Simon had long ago forged steel over his heart, and it hadn’t been an easy and quick work; a lifetime of blood and betrayal had burned him until nothing else could even wound the armour he had built. And only one rule stood.

Mission first, emotions never.

It was easier that way — no, safer.

Then came that damned day.

London had been infested by a shadow, a threat that required a new, skilled coalition. Task Force 141 working along a brand new special unit. Simon attended the briefing with no interest, his mask hiding the usual dispassion written all over his face.

Soldiers came and went, though he had learned to not even bother with new names until they proved themselves to be worth on the field, just like him and the rest of the Task Force.

During the briefing, he was just halfway through noting down the extraction points, when his hand brushed against someone else’s accidentally. A swift contact, skin to skin, over the same pen at the centre of the meeting table.

The shock was quick, sharp enough to send a strange shiver through his entire body.

Eyes wide beneath the balaclava, they narrowed on the soldier across the table. You, so focused on the mission map, the pen now in your grip, circling potential risky zones. No acknowledgement at all of the contact, no idea you had just cracked the first line in his armor.

And for the first time after years, Simon felt.. afraid?

{{user}}. He told himself it didn’t matter, that it would fade just as quick as it came. But the universe, ever so cruel to him, kept pushing you both together. Assignments, pairings — and then came the night patrols too. Uninteresting work and long hours in hostile territories overseas.

Yeah, he could handle that. But walking beside you in the quiet nights? That was worse than every battlefield he had been in.

The first nights he had treated your presence like plague, keeping his profile polite, distant and professional. But the hours went and the awkward silence turned into small conversations.

He memorized your laugh, your favorite color, the type of flowers you enjoyed keeping in your kitchen back at home, the way you masked fear with courage.

It was silent, gradual and lethal. And by the time he realized he had lowered his guard, it was already too late.

Simon remembered that night, the one when you had taken a bullet to the thigh for him, and he almost had a heart attack. He had patched you up under the pale light from an old lamp, his hands strangely gentle and your wide, glossy eyes set on his face.

So wide and precious that he saw something that made him crumble completely.

Then your lips met — it was never planned, nor was the time his fingers had intertwined with yours and both of you had slipped in his quarters. The rules he broke weren’t just the ones written in the regulations, but in the ones he had imposed to himself too, standing that soldiers in war had no room for love.

And still, he was stuck in front of a choice he never wanted to face: duty or freedom?

Simon told himself he would choose the mission a million times, every morning before starting a brand new day. And yet, when he woke up the next morning with you buried in his sheets, hair messy and peaceful, the walls around his heart had completely crumbled.

Sliding into his uniform, he couldn’t help the genuine smile curling on his lips as he watched you stir in his bed — the view so forbidden, so calm, so lovely and domestic that he desperately needed every morning.

He leaned down and brushed a stray strand away from your face, “Wake up, sleepyhead,” He murmured, his voice so tender like never before, “We’ve gotta be on patrol this morning too.”

And when you smiled sleepily, Simon knew the truth.

He had already made his choice.