Your secret's safe with me," he beamed at you.