#point blank

The air in Geneva is crisp, smelling of expensive alpine air and the kind of old money that makes your skin itch. 

You stand in the lobby of the Grand Hotel, adjusting the drape of a floor-length silk gown that costs more than your first car. It is a deep, midnight emerald—a color that screams "discreet wealth”. 

You catch your reflection in a gilded mirror and sigh. 

You’ve spent the last twenty-five years more comfortable in Kevlar and dirt than in silk and heels, and the transition always makes you feel like a tiger forced to wear a tutu.

Next to you, Leon is currently losing a wrestling match with his own collar. 

He looks spectacular in a tuxedo, there is no denying that; the black wool narrows his waist and broadens his shoulders in a way that has half the socialites in the lobby doing double-takes. 

However, he is currently scowling at his reflection, hooking a finger under his stiff silk collar and tugging with enough force to potentially decapitate himself.

"I’m convinced this thing was designed by someone who hates the human respiratory system," Leon mutters, his voice dropping into that low, earnest grumble that always seems to tickle your ribs. 

He adjusts his bowtie for the tenth time, only to have it sit at a slightly crooked, defiant angle. "Give me a tactical vest and a horde of Ganados any day. At least those are straightforward."

You step into his space, your heels clicking softly on the polished marble. 

"If you keep mauling that collar, you’re going to walk into a high-society gala looking like you just survived a bar fight," you say, your voice a dry, playful drawl. 

You reach up, batting his large, restless hands away with a gentle tap. Your fingers move with the practiced efficiency of a woman who has spent years fixing Evan’s ties and stitching up bullet wounds. You smooth the silk, straighten the bow, and pat the lapel of his jacket. 

"There. You look like a respectable socialite instead of a disgruntled penguin."

He stills under your touch, his blue eyes dropping to yours with an expression that is almost comically grateful. Up close, you can see the faint lines of tension around his eyes, the subtle sign that he is completely out of his element. 

It is a bizarre realization to have: Leon Kennedy can drop a Licker at fifty yards while backflipping over a laboratory bench, but put him in a room full of Swiss philanthropists and he looks like a five-year-old at a piano recital. 

It is weirdly, infuriatingly endearing.

"Thanks," he exhales, his shoulders finally dropping an inch. "I just don't get the point of all this. We could just breach the secondary basement entrance and be done with the Plagas samples before the first course is served."

"And miss the opportunity to see you try to identify a salad fork?" you tease, letting your hands linger on his chest just a second longer than necessary before stepping back. 

"Where’s the fun in that? Besides, this is a charity gala, Kennedy. We’re here to blend in, charm the donors, and keep our eyes on the prize. Try to look like you’re enjoying yourself. It’s for the kids, or the whales, or whatever it is they’re pretending to save tonight."

Leon lets out a short, dry laugh, his gaze trailing over the curves of your gown with a slow, appreciative intensity that makes your cynical braim momentarily stall. 

"I'll try. But if I have to talk about the 'nuances of French viticulture' for more than five minutes, I’m calling for an extraction."

"You'll be fine," you reply, hooking your arm through his and leaning in close enough to catch the scent of his cologne—something crisp and woodsy that definitely didn't come from a drug store. 

"Just stay close to me, keep your mouth shut unless you're drinking, and try not to reach for your gun every time a champagne cork pops. You’re with a professional now."

He looks down at you, a lopsided, slightly awkward smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. It is a look that doesn't belong in a den of vipers like this gala, yet somehow, it makes the whole ridiculous mission feel a little more human.

 "Lead the way, Officer," he whispers. 

You lead him toward the ballroom, feeling the familiar weight of a knife on your leg and the unfamiliar warmth of his arm under yours, thinking that for a man his age, he still has a lot to learn about the most dangerous monsters of all: people who lunch.

The target is a man named Julian Vane, a low-level biological broker with the fashion sense of a disco-era pimp and the moral compass of a parasitic worm. He is exactly the kind of sleaze you’ve spent twenty-five years learning how to manipulate. 

Standing in the center of the gilded ballroom, surrounded by the tinkling of crystal and the pretentious drone of a string quartet, you shift into a persona that feels like a tight, itchy costume.

You lean into Vane’s space, your voice dropping into a sultry, practiced purr that makes your internal monologue want to scream. You laugh at his jokes—none of which are funny—and watch as his eyes track the movement of your throat when you take a sip of champagne. 

It is a performance, a tactical dance where every tilt of your head and every "accidental" brush of your hand is a calculated move.

"Oh, Julian," you whisper, leaning closer until you can smell his cloying, expensive cologne. You reach out, your fingers tracing the silk lapel of his tuxedo jacket with a feather-light touch. Your eyes are wide and admiring, the perfect picture of a woman captivated by a man with too much money and too little sense. 

