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robert "bob" floyd

Make It Proper | part two

Chestnuts & Naked Cookies

thoughts

drunk!bob

bottom!bob

mickey "fanboy" garcia

Subatomic Particles

jake "hangman" seresin

Loverboy

carmen "carmy" berzatto

Carry You Away With Me

bucky "winter soldier" barnes

Steel Blue

Out Of Mind

If Without You | part two

Completely

Safe With Me

Bittersweet

Other People

Lost & Found

stucky

Nothing Else Matters

steve "captain america" rogers

Star Spangled Singer | part two

sam "falcon" wilson

On A Leash

Fifty Bucks

scott "ant-man" lang"

88 Miles Per Hour

simon "ghost" riley

The Anatomy of a Weapon series masterlist

The 0600 briefing had been brief, clinical, and entirely too early in the morning for anybody’s liking. 

Price had laid out the schematics on the digital screen, harsh blue light illuminating the subterranean veins of an abandoned border town. Operation: Deep Water. Intel had pinned down an underground subway network being used by a hostile cell to smuggle chemicals. The team’s directive was to descend into the flooded transit line, locate the crates, neutralize the cell, and get the hell out of there.

As you sat at the edge of the long mess hall table, staring down at your untouched plate of plain eggs and toast —which you sprinkled whatever spice you could find on top, so not entirely sure how plain it’d taste— the details of the briefing kept looping in your head. 

Subterranean. Close-quarters combat in pitch-black conditions. Water up to your knees.

A proper fucking nightmare, in short.

Your mind instinctively mapped out the horrors. Subway stations meant endless blind spots, tiled corridors what would make every splash of water and footstep echo like a damn gunshot, narrow, flooded tunnels with absolutely zero room for error. A tactical meat grinder ready to make a whole burger out of you. Yeah.

A few years back, the mere thought of being trapped in a dark, windowless underground labyrinth would have made the walls of the room close in on your chest, making your hands shake before you even touched a mag. 

But today, your hands were perfectly steady. Perks of the task force.

Heavy scuffs of a boot broke your train of thought. You didn’t have to look up to know who it was, his gait was a perfect tell, and lately, one person over anybody else kept seeking you out. The sheer physical gravity of his presence always seemed to reach you a second before he did, too.

Simon slid onto the low wooden bench next to yours, his choice of sitting beside you rather than across noted down somewhere in your head, his massive frame instantly blocking out the noise of the waking mess hall. You loved how he kept creating a quiet, private pocket of space just for the two of you whenever he was near. He was stripped down to a simple black shirt, scarred forearms bare against the edge of the table. He hadn’t brought a tray. Just a fresh mug of steaming black coffee.

Without so much as a word, he rolled the bottom of his balaclava up past his chin, exposing the sharp line of his jaw and the pale, soft skin —save for a few days’ stubble— framing his mouth. He didn’t turn away to take his first sip, like he did for many months before. He just sat there, completely unbothered, letting you take a small look at one fraction of a man behind the Ghost because he knew you wouldn’t hold a shred of pity in your gaze.

If anything, you were staring right at his lips, and you could only break that trance when you noticed them curling into a smirk.

“You’re tearing that toast to pieces,” he murmured, his deep rasp incredibly low, meant strictly for your ears.

You blinked, looking down to realize your fingers had mindlessly shredded the piece of bread into a pile of crumbs on your plate. A small, faint ghost of a smirk tugged at your mouth as you dusted your hands off. “Jus’ mapping out the subway lines, Simon.” on the clock, technically, but you couldn’t possibly think of insubordination whilst half his face was in your view.

“Mm. Quiet tunnels,” he spoke casually, taking another slow sip of his coffee. He leaned his weight back against the edge of the table. “No wind, leaves rustlin’ or such. Just you, the sightline, and whatever’s in front of your muzzle.”

“And freezing shit water up to our knees.” you reminded him, turning your head slightly to meet his icy blue eyes.

“Good thing I patched the seals on your tactical boots last night, then,” he said, his tone entirely deadpan, though the faint smile on his lips told you what you needed to know. 

Your heart did a sudden, sharp flutter behind your ribs. He hadn’t told you he’d done that. While you were asleep, he must’ve quietly gone into the locker room, taken your gear, and ensured you wouldn’t be freezing in the dark. Carrying his side of the weight of the life that you shared.

“Thank you,” you said softly.

Simon didn’t answer with much, settling for a single, firm nod, rolling the balaclava back down to cover his jaw after draining the last of his mug. The small talk was over. Off the clock comfort faded slightly, making way for the cold, lethal synch of the 141.

“Finishing your breakfast?” he asked, rising to his full, towering height.

“Done,” you said, standing up with him, knees tracking right beside his as you left the mess hall behind. 

The armory cage was dead quiet compared to the rest of the base, the metallic tang of solvent and gun oil filling the air— a smell that no longer made you feel sick. You and Simon worked at the main steel workbench side by side, with no words between you. When you reached your left hand, Simon placed a heavy-duty tactical flashlight into your palm. When he leaned back to adjust the tension on his heavy plate carrier, you stepped into his space without asking, fingers moving efficiently to tighten the heavy nylon straps over his shoulders, pulling until the vest sat perfectly flush against his massive chest.

He didn’t stiffen like he used to. Now, he’d only stand perfectly still, like he was used to the proximity already.

You picked your rifle up, sliding the bolt carrier group back with a sharp clack. You checked the alignment of your red-dot optic, hands entirely steady as you locked a fresh magazine into the mag well. Simon watched you from beneath the shadow of his skull plate, eyes tracking every functional movement of your fingers. He reached into his drop-leg rig, pulled out an extra breaching charge, and silently slid it into the side pouch of your vest. Blink, and you’d miss the way his gloved knuckles lingered for a fraction of a second against your chest plate.

“Ready?” his deep voice rumbled through the cage, Simon letting the Lieutenant, the Ghost, man, myth, whatever, take the reins. 

You slid the small earpiece into your ear, tucking it there until it was solid. “Born ready, LT.”

“Good,” Ghost muttered, picking up his own weapon and slinging it across his chest with an easy grace. He caught your eye one last time before heading toward the exit. “Tarmac in ten. Let’s go turn the lights out on ‘em.”

The roar of the transport plane’s engines was a deafening, vibrating wall of sound that rattled straight through the soles of your boots and into your teeth. 

The interior of the fuselage was bathed in a dim, tactical red glow, which casted long and eerie shadows across the metal ribs of the aircraft. Outside the small windows, a thunderstorm was tearing through the night sky, throwing the massive plane around like a toy. Every few seconds, the aircraft would drop into a pocket of turbulence, forcing your harness to bite hard into your collarbones.

You sat on the netting seat, knees almost brushing against the heavy crates of equipment strapped down in the center aisle. Across from you sat the rest of the 141. Gaz was methodically checking the seals on his waterproof kit, Soap was tapping a rhythmic beat against his thigh, and Price was chewing on an unlit cigar, his eyes fixed on a digital tablet displaying the maps of the sunken metro. 

And right beside you was Simon. Or rather, the Ghost.

Even in the cramped, shaking belly of the plane, his frame was an unyielding anchor. He sat perfectly still, rifle resting flat across heavy thighs, large hands resting over the handguard. The printed balaclava and the skull plate were back in place, blocking out the humanity you’d seen in the mess hall hours ago. He was the Ghost now. Cold. Unshakeable. Lethal. But as the plane took a violent lurch to the left, his heavy shoulder firmly pressed against yours— as deliberately as it could be without being too obvious. You didn’t look at him, he didn’t look at you, but the familiar heat of just having him near you instantly cleared the baseline anxiety rising in your chest.

Price tapped the screen of his tablet, blue light reflecting off his rugged features as he looked up at the team. 

“Listen up,” the Captain’s voice barked through the internal comms loop, cutting through the engines. “We’re five minutes out from the drop zone. The storm is knocking out the local power grid above ground, which means the subways are going to be pitch-black and flooded, up to the knees if we’re lucky. Hostile cell is dug in deep near the central maintenance junction.”

You reached up, tapping the small button on your headset to dial into the frequency, adjusting the microphone close to your lips. “Comms check. How’s my read, Captain?”

“Loud and clear, kid,” Price replied, giving you a sharp nod.

“Got ya loud and clear down here, sunshine,” Soap chimed in, cutting his eyes toward you with a quick, subtle wink that told you he was glad to see how high your head was held. How you sat with more confidence than ever. You flashed a grin at him. 

“Solid on my end,” Gaz added, adjusting his night-vision goggles down over his eyes.

“Ghost, status?” Price asked.

Simon reached up, gloved fingers tapping his headset with a slow click. His deep rasp flooded the comms loop. “Green across the board. Comms are secure.” he turned his head a fraction towards you. “Weapon’s hot. Ready to turn the lights out.”

Price nodded, sliding the tablet into his vest pocket and gripping the overhead ceiling rail as the plane took another bounce. “Alright. I want us moving in tight, two-man elements to clear the sectors before we converge on the chemical crates.”

Price pointed his gloved finger toward Gaz. “Gaz, you’re on point for the western maintenance stairs, I’m pairing you with—” then, his gaze found you.

“Negative.”

The word cut through the comms like a snapped wire. It wasn’t loud, no, but the authoritative gravity of Simon’s voice made the entire cabin go dead quiet, even with the loud engines.

