I do not own Fairy Tail!

For those of you who don't know what Deliveroo is- it's a bicycle food delivery service, with various participating restaurants. The employees always have this one uniform, and more often than not are young/students. This is a little story that popped into my head about getting more of a delivery than you bargained for! Thank you for reading, hope you enjoy it :)

UPDATE: Companion piece now published! Go to 'Special Delivery: Girl's Night' for Lucy's side of the story! Thank you for all of the nice reviews, you guys rock!

Special Delivery

Saturday night. Date night.

Natsu Dragneel was sitting cross-legged on his desk chair, occasionally grabbing the table edge and re-swivelling himself back to facing the screen. His attention was completely focused on his messenger feed, where minutes ago he'd posted the most casual line possible to his group chat- 'Yo guys. Wanna hang?' He watched in nervousness as those three grey dots blinked at him.

Ice Princess – sorry man. I'm hanging with Juvia tonight. I would invite you- if I had a death wish.

Natsu sighed. Since his recent breakup with Lisanna Strauss, he'd been struggling to stay cool in a group where nobody else was single. Well, except for Loke. Who was always single, yet strangely not single at the same time.

ElfMAN- Bro, promised to take Evergreen to see that new chick flick. So. Not. Man. But can't get out of it! Ah, gotta go

Natsu sank even lower in his chair, which automatically swivelled round to the left. At a ping from his laptop, he hauled himself frontwards again.

LadiezLeo- I could hang!

Natsu perked up slightly.

LadiezLeo- I need a wingman anyway. Come to Fairy Tail with me! It'll be fun ;)

Natsu perked down again. Loke (he'd chosen his own chat nickname, and no-one had had the heart to think of something less cringey) was always hitting up the next hot bar, looking to meet new girls. Natsu just didn't know if he felt like it tonight. He was more of a pizza and video games kinda guy in the first place, He doubted that the latest student hangout, Fairy Tail, would be his scene. He painstakingly typed his reply.

Fire Breath- (Grey had chosen the nickname)- Thanks Loke, but Im not rly fleeing it today

Fire Breath- Crud. Feeling it

Ice Princess- *I'm

Fire Breath- Shut up.

Ice Princess- Didn't say anything! Anyways I'm off, Juvia just got here

LadiezLeo- Me too man, guestlist closes at 10. Laters

As his friends went offline, Natsu felt even more down. He caught sight of the only group member with a green dot next to his name, and tried one last time.

Fire Breath- Jellal! How bout u? Watcha doin now?

Seconds went by. Minutes. Hours. Well not really, but it felt like hours. Natsu eventually gave up and closed his screen. Jellal was a hard man to get a hold of.

Admitting defeat, he got out his phone to order takeaway. Since he was alone, he might as well get some of his favourite fire chicken, which none of his friends had ever been able to handle. Clicking through the order on the Deliveroo app, he secured his meal, and resorted to solo Netflix for his Saturday night plans.

...

The bell rung about 40 minutes later. Midway through an episode of a new anime, Natsu hit pause and went downstairs to the entrance of his halls.

He did a double take when he got there, at what he saw through the glass door pane. A blond ponytail was pulled through the black baseball cap that was the standard issue uniform for deliveroo employees. Except on this girl, it didn't look like uniform. Her long legs were golden and super visible with the tiny black shorts, her form totally noticeable in the tiny black tshirt.

"Hi. Did you make an order?"

One hand was balancing her bicycle, the other holding the strap of the food bag.

"I. Um."

"Fire chicken? From Madame Mira's?" She pressed again.

"I. Yes. Yes I did."

Natsu was pretty sure his cheeks were going as pink as his hair. He hadn't felt this first time attraction for ages. Lisanna had been beautiful, but he'd been with her from high school, and the long distance college thing hadn't worked out. He'd stopped feeling that rush when he'd seen her. In fact, looking at this other girl, he wasn't sure he'd ever felt that rush.

The deliveroo girl was already digging through the bag and bringing out his order. She brought it up and looked him straight in the eyes for the first time. He could have sworn she stopped for a second. Did she?

She coughed a little. "That will be… ten fifty, please."

As he dug in his pockets for change (Crap! Why was he wearing his OLDEST sweatpants right now?) he dug deep into his mind for something intelligent to say.

"So! How long have you worked for deliveroo for?"

(Yes, Natsu, yes! Mental self high five.)

She blushed a little, or was he imagining it? "Oh, on and off. I'm a student at St Makarov's actually."

"Seriously? Me too! What's your major?"

"Astrophysics." She smiled, showing some of her very white teeth. "You?"

"Me? Oh, um… I haven't really decided yet. I'm more here for extra curriculars, you know?"

"Like?"

"MMA." She looked slightly blank. "You know- mixed martial arts?"

"Oh, right! That sounds cool."

"Are you kidding? Astrophysics? That sounds a hundred times cooler."

She laughed, and Natsu decided straight away it was one of the best sounds he'd ever heard.

"So what's your name?"

"It's Lucy." She pointed at the name badge for emphasis. Just above her generously proportioned chest. Natsu swallowed and attempted to pull his gaze away.

"I'm Natsu."

Another smile. "Well it was nice to meet you Natsu."

