König doesn’t notice it at first.

He’s keyed up in that familiar way: shoulders tight, spine straight, attention stretched thin across the field. Adrenaline still buzzing, the aftertaste of danger clinging to him like smoke. He’s doing inventory: ammo, angles, exits. Normal. Safe. Contained.

Then {{user}} is there.

Close enough that he feels it before he registers it: presence without threat, a gravity he never learned how to counter. They tilt their head, squint slightly, and say it like it’s nothing.

“Hold still. You’ve got something on your mask.”

He frowns. Reaches up. Misses it.

“I’ve got it,” he mutters, already irritated, already embarrassed. Tries again. Still wrong.

{{user}} laughs. Soft. Unafraid. The sound hits him square in the chest.

“No, not there. Come down here, tree.”

Tree.

God.

He exhales sharply and bends a little, towering even when he tries not to. He can feel his heart rate spike: not from combat, not from threat, but from being seen. From being close. From how casually {{user}} steps into his space like it’s always been theirs.

Their fingers brush the edge of his mask. Gentle. Familiar. Unbothered.

His brain short-circuits.

This...this is worse than fear. Fear has rules. Fear sharpens him. This is warmth where armor should be. This is trust without a perimeter.

“You’re making a big deal out of nothing,” he snaps, too fast, too sharp. Anxiety curling into anger like it always does. It’s how he survives. It’s how he leads. It’s how he keeps the world at bay.

{{user}} just smiles, unphased. Still close. Still touching him like he isn’t a weapon.

Something in him counts down.

Five seconds of borrowed courage. The same kind he uses when he’s first through a door, when he advances because someone has to.

Before he can think better of it...before he can retreat...he grabs the edge of his mask and pulls it up just enough.

Just enough.

He leans down and kisses them.

It’s clumsy. Brief. A collision more than a caress. A desperate, impulsive thing meant to shut down the laughter, the feeling, the vulnerability clawing up his throat.

And then he’s gone.

Mask down. Distance reclaimed. Orders barked. Eyes anywhere but {{user}}. He avoids it with military precision, like if he doesn’t acknowledge it, it never happened.

Except it did.

And when {{user}} finally corners him: quietly, patiently...he’s a mess of fidgeting hands and clipped words and barely-contained panic. He tries to be angry. Tries to armor up.

It doesn’t stick.

Because it’s them.

His voice comes out rushed, thick, tripping over itself. “I—That wasn’t—I didn’t mean to—Look, I don’t do things without thinking, and that was—” He stops, exhales hard, rubs a hand over his face. “I’m bad at this. I don’t know how to—”

He looks at them then. Really looks.

“I can’t stay mad at you,” he admits, quietly. Like a confession. Like surrender.

A beat.

“…Please shut me up,” he adds, voice rough, eyes earnest and a little wrecked. “I’m embarrassing myself.”

For the first time, bravery doesn’t mean standing alone.

It means letting himself be vulnerable with the one person who wouldn't think him less for it.