Gaz stopped mid-motion, his hand pausing on his visor. Soap’s jaw was practically dropped, eyes darting instantly from Simon to you, a massive, knowing grin completely taking over his face. Price slowly lowered his hand, eyebrows shooting up beneath the brim of his boonie hat as he stared at his Lieutenant.

“Excuse me, Ghost?” Price asked, his tone dropping into a dangerous, questioning rumble. You don’t negative your Captain’s orders five minutes out from the drop zone. You just don’t.

“She’s with me,” Simon rumbled back, completely unbothered by the sudden spike of tension in the cabin. He didn’t even shift an inch, nor did he offer a polite explanation or a standard request. He was just staring dead-ahead at Price. “We’ve dialed in the synchronization on the breaches back at base. She knows how to sweep without crossing me. Gaz can take MacTavish.”

“Hey! Who said I wanted to be paired with the guy who can’t even clear a room ahead of schedule?” Soap protested loudly, though the sheer mischief in his voice proved he was entirely enjoying the shitshow.

Price ignored Soap, sharp eyes cutting a hard path between you and Simon. He took a good look at you. Your posture. Steady hands. Then at the rigid, protective stance of the Ghost sitting right at your shoulder. A silent communication passed between the Captain and his Lieutenant— one born of decades of warfare.

Price let out a low huff, a quiet, knowing chuckle escaping as he shook his head, pulling his cigar to the side of his mouth. “Alright,” he muttered, reaching to grab the heavy red handle of the jump door as the warning siren suddenly began to wail through the cabin. The back ramp slowly started to lower, revealing the pitch-black abyss of the rain-soaked night outside. “Rosters stand as amended. Ghost, you and the kid take the eastern tunnels. Hold the line, cover each other’s six, and don’t get sloppy.”

Simon closed his gloved fingers tightly around the handguard of the rifle, shoulder giving yours one last bump before he stood up into the roaring wind. “Roger that, Captain,” he murmured, then, his voice dropped an octave and became that rough, honest whisper meant for you. “Let’s get to work.”

You unclipped your harness, standing up in unison with Simon. The plane took a dip as it hit a thermal pocket, but your feet stayed planted. You adjusted your goggles down, the world shifting into a grainier, high-contrast green. Simon stepped up to the edge of the ramp first, and checked his primary weapon, tapped his chest plate, and stepped off into the abyss.

You didn’t hesitate either. You followed him right down the throat of the storm.

The drop was short. Rain hammered against your visor like gravel, the wind tearing at your gear until the static line snapped your chute open. A minute of suffocating, blind navigation through the clouds later, your boots hit the muddy, waterlogged tarmac of the border town with a heavy thud. You cut the riser straps instantly, dropping the canopy into the muck, and raised your rifle, sweeping the perimeter.

Through the green tint of your optics, you spotted him three meters ahead. He was already up, a knee in the mud, rifle locked into his shoulder as he covered your sector. 

“Ghost to Bravo-Six,” after a click on the comms. “We’re on the ground. Moving up to eastern transit entrance now.”

“Copy that, Ghost,” Price’s voice crackled through the static. “We’re hitting the western stairs. See you at the junction.”

Simon rose, giving you a quick, sharp motion with his hand. You fell into stride right behind him, moving like a shadow just like him through the derelict streets. The town was a graveyard of some sort— no lights, no civilian movement, nothing at all. Just the relentless downpour pooling in the gutters.

He led the way to a crumbling concrete structure jutting out of the pavement, the entrance to the transit system. The iron gate had been blown off its hinges, hanging loosely from a single rusted bolt. Below it, the stairwell descended into an absolute, pitch-black vacuum. From the depths, the heavy, hollow echo of water flow could be heard.

Simon paused at the threshold, frame blocking the entrance for a brief second. He turned his head just enough to catch your eye through the visor. “Tight angles,” he murmured over the direct comms. “Watch your step. Water’s moving fast down there.”

“Roger,” you whispered back, heart rate elevated but steady. Your breathing was a calm cycle. Perfect control.

You descended together.

The air turned thick instantly, stagnant, and freezing cold, smelling heavily of rusted iron and stagnant river silt. By the time you hit the bottom platform, the water was already sloshing violently against your shins, the current pulling at your trousers. The white beams of your tactical lights reflected off the slick subway tiles and casted distorted shadows down the length of the tunnel.

It was an echo chamber. Every splash of your boots felt too loud to be safe, but you matched his cadence perfectly, stepping when he stepped, neutralizing the noise as much as you possibly could.

The tunnel stretched out ahead. Ten meters in, the first structural obstacle appeared, a massive, rusted steel doorframe leading into a secondary maintenance corridor. Simon slowed his pace, shoulders dropping slightly as he approached to the left side of the frame. You smoothly transitioned into his right, kept your muzzle low, sweeping the blind spot behind the heavy iron door while Simon took the high angle, his barrel tracking the corridor. The room was clear. No targets.

Simon lowered his rifle just an inch, jaw shifting beneath the skull print as he looked at you. “Thought you’d drop your stance,” he rumbled softly into the comms, throwing the kitchen critique back into the mix.

“Told you, Simon,” you murmured back, a faint smirk tugging at your lips behind your mask as you kept your weapon raised. “I’m adjusting for the space.”

“Good,” Ghost muttered, the Lieutenant returning in a flash as a distant, metallic clink echoed from the far end of the flooded rail line. The hostiles were close. He raised his rifle. “Room’s about to get loud.”

About ten minutes later, the central maintenance junction looked like a subterranean slaughterhouse. 

The initial ambush had turned the corridors into a localized hell. Muzzle flashes detonated in the dark while the deafening roar of automatic gunfire bounced off the concrete ceiling. You and Simon managed to move like a single terrifying entity— but then a desperate enemy combatant had blind-fired a heavy grenade launcher into the structural pillars.

The explosion had been a blinding flash of orange head, followed by the low-frequency groan of collapsing reinforced concrete. The ceiling had caved in with a thunderous roar, dropping tons of debris, steel rebar and dust into the rushing water, completely severing your line of sight from Price and Soap and rendering the main comms loop into a wall of static.

Worse, the shockwave had triggered the emergency lockdown protocols of the facility. A heavy, industrial iron security grate had slammed down from the ceiling with a violent clang, locking securely into the concrete floor. 

You were trapped on the other side. Alone. In the dark. With the echo of approaching hostile footsteps splashing through the water toward your position.

Where is she, where the hell is she?

Inside Simon’s skull, the cold Lieutenant had managed to turn to ash. The moment that iron grate had slammed down, cutting off his view of your tactical light, the hollow vacuum behind his ribs had ruptured into a frantic heat. He couldn’t hear you over the static. He couldn’t feel your shoulder against his. 

He didn’t care about chemical crates at that moment, Price’s orders were reduced to mere afterthoughts. The Ghost persona buckled under the primitive terror of worrying about you. He was losing his mind, the ticking clock in his head deafening him as he heard the distant clack of an enemy rifle chambering a round on your side of the wall.

You, however, refrained from panic. Backing up against the slick tiles, you felt the extra branching charge Simon had tucked into your vest back at the base. You ripped the plastic explosive from your pouch, slapped it against a secondary drywall partition that led into the hostiles’ blind flank, and blew it.

The drywall shattered. You stepped directly through the smoke, weapon hot, and caught the incoming hostile fireteam completely off-guard, systematically clearing the room all by yourself. 

On the other side of the iron gate, Simon didn’t have a breaching charge left.

With a raw, animalistic growl that tore right through his throat and into the dead air of the tunnel, he threw his rifle to the side and slammed his massive, gloved hands into the horizontal gaps of the iron security grate. His boots dug into the rushing water, heavy muscles straining until the fabric of his black combat shirt underneath threatened to rip across his shoulders. He didn’t have time to think about all that, then. He just thought about the ice in your eyes that he’d spent so much time trying to melt, and he refused to let the dark take it back.

With a screeching groan of protesting metal, Simon pulled.

The hydraulic gears inside the ceiling shrieked, sparks flying from the housing unit as he manually overrode the locking mechanism with brute physical force. The iron teeth of the gate ground against the concrete, bending and bucking out of their tracks until the mechanism finally snapped with a loud pop, as Simon heaved the grate forward, showing it into the ceiling frame until it jammed open.

He lunged through the opening, splashing loudly into the water, hand already reaching for the sidearm, ready to tear the room apart.

He froze, instead.

The room was already quiet. You were standing in the center of the flooded space, your boots planted firmly in the rushing water, your rifle raised and covering the far door. Three hostiles lay neutralized around you. Simon stood there, his chest rising and falling in violent, ragged gasps under his vest. He stared at you through the green tint of his optics. He looked like a man who had just dragged himself out of a grave.

Alive. Breathing.

The relief hit Simon so hard it made his knees feel weak beneath his weight—a sensation he hadn't felt since he was a boy. The frantic, screaming noise in his head died down into a thrumming hum, leaving him entirely exposed to the gravity of how much he cared. He didn't have the words to describe it, and he didn't have the manual answer to hide it anymore. He just knew that if that gate hadn't opened, there wouldn't have been anything left of the Ghost to salvage.

