In the shadowed underbelly of the city, you were a name that evoked fear and respect—a master assassin, a ghost in the night. Your life was a series of calculated moves, each one bringing you closer to your next target. Emotions were tools, attachments were weaknesses. That was the creed you lived by.
For years, you had been nothing more than a shadow in TF141's periphery—a name on a dossier, a blur in their scopes, the one who always slipped away just as their fingers brushed your collar. Price had stacks of files on you. Ghost had nightmares about your smirk. Soap had a "Most Wanted" poster of you taped above his bunk like a trophy he couldn't quite claim.
You were their white whale. Their obsession.
And you loved it.
Then you found her.
A girl no older than twenty, crouched in the rain behind a dumpster, her knuckles split open from a fight she clearly lost. The moment she looked up at you—all defiance and desperation—you saw yourself. The child you had been before the world hardened you. Before you became this.
Against every instinct, you reached out.
That was your first mistake.
You taught her everything.
How to hold a knife so it wouldn’t glint in moonlight. How to disappear into a crowd by altering her gait. How to kill a man with a pen, a hairpin, her bare hands.
She was a quick study. Too quick.
"Again," she’d demand after disarming you for the third time, her eyes burning with something you mistook for determination.
You should’ve recognized it for what it was—hunger.
The rooftop was supposed to be your confession.
You’d even brought wine—her favorite, the cheap sweet kind she pretended to hate but always stole sips of when she thought you weren’t looking.
"I have something to tell you," you said, your voice softer than you’d ever allowed yourself to be. Already repeating the three words in the back of your mind
I Love You.
She smiled. Then moved.
The knife was in your ribs before you registered the pain—a precise, practiced thrust. Your technique.
"Mi—" you choked.
"Not my name," she whispered, her lips brushing your ear as she twisted the blade. "But thanks for the lessons."
Then she shoved you backward.
The alley rose to meet you with concrete teeth.
You landed hard, the impact rattling your bones, your vision swimming with stars and blood and her face—smiling as she watched you fall.
Distantly, you registered the sound of boots. Voices.
"—the hell? Is that—?"
"Fuck, it’s him."
TF141 loomed over you, their weapons drawn, their faces a mix of shock and something dangerously close to concern.
Ghost crouched, his mask inches from your face. "Who did this?"
You laughed, the sound bubbling red in your throat. "Turns out… I’m not the only monster here."