"You’re far more dangerous than people give you credit for, aren't you?"

As his ego inflates to near-bursting, your other hand moves with the silent, surgical precision of a ghost. 

Your fingers dip into the inner pocket of his jacket, finding the cold, hard plastic of the access keycard. In one fluid, practiced motion, the card is gone, tucked safely into the small of your back against the silk of your dress. 

You give him one last, lingering smile, promise to meet him by the terrace in ten minutes, and turn on your heel.

You navigate the crowd toward the back of the ballroom, your face a mask of social grace until you slip into a dimly lit service alcove where Leon is waiting. 

The second the heavy velvet curtain falls behind you, shielding you from the eyes of the gala, your entire demeanor shifts. You double over slightly, physically mimicking a gagging motion, and wipe your hand against the side of your gown as if you’ve just touched a slug.

"Ugh, I absolutely hate doing that," you hiss, your voice returning to its usual blunt, weary rasp. "I feel like I need to be hosed down with industrial-grade disinfectant. That man is ninety percent hair gel and ten percent unearned confidence."

Leon is leaning against the stone wall of the alcove, his arms crossed over his chest. 

In the shadows, the black wool of his tuxedo makes him look like a phantom, but the amused, lopsided smirk on his face is very much real. He’s been watching the whole thing from the bar, likely nursing a ginger ale and pretending it was scotch.

"I don't know," Leon teases, his blue eyes glinting with a rare, playful light. He pushes off the wall and steps into your space, the close quarters of the alcove making him feel much larger than usual. "You looked like you were having the time of your life. I think you might have a future in theater if the CIA ever gets tired of you."

"Don't start with me, Kennedy," you grumble, pulling the keycard out and brandishing it like a trophy. "I did the heavy lifting. Now we just have to get to the vault before Mr. Hair Gel realizes his pocket is lighter."

Leon chuckles, a low, warm sound that vibrates in the small space. He reaches out, his hand hovering near your shoulder before he thinks better of it. 

"Hey, look, if it's that traumatic for you, I can always take the next guy," he offers, his voice dropping into that earnest, slightly awkward hero-tone. "I’ve got a lot of charm when I try. I could be very persuasive."

You stop, your hand on the door leading to the service hallway. 

You slowly look him up and down, taking in the slightly crooked bowtie and the earnest, slightly boyish expression that sits so strangely on a man who has seen the end of the world. You step toward him, patting his chest firmly with the keycard before tucking it away.

"Bless you for your confidence," you say, your voice dripping with sweet, maternal sarcasm. "Truly. But I think we’d both like to finish this mission before sunrise. You just stick to the shooting; let the grown-ups handle the flirting."

You don't wait for his response, slipping through the door and leaving him standing in the shadows, mouth slightly open as he tries to find a retort. 

You can practically hear the gears in his head grinding as he stammers out a half-formed, "Hey, I'm a grown-up," but you are already ten paces down the hall, a smirk finally touching your lips.

──────•✦•──────

The transition from "sophisticated socialite" to "walking lethality" happens in the span of a single heartbeat. 

You’ve just secured the vials of the experimental Plagas strain, the cold glass heavy in your clutch, when the service elevator dings and spits out four guards with submachine guns and very little interest in your evening gown.

The vaulted stone corridor turns into a thunderous tunnel of gunfire and shattered masonry. 

You dive behind a heavy marble pedestal, the silk of your dress snagging on a decorative molding with a sickening tear.

Rest in peace, two thousand dollars of CIA-funded couture, you think bitterly as you draw your compact sidearm. 

Leon is already in rhythm, his gun barking with the rhythmic, clinical precision that has made him a legend. He is a whirlwind of movement, covering your flank while you lay down suppressive fire, but the hallway is narrow and the guards are desperate.

In the chaos, one of the survivors lunges at you from a side door, his hand clamping down on your forearm with a bruising grip that knocks your gun off-target. 

He is a big guy, smelling of cheap cigarettes and adrenaline, and he makes the mistake of thinking your silk-clad arms are soft. 

You don't even blink. You reach up with your free hand, pluck the long, steel hairpin from your updo, and jam it into his eye socket with the practiced indifference of someone who has done this a hundred times before.

He shriekes, a high, wet sound that is cut short when you regain control of your weapon and put a single, decisive bullet through his forehead. You shove his corpse away, smooth a stray lock of hair, and re-center your sights.

"Remind me never to get on your bad side," Leon pants from across the hall, having just dropped the last guard. He is staring at the dead man, then at the blood-stained hairpin you are casually wiping on the guard’s uniform.