Slowly, Simon walked through the water until he was standing inches away from you, towering silhouette blocking out the smoke. He reached out, his gloved hand coming up to rest flat against the side of your neck— exactly like he had in the armory, calloused and utterly unyielding. His thumb gave a heavy twitch against your jaw, his eyes searching yours behind the skull plate, demanding that you look at him. 

I’m here, his eyes meant to say. You did fucking well but I’m here now.

Before you could whisper his name, the heavy crunch of boots and the splash of water signaled Price and Soap finally breaking through the rubble from the western stairs.

"Ghost! Kid! Report!" Price’s voice barked as he stepped into the light, his rifle raised.

Soap and Gaz followed right behind him, their eyes immediately darting from the buckled, ruined iron gate to the way Simon was standing right in your space, his hand still at the back of your neck. Johnny stopped mid-stride, the usual joke jamming in his throat. For once in his life, Johnny MacTavish wisely chose to keep his mouth shut, a soft, serious smile tugging at the corner of his mouth as he lowered his weapon. 

Simon gave your neck one last, firm squeeze, forcing the reality of the present into your bones, before he slowly turned his head toward the Captain. "Sector is clear, Price," Simon rumbled, "Chemical crates are secured. Let's get the hell out of the dark." 

The base was entirely dead by the time the post-mission debriefing finally wrapped at 0300. 

The rest of the team had scattered to their quarters, desperate to wash the stench of stagnant transit water and cordite out of their skin. You’d done the same, scrubbing the mud from your hair under a scalding shower until your skin was raw, changing into a clean, oversized black t-shirt and grey sweatpants. Despite the bone-deep exhaustion, your mind wouldn’t shut off.

Every time you closed your eyes, you heard the screech of hydraulic gears bending out of their tracks. You saw Simon lunging through the smoke, looking like a monster dragged out of a grave, chest heaving with a terror he never should have felt. 

You knew he hadn’t gone to the med-bay. He’d given Price a flat, clipped “I’m fine” when the Captain noticed him favoring his right side on the exfil chopper. 

You grabbed a small ice pack from the mess hall freezer, wrapped it in a clean dish towel, and walked straight down the silent corridor toward the back of the armory cage.

The lights were off, save for the single, low-wattage desk lamp illuminating the workbench in the very back.

Simon was there, sitting on a metal stool. He had stripped off his tactical vest and combat shirt, wearing only a sleeveless black undershirt that left his chest and shoulders bare. The skull balaclava was rolled up to sit snugly around his forehead like a makeshift sweatband, exposing his entire face under the low light— the sharp, tense line of his jaw, the rough stubble, and the heavy shadows beneath his eyes. The absolute beauty in all of them.

He was holding a tube of muscle ointment in his left hand, trying clumsily to reach over his own back to rub it into his right shoulder blade. His right arm was tucked tightly against his ribs, jaw clenched into a hard, rigid line as his muscles protested the movement.

The short scuff of your sneakers made him freeze, and turn his head away. “It’s three in the morning,” he spoke, seemingly knowing who you’d be without even looking. “Go to sleep.”

“You skipped med-bay,” you said simply, walking right past the threshold of the cage and stepping into the low circle of amber light.

“I’m fine,” he muttered, his shoulder giving an involuntary twitch that made the tendons in his neck tighten with pain. "Just a tight muscle. Pack it in." 

You walked straight up to the workbench instead, set the wrapped ice pack down on the steel, and picked up the tube of muscle ointment. You were standing behind him when you clicked the cap open, squeezed a generous amount into your palms, and rubbed your hands together to warm it up. 

Simon’s breathing was deep and measured. For a second, his weight shifted as if he was going to stand up and walk out in typical Ghost fashion. “Sit still, Simon,” you murmured softly. A low, defeated sigh hissed through his teeth. He let his head drop forward slightly, broad shoulders relaxing just a fraction of an inch as you laid your hands flat against his freckled skin.

You kept your touch firm, using the heels of your palms to dig into the tight, knotted muscle. A low groan vibrated deep through Simon’s chest as you hit the center of the strain.

“You’re lucky you didn’t tear a tendon,” you said quietly, thumbs smoothing out a hard knot near his neck. “What you did out there… it was completely against the manual, Lieutenant.”

“For the last time,” he rumbled, voice slightly muffled as he stared down at the floor. “Off the clock, it’s Simon.”

“You shouldn’t have done it. I had the breaching charge. I was handling it.”

For a long, heavy beat, the only sound in the armory was the low hum of the desk lamp. Then, slowly, Simon turned his massive frame around on the stool, forcing your hands to drop from his back. He reached up, his large fingers wrapping firmly around your wrist, stopping you from stepping away as he pulled you a step closer in between his legs. He looked up at you, his face completely exposed in the dim light, intensity of his gaze pinning you right to the floor.

"I couldn't hear you breathing," he whispered.

The words were rough, scraped raw from the back of his throat, carrying a confession so heavy it made your breath hitch. Or rather, it knocked the breath out of you.

The beauty. Oh, how pretty a thing, that he was hiding.

For a moment, you forgot what you had expected to find under the mask. Scars, maybe. Something brutal. Something that matched the name Ghost.

But Simon’s face was not monstrous. It was stark and pale and devastatingly human and oh, so, so pretty. Sharp cheekbones, a strong nose, a mouth set like he had spent his whole life holding back words he never trusted anyone enough to say. His hair was fair and mussed from the mask, skin marked by old violence and its scars, but none of it made him ugly.

God help you, he was beautiful.

Not in an easy way, though. Not in the way men in pictures were beautiful. Simon was beautiful like a blade was beautiful— cold at first glance, dangerous, finely made. And then his eyes met yours, blue and bare and uncertain, and all the danger seemed to fall away.

You saw him then. Not Ghost. Just Simon.

And he looked almost afraid of being seen.

"The comms went to static, the gate went down, and all I could think about was the dark in that room," Simon continued, his thumb giving a slow rub against the inside of your wrist, feeling your pulse there. “I would tear that bloody wall down brick by brick if it meant getting you out.”

You looked down at the hand on your wrist, then back up to his icy blues, realizing the weight of what Johnny had told you in the hangar. Being human again is a bloody terrifying thing for him. 

“I held it, Simon.” you murmured, voice dropping to an honest whisper as you whispered a half-inch closer into his space. “Held my lane, because I knew you were on the other side.”

Simon stared at you for a long, breathless moment, jaw setting as he processed the words. His eyes closed when your palms found the sides of his face, cradling it, whilst he exhaled a breath so deep he must’ve been holding it for decades.

“I’m always going to be on the other side.”

hiiiiiiiiii!! please lmk what you feel. i love you.

Johnny “Soap” MacTavish was one of those people who didn’t necessarily have all the social clues in the room at once, but nobody could hold it against him, really. He wasn’t the type of man to try to read between the lines while he could just let his effortless charm do the work. That’s why a lot of the people he served with liked him, really, things were often more lighthearted than not with him. But even he could sense that something was wrong this time. 

It took a whole four days for Johnny to finally snap.

Four days of you acting like a ghost— ironic, considering the man you were avoiding. In briefings, you sat rigid, eyes locked on the tactical maps —or anywhere but Simon, for that matter— with your voice a clipped “Copy that, Lieutenant” “Roger” whenever Simon spoke to you. And Simon was somehow even worse, he’d retreated so deeply into the Ghost persona that the rest of the 141 was practically walking on eggshells. He was a silent, lethal storm of a man rolling through the corridors, radiating “Fuck you, don’t talk to me” that could peel the paint right off the walls.

You were in the hangar bay after hours, organizing a crate of flashbangs just to give your hands something to do, when a shadow fell over your workspace.

You didn’t look up, immediately assuming the worst, since the worst had a knack for cornering you around the unpopulated spots of the base. “I’m functional, Lieutenant. Just inventorying.”

“Good thing I’m a Sergeant, then,” Soap’s voice cut through the hum. 

You blinked, finally looking up to see Johnny leaning against the metal racking, his arms crossed over his chest. He wasn’t wearing his usual shit-eating grin. His big blue eyes were dead-serious, his brow furrowed as he looked down at you.

“Step away from anything explosive, lass. We’re having a chat.”

“I’m on a timeline, Sergeant,” you said flatly, keeping your hands busy still, holding a small notepad whilst you counted the canisters again. “If the inventory isn’t logged by—”

“I don’t give a bloody toss about the inventory,” Soap interrupted, his brogue heavy as he heaved a sigh. He stepped forward, putting his hand gently but firmly over the top of the crate, forcing you to stop. “What the hell is going on between you and the big man?”

“Big man who?” you tried, but the roll of his eyes told you that wouldn’t stick. “Okay, fine— nothing, we’re maintaining standard operational protocol. He’s the LT, I’m the soldier.”

“Don’t give me that textbook shite,” with a scoff, Soap shook his head. “You two are freezing the whole bloody base out. He looks just about to murder a punching bag every time you leave the room. Did something happen after the interrogation?”

“The interrogation was fine,” you lied, looking away, your fingers tightening around the notepad. “I had a moment in the armory. I got over it. Like a proper soldier.”

“Lass—”

“Seriously, Johnny, it’s fine,” you pushed back, voice rising just a fraction, a desperate attempt to change the subject and talk about literally anything else, which was a dangerous opening to give to Soap. But you didn’t feel like you had a lot of other choices in the matter. “Did you see the weather report for tomorrow’s drill? It’s supposed to pour. We should probably check the seals on the transport vehicles instead of—”

“He was standing outside your door.”

