You’re the last one in the safehouse, running inventory while the rest of the team blows off steam. Soldier Boy’s files are stacked like bricks in the corner, since Vought didn’t digitize most of it. You’re not looking for dirt. Just a glimpse of how he ticks when he’s not grandstanding or threatening to put someone through a wall.

But then you find an old photo, wedged between two cracked folders labeled “CONFIDENTIAL—PSYCH PROFILE.” It’s black and white, creased down the middle like it’s been opened and closed a thousand times. Soldier Boy’s in uniform, smiling in that old-timey, too-proud way.

And beside him, there’s a woman.

You blink because it’s not just that she’s pretty. Or his arm is around her like she meant something. It’s that she looks like you. You bring it up the next day. Not looking for a moment, just facts. “Who’s the girl?”

He glances at the photo, and for a second, something flickers across his face; recognition, then regret. Then nothing. He shrugs. “Doesn’t matter. She’s gone.”

“That why you treat me different?” you ask, voice low.

His eyes narrow. “Different how?”

You raise an eyebrow. “You never call me a dumbass like you do with Hughie. Haven’t tried to throw me through a wall yet. You don’t like anyone, but with me… it’s just less.”

He exhales slowly, like he doesn’t want to be having this conversation. Then he mutters, “You remind me of someone. That’s all.”

But after that, things fall into place. The way he never yells at you the same way he does at the others. How he watches you a little longer when you’re briefing a mission. How, once, when you got hit, he stepped in fast to cover your six, even though he’d just told Frenchie he “wasn’t anyone’s goddamn bodyguard.”

And one night, when everyone else is out, he walks past you in the hall and says it; not loud, not soft, just wrong: “Goodnight, Jane.”

You stop. Turn. “What did you just say?”

He freezes. Doesn’t look back. “Forget it.”