"Too late, Kennedy. You’re already on the list," you shot back, your voice a playful, dangerous purr. You grab the samples and gesture toward the service exit. "Move. More of them are coming."

The escape is a blur of shadows and sharp turns. Somewhere between the wine cellar and the loading docks, a stray bullet ricochets off a steel pipe, singing past your ear and catching Leon. 

You hear him hiss, a sharp intake of breath that makes your stomach do a weird, uninvited flip. He doesn't slow down, and neither do you, not until you burst through a heavy iron side door into the biting midnight air of Geneva.

The temperature drop is like a slap to the face. You are standing in a narrow alley, sweat cooling instantly on your skin, your breath coming in white plumes. 

You start to shiver, the adrenaline dump leaving you shaky and exposed in your ruined emerald dress.

Before you can even mutter a complaint about the cold, Leon is there. He moves with a slight stiffness, but he doesn't hesitate to peel off his tuxedo jacket. He drapes the heavy, warm wool over your shoulders, the fabric still carrying the heat of his body and the faint, reassuring scent of his cologne. 

It is only then that you notice the dark, spreading stain on the white linen of his dress shirt, right over his left shoulder blade.

"Sorry about the mess," he murmurs, his voice a bit rough as he gestures to the blood now smearing the interior of the jacket he’s just given you. "I’ll buy you a new one. Or, you know, pay the dry cleaning bill."

You look at the blood on the expensive silk lining, then up at his tired, earnest face—the face of a man who has just been shot but is still worried about ruining your dress. 

Something about the absurdity of it all—the tuxedo, the bioweapons, and the eye-piercing hairpin—finally breaks through your professional veneer.

You burst out laughing. It isn't a polite, socialite giggle; it is a loud, genuine bark of a laugh that echoes off the damp alley walls.

"Kennedy, you idiot," you wheeze, clutching the lapels of his jacket to keep the warmth in. "You’re bleeding through a thousand-dollar shirt and you’re apologizing for the dress?"

He blinks, looking a little bewildered by your reaction, a faint, sheepish smile finally touching his lips. "I'm just trying to be a gentleman. Isn't that what the CIA expects from the STRATCOM?"

"The CIA expects me to come back with the samples and a pulse. Everything else is a bonus," you reply, your laughter subsiding into a gentle, playful smirk. 

You reach out, your fingers lightly grazing his uninjured shoulder, your voice softening just a fraction. "Honestly? I’d love a vacation. A beach, some actual sunshine, and a drink with a tiny umbrella. But at this point? I’d settle for just one assignment where nobody tries to kill us and you don't end up as a pincushion for stray lead."

"I'll see what I can do," he promises, his blue eyes holding yours in the dim light of the alley. "But no promises on the tiny umbrellas."

"Typical," you sigh, though you don't pull away. "Come on, pretty boy. Let’s get you patched up before you ruin any more of my wardrobe."

──────•✦•──────

The midnight oil at Langley doesn’t burn; it flickers with a pathetic, fluorescent buzz that makes you want to drive a knife straight into the circuit breaker. 

It is nearly two in the morning, and the sterile interior of the CIA headquarters has settled into that eerie, vacuum-sealed quiet that only exists when the daytime bureaucrats have gone home to their comfortable suburban beds. The air is dry, over-filtered, and smells aggressively of commercial carpet cleaner and the burnt sludge resembling coffee at the bottom of your ceramic mug.

You are slouched so far down in your ergonomic office chair that your spine is practically a liquid asset, your head tilted back against the rigid plastic headrest. Your eyes are fixed entirely on the frosted glass light fixture directly above your desk, where a single, tragically dead housefly has been trapped for ages.

Across the cluttered desk, the soft, rhythmic clicking of a mechanical keyboard suddenly ceases. Evan stops typing, lets out a long, theatrical sigh, and rubs the heels of his hands into his eyes until his skin turns a blotchy red.

He breaks the silence first. “Hey.”

You don’t look up. “If you’re about to ask me to proofread your section, I will walk out of this building and never come back.”

“I’m not,” he says.

That gets your attention. You glance over, narrowing your eyes slightly. “That sounded suspiciously like a setup.”

He leans back in his chair, rolling his shoulders, expression somewhere between amused and mildly sleep-deprived.

“It’s not a setup,” he says. “It’s an observation.”

“Oh good,” you mutter. “My favorite kind of conversation.”

A corner of his mouth twitches. “Let’s talk about Leon.”

You don’t move a single muscle. You don’t tilt your head, and you don’t break your intense, spiritual communion with the dead fly in the light fixture. 