The words made you stop, as a sigh found its way to your lips but couldn’t escape. The notepad slipped from your fingers, shuffling loudly against the bottom of the plastic crate. 

Soap sighed, leaning his hip against the workbench. His expression softened around the edges into the fiercely loyal friend he actually was, rather than the Sergeant. “Four nights back. At two in the morning. Caught him pacing the corridor like a proper idiot, standing right outside your door, listening.”

You felt the dry, tight burn of tears behind your eyes, but you forced a bitter snicker instead. “Yeah, I know. I woke up. I heard him.”

Soap frowned, head tilting a bit. “You heard us?”

“I heard him,” you corrected, the protective wall you’ve been trying so hard to build suddenly fracturing under Soap’s gaze. Raw betrayal seeped into your voice before you could stop it. “I heard him tell you I was spinning out in the armory. That my hands were shaking so hard I couldn’t patch a rifle together. I heard him call me a liability, Johnny.”

You closed your eyes, swallowing the lump in your throat, voice dropping down to a whisper this time. “He was just monitoring me so I don’t, you know, get someone killed or something. I get it. I’m over it.”

For a long, agonizing second, the hangar was completely silent.

Then, Soap let out a sound that was half-laugh, half-groan, smacking his palm against his own forehead. “Oh, you bloody idiots. Both of you. Absolute bleeding heartcases.”

You snapped your eyes open, glaring at him. “Is that supposed to be funny?”

“It’s a little funny, lass, because you’ve managed to miss the plot,” Soap said, throwing his hands up in exasperation. He took a step closer, bending down slightly to force you to look him in the eye. “Listen to me. Simon Riley has the emotional intelligence of a brick wall. When I found him outside your door, I was teasin’ the skin off him. I told him he was playing nursemaid. I told him he was worried about ya.”

Your breath hitched despite yourself. “And?”

“And it proper terrified him,” Soap explained, a soft, knowing smile tugging at his lips. “Simon doesn’t do worried. He doesn’t know how to handle caring about someone. Probably feels like a live grenade in his hands. When I pushed him on it, he panicked and grabbed the nearest weapon in his limited vocabulary —some cold bullshit— and he threw it at me to make me back off. He called you a liability because he was trying to convince himself, lass, not me.”

Soap reached out, comically patting your shoulder.

“He wouldn’t stay in that armory to patch your rifle for you, sunshine. He was probably in there to hold you together. And he certainly didn’t stand outside your door at two in the morning because he thinks you’re faulty. He was out there because he was scared to death you were hurting, and he didn’t know how to fix it without breaking his own rules.” Johnny shook his head, a quiet, serious weight returning to his voice. “He’s a ghost, lass. He’s been dead a long time. Being human again is likely a bloody terrifying thing for him.”

The words hit like physical pressure against your ribcage, slowing the blood in your veins. The hangar suddenly felt entirely too large, the air too chilly.

Your mind flashed back to the hangars that night. The way Simon’s chest had been heaving under his vest. The raw vulnerability in his voice when he admitted he’d spent three hours hitting a bag because he couldn’t clear the sound of your ragged breathing from his head. I didn’t come to your door to talk shit. I was there because my chest felt hollow and I needed to know you were still breathing…

He had been trying to tell you exactly what Johnny was saying right now. He had been trying to explain the terrifying weight of worrying about you. And you had thrown it right back in his face. You’d called him the big bad Ghost and told him he didn’t have it in him to care. 

You had pushed him until he shut down and walked away.

“Shit,” you whispered. The word was barely a breath but it came with the sudden, crushing weight of realization. Your fingers let go of the metal racking.

Soap raised an eyebrow, head tilting again. “What?”

“Shit,” you said again, this time louder, a hand coming up to press against your forehead as the pieces fell into place. “Johnny… I fucked up.”

“What did you do?” Soap asked, voice dropping from casual explanation to immediate concern, with a hint of accusation. 

“After that night, by the decommissioned hangars,” you stammered, throat dry. “He found me out there. He was trying to ask why I was keeping my distance and I… I told him some shit. Hurtful shit, I think.”

Soap’s eyes widened a fraction. “Aw, hell.”

“He tried to explain,” you continued, words tumbling out in a frantic blur as the guilt began to burn in your chest. “He told me he lied to you. He literally told me he panicked because he couldn’t clear the noise out of his head and I— I didn’t believe him. I pushed him. I told him he didn’t have it in him to care about anyone.”

You looked up at Johnny with your chest tight, the cold numbness of the last four days completely dissolving into raw panic. “He looked… I’ve never seen his eyes look like that. Then he just dropped his hand and walked away. Left me there.”

Soap let out a low whistle, rubbing the back of his neck, his rumpled mohawk shifting. “Aye. Sounds like you gave the beast some proper bruising, hm?”

“How do I fix this?” you asked, your voice cracking slightly. “He won’t even look at me.”

Johnny looked at you for a long moment, his irritation gone. “Don’t corner him,” he said quietly, leaning off the shelving. “And you don’t go around apologizing with heavy words. He hates that shite. You want back in? Speak his language.” he shrugged like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Show up, do the work, let him see you’re not cracking again. He’ll come to his senses.”

He patted your shoulder one last time, turning toward the hangar exit. “He’s by the motor pool I think, should be working on the rovers. Usually takes him hours when he’s brooding.”

The walk to the motor pool was the longest three minutes of your week. The night air was biting, you really wanted to take the military boots off but could barely feel your toes in there, the parka weighed heavily on your shoulders. You kept Johnny’s words on loop in your head as if a single sight on Simon could make you forget all else: No heavy words. Speak his language.

The motor pool was a massive garage smelling heavily of diesel, burnt rubber and old grease. A single set of halogen lights illuminated the far corner, casting a long, distorted shadow across the concrete floor. Underneath the raised chassis of a rover, you spotted him. 

He was stripped down to a black combat shirt, sleeves rolled up to his elbows to reveal the heavy, pale scars tracing up his forearms, tattoos and all. The balaclava was sitting snug against his face, he had a pair of grease-stained work gloves on, and of course, the heavy, furious energy radiating off of him as he aggressively wrenched a bolt into place. That’s got to be against the manuals, you thought, but didn’t comment on it. 

Your boots made a soft scuff on the concrete as you stepped into the light. Simon didn’t stop wrenching, but his shoulders went rigid. He knew you were there. The silence between you stretched taut like a tripwire as you walked straight over to the metal tool chest sitting a few feet away. You looked at the disassembled parts of the rover’s front suspension laid out on a shop towel, assessed what he was doing, and quietly picked up a heavy torque wrench and the secondary bracket he’d need next.

You walked over again, knelt down in the grease on the cold floor right beside him, and held the bracket perfectly in place against the frame. 

Simon stopped. 

He slowly turned his head. Up close, under the overhead halogen glare, his eyes were shadowed, hyper-focused, and incredibly guarded. There was a hard edge in his gaze, like a warning flare telling you to back the fuck off, telling you that the door he’d once opened between you was welded shut. He didn’t want you there. He didn’t want to need the help.

You met his gaze dead-on, though, and kept your hands steady as a rock as you held the bracket right where it needed to be. Simon stared back at you for a long, agonizing five seconds and you could tell he was looking for the catch, the text-book apology. But when you remained entirely silent, the tension in his shoulders dropped a single fraction of an inch.

He didn’t tell you to leave.

With a low grunt, he reached out. His massive, gloved hand brushed against yours as he took the torque wrench from your other hand, then, he went to work.

For the next hour, the motor pool was a symphony of mechanical noise and understanding. You anticipated all of his moves. When he needed a specific socket size, you had it ready before his hand even left the bolt. When the sway bar needed to be aligned, you put your shoulder into the steel, lifting it simultaneously with him on a silent three-count you coordinated out of thin air. 

Finally, the sharp snap of the final locking pin signaled the end of the job.

Simon wiped his greasy hands on a rag after taking his gloves off, slowly rising to his full height. You stood up with him, knees cracking embarrassingly loud against the quiet of the garage as you looked at your hands— covered in grease and dirt, skin raw from the cold metal.

You looked up, then. Simon was standing inches away, his massive frame towering over you, blocking out the halogen glare. No longer looking at the rover, no, he was looking straight down at you. 

The icy barrier within his eyes had cracked. The storm was still there, sure, but you couldn’t feel an anger behind his gaze anymore. He just seemed… exhausted, with a bit of something else. A heavy knowing, you’d call it. He saw what you were doing. He knew exactly why you’d showed up out of nowhere, knelt in the grease, and went to work with him.

Simon, the sweetheart he is, reached slowly into his pocket and pulled out a clean, unused shop rag. He din’t hand it to you, rather, he held it out between you so you’d take it, with his eyes locked onto yours with an intense gravity that made the world beneath your feet feel liquid.

Take it.

You reached out, fingers lightly brushing his palm as you took the cloth. You gave him one last lingering look before you turned and walked out of the motor pool, leaving him alone in the quiet garage to ponder all by himself.

