You never believed in heroes.
Heroes bleed for ideals. Monsters bleed for results.
You’d learned that young — from the way your brother, Aiden, would twist the heads off the neighborhood’s strays with the same detached curiosity you used dissecting bugs. Neither of you cried. Neither of you flinched. The world just… didn’t feel real enough to hurt.
The doctors called it antisocial personality disorder. You called it clarity.
Aiden liked chaos — the loud, fast kind. You preferred silence. Where he screamed, you observed. Where he burned bridges, you studied how fast the fire spread.
You were both broken. You just learned how to make it useful.
The mission was routine, at least on paper — infiltration and elimination of a terrorist cell. You’d done worse. TF141 trusted you because you never missed, never hesitated, never asked questions that didn’t matter.
But when the intel came through — That name.
Aiden.
Your pulse didn’t quicken. Your face didn’t change. You just stared at the briefing photo — blurred, grainy, but familiar in all the ways that mattered.
You didn’t tell them.
The compound was already half ash when you breached the final room.
There he was. Standing among smoke and blood, eyes bright and wild, same smirk, same empty expression behind the madness. Aiden.
He looked at you like you were a ghost. Then he laughed, that rough, scraping laugh that used to rattle through the walls of your childhood home.
“Well, well. My baby brother’s a soldier now.”
You raised your rifle. “On the ground.”
He tilted his head, mock-offended. “Oh, you’ve got authority now, huh? That uniform make you feel real?”
“Aiden,” you said flatly. “Don’t make me repeat myself.”
He took a slow step forward, hand over his heart. “Still so calm. Still pretending you’re better than me. Tell me—do they know what you are?”
Behind you, Soap shifted. “The hell’s he on about?”
You didn’t answer. You didn’t blink.
Aiden grinned, teeth stained red. “You remember, don’t you? The rabbit we gutted behind the shed? You wanted to see how long it took for its eyes to dull. You smiled when it stopped moving.”
Your jaw locked. The sound of your own breathing vanished.
“Doctors said we were born wrong,” Aiden continued, voice rising, sharp and wild. “Said we couldn’t feel. And they were right. You don’t feel, do you? You just follow orders, you hollow little puppet.”
He looked past you, to the others. “He’s just like me. Heartless. Empty. The only difference—” he spat, “—is you gave him a gun and a reason to smile while he kills.”
“Enough.”
“Oh, you hate it when I tell the truth?” He stepped closer. “Tell them how you never cried at Mom’s funeral. How you just stood there like you were bored.”
“Shut up.”
“How you practiced your ‘sad face’ in the mirror because you didn’t know what real sadness felt like!”
You moved. Quick, efficient.
The butt of your rifle cracked against his jaw. He went down hard, choking on blood and laughter.
Silence.
You stood over him, breathing evenly. Your heartbeat never spiked. Not once.
Then, you turned.
TF141 stared back.
Soap’s face was tight with something between disgust and confusion. Gaz’s brows furrowed, eyes darting to Aiden and back to you. Ghost’s expression was unreadable behind his mask, but you could feel him watching — evaluating. And Price… he just looked tired. Not shocked, not angry. Just tired.
“Target secured,” you said, voice level.
No one answered.
Ghost cuffed Aiden, still unconscious. Price gave a curt nod, but his gaze lingered — heavy, searching, as though trying to find a trace of the person they thought they knew.
You holstered your weapon.
There was no guilt. No relief. Just the faint itch beneath your skin, the one you always got when people looked at you too long.
You didn’t care if they believed Aiden or not.
But as you followed Price out, the distant sound of your brother’s laugh echoing behind you, one thought crossed your mind:
They finally saw you for what you were.
And none of them would ever unsee it.