But deep in the center of your chest, a familiar, razor-sharp spike of heat flares up. Your pulse gives a stupid, uncoordinated little thud that you immediately suppress with twenty-five years of deeply ingrained field discipline.

“What about him?” you drawl, your voice a low, gravelly friction in the quiet room. “Did he finally realize that leather jackets aren’t recognized tactical gear, or did he finally trip over his own hair and break that pristine jawline?”

“Ha. Very fucking funny,” Evan replies, entirely unbothered by your deflection. 

He leans back in his chair, interlocking his fingers behind his head and looking at you across the mountain of manila folders with a knowing, infuriatingly patient expression. It’s the look he gives you when he thinks he’s entirely ahead of the play. 

“I’m talking about the way the kid looks at you. Like you’re some kind of rare artifact he’s desperately trying to figure out. STRATCOM’s pristine golden boy has a massive, textbook crush on you, in case you’re too busy insulting the senior directorate to notice.”

You let out a sharp, genuine snort, the sound echoing loudly off the bare walls of the cubicle. 

You finally sit up, your joints popping in protest as you lean forward and fix your longtime partner with a flat, thoroughly unimpressed stare.

“Evan, please. A blind person could deduce that much,” you say, tossing a stray highlighter onto the desk. “The man is about as subtle as a goddamn flashbang in a public library. Every time I walk into the room, he looks like he’s trying to remember his own name.” 

You rub your temple, where a dull ache is beginning to form. “And for the record, we’re both pushing fifty. Can we please stop using the word ‘crush’? It makes me feel like I should be braiding your hair and writing his initials in a pink glittery notebook. It’s embarrassing.”

Evan chuckles, a dry, raspy, tobacco-stained sound that shakes his shoulders. “Fine. He has a ‘profound, multi-agency professional interest’ in you. Whatever the hell helps you sleep at night, you old cynical bastard. So, what are you going to do about it?”

“Nothing,” you shoot back instantly, your voice dropping into a hard, definitive flat line. 

You pick up your pen, flipping it between your fingers with a sharp, aggressive speed. 

“I’m going to do absolutely fucking nothing. He’s a junior asset on a joint task force, he’s almost twenty years younger than me, and his file is a psychological disaster zone. I’m not here to get involved with a pretty boy who doesn't know how to handle his liquor.”

The playful banter vanishes from the air like smoke. 

Evan’s smile slowly fades, his posture shifting into something much heavier, much more tentative. He looks at you for a long, quiet moment, the hum of the computers filling the void between you.

“You know…” Evan says softly, his voice dropping an octave, filled with a cautious, rare gravity. “You know he’s not Marcus, right?”

The name hits the room like a physical blow. Your fingers freeze mid-flip, the plastic pen slipping out of your grip and clattering against the desk with a sound that feels as loud as a gunshot. 

Your entire body goes rigid, the playful, sarcastic armor you wear like a second skin instantly hardening into ice. 

You tilt your chin up, your eyes narrowing into a dangerous, razor-thin stare that has made local warlords back down in the field.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean, Evan?” you ask sharply, your voice dangerously quiet, completely stripped of any warmth or humor.

Evan doesn't flinch, but he raises his hands slightly in a defensive gesture, his eyes filled with a weary, deep-seated concern that you absolutely hate seeing. “It means you keep everyone exactly six feet away from you at all times. It's clear as day why you do it, and it’s been clear for years.”

Your chest feels incredibly tight, a cold, suffocating weight pressing down on your lungs as the memory of a scorching morning in Tripoli tries to claw its way to the surface. 

Do not go there. Do not let him in.

“You are not getting paid to psychoanalyze me, Evan,” you say, your voice cutting through the space between you like a serrated blade, entirely devoid of the usual brotherly affection. 

You slam the laptop lid shut with a controlled, violent snap.

“You’re getting paid to finish the logistics report on the Geneva vector. So focus on the goddamn screen and leave my personal life out of it.”

Evan stares at you, his mouth opening as if to push back, but he reads the absolute, unyielding stone in your eyes. He lets out a slow, deflated sigh, shaking his head as he drops his hands back onto his keyboard. 

He knows the conversation is over. 

He knows the steel shutters have come down, and when you look like that, there isn't a force on earth that can pry them back open.

“Yeah,” he mutters quietly, his fingers beginning to tap against the keys once more. “Right. Back to the report.”

You lean back in your chair, your hands trembling slightly as you slide them into your jacket pockets to hide the movement. 

You turn your gaze back to the ceiling, but you don't see the fly anymore. Your mind is fixed entirely on the memory of blue eyes, a crooked, awkward smile, and the terrifying realization that your walls might not be nearly as thick as you thought they were.