It was 0230, three nights later, when the sterile hum of the mess hall kitchen became the hideout for your quiet, slightly embarrassing routine. You didn’t talk about it. Soap certainly didn’t ask about it —he had a feeling you’d lash out on him instead—. But since the night in the motor pool, you stopped hiding in your room constantly. You just went to the mess hall, brewed two mugs of black coffee, and waited. Sometimes he showed up, sometimes he didn’t. But you felt that that door was no longer welded shut.

That night, he had gotten back from a grueling 48-hour solo recon run. He looked proper exhausted, his massive frame tracking dirt into the kitchen, the heavy scent of rain and damp earth clinging to his tactical jacket. He didn’t mutter a word as he stepped up to the counter beside you, leaning his weight against the stainless steel. You quietly pushed the fresh mug of black coffee towards his side of the counter.

Simon reached out to take it, and that’s when you noticed.

He had pulled his heavy tactical gloves off, likely planinng to wash the field grime off before heading to his quarters. His right hand was wrapped around the ceramic mug, and right across his scarred knuckles was a deep, jagged abrasion. It seemed raw, weeping a thin line of dark blood where the skin had split against something hard— probably a concrete wall or a weapon chassis during his run. Because his hands were always gloved, nobody else on the base would have seen it— and he’d prefer it that way, you thought. But under the bright fluorescent lights of the kitchen, it stood out.

And he saw you looking.

He wasn’t one to flinch away, but his fingers tightened around the mug, other hand sliding over the top of the wound to consciously block it from your view. His eyes snapped up, fixing you with a flat warning glare beneath the balaclava. Don’t mention it. Don’t play nursemaid.

You, however, calmly set your own mug down, turned around, and walked over to the first-aid kit mounted on the wall near the pantry. You pulled it down, walked right back to his side of the counter, and clicked the plastic latches open. 

You pulled out a bottle of antiseptic spray, a few clean gauze pads, and a roll of heavy-duty medical tape. You laid them out on the stainless steel plainly, then you simply leaned against the counter, crossed your arms, and looked from the bandages up to his eyes.

Simon stared down at the small plastic bottles, chest rising in a slow rhythm. For a second, you really thought he was going to pack his shit up and walk out, in typical Ghost fashion— but with a low, almost imperceptible sigh that hissed through the fabric, he let go of the warm coffee mug. Slowly, he turned his right hand over, laying his large, scarred palm flat against the steel counter, pushing it a few inches closer to your side.

The hiss of the antiseptic spray was loud in the dead quiet of the kitchen. Simon didn’t even twitch as the cold medicine hit the raw, split skin of his knuckles. What a man. 

You worked methodically, keeping your touch firm but as careful as possible nonetheless. You used a clean gauze pad to dab away the excess moisture, your smaller fingers providing a stark contrast against the massive, scarred expense of his hand. 

“You need to keep this covered under clean gloves tomorrow, Lieutenant,” you murmured with your eyes trained on his hand as you reached for the medical tape. “The grime out on the range will have it infected by noon.”

“Simon.”

You paused, fingers hovering over the roll of tape. Looking up, you could barely meet his heavy gaze.

“Told you,” he murmured softly enough. “When we’re off the clock, it’s Simon.”

A small beat of warmth touched your chest, melting the last fragments of the past week’s absolute frost as you held his gaze for a second before looking back down at his hand, unrolling a strip of the heavy-duty tape. “Simon, then.”

He leaned a bit more of his weight against the steel counter, eyes tracking the precise way you smoothed the tape over the gauze.

“Saw the drill results from this evening,” he rumbled casually, the tone so normal, so conversational that it almost felt like nothing had ever happened between you. Simon wasn’t one to do small talk, though. This was actively catching you off-guard the more he spoke. “MacTavish said the unit cleared the kill-house three minutes ahead of schedule.”

“We did,” you replied, tearing the tape with a sharp snap. “Everyone held their lanes.”

“Weren’t just holding your lane.” Simon said.

You blinked, looking up. You hadn’t even realized he’d been back from his recon run in time to see the evening training, let alone watch it. You figured he’d been confined to the comms room or his own quarters, buried in paperwork. “I didn’t think you were watching.”

“I notice,” he countered simply with a shrug.

He tilted his head back slightly, then. “On the corner fed room, everyone else was looking for a target, but you actually checked the dead space behind the doorframe first. Kept your muzzle low, swept the blind spot, then went back to covering Price’s six.”

Your fingers stilled against his knuckles. It was a tiny, split-second tactical adjustment you’d made— something so minor you were sure everybody would have missed it entirely in the chaos.

“I wouldn’t hold it past a soldier to get tunnel vision in such circumstances,” Simon continued, his voice carrying a heavy weight of approval that made your heart skip a beat. “You, though, you were thinking two steps ahead of the room, weren’t you?”

He slowly closed his fingers into a loose fist, testing the tension of the bandage you’d just applied. The tape held perfectly tight and secure against his skin, and he looked from his knuckles back up to your face.

“Perfectly functional,” he murmured, throwing your own words from the hangars right back at you, with no hint of malice, nor sarcasm. He trusted you. More as a partner he could trust to hold the line than anything else.

“Glad to know my form meets the Lieutenant’s standards,” you said, a faint ghost of a smirk pulling at the corner of your mouth. 

“Simon,” he corrected again, though there was no heat in it. He picked up his coffee mug with his newly bandaged hand, testing the grip. Once satisfied, he took a slow sip. “And don’t get cocky. Your stance on the pivot was high. A low-angle round would’ve caught you right under the plate.”

You rolled your eyes, leaning back against the counter and crossing your arms. “I was adjusting for Price’s shoulder. If I dropped any lower, I’d have been in his space.”

“Then you make him move,” Simon rumbled, eyes crinkling just a fraction at the corners— likely closest he ever got to a smile. “Old man’s joints are stiff anyway. A bit of a shove would do him good.”

A soft laugh escaped your throat at that. “I’ll remember that for tomorrow.” you murmured, watching him drink his coffee. “Tell him Ghost ordered the physical coercion.”

“I’ll deny it,” he said immediately, entirely deadpan. “Tell him it was Johnny’s idea. He’s easier to blame.”

“Naturally.” you picked your own mug up, the ceramic finally cool enough to hold comfortably. The silence settled back over the kitchen then, but it was just… easier, this time around. “The recon run,” you started quietly. “The storm catch you out there?”

Simon hummed. “Most of it. Mud up to the axles. Had to winch the truck out before the comms tower was secure.”

“Sounds miserable.”

“It was quiet,” he countered, then shifted his weight, shoulder pressing lightly against yours. It was the exact same grounding heat from the armory, but this time, you didn’t feel small beneath it. “No one talking. Just the rain.”

You glanced up at him through your eyelashes. “Must’ve been hard coming back to base, then. Johnny doesn’t exactly come with a mute button.”

“Worse than the storm,” Simon muttered, though the fondness in his voice when he spoke about Soap was unmistakable. He turned his head slightly, gaze dropping to your face. “But the coffee’s better here.”

You felt a sudden, sharp flutter behind your ribs at that, swallowing, trying to keep your eyes locked with his. “Just the coffee?”

Simon didn’t look away like you expected. “No,” his voice dropped to a rough, honest whisper. “Not just the coffee.”

once again. hi. lmk if you don't wanna be tagged i just get so excited aha

The fluorescent lights of the base gym didn’t flicker like the ones in the armory did, but they were loud in their own way— a flat, sterile buzz that drilled straight into the temples. It was past midnight. The rest of the 141 were asleep, or at least pretending to be, but Simon was still awake, methodically putting his weight into a heavy punching bag. Left hook. Right cross. The constant thud-crack of his taped knuckles against the worn leather was the only thing filling the hollow space of the room. 

Usually, the physical exhaustion would be enough to clear his head. It was a simple equation: burn the energy, silence the noise. But tonight, his life’s math wasn’t working. The equation had changed the positions of the variables, which meant the silence was only getting louder when he did what he knew to do. 

Every time he paused to wipe the sweat from his forehead with the back of his forearm, his mind drifted right back to the corner of that dark armory. He kept seeing the way the clearing rod had clattered against your rifle. He kept feeling the sharp, jagged heat of your breathing against his shoulder, the smallness of your neck beneath his palm. A persistent, irritating hitch in his thoughts.

Simon threw a heavy right hand that made the chain above the bag shriek. He grunted, resetting his stance, but his hands felt heavy.

There was a strange, right knot sitting right behind his ribs, a physical pressure he couldn’t quite identify. Not the familiar burn of adrenaline, no, not the dull ache of an old injury either. It felt… hollow. A constant hum right in there that made him want to check the perimeter, check the locks, check the barracks. He felt an urge to make sure everything was exactly where it was supposed to be. To make sure you were still breathing in that steady, quiet rhythm he’d left you with.

He caught the swinging bag with both hands, pressing his forehead against the cold canvas, his chest heaving.

Worried.

The word rolled around in his mind, unfamiliar, like a foreign language he’d forgotten how to speak. Simon didn’t get worried. Worried was a civilian emotion. It was an indulgence for people who had the luxury of a future, people who weren’t already ghosts walking among the living. He knew fear, he knew rage, and he knew the cold, dead vacuum of indifference. But this? This soft, gnawing irritation at the back of his mind that demanded he ensure your safety?

It confused him. It pissed him off. He stared at the scuffed leather of the bag, jaw tightening. He didn’t know what to do with a feeling that didn’t have a tactical purpose. 

So he moved.

