Peaceful | Lara Raj x Male Reader

Lara is done with the dating app and blind setups, and the kind of nights that end with her walking out early just to avoid saying something she'll regret. After one especially disastrous date, she storms out halfway through and heads straight to her friends Daniela and Manon's place to vent-and to officially declare she is done trying.

But Daniela has other plans and throws her a curveball. She casually mentions Y/n. A polite southern guy she knows from her childhood in Georgia. According to her, he's different. Quietly reliable. The kind of man who always treated people right long before life got complicated.

Lara is intrigued so Daniela gives her more pieces of the story.

Works in Palmdale so close enough to orbit their lives, but distant enough to stay out of reach. Works for a defense contractor out there as a propulsion systems engineer for a next generation drone program. Worked for NASA out in Florida after graduating but got recruited out here for this program.

Daniela leaves out one detail: this isn't just a matchmaking idea. She has her own reasons for pushing Lara toward him.

Because Y/N hasn't been the same since the move. He's surrounded by polished engineers and corporate smiles, but he doesn't fit that mold. He never really has. Full sleeve tattoos map out his arms, with a leg sleeve in progress dedicated to rockets he's worked on and the things he's passionate about and drives a new motorcycle and has a beat up truck he keeps just in case.

And he doesn't date. Not because he can't-but because he doesn't have the time, or the interest in forcing something that doesn't fit into the life he's already stretched thin between machines, missions, and miles of responsibility.

But Lara is tired of men who don't know what they want.

And Daniela might have just introduced her to someone who knows exactly what he's built for-even if neither of them is ready for what happens when their worlds collide.