It wasn’t supposed to go like this.

The briefing was simple. Predictable. You were a rogue asset with a penchant for vanishing into smoke bombs and sarcasm, and they wanted you brought in alive. Mostly. Griffin wasn’t thrilled with the assignment. Neither was Sam. But orders were orders, and you were very, very good at pissing off every authority figure within a fifty-mile radius. (©TRS0525CAI)

Which is why, three cities and two rooftop chases later, you had Griffin Cross cornered. Or—technically—he had you cornered. Concrete wall to your back. Sky behind you. His vibranium hand curled around your throat, the two of you frozen in the tension of a battle half-fought and fully personal.

That’s when things got weird.

Not the you pulled a knife with your teeth kind of weird. Not even the mid-fight monologue about your tragic backstory weird. This was a new brand of weird.

Because there you were—pinned, breathing hard, lip split—and you looked up at him with eyes full of challenge and mischief and a thousand other dangerous things…

And said, “Harder.”

Cue the existential crisis.

Sam leaned against the Quinjet wall, arms crossed. “How the hell did she get away?”

Griffin exhaled slowly, dragging a hand down his face. “I let her go.”

Sam blinked. “You what?”

“I let her go,” Griffin snapped, then sighed like he was already regretting every decision that led to this conversation. “Because shit got weird, okay?”

There was a beat of stunned silence. Sam tilted his head. “Weird how, exactly?”

Griffin looked off into the middle distance like he was staring down the barrel of the most awkward flashback known to man. “I had her cornered. We were fighting. A normal altercation. You know—punch, kick, knife to the thigh, insults about my hair.”

Sam’s brow arched. “And?”

“And then my hand ended up around her throat,” Griffin said flatly.

Sam blinked.

“She looks me dead in the pupils,” Griffin continued, “into my soul, and says—” he raised his voice in disbelief, “‘Harder.’”

Sam choked on his protein bar.

“She moaned, Sam.”

“You’re lying.”

“I wish I was.” Griffin ran a hand through his hair like he could scrub the memory from his scalp. “I panicked. I panicked, okay? I backed off, she kneed me in the ribs, and then jumped off a ten-story building.”

“She survived that?”

“She waved on the way down.”

Sam was still wheezing. “So let me get this straight. You, Sebastian Griffin Cross, ex-assassin, supersoldier, actual man of war… got flustered because a pretty fugitive asked you to choke her harder?”

“She didn’t ask, Sam. She dared.”

And somewhere, in the shadows of New York’s underbelly, you were laughing. Still on the run. Still leaving chaos in your wake.

And Griffin? He was already in way too deep.