The corridor of the barracks was a tunnel of low-wattage amber light and shadows. Simon moved through it like smoke, his heavy boots making entirely no sound against the linoleum. He told himself it was a standard security sweep. The base was deep in safe territory, but old habits kept a man alive. He needed to be sharp. Double checking didn’t hurt.

Except he wasn’t checking the armory doors or the comms room. He was standing three feet from your door. He stood perfectly still, head tilted slightly, listening to the muffled, slow rise and fall of breath from the other side of the wood. Stable. Quiet. Nothing frantic about it. 

He closed his eyes under the mask, letting out a slow breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. The knot behind his ribs loosened a fraction, easing into something he could just do with.

“Bit late for a bed check, isn’t it, LT?”

Simon didn’t flinch, but his jaw clenched tight enough to click. He turned his head slowly. Soap was leaning against the doorframe of the common room down the hall, holding a steaming mug of what smelled like cheap, instant coffee. He was in his gray sweatpants and a faded band t-shirt, his mohawk a bit rumpled from sleep, but his blue eyes were entirely too sharp for two in the morning. In typical Johnny MacTavish fashion. 

Simon straightened up, stepping away from your door. “Perimeter check, MacTavish. Go back to sleep.”

“Perimeter’s outside, big man,” Soap said, taking a slow sip from his mug, accent thick with amusement. He didn’t lower his voice, but it carried that easy, conspiratorial weight nonetheless. He walked a few steps closer, eyes darting between Simon and your door. “An’ last I checked, our perimeter doesn’t sleep in barracks room five.”

“She had a rough run,” Simon rumbled, his voice dropping to a low, warning rasp. He crossed his arms over his chest, trying to project the usually unyielding wall of authority. “Ensuring the unit is combat-ready for zero-six-hundred. Nothing more.”

Soap stopped a few feet away, leaning his shoulder against the opposite wall. The amusement faded a bit, replaced by that keen, irritatingly perceptive look he got when he was looking right through the Ghost persona, which, Simon really wanted to punch away from his face. “Aye. We’ve all been there.” he paused, looking hard at Simon’s covered face. “But usually, you leave ‘em to carry it. You don’t just go ‘round playing nursemaid.”

“I am not playing nursemaid,” Simon snapped, the word feeling foul in his mouth. “She was spinning out in the armory. Hands shaking so hard she couldn’t patch a bloody rifle together. If a soldier can’t maintain their weapon, they’re a liability.”

“Right. A liability.” Soap repeated, a slow, knowing grin beginning to curl the corner of his mouth. He took another sip of his coffee, entirely unbothered by the sudden spike of lethal tension radiating off his Lieutenant. “So you stayed until rifle was clean? Proper tactical assessment.”

“Exactly.”

“And then you walked down here at two in the morning just to check the… what? Lock on the door?” Soap couldn’t help it, not really. He let out a low, huffing laugh, shaking his head. “Come off it, Simon. You’re worried about the lass.”

The word hit him like a physical blow again, worse this time because it had been spoken aloud by someone else. “Watch your mouth, Johnny.”

“Oh look at that, he’s proper riled,” Soap teased, keeping his voice a whisper but letting the mischief entirely flood his face. He nudged Simon’s arm with his elbow— a brave move for any man alive. “It’s alright, LT. Didn’t know you had a heart under all that. Quite sweet, really. Want me to go fetch some warm milk for her too?”

Unbeknownst to them, inside the dark room, you woke up all at once a few minutes earlier, heart leaping to your throat. 

The nightmare hadn’t quite faded yet the details were meaningless, but it was the low, muffled voices right outside your door that pulled you into the cold reality of the barracks. You laid completely frozen beneath the thin scratchy blanket, your eyes wide open and staring at the dark ceiling like there was something to see.

Through the cheap wood of the floor, the words were faint, but in the dead quiet of two in the morning, the louder, bassier one carried.

You recognized Johnny’s voice first, his familiar Scottish cadence and all, light, almost teasing. Then came the deep, unmistakable rasp that had anchored you a day prior. Simon.

You held your breath, straining to listen, a sudden, desperate hope flaring up in your chest that maybe he was checking on you. Maybe you weren’t as invisible or as broken to him as you thought.

Then, Simon’s voice cut through the gap beneath the door, sharp and devoid of all the gentleness he’d used in the armory.

“—Hands shaking so hard she couldn’t patch a bloody rifle together. If a soldier can’t maintain their weapon, they’re a liability.”

The word hung in the freezing air of your room. Liability.

The tentative warmth that had started to settle in your chest withered instantly, replaced by a cold, sickening drop in your stomach. You didn’t hear Soap’s reply. You didn’t hear much else anymore.

All you heard was the cold, tactical assessment of the Ghost.

A liability.

Each and every single detail from the armory rushed back in a deafening flood, louder than before. He hadn’t stayed out of the care in his heart. He hadn’t held the back of your neck to pull you up. He was just monitoring you, a faulty piece of equipment. Making sure a broken cog wasn’t going to jam the machine of the 141.

You pulled your knees up to your chest, tucking your chin down into the collar of your shirt. You didn’t cry this time, though. The numbness came back too fast, wrapping around you like a shroud. Outside, the faint murmur eventually drifted away, followed by the heavy retreat of tactical boots down the linoleum. But you remained wide awake, staring at the door, dreading the moment the clock would hit 0600.

 By evening, the base had settled into a freezing, bitter dusk. The wind coming off tarmac whipped through the chain-link fences, but you couldn’t physically bear being inside. You couldn’t breathe in the barracks. Instead, you found a secluded spot behind the old, decommissioned hangars, sitting on an overturned fuel crate with your hands tucked deep into your jacket pockets, staring out at the dark horizon. The cold bit at your nose and cheeks, but it was a welcome distraction this time. From the echoing word in your head. From what you were. Liability.

A heavy crunch of gravel broke the silence.

You didn’t have to turn your head as a massive shadow fell over you, blocking out the last bits of twilight. LT. Simon. Ghost. He stood there for a long moment —he must’ve looked left and right, searching for you, but you tucked that thought away— before he stepped into your field of vision.

“You skipped mess hall,” he spoke first.

“Wasn’t hungry, Lieutenant.” you replied. The title felt like an icy shield between you. You kept your gaze fixed on the distant tree line. You were okay. You were fine. You could hold your own.

Simon stood a few feet away, hands tucked into his tactical vest, jaw shifting beneath the skull. The air between you was entirely different from the grounding heat of the armory. It felt frigid this time. Felt cold, and not physically.

“You’ve been acting like a textbook cutout all day,” he muttered, his tone dripping down into a dangerous, frustrated register. He was trying to read you, but the open manual from back at the armory felt it had been slammed shut and sealed. “You didn’t say two words during debrief. You’re keeping your distance.”

“Maintaining discipline, sir,” your voice was entirely devoid of emotion, the best you could muster. Poker face, meeting his icy blue eyes with a dead, unblinking stare. “Making sure I can maintain my weapon. I wouldn’t wanna be a liability to the team.”

The word hit the gravel on the ground between you like a dropped blade.

Simon froze. The subtle shift in his shoulders told you everything you needed to know— he recognized the word instantly. His mind, usually so quick to calculate a tactical response, stalled and blanked out. Those two sentences, spoken so rough, in such unprofessional manner, made the confusion that plagued him back in the gym rush back, mutating into something sharper that bit into his heart. He hadn’t meant it the way it sounded. He had been defending you against Soap’s prying, using the only harsh, mechanical language he knew how to speak to hide a feeling he couldn’t even name. 

But you had heard it. And it broke the one fragile bridge of trust he’d tried to build.

“You were listening,” he rasped down an octave, thick and heavy with something that seemed like regret if you could squint, though he’d never admit to it. He took a long step forward, towering over your crate, desperate to break through the sudden, terrifying wall you’d put up. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I know exactly what I am to you, Lieutenant,” you said softly, standing up from where you were seated on the crate. The height difference was staggering, but you didn’t take a step back. You looked up at the mask, voice a whisper only. “An asset. A weapon. I wouldn’t worry if I was you, though, I’m not shaking, see?” you extended your open palms out, shaking them, urging him to look. “I’m perfectly functional.”

Then, you made to step past him, shoulder brushing his vest just like he had brushed yours that night from before. Only this time, no heat exchange in between. Perhaps only the passing of two ships in a freezing dark.

He didn’t let you get a second step.

A massive, gloved hand shot out, fingers locking around your forearm like a vice. He didn’t yank you back, no, but the grip was solid. He held you right there.

“Let go, Lieutenant,” you muttered, not even looking at his hand. Your voice was flat and tired. “That’s an order violation if I’m out here wasting functional time.”

“Shut up.” Simon growled.

He wasn’t angry though, was he? It was just some good old pure, desperate frustration in him. The fabric of his balaclava shifted violently as his jaw clenched and unclenched. He, a man who handled explosives, breaches, extractions with the precision of a surgeon, but standing here and holding onto your jacket sleeve in the freezing wind, he seemed entirely out of his depth. The ice in your eyes was terrifying to him because he knew exactly how much effort it took to freeze a soul over like that. He’d done it to himself a while ago.

“You don’t know what you heard,” he rumbled and stepped closer, crowding your space until the wind was blocked out, replacing the cold with the familiar scent of tobacco and heavy canvas. 

