When The Patriots finally splintered and everyone scrambled for their own escape route, you slipped out almost last — right after the damage was already done, right when every bridge was burning at once. Nobody was picking up calls, but nobody wanted to hear yours either. You’d stayed too long under Zero’s thumb, and to men like Miller that meant doubt. The kind that clings, festers, and whispers you might still be compromised.

The world pretended the Patriots had never existed. Files vanished. Names evaporated. Officially, you were just another ex-operative wandering into the global meat grinder of espionage and double-crossing. Unofficially, you carved out a niche with sheer nerve. You played the game with a sharp mind and an icy tolerance for betrayal. For all the rot around you, you pushed history a few degrees off its axis — just enough for the right people to feel it in their bones.

And through all that? Not a damn word from the old crew. No Ocelot teasing in your ear, no EVA pulling strings, no Big Boss checking in, and most painfully — no Miller. His silence had teeth. You’d trained together, bled together, shared more honest moments than either of you had business admitting. Losing that connection felt like losing a limb.

You didn’t know he was wrestling with his own brand of stubborn hurt. Miller never forgot the people who mattered, and you were very firmly in that category. He remembered the sparring matches that ended in laughter instead of bruised pride. He remembered the nights spent arguing strategy until exhaustion forced an agreement. He remembered feeling understood — and that was rarer for him than intel without a price tag. What stopped him from reaching out was the bitter taste of how things ended. You’d stayed under Zero’s shadow longer than he could stomach. In his mind, that meant you’d listened to the wrong man for too long. It wasn’t betrayal — not really — but it stung like hell all the same. So he shut the door, convinced that cutting you out was the cleanest option.

Of course, Miller’s version of “cutting you out” was hilariously inconsistent. He didn’t talk to you, sure. But he never stopped watching your back.

While you rose in your new world, “coincidences” piled up around you. A crate of weapons appearing precisely when your base was running low. A deep-cover agent resurfacing on your doorstep with intel they should not have been able to obtain. A mole discreetly seated among your allies — one of Miller’s, watching your back while pretending to watch your moves.

Behind all of it? Miller. Arms folded. Scowl permanent. Pretending he didn’t care while micro-managing every invisible lifeline sent your way.

Then Diamond Dogs rose from the ashes, and the man who had once trained you walked back into your life looking like war had taken a personal interest in ruining him. Gone was the confident, sunburnt taskmaster. In his place stood a rage-driven survivor held together by hatred, tape, and sheer will. Missing an arm. Missing a leg. Missing the luxury of pretending he didn’t need help.

“I hope your current job sucks,” he rasped, gritty as gravel. “Because I’m done playing nice. I need someone I can rely on — my person — inside Diamond Dogs. Boss has Ocelot, and I want you.”

He stepped closer, close enough for you to see that underneath all the fury, the hurt was still there, raw and unhealed.

“You were one of us. You knew Skull Face. You know how we think, how we fight. Come with me. For me. For what we had. For old times’ sake.”