Afire Love- Paladin Danse x Reader (COMPLETE)

blind betrayal, part 2

Your footfalls were heavy as you slammed to a stop behind the trunk of a tree, the gunfire from two turrets pinning you there.
You waited for them to go back to idle before leaning out to deliver two lethal shots. Both of them exploded in a fiery mass.
You wasted no time moving forward into the bunker. Inside, an old protectron patrolled the small room. You brought it down with four consecutive shots, making it fall in a matter of seconds.
Now that area was secure, you analyzed the room. A desk was propped in the middle of it, and a locked cage filled with supplies was across from it.
Behind the desk was an elevator operated by the terminal next to it. You jogged to it and hunched over, reading the letters on the screen. Locked. Password required, it said. You grunted and began rummaging through the desk drawers- you didn't have time for hacking. You found a random holotape and loaded it in the terminal.
Luckily, it worked, and opened with a cheerful noise. You used it the restore power to the elevator.
You jammed your finger into the button again and again, but it still wouldn't move fast enough. Finally, the doors slid open.
You stepped inside and pressed the button for the lower level. You breathed in and exhaled. Now that you weren't focused on fighting your way in, you had time to think about what you would say to Danse.
You brushed the thought off. You couldn't plan these types of things. Whatever would happen, you trusted that the words would come.
The doors opened again, and now you were in a much larger room. It was closer to a storage cache. Shelves stocked with goods lined the walls, and crates were piled around the room. Dead proctectrons littered the floor.
Then you heard crinkling, like someone wadding paper into a ball. It led you farther into the bunker, until you saw a wall. It looked like it was meant to be separate, but of concrete had fallen out, showing that there was a room on the other side.
You saw him. On the other side of the wall, standing over a large box.
"Oh, my God." You wanted to say it louder, but it came out as barely a whisper. You felt tears swell up to your eyes. One of them escaped, stinging your cold cheek.
"Danse!" you yelled. Your voice splintered like dried out wood. You started toward the makeshift window. His head snapped up, and you saw his immediate emotions.
He wasn't happy to see you. But you didn't care.
You found a way around the wall, through a tunnel carved out on the side.
"Oh, God," you whispered, throwing your arms around him. A few tears slipped out and soaked into his orange uniform. "You're okay..."
"Y/N, What are you doing here?" You leaned out and saw his face twisted with concern. "Maxson sent you, didn't he?"
"Yes, he did," you confirmed. "Danse, why didn't you tell me?"
"If I could have, you would have been the first person I told. But I had no idea who- what I was until now. I thought synths were the enemy, all this time. I never thought I would be one of them." He let out a sigh and rubbed his temple.
"Anyways, what are your orders? Does Maxson even want me alive?"
"No, he doesn't," you said quietly. "But there's a way out of this, I'm sure of it."
"No, Y/N. There's not. I know what we had between us, and I'm thankful you stumbled into that police station. I think about where I would be without you every day. But that doesn't change a thing. I'm a synth. I'm an abomination of technology. I need to be destroyed. If you disobey that, you're betraying Maxson, and the Brotherhood of Steel." He took a deep breath. "I need to be the example. Not the exception," he stuttered.
"Danse!" you yelled unexpectedly, making him jump. "Listen to yourself! You are not a machine! The day I met you, you were defending you fellow soldiers while one of them was wounded and the other was caring for him. It was hopeless, but you still tried. You broke the Brotherhood's code... for me... and you told me you loved me that night on the Prydwen. You're more than scrap metal, Danse, and you're the most human person I've met. Hell, you're more human than me..."
He blinked in astonishment. "You're right,
Y/N. You're absolutely right." He was silent for a few moments. "I know what I need to do now."
"Whatever your plan is, I'll be there for you," you promised.
"The only solution now is to leave the Commonwealth," he explained.
"What? That's the only one? We have to go?"
"No," he corrected you, taking your cold hands into his. "I have to leave. You need to stay here."
"I'm coming with you. I have to."
"Y/N, I'm doing this to keep you safe. If we both disappear, they'll hunt down both of us. Trust me," he insisted.
You sniffled and shut your eyes. "Will I ever see you again?"
He was quiet. "One day. I promise, I'll find you again," he swore, holding your face with his hands. "Open your eyes. It's okay."
You opened your eyes, almost expecting to wake up back in your own bed, in Sanctuary. You would see that Nate was already up and smell the waffles and coffee. The weekend- it was a term lost to time. You would check on Shaun and carry him into the kitchen. The table would be set, 40's jazz would be playing in the background, and Codsworth would brew your coffee to one hundred seventy-three point five degrees Fahrenheit. "Brewed to perfection!" he would exclaim.
You saw the faded world instead, weathered away by time and a loss of knowledge. The cement dust formed a layer on the floor. Rusted shelves threatened to collapse. But in the middle of the chaos, he was there. And it was its own version of okay.
"It's okay," he assured you. He seemed to read your mind. "I'll find you."
You nodded slowly, gulping down the lump in your throat. "I'll take you to the city limits. Then we can say goodbye," you sniffed.
"Okay." He let go of your cheeks and started pulling at something around his neck.
"Here. Take my holotags. To prove you were successful. Let's get out of here."
He pressed the thin chain into your hands. He was about to walk past you, but you stopped him with a hand to his chest. He smiled and you stood on your toes to give him a kiss.
"Danse, I'm scared," you confessed.
"I am, too." His warm brown eyes held your own. "But we'll be okay. I know that."
You tossed the holotags around your neck and went through the tunnel side by side. The elevator was a bit cramped, another excuse for you to hold each other.
The ding of the arriving elevator was overpowered by the whirring of helicopter blades.
You heart skipped a beat. 
Your breath hitched in your chest.
"Oh, my God," you breathed. "You don't think..."
"Y/N, I think you were followed," Danse said, eyes wide. But then he was smiling. Smiling?
You stepped tentatively out the door, and there was Elder Maxson, accompanied by two knights and a fully manned vertibird.
"Hello, Knight," he growled over the sound of the engines. "Were you successful?"
You felt a presence behind you, and before you could do anything, Danse yelled back, "No, sir."