“I heard enough,” you looked up then, the mask of indifference cracking just enough for the raw betrayal to bleed through. “You were right. I was breaking down. But you don’t have to keep tabs on me like a faulty piece of ordnance, Simon. I got the message.”

Hearing his actual name leave your mouth in a cold accusation made something snap behind his ribs. The knot he couldn’t identify in the gym tightened until it felt like a cracked bone right there.

“I was lying to him.” 

The admission was quiet, almost swallowed by the wind. You blinked, staring at the lines around his eyes, searching for the lie that you could never find.

“Bloody— MacTavish, just… doesn’t leave things alone,” Simon continued with the words pushing past his teeth like he had to drag them up from his throat by force. “He was prying. I gave him the manual answer because the alternative…”

He trailed off, gaze dropping to the gravel for a split second before snapping back to yours.

“The alternative what?” you challenged. “The alternative is that you actually cared? That the great, big bad Ghost felt bad for the broken soldier? Don’t strain yourself, LT. We both know you don’t have it in you.”

“I don’t,” he countered immediately. “I don’t have it in me. That’s the point.”

He took another half-step, eliminating the distance. Looking down at you, you could see in his eyes, the frantic storm.

“I spent three hours hitting a bag last night because I couldn’t clear the sound of your breathing out of my head,” he confessed, the rasp of his voice turning raw now. Stripping away the Lieutenant, the Ghost, the myth, the legend. “I didn’t come to your door to talk shit. I was there because my chest felt hollow and I needed to know you were still breathing. I told Johnny that because if I even thought that I was standing out there because I was…”

He stopped, the word jamming in his throat. His jaw set hard.

You were waiting for him to bridge the gap. You were waiting for him to be human. He could see it in you, in your eyes. The expectation. 

Expect nothing and you won’t be disappointed.

The storm in his eyes flattened into a dead calm, and Simon let go of your arm so suddenly his hand practically bounced off your sleeve. He took a heavy step back, instantly pulling the cold wind right back between the two of you. 

“Forget it,” he grunted in a mechanical cadence. The vulnerability from a second ago was gone, it was swallowed up by the Ghost as if it had never existed. 

“Simon?” your voice came out small. He didn’t answer to the name. He didn’t look at you again. No explanation, no warning, no threat, no nothing. He just started walking.

He left you standing by the fuel crate, the freezing dusk biting at your skin, completely alone in the dark.

He slid the mask off of his face the second he entered the house. Didn’t need the skull to guard the door. But habits of a lifetime couldn’t just vanish; his jaw remained set, eyes heavy and scanning the room out of sheer muscle memory until they finally landed on you. And boy, did his shoulders drop upon the sight he’d been dreaming of for so many weeks away.

You were standing by the kitchen counter, bare feet pressed against the cool hardwood, mindlessly stirring a mug of tea that had likely already gone cold. Evening light bled low through the blinds, casting long, familiar shadows across the floor. Quiet murmur of a random video playing on your phone filled the empty space but you didn’t seem too focused on that either. You looked tired. Not the hollow, hyper-vigilant exhaustion of a soldier but the soft, heavy weariness of a civilian who’d been carrying the quiet stress of an empty house for three months too long.

Simon moved without a sound, a trick of the trade he couldn’t —nor wanted to— unlearn, but he purposely let his large frame shadow the light so he wouldn’t startle you.

When you looked up, the tension in your shoulders melted visibly. “Simon,” you breathed, a small, fragile sound that seemed to pull the air right out of his chest.

He closed the distance between you in two heavy strides without a word, his massive, calloused hands reaching out to gently but firmly cup the sides of your face. His gaze was just so, so soft as he smiled at you, his thumbs, rough and lined with a history of violence, tracing the soft line of your cheekbones with an agonizing tenderness. He used just enough pressure to anchor you, to let you know that yeah, he was here. He was home.

You let out a long, shuddering exhale, hands coming up to wrap around his thick wrists, fingers finding the steady, heavy pulse ticking beneath his skin. 

With no words still, Simon leaned down, burying his face into the crook of your neck. He was a solid, towering wall of heat, smelling of the crisp outside air, cheap travel soap, and the faint, undeniable scent of just him. The physical presence of him immediately filled the kitchen and the rest of the house, pushing out the loneliness of the last few months. 

“You’re late,” you whispered against his shoulder whilst pulling him into your embrace, your voice thick.

“Traffic,” he joked humorlessly, the low vibration of his voice traveling straight into your bones, a grounding frequency that signaled, safely and finally, the wait was over. His large arms wrapped around your waist, pulling you flush against his chest until there was no space for even an atom to pass through between you, lifting you just a fraction off your feet as if to remind himself that you were real, whole, and exactly where he left you. “Missed my girl.” he said, and you hummed as a response.

Simon didn’t do anything halfway. When he looked into your eyes and his gaze dropped to your lips, you knew it wasn’t a casual glance. The deliberate, locked-on focus of a man about to claim the only sanctuary he had left in the world wasn’t unfamiliar to you at all. He lifted your chin up with the broad flat of his thumb, his grip unyielding but careful nonetheless, as if he were still adjusting to handling something that didn’t require a safety switch. When his warm, chapped but determined lips met yours, it became a deep, bruising slow-burn of a kiss that tasted of the salt on your skin and the cold air he’d brought from the porch. 

He pulled you closer until you forgot how to breathe anywhere else, and you wrapped your arms around his neck, fingers tangling in the short, coarse hairs at the nape of his neck, pulling him down until a low rumble caught in his throat. He kissed you like he was trying to memorize the exact shape of your mouth to carry back into the dark with him, to be there for the lonely showers and long nights away from home when it’s just him and his imagination. His large hands slid down your spine to lock you against his hips then, and you pulled away for a breather.

Simon took that moment to take a sip of the mug of coffee you left on the counter next to you, and made a face of exaggerated disgust just to hear you giggle. “Tea’s completely dead,” he muttered, “Tastes like leaves and a pinch of disappointment.”

“Good thing I didn’t make that for you, then,” you whispered, still a little breathless, your chest vibrating against his ribs as a chuckle got to you.

“Dreadful,” he said, a ghost of a smile playing at his lips, though the thumb tracing your jawline was incredibly gentle. “Next time, try coffee. Or water. Hard to botch water.”

“You’ve been in here for five minutes and already writing an upset Yelp review,” you complained softly, leaning your weight into him. “You look like shit, am I saying anything about that?”

“The flight was miserable. Those seats are just not built for people with actual skeletal structures,” he let out a slow, heavy breath, his chest expanding against yours. He buried his nose into your hair for a brief second, inhaling deeply before straightening up. “My looks, nothing a bath couldn’t fix. Your tea-making, though—”

“—asshole—”

“Join me?” he muttered softly, already taking your hand and tugging you toward the hallway. “I’m too big for the tub alone, I’ll displace all the water and ruin the drywall. Won’t happen with the two of us in.”

You didn’t see the logic, but hey. Endearing excuses.

The bathroom was the one room in the house Simon had insisted on remodelling himself, reinforcing the flooring beneath the clawfoot tub because he’d convinced himself his sheer mass would send it crashing through into the kitchen. You told him that he wasn’t that big, which might have hurt his ego a bit, but the determined look on his face was enough to let him do just about anything. 

He turned the brass knobs with efficient, practiced movements, the steam rising quickly to fog up the mirror and soften the sharp edges of the room. He stripped out of his heavy tactical layers and the dark civilian jacket without a word, his body a map of thick, jagged scar tissue and harsh lines that always seemed too brutal for the soft lighting of the house. But there was no hesitation in how he moved around you, because he knew that you saw nothing but beauty in between those lines. He helped you out of your clothes with those same massive, calloused hands, his touch devoid of urgency now— just a quiet, meticulous care. 

Simon stepped into the water first, before he reached up to haul you in after him. He sat back against the sloped end of the tub, pulling you down between his thighs so your back was pressed squarely against his chest. The water rose dangerously close to the lip of the tub still, and you chuckled at the sight.

“See?” you murmured, tilting your head back against his shoulder. “We’re a milimeter away from a flood.”

“Calculated risk,” Simon rumbled, large arms wrapping around your middle, anchoring you deep into the hot water and against his body. “If anything happens, we can always tell the landlord a pipe burst. He’s terrified of me. He won’t check.”

“He’s terrified of you because you keep threatening him over nothing.”

“Why would I let my pretty wife fix things while I could threaten the landlord into doing it?” his chest vibrated a bit in quiet laughter, and you smiled, resting your eyes while your head found his shoulder. 

A comfortable, heavy silence settled over the room, broken only by the gentle sloshing of the water whenever Simon shifted his legs. He took the bar of soap from the ledge, his massive hands working up a thick lather before he brought them to your shoulders. His movements were slow, rhythmic, rubbing the tension out of your collarbones with a blunt pressure that made your spine go pliable. 

“You’re too quiet,” you murmured, puddle under the soothing warmth of his hands. “What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing,” he said matter-of-factly. “My brain is currently a flat line. It’s fantastic.”

“Lie to me better than that, Riley.”

Simon paused, his soap-slicked hands resting heavy against your ribs. He leaned forward slightly, his mouth brushing the damp hair away from your ear. 

