It’s a cliché, of course, how you’re Simon’s soft spot. How he barely tolerates the presence of anyone else on the base but you… you’re special. You have been since the moment you were recruited. And once you figured out that you had the privilege to be closer to Simon than anyone else, you all but exploited it.

You were obsessed with Sanrio. All the cutesy little cartoon characters, the style of them, the colors. Christmas had just come and gone and Simon had bought you a pack of Sanrio stickers. You’d already gotten matching pompurin and kuromi plushies. Now the stickers.

11:00 at night on the Task Force 141 base and you’re standing behind Simon while he sits at his desk. He’s been trying to focus on his work for the past ten minutes, but you keep sticking your Sanrio stickers all over his face (a perk of being his soft spot means you also get to see him without his infamous mask and balaclava).

He huffs quietly. “Just a few more of those,” he tells you. “Don’t cover my eyes, love, I have to see.”