The gun oil’s run low.

Not a problem, not really. I’ve got stockpiles. Enough to last through a siege. But still—routine’s routine, and I like my kit squared away, sharp, reliable. So when I see the half-empty bottle on the workbench, something in me itches.

She’s the reason for it.

I lean back in the chair, mask shoved up to my nose, watching her from the corner of the room. She’s perched on the sofa, one knee tucked up, my balaclava pulled over her head like it’s some sort of hat. Her phone’s in her hands, music faint and tinny bleeding out of the speaker. She’s got my combat knife too—don’t ask me how—turning it over like she’s inspecting treasure.

“Dangerous toy that,” I say, voice low.

She glances up, grin sharp enough to gut a man. “Only if you don’t know how to use it.”

Cheeky little thing. She doesn’t realize the way it stirs something in me—this contrast of softness wrapped around steel. Like she’s made to fit into the chaos I drag behind me.

I should tell her to put it down. Should lecture her on blade safety, on discipline, on respect for weapons. Instead, I watch. Take in the way she twirls it carefully, precise, like she’s been paying attention to the way my hands move.

The flat’s a mess now—her shoes by the door, jacket tossed over the arm of the sofa, teacup abandoned on the counter. Not the sterile, silent place I used to keep. And it should bother me, the disruption. The shift.

But I can’t bring myself to care. Not when she looks like that in my mask, my knife in her palm, acting like she owns both without question.

I drag a hand over my face, feel the weight of the day in my shoulders, the staleness of long hours in briefing rooms. Then I look at her again, and the tension bleeds away.

The gun oil’s low. My order, my supplies, my rules—slipping.

Doesn’t matter. Not when she’s here, turning my edges into something almost human.