Chapter Text
Hans has his arm around her shoulders. They’ve known each other for—a couple of weeks, now. Every time she’s with him feels so easy and natural, like breathing, and sometimes, she thinks about telling him her secret. Sometimes.
She’s thinking about it right now, as they walk together through the streets of Arendelle, looking at all the displays of lights that people and businesses have put up for the season, drinking cocoa as they roam somewhat aimlessly. Somewhere else in the city, Elsa and Tadashi are doing the same thing, but they’re in-uniform and calling it patrol.
Which, she sighs a bit, is why she can’t tell Hans her secret. It’s not fair to everyone else on her team if she does.
“You all right?” Hans asks, noticing her sigh.
“Yeah,” she nods. Glances up at him. His eyes are on her, full of concern, and she smiles, bright as she can manage, and then she lies through her teeth, “I was just wondering if you were going to go home to visit your family. For the holidays. If I’m going to—lose you, for a bit.”
He hasn’t said much, about growing up in the Southern Isles. Not yet. She knows he’s the youngest of thirteen and his father had high expectations and that he likes Arendelle better. But, well, it is the time of year. For family. Right?
“No,” he says, surprisingly vehement, something hard in the expression his face sets in as he does, “I am—never. Going back there. You don’t have to worry about that.”
“Never?” she questions. Liking Arendelle better is one thing, but that feels so—extreme.
He sighs, at that. His gaze goes soft, again.
“You called it going home,” he says, gentle, “but it isn’t home. It’s just a place. Where I grew up. Where my brothers, all except for one, took every chance they had to be cruel to me. Where my father… Wanted me to be something I never wanted to be. That’s not—going back to the Isles would be leaving home. Because—you, Anna. You’re home.”
Oh. Her breath catches in her throat, at the declaration. Elsa and Kristoff keep telling her she hardly knows him. That the secret will always come between them. That this isn’t going to last, because it can’t.
But then she’s with him and everything is perfect and he just called her his home. And how can she ever believe their negativity?
She sets her cocoa on a nearby bench. Takes his from him and sets it there, too.
Then she throws her arms around him and she kisses him, and he’s holding onto her so tightly she’s not even touching the ground anymore, safe and supported in his arms. Hers. He’s hers. No matter what anyone else has to say about it. He lights her nerves, makes her feel on fire in the best way, and she barely feels the chill of the winter wind, as they stand there, in their own little bubble, just the two of them, have this perfect moment.
Both of their phones go off, and she whines, a little, in the back of her throat, as Hans breaks the kiss and sets her back on the ground. It’s Elsa, calling her, she knows it is, which means The Duke and probably his really annoying new ally, Fire Prince, are attacking, somewhere, which means she’s going to have to cut this date short. She hates it when she has to cut her dates with Hans short.
But, well. She’s Miss Arendelle, and she has a job to do.
They both answer their phones. Elsa doesn’t say anything about Fire Prince, but apparently a bunch of The Duke’s other henchmen are there, and it’s a tough fight with a couple of hostages, and it’s—they need her.
“That was my boss,” Hans tells her, regretful, “there’s an issue at work. I have to go in.”
“It’s okay,” she sighs, “That was Elsa. Holiday emergency, I guess. I also have to go.”
He gives her another quick kiss, before they each collect their cocoa and go their separate ways.
He gets to the fight that The Duke called him away from Anna for at the same time as Miss Arendelle does.
The hero, in her mask and hood, sees him arrive and he knows that she’s angry by the way she hones in on him and growls and comes straight for him, fists at the ready.
“It is a Holiday Market,” she complains, “Don’t you have anything better to do with your life than this?”
“Sorry,” he says, sarcastic, and she definitely can’t see his mocking grin through his mask but he knows his tone gets the point across well enough, “Not all of us find joy in staying home and watching Hallmark movies all season.” Of course, if Anna invited him to, he might, actually, enjoy that. Sitting together, holding her tight. Trying to distract her with his wandering hands. Hmmm. How to suggest that to her, before their next date?
“Have you actually tried, or are you just assuming you won’t enjoy it?” she asks, as she swings at him. Sounds a bit like she’s actually asking, not just being quippy.
“If that’s an invitation, I’m going to have to decline,” he tells her. Sends out a pulse of heat, without flame; a warning shot, to get her to back off, “I don’t date women whose faces I’ve never seen.”
“You’re one to talk,” she scoffs. She isn’t wrong; his mask reveals far less than hers does.
“I’ll take off mine when you lose yours,” he offers, “until then, I think I’ll do my best to avoid facial recognition, thank you.”
He summons a stream of fire, wraps it around one arm. Miss Arendelle grabs Erik, who just tried to rush her, and tosses the henchman at him. He ducks to the side to avoid a collision, the other man crashing into a hay bale next to a nativity scene, and then he stalks towards his feisty little nemesis.
“I was having a really nice time, with a really sweet guy,” Miss Arendelle complains, “only I had to leave my date to come to this. Do you know how hard it is to plan dates when you can get called in to work at any minute because supervillains are inconsiderate jerks?”
“I got here the same time you did, in case you forgot,” he reminds her, “You know how it is, the boss calls and you answer. Besides, sweetheart, you’d be bored to tears if I wasn’t here and you had all the time in the world for dating really sweet guys.”
