#point blank

October 2006; Langley, VA

The fluorescent lights of the Langley briefing room vibrate at a frequency that feels like a drill pressing into your temples.

You slide into the chair next to Evan, the plastic creaking under your weight, and don’t even bother to take off your sunglasses. The dark lenses are the only thing standing between your splitting headache and the sterile, blinding whiteness of the room.

If the CIA brass expects you to sit through a joint task force meeting looking like a poster child for federal efficiency, they should have given you more than twelve hours on a cargo plane to wash the dirt out from under your fingernails.

You slouch back in the uncomfortable, padded chair, casting a thoroughly miserable side-eye at Evan, who looks entirely too pristine. He is sitting there, tapping away at his encrypted tablet, smelling faintly of laundry detergent and a functioning eight hours of sleep. 

It is deeply offensive.

You lean back, cross your arms, and let out a long, audible sigh that telegraphs exactly how much you want to be anywhere else.

A few STRATCOM members are already scattered around the mahogany table, looking far too polished for nine in the morning. 

Then the heavy double doors swing open, and the atmosphere in the room shifts instantly.

Am an walks in, and you can practically hear the collective indrawn breath of the room's junior analysts. 

He’s dressed in a navy suit, moving with a controlled, athletic grace that screams overachiever. Blond hair, slightly too long to be regulation-perfect. Blue eyes that scan the room quickly—not lingering, not searching for attention, just… clocking exits, people, angles. 

Habit.

He makes the less experienced members of the team turn their heads like he’s a celebrity walking a red carpet. 

To them, he’s a living myth, a ghost story made flesh.

To you, he’s just the guy who’s about to make this meeting thirty minutes longer than it needs to be.

He doesn't play into the attention, though. In fact, he looks slightly uncomfortable with the way the room has gone quiet, offering a small, almost apologetic nod to the senior staff as he makes his way to the only empty chair. 

He’s not swaggering; he’s just... some guy. A guy who happens to look like he’s stepped off a recruitment poster, which only makes your current state—caffeine-deprived and cynical—feel more haggard.

You know the file, though. Everyone in the building does.

Leon S. Kennedy

Raccoon City survivor. STRATCOM’s golden boy. The President’s personal silver bullet for every bio-organic nightmare that crawls out of a test tube. 

He sits directly across from you, his blue eyes meeting yours for a fleeting second with a sincerity that feels out of place in a room full of sharks.

You know the type of man they say he is.

You’re a lot more interested in the one who just sat down like he’d rather be literally anywhere else.

“Tell me we’re not on babysitting duty,” you mumble to Evan, barely moving your lips. “I thought STRATCOM had their own nursery for the ones with nice hair.”

Evan doesn’t even look up from his tablet. “Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed. And why the fuck are you wearing sunglasses indoors? You look like a hungover bodyguard.”

You tip the glasses down just enough to fix him with a bloodshot stare. “I am hungover. And jetlagged, Evan. Which explains the sunglasses, the mood, and why I might bite the next person who speaks above a whisper.”

Without a word, Evan slides his steaming cardboard cup of coffee toward you.The rich, bitter scent of dark roast hits your nose, and for a fleeting second, you feel a faint surge of genuine, gentle affection for the man.

You blink at the cup, then at him. “You’re going soft on me,” you tease, your voice a raspy shadow of its usual self. “Next thing I know you’ll be knitting me a cardigan.”

“I’m just trying to keep you from becoming homicidal,” he counters, still looking at his screen. “For once, I’d like to get through a joint task force meeting without a formal HR complaint. Drink the caffeine and be a professional.”

You take a sip. The bitter heat does wonders for your soul, even if it doesn’t touch the headache.

You and Evan watch the STRATCOM contingent out of the corner of your eyes.

“I thought he’d be taller,” Evan whispers, nodding subtly toward Kennedy.

You snort directly into your coffee, the sound muffled but sharp enough to make a STRATCOM staffer a few seats down look over in disapproval. You flash the suit a venomous glare until he looks away. 

“I just hope there’s some actual skill behind that pretty face. I’m too old to be a glorified nanny. If we have to pull him out of a fire, they better pay me double.”

“There must be something to him,” Evan muses. “The guy’s been through enough viral hellscapes to be a walking petri dish. If he wasn’t good, he’d be a zombie or a puddle of goo by now.”

You let out a dry, cynical breath, staring down at the dark swirling liquid in your cup. Evan isn't wrong, but decades of watching tactical operations dissolve into chaotic bloodbaths because some suit in Washington wanted a political win has completely eroded your faith in the system. You’ve seen too many "heroes" get chewed up and spit out by the meat grinder of black ops.

Evan glances at your empty hands, then back to his screen. “Speaking of the devil... did you actually review the briefing documents I forwarded you?”

You lean your head back against the rigid spine of the chair, closing your eyes behind the comforting dark barrier of the shades. “Didn’t have time between the shit brass keeps pulling out of their collective asses. They had me running a three-week marathon through the Bolivian brush tracking a phantom lead that didn't exist. My brain is fried, Evan.”

Evan sighs, a familiar, fond sound. He slides his tablet directly into your lap. “Well, look at it now. Tell me what you think of the extraction protocol.”

You crack your eyes open, pulling the tablet up and scrolling through the classified tactical mapping for the upcoming raid on an European crime syndicate. Your eyes skim the coordinates, the perimeter deployment, the estimated response times, and the structural analysis of the target compound. 

Within thirty seconds, the sheer, unadulterated stupidity of the plan makes your blood pressure spike. It is an absolute bottleneck. A tactical suicide pact written in neat, Arial-font bullet points.

