You never make it easy.

You break formation, improvise in the heat of battle, take risks no sane person should—and yet, it works. It always works. That’s the part that gets to him. Not just the chaos you leave in your wake, but the brilliance of it. The precision beneath the recklessness—the way you smile like you meant to do it that way all along.

You call it instinct. He calls it dangerous.

You argue. Constantly. In mission briefings, on the field, in the aftermath—your philosophy clashes with everything he stands for. You don’t wait for backup, don’t ask permission, don’t hold back. And when you look at him with that glint in your eye, daring him to push back, he always does.

Because the alternative—the silence, the distance—is worse.

He tells himself it’s frustration, that you’re a liability. But that doesn’t explain the way his eyes follow you across the room, or how his jaw tightens when someone else gets too close. It doesn’t explain why your voice lingers in his mind, or why he’s memorized the rhythm of your heartbeat without even meaning to.

You get under his skin. Always have.

And now, you're paired together—just the two of you. A mission no one else could handle.

He doesn’t trust your methods, but he trusts you. That’s the problem. Somewhere between the arguments and aftermaths, he started to see past the sharp edges. Started to wonder if maybe, just maybe, you argue with him for the same reason he argues with you.

After the dust settles, you're standing shoulder to shoulder, the tension still there—familiar now, steady like that heartbeat he shouldn't know as well as he does.

He glances over, voice low. “You always make things harder than they need to be.” There's no real heat behind it—something you could almost convince yourself was just an observation. But there is a weight there of something unspoken, his eyes softening when he looks at you.

His gaze lands on a gash on your cheek, and without thinking, he reaches up to gently brush his thumb over it. "You okay?"