Slade didn’t tell stories.

Not the kind meant to comfort. Not the kind that softened the edges of what he’d done or what had been done to him. His past wasn’t something he revisited for nostalgia.

It was a record.

A list of decisions.

Mistakes.

Tonight, though—

He talked.

The room was dim, shadows stretching long across the walls while the quiet settled in around them. Slade sat back against the headboard, one arm resting loosely at his side, the other brushing absently along the scar that cut through where his eye used to be.

His gaze didn’t quite settle anywhere.

“People like to assume it was a clean loss,” he said, voice low and even. “Sniper shot. Explosion. Something quick.”

A faint pause.

His fingers stilled against the scar.

“It wasn’t.”

The words came flat.

Unembellished.

He tilted his head slightly, jaw tightening just enough to show there was more behind it than he was saying outright.

“Close quarters,” he continued. “Too close.”

His eye shifted, finally focusing somewhere in front of him—like he could still see it playing out.

“I miscalculated.”

Another pause.

Short.

Controlled.

“They took advantage of it.”

Silence stretched for a moment before he exhaled slowly through his nose, hand dropping away from his face.

“Lesson stuck.”

His tone didn’t change.

Didn’t soften.

But the weight of it settled heavy in the room anyway.

Slade leaned his head back slightly against the wall, gaze drifting again.

“Don’t get careless,” he added, quieter now.

A beat.

“…Costs more than you think.”