She lets out a ridiculous frustrated noise that is no recognizable word, and her teammate, the shapeshifter, runs between them, in his reindeer form, a couple of civilian kids on his back. Hans takes the opportunity to locate The Duke, in the mess, and turns his back on Miss Arendelle to cross the gap to the man who hired him. She might follow, but she won’t take a chance to attack while he does it; she fights fair. A limitation he’s never had the luxury of imposing on himself, growing up like he did.
“Why are we here?” he asks The Duke. If he felt bold enough, the real question would be why wasn’t I informed of this plan beforehand, but he wants to get this over with and get back to Anna, not get this over with and get screamed at in the warehouse about undermining The Duke’s authority, “I thought the agreement was no targets where children might be present.”
“With an attitude like that, it’s no wonder your father didn’t care when you volunteered yourself to leave,” The Duke sneers, and it might be a better insult if he hadn’t wanted a way out of the Isles, absolutely desperately. If it hadn’t been to his benefit that his father didn’t care, “Francis has what we came for,” the little man adds, “We just need to make sure he can get out.”
Francis. Hans searches the market-turned-battlefield for that particular henchman; finds him pulling Erik out of the hay where he landed after Miss Arendelle threw him, a box that must be the target sitting on the ground nearby.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” he hears Miss Arendelle say, at his elbow, and he would be grinning at her, truly, not mocking at all anymore, if she could see him through the mask, and they both take off at a run at the same time, racing for Francis and Erik and the box.
Her ability is strength, not speed, but in some ways she can fake the latter, power in her stride he can’t hope to match. Not without cheating.
Naturally, he cheats. Conjures fiery obstacles in her path to slow her down. She growls out the occasional curse under her breath, delightfully unladylike as she dodges everything he can throw at her—and cheats a bit herself, tossing stray decorations, already displaced by the fighting that went on before they got there, in his path.
If he wasn’t so absolutely in love with Anna, he might find it charming, Miss Arendelle’s rougher edges. As it is, he’s maybe a little entertained, but that’s it.
She slides for the box like a runner in a ballgame, grabbing it when she gets there and then popping back to her feet. The teleporter that sometimes helps her team blinks in next to her, and she hands off the box to him before he blinks out again, and Hans is left staring at a ridiculously triumphant hero. Some of her hair has escaped however she contains it, fallen in front of her eyes, but between the shadow of her hood and the darkness of the hour, he can’t tell the color. She’s breathless, and smiling, and part of him can’t help but envision that expression on Anna, in a much different context. The way their date was going, the way she kissed him, the noise she made when their phones ringing made them part—his imagination is running away with him, when he should really be focused on the job, he knows.
“That was fun,” Miss Arendelle tells him, “but I’d really rather be bored.”
Anna’s just put on her comfiest flannel pajamas, after taking a shower to try and ease some of the frustration from the interrupted date followed by dealing with Fire Prince, when she hears knocking on the door.
She goes to the peephole to see who it is—and if it’s one of her teammates complaining she didn’t go to the castle for an after-fight meeting she’s going to completely ignore them, actually, just for this one night—and it’s Hans, holding what looks like a bouquet made of candy canes. She’s already smiling again even as she opens the door.
“Work problem all taken care of?” she asks him.
“Oh, it went terribly,” he tells her, handing over the peppermint arrangement, “But that’s Erik’s fault and my part in everything is done. Elsa’s holiday crisis sorted?”
“Mmm,” she agrees, nodding, “Christmas has been saved. Or so she tells me. Honestly, I just kind of showed up, yelled at a guy who was causing problems, helped move some boxes around. Don’t really know what exactly the whole story was. But it’s over and done with, now.”
She pulls one of the candy canes out of the bouquet, unwraps it, relaxes a fraction as she tastes it. Just what she needed, after that mess.
“What do you think,” Hans says, “About picking up where we left off, earlier?”
She blinks at him, a little.
“‘s too late to go light-touring again,” she points out, “people’ll think we’re up to no good.”
He leans in, towards her.
“I wasn’t talking about the lights,” he says, barely more than a whisper in her ear. He’s warm, he’s so, so warm, she can feel it radiating off him, and she shivers, a bit, at the deliciousness of the heat and the promise in that tone.
“You meant the kiss,” she says. Well, obviously he meant the kiss. Why shouldn’t he have? It was one of the most romantic moments they’ve had, together, so far, easily. She’s just maybe a bit—nervous. About if she can control her strength if and when they do more than kiss. Restraining herself in a fight so that she doesn’t seriously injure someone is one thing, and she’s good at it, but this would be a very different situation, and she’s never—wanted to. With anyone else. So she’s unsure of herself, about it.
“I meant what I said,” he murmurs, “I know it hasn’t been long. But you’re home. I just want—however you want to spend time together, Anna, that’s what I want, too.”
And maybe it’s weird that the way Fire Prince was so dismissive of Hallmark pops into her head, but it does.
“Even if how I want to spend time together is cuddling and watching silly Christmas romances?” she asks.
“Even then,” Hans agrees, “I’ll follow your lead.”