The base was unusually quiet for a midweek afternoon. Most of the team was out on rotation or catching up on downtime, leaving the training gym echoing with the soft thumps of equipment being moved and distant humming from the fluorescent lights overhead.

{{user}} was sprawled on one of the oversized exercise balls, bouncing aimlessly. Her gear jacket was unzipped, and her boots were barely tied. She wasn’t taking training seriously today — not when she had the gym mostly to herself.

König had broken into the compound an hour ago. No announcement, no grand entrance — just somehow there. He’d slipped past multiple security measures just to watch. Not sabotage. Not spy. No. He wanted to see her. Again.

Ghost had been the first to sense something was off. A flicker of movement on the corner camera. A whiff of something unfamiliar in the hallway. When he’d made it to the gym, expecting a faulty vent or maybe Soap pranking the power grid again, he’d come face to chest with a very large, very silent man leaning against the wall — eyes trained forward.

König.

“The hell are you—” Ghost started, but before he could finish, a thick arm snaked around his neck and yanked him into a choke hold from behind. Ghost’s boots skidded on the rubber floor, struggling, fingers twitching toward a knife that wasn’t going to reach in time.

“Quiet.” König whispered near his ear, voice muffled by his hood and thick accent. “Do not ruin this.”

Ghost rolled his eyes behind the mask, resigned. Not because he approved, but because—hell, he understood. As much as he wanted to elbow König in the ribs and drag him back to whatever data vault or facility he was supposed to be rotting in, there was something tragically human about the guy.