“Thinking your skin is too soft for this house,” he murmured, gravelly voice dropping an octave, losing its sharp edge entirely. “Thinking three months is a stupidly long time to spend looking at dirt and concrete and metal when I could have been looking at this. Touching this,” as if to show his point, his arms wrapped around your middle again, fingertips dancing down to your hips, thighs, then back to your waist.

You turned your head slightly, catching the icy blue of his eyes through the steam. “That a compliment, from the Ghost?” you smirked.

“Don’t call me that here,” he muttered, though there was no heat in it. He dipped his hand into the water, rinsing the soap from your shoulders in a slow, sweeping motion. “Out there, I’m a weapon. In here, I’m the idiot who let you buy white rug for the hallway knowing damn well I wear muddy boots.”

“It’s cream, not white. And you love that rug.”

“A menace is what it is.” Simon said as he pulled you tighter against his chest, his chin resting on the top of your head. His arms locked around you like a vice, warm and unyielding. 

The heat of the bath had done its job, turning your limbs heavy and fluid, but the rhythmic graze of his calloused thumbs against the skin of your waist was starting to spark a very different kind of warmth. The exhaustion that had weighed you down for months was shifting, sharpening into something tight and electric.

You shifted against him, the water sloshing precariously over the ceramic lip of the tub as you turned around in his lap to face him. 

Simon’s breath hitched, a low click in the back of his throat. His hands instinctively slid up to grip your hips, holding you steady as you straddled his thighs. Up close, the usual deadpan indifference was entirely gone from his face. Jaw clenched tight enough to have the muscle tick, shadowed eyes dark, dilated, and entirely fixed on the bare goddess in his hold. 

“Felt like you were too tired to move,” he muttered, voice dropping to a rough, dangerous gravel that rippled right through the water and into your belly. 

“I was,” you whispered, leaning in until your lips brushed against his with every word. “Then you touched me.”

A certain look flashed through his eyes— the look of a man who had been starving for three months and had just been handed everything he ever wanted. His hands tightened on your hips, his fingers digging in just enough to leave a bruise you’d gladly wear tomorrow, pulling you down flush against him. Simon’s head tilted as his mouth moved a mere millimetre from yours, breath hot and demanding. “Rug wasn’t enough? Want me to ruin the sheets too?” he chuckled. “Get up.”

The customary smell of gun oil and metallic solvent usually cleared your head. You’d rub and polish rhythmically, often to the point where any curious eye would worry you’d manage to scrub the finish right off the receiver with a microfiber cloth whilst in that trance. Tonight, though, it just made you sick. 

The armory was dead quiet, save for the hum of a flickering fluorescent bulb three rows over. You were hunched on a low wooden bench in the furthest, dim corner, the shadows cutting you off from the rest of the world, the rest of the team. Hands shaking so persistently that the cleaning rod clattered loudly against the receiver of your rifle, the harsh ring of metal on metal echoing in the empty room. Clack, clack, clack.

You choked back a sob, gripping the cold steel tighter. Even with a blurry vision, you could do this thousand times over. In a pitch black room. With your eyes closed. But now it felt like every time you closed your eyes, you were in that windowless room once again. Breathing in the same heavy, suffocating weight of holding the line. Doing what needs to be done. Playing the part. The unshakeable, cold-blooded soldier. The war criminal.

Now that the adrenaline had crashed, the mask was shattering, and the phantom echoes of the interrogation room were ringing in your ears so loud that you couldn’t hear it when the rusty metal door creaked open, and closed again. Stubborn tears wet the days-old dust off your cheeks in a straight south line, and you didn’t have it in you to blink them away. You could do this with your eyes closed. 

With your chest tight, your breaths came in shallow, jagged gasps. You were drowning. You could swim up to surface with all your limbs tied. But now, you were drowning. Terrified of someone coming to get you. Realizing you didn’t belong. Not one bit. The unshakeable, cold-blooded soldier. So affected, so battered by war. So lost, so broken.

A massive shadow fell over the bench.

You flinched, heart managing to hammer against your ribs despite how constricted it was a brief moment ago, and looked up. LT stood there. Ghost. Simon. Whoever was behind the balaclava, with his eyes — heavy, shadowed, and intensely focused — pinning you to your spot. 

You tried to swallow the lump in your throat to no avail, blinking rapidly to clear the tears away to make way for the sight that your Lieutenant was. Big, burly machine. A force of nature. You often thought that if you were by the opposite side of the muzzle of his gun, you’d proper shit yourself. You scrambled to assemble the rifle still, desperate to look one bit functional. “Lieutenant. I’m just— the carbon buildup—“

Simon didn’t say a word. He didn’t offer a hollow phrase like you did good out there, nor did he tell you to suck it up. You appreciated that in him. He was efficient, both out in the field and back in one on ones like this. He stepped closer and sank down onto the bench right next to yours, the feeble wood creaking and stretching a fraction under the weight. You felt his shoulder rub against yours for a moment. He was a solid, towering wall of heat and mass, and the sheer physical presence of him immediately anchored the spinning room. Anchored you. The shake of your hands, jump of your thigh. 

Without asking, his large, scarred hands reached out. His fingers were steady as they gently but firmly covered your trembling ones, and he didn’t pull away until your grip finally relaxed, letting him take the solvent-soaked cloth and the disassembled pieces of the rifle from your hands. Now with your hands empty, you didn’t know what to do with them. What to do with yourself. Your arms found solace back against your chest, as you suddenly felt small under the weight of his shadow. 

You braced yourself for the lecture still. For the disappointment. For the inevitable confirmation that you were too soft for the 141, that you were exactly what you feared you’d turn out to be: broken. No military shrink could fix you up. No point in trying, either— they could just recruit somebody better. Unfit for duty. Discharged. You’d sit and wallow in an empty apartment save for a shit mattress until there’s nothing left of you. You’d do stupid things to feel something. Because that’s what you were, no? A stupid, useless— 

“Won’t tell you it gets easier,” he murmured, gaze fixed on the rhythmic, grating scrape of wire brush cleaning the bolt carrier group. A metronome for your ragged breathing. He moved with a practical, easy grace born of a man who had cleaned a thousand rifles in a thousand dark rooms just like this one. A man who knew the anatomy of a weapon better than his own reflection. “Gets louder. But you’re out of the room now. Let go.”

He didn’t look at you. Didn’t force you to meet his eyes, granting you the dignity of your breakdown as you made yourself even smaller in your seat. Let go. Just open your palm and watch it drop. It’s gonna feel weightless. It would make you unshakeable again. It would make your blood run cold.

You knew Simon would recognize this exact brand of panic. He lived with it every single day, wore it like a second skin beneath the gear. With his shoulder pressed firmly against yours — a massive, grounding bulkhead which kept your feet planted down on earth at least — he finished reassembling the weapon. The sharp, clean clack of the upper receiver locking back into place broke the longing gaze between you and the floor. You looked up. At him. At the door closing on the afternoon’s horrors. Complete.

He laid the rifle across his heavy thighs, large hands resting flat against the handguard. Finally, he spoke again, his voice a low rumble that vibrated right through the thick air and into the depths of your bones. 

“Look at me.”

It wasn’t a command meant to break you, though the sheer gravitational pull of his voice could easily crush lesser soldiers. It was a heavy anchor, dropped straight into the center of your chest, pulling and pulling until you had no space to escape back to. 

Slowly, your chin lifted. The dust on your cheeks felt tight against your skin, tracks of salt and sorrow mapping out the exact anatomy of your much anticipated collapse. You met his gaze. Up close, without the skull plate blocking out the humanity he fought so damn hard to bury, his eyes were a storm of icy blues and lines behind the balaclava. You couldn’t find pity in them, no matter how hard you looked. God, if they held pity, you’d have shattered right then and there once again into a million pieces. But the knowing in them didn’t help much, either.

“You’re thinking too much,” he muttered, fabric of his balaclava shifting slightly as his jaw set. “Can hear it from here. The ticking clock in your head. The bottle or the blade you’ll use to quiet the noise when all that tips over.”

Your breath hitched. Read your damn mind like a standard issue manual. A small, pathetic sound caught in the back of your throat. 

“I’m not gonna let it tip over,” Simon said, his hand moving from the rifle to wrap around the back of your neck. His palm felt massive, calloused, and utterly unyielding there, squeezing just enough to force the scattered thoughts out of your skull and bring you back to the cold reality of the present. The room. The scent of him— tobacco, stale sweat. The weight of your gear. The cold on your fingertips. “But the cost of the uniform isn’t that you get to stop feeling. Either you learn to carry the weight, or it breaks your spine. Choice is yours.”

Those have to be the most words he’s ever uttered to you, you thought. A long, shuddering exhale left you, your forehead automatically sinking forward until it bumped against the heavy tactical nylon covering his shoulder. He didn’t shift away, to your surprise. Didn’t even stiffen, like he was expecting you to do just that. Simon, through all his own fears, held the back of your neck like a solid pillar against the dark. 

“Thank you, Lieutenant.” 

“That’s Simon for you tonight,” he murmured against your hair, his voice dropping an octave, becoming something almost resembling gentle. Soft. Like it’s not a sin to be soft. To not be an unshakeable, cold-blooded soldier. “We go back out tomorrow. Rifle’s clean, door’s locked. Rest.”

“Roger,” you let out one last, shaky breath, closing your eyes against the rough fabric of his shoulder. “See you at zero-six-hundred.”