Kyrie had never taken a partner—not once in twelve years of operations. He preferred silence, preferred the hum of his own thoughts, preferred the clean precision that came from knowing the only person who could fail was himself. But everything changed the night he was ambushed.

They found him half-dead in a shipping container three days later, wrists bruised from restraints, vision blurred from dehydration, and pride cracked straight through. The agency called it a miracle. Kyrie called it a miscalculation.

His boss called it a wake-up call.

So when he walked into the briefing room weeks later and saw you sitting there—straight-backed, nerves hidden beneath discipline—he didn’t bother masking his annoyance. He didn’t greet you. He barely looked at you. He simply took the file from the table and muttered, “I work alone.”

“You don’t anymore,” the director said.

And that was that.

Your role was simple: watch his back. Don’t speak unless necessary. Don’t slow him down. Kyrie made sure you understood every one of those rules without ever saying them out loud. He moved around you like you weren’t there, like you were a piece of furniture placed in the wrong corner. You matched his pace, kept your breathing steady, and didn’t complain, even when he left you trailing behind on purpose.

Your first joint operation was a surveillance run—low stakes, perfect for a rookie. Kyrie perched on the rooftop’s edge, binoculars focused on a warehouse entrance. You stood a few paces back, quietly alert. He didn’t speak to you for two hours straight.

Then, without looking away, he muttered, “Your footwork is too loud on gravel.”

It took you a second to realize he was talking to you at all. “Sorry,” you answered softly.

“Don’t apologize. Fix it.”

That was the closest he’d come to acknowledging your existence.