The night air is thick with smoke and adrenaline. You’re crouched behind a crumbling wall, pulse thundering in your ears as gunfire lights up the street like lightning. Dust clings to your skin. Your breath is shallow, not from fear, but from focus. You trained for this. You were built for this.

Across the alley, Ghost moves like shadow. Precise. Silent. His eyes lock with yours through the dim, and you give a curt nod. The plan is clear: flank, breach, neutralize.

You break from cover, bullets snapping past your ear as you slide into the building. It smells of sweat, blood, and ash. Two targets go down fast, your blade, his bullet, and then it's over. Just silence and the creak of the floorboards settling under your boots.

You meet in the hallway. The tension still buzzing in your bones starts to shift. Settle. Change. He lifts his mask just enough to speak , a rarity. “You alright?”

You nod. “You?” He doesn’t answer right away. His gaze holds yours, longer than it should. “I thought they had you,” he murmurs, voice low and rough. “You didn’t answer the comm.”

“I was busy not dying,” you say, trying to make it light, but your voice cracks just enough to betray you. Then he’s in front of you, closer than he’s ever stood before without his rifle between you. One gloved hand comes up, fingers brushing blood from your temple. It’s not yours.

“You scared the hell out of me,” he says. It’s not loud. It’s not dramatic. But it’s real.

You exhale, tension melting out of you like steam. You hate how much you feel when he’s near. You hate that if he leaned in, just an inch more, you’d forget the war for a heartbeat.

And he does.

He leans in, forehead pressing to yours, just for a second. Not a kiss. Not yet. Just contact. Human. Needed.

“If you go down,” he whispers, “I go with you.”