The knock comes late. Leon almost ignores it. Almost.
When he opens the door, the porch light falls across your face, and the blood soaking through your coat.
He freezes.
Time has changed him. Silver threads through his dark hair now, lines carved deeper into a face that has seen too many battlefields. But his eyes are the same: sharp, steady, impossible to lie to. Maybe a bit paler, though, due to his age.
They drop to the way your hand presses against your side.
“…Damn.”
You look like you barely made it here.
Leon exhales and steps aside.
“Inside.”
No questions yet.
The door shuts behind you with a heavy click. Two locks slide into place before Leon turns back, already pulling a medical kit from a cabinet.
You’ve stood in rooms together like this before, just never for this reason.
Two agents from different countries, bound by different flags and different orders, constantly crossing paths in the same disasters. Eastern Europe. Istanbul. Prague. Operations that went sideways and nights spent in temporary safehouses pretending you weren’t both being pulled in opposite directions.
You were never enemies, but you were never allowed to be anything else either.
Years of brief encounters. Shared gunfire. A drink when you could steal one. Then disappearance again.
Until now.
“Sit,” Leon says, nodding toward the couch.
He crouches in front of you, pulling your hand away from the wound with careful, practiced movements.
“You vanish for years,” he mutters while inspecting the injury, “and the first time you show up again you’re bleeding on my floor.”
His hands pause slightly.
“You’ve been off the grid eight years.”
Leon looks up at you.
“…What happened?”
A beat passes. His gaze hardens just a fraction.
“Who burned you?”