"Yeah!"

They stood there awkwardly for a few moments.

"Ah... well, I better get going. Lots of deliveries to make, you know?"

"Oh yeah. Yeah, sure."

"Be seeing you, then." He thought he could detect a hint of wistfulness in that tone.

"Yes. See you." His own tone was fairly wistful itself.

And then, because she really couldn't afford to hang around any longer, she hopped on her bike and pedalled off.

"Lucy…" Natsu said dreamily, staring after her.

"Lucy… lucy… wait. What's her surname?"

A moment later.

"Crap! I forgot to tip her!"

...

"So you're telling me, you met a cute girl last night and now you can't find her, because you forgot to ask for her full name?"

"Not Manly, man." Elfman shook his massive white head at him, chomping on a pizza slice.

"I can't BELIEVE you. Why didn't you just ask her for her number?" Gray continued in disgust.

"Because I didn't want to seem clingy!" Natsu whined, tearing apart his pizza with savagery. "Or desperate. I needed to be casual. Like you Gray, you're always cool as ice!" He caught himself. "Not that that's a great thing or anything, stripper. Don't let it go to your head."

"While he does have some success with the ladies…" Loke intervened smoothly, "he's not quite as experienced as I am. What did she look like, this girl? What else do you know about her?"

"She was hot."

They all nodded.

"And a student at Makarovs, like us. I think she's majoring in… astrophysics? Loke! Maybe you know her!"

"I do astronomy, not astrophysics. Different departments dumbass."

"Well actually Natsu… maybe you DO have her number."

They all turned to gawk at Jellal.

"Dude, when did YOU show up?"

Jellal ignored this question. "So you met her through deliveroo, right? All you need to do is order from them again. I'm sure at some point she'll come by to give you your order, if she's worked your route before she'll probably do it again."

"Jellal, you're a GENIUS!"

Natsu jumped to his feet, and sped out of the pizza place before any of the guys could even blink.

"What a sad case" Gray said loftily, picking up a pizza slice. "wait- I don't believe it. He left us to get the bill, AGAIN."

...

Natsu ordered takeout every night that week. On the first night, he got a tall red haired girl with nametag that said 'Erza' and a no-nonsense look in her eye.

"Lucy? Why are you asking about Lucy? What do you want with her?" she said menacingly.

"Nothing! No-one! Bye now!" He squeaked, and shut the door in her face.

The next day, he got Gray.

"Say anything to anyone about this, ash for brains, and I'll KILL you." he threatened, as Natsu fell about laughing at the tiny black shorts (though he'd obviously seen Gray in less.)

The day after that, he got Juvia.

"Juvia heard Gray-sama was working for deliveroo so she got a job here too! Isn't that great?" she beamed.

At the end of the week, still no Lucy, Natsu checked his bank balance.

"70 bucks on takeaways?!"

Clearly, this endeavour was unsustainable, for the health of his account. With a heavy heart, Natsu sloped off to Fairy Tail the following Saturday night.

...

"Cheer up man! It can't be that bad!" Loke said happily, each arm around a different girl. In comparison, Natsu was sitting across the table from him, looking forlorn.

"What's wrong hun?" Girl A (Natsu had too terrible a memory to attempt a real name) asked in concern.

"I met this girl."

The two of them nodded in sympathy, while Loke just looked bored.

A second later, something else piqued his interest.

"Hang on a sec guys- I'll be right back."

He slipped out of the booth, and minutes later Girl A and B had gone too, leaving Natsu slurping his (pink) cocktail alone. He turned at the sounds of raised voices.

"Look, I don't know who you are and why you think you know me, but seriously. Stay away from me you creep!"

The subject of the tirade was none other than Loke, who was trying to placate the irate blond, inwardly questioning why even a friendly approach from him came off as creepy.

Natsu started at that voice, and was up and out of the booth in seconds.

"Hey." Loke turned at Natsu's dangerous tone. "Can we help you?" He glared at the playboy, as if he'd suddenly forgotten this was one of his best friends. Loke caught on.

"If you've got a problem, let's take it outside."

"What the f are you on about, you crazy-"

Loke firmly steered Natsu away from the scene, where the blond was trying to look behind him to see who her saviour was.

...

In the alley outside Fairy Tail: " What are you DOING, you creep?"

"That hurts, Natsu." Loke put his hand up to his wounded heart. "Here I am, just having found the girl of your dreams, and all you want to do is fight me?"

"So that is her? It's really Lucy?"

"Sure as day. Now get in there and pretend you beat me up."

"I could actually beat you up," Natsu offered, getting into it.

"No, really. Pretending is enough. Now go on in."

...

"Natsu? Is that you?"

He whirled at that voice, taking in that face, those lips, that body-

"Uh yes! Yes! You remember me." He smiled, quite pleased.

"It was nice what you just did for me." He kept grinning. Until he got a slap in the arm.

"But I didn't need you to. I can take care of myself. I'm not your girlfriend or anything."

"But you could be!"

Silence from the blond. A wide eyed stare.

"Um, I mean. I'd like you to be. Um. Would you like to go out some time?"

She smiled slightly.

"Let's get a drink and we can talk about it."

END