“What do you think?” Evan asks, though he clearly already knows the answer.

“I think it’s a shitty plan,” you say, your voice flat and definitive. “The moron who drafted this is clearly huffing glue. I’m going to have to give them the benefit of my very thorough expertise.”

Evan lets out a dry, raspy chuckle, shaking his head. “Expertise? Is that what we’re calling it now? You’re clearly the personality hire on this team. I’m the one who does the actual work around here.”

“Shut up and let me look at how many ways they're trying to get us killed,” you mutter playfully, elbowing him lightly in the ribs.

While you are staring down at the glowing screen, your blunt words echoing softly in the quiet room, you feel the distinct sensation of eyes on you. You casually tilt your head up, your gaze tracking through the dark tint of your sunglasses.

He had clearly caught your comment about the glue. But instead of the typical, defensive puffing of the chest you usually get from high-ranking male operatives—instead of the offended, stiff arrogance of a man whose reputation had just been casually dismissed—he looks entirely intrigued. 

One of his eyebrows is slightly arched, a faint, almost imperceptible trace of amusement dancing in his blue eyes. He leans back slightly in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest, his gaze steady and assessing as he watches you handle Evan’s tablet. He isn't intimidated by your abrasive, foul-mouthed demeanor at all. If anything, the slight, curious smirk hovering near his lips suggests he finds the absolute lack of corporate filtering refreshing.

You hold his gaze behind your lenses, dryly noting that at least the kid has a sense of humor. 

At the front of the room, the Deputy Director clears his throat, the sound amplified by the briefing room’s microphone as he taps a button on his remote.

"Ladies and gentlemen, let's get down to it," the Director says, his voice flat and bureaucratic as the main projector screen flickers to life. A massive intelligence dossier populates the center display, dominated by a stark, stylized graphic of a mythological beast—three heads, a serpent's tail, a predator's posture. "Over the last fiscal quarter, our joint intelligence web has flagged a rapidly expanding shadow organization. They utilize this creature—the Chimera—as their formal sigil, and the intelligence community has formally dubbed them the Chimera Syndicate."

He clicks to the next slide, revealing high-resolution satellite imagery of fortified black sites and intercepted cargo manifests. "This isn't your standard black-market cartel. The Chimera Syndicate has recently taken up dealing BOWs on a massive scale across European sectors. They are actively acquiring fractured Umbrella assets, securing refined viral strains, and selling bio-organic weaponry to the highest international bidders. And that brings us to their primary distribution hub."

He clicks the remote again. The projection screen behind him flashes to a highly detailed, brightly colored tactical overlay of the primary target compound in Eastern Europe. He begins to drone on about standard insertion protocols, tracing a neat little red line directly through the main courtyard. He speaks with the smooth, unearned confidence of a man who has never had to wash a colleague's blood out of a pair of combat boots.  

As the details of the operation spill out of his mouth, the last frayed threads of your patience finally snap.

The insertion point is a funnel. The secondary extraction route relies on a bridge that your own intelligence reports indicated was structurally compromised three weeks ago. They are practically rolling out a red carpet for the Chimera Syndicate's heavy artillery.

You lean over to Evan, not even bothering with the concept of a whisper. “This is bullshit.”

The entire room goes dead silent. The air conditioning unit suddenly feels incredibly loud. 

The Deputy Director freezes, his red laser pointer trembling slightly against the digital map on the wall. Slowly, he lowers the remote and turns his head, glaring at you over the wire rims of his spectacles with a look of radiating self-importance. It’s the exact kind of bureaucratic condescension that usually makes you want to reach into your jacket for a flask. 

“Officer? Did you have something you wanted to share with the rest of the group? Or were you too busy admiring your own reflection in those glasses?”

He expects an apology. He wants you to shrink back, to mutter a sorry, sir and let him finish his fantasy of a flawless victory.

But you’ve been in the dark too long to care about his ego.

“I said,” you repeat, sitting up straight and pulling the sunglasses off your head, “this is bullshit.”

The Deputy Director’s face transitions into a delicate, dangerous shade of mauve. “You are forgetting who you are speaking to, Officer,” he says, his teeth clenched so tight you can hear the enamel grinding. “This is a highly sensitive tactical operation engineered by top-tier military minds.”  

“No,” you fire back, leaning forward and slamming your sunglasses onto the polished wood table with a sharp, echoing crack. “You’re forgetting who you’re speaking to. Twenty-five years of service in black ops. Unmatched field experience. You brought me into this circus for my expertise, so you’re damn well getting it. This plan isn't an operation—it’s a fucking suicide note.”  

A few years ago, a comment like that would have gotten you escorted out of Langley by armed guards. But you have built a reputation heavy enough that even senior leadership cannot simply dismiss you or pretend your record doesn't exist. 

You’ve survived the kind of clean-up jobs that keep these directors awake at night, and they know it.

Before he can order you out, you stand up, stepping up to the edge of the long conference table. You point a finger directly at the glowing projection screen and systematically begin to dismantle their beautiful, pristine plan.  

“Look at your primary insertion point,” you command, your voice echoing off the sterile walls. “You are funneling three separate tactical teams right into a cross-section of overlapping kill zones. The syndicate has elevated sniper perches on the north and west ridges. If you drop the teams there, they’ll be fish in a barrel before their boots even hit the mud.”  

The Deputy Director opens his mouth to speak, but you cut him off with a brutal wave of your hand. “Furthermore, whoever drew these perimeter lines completely ignored the existing ventilation and maintenance routes running beneath the sub-level labs. They appear right here on the 1998 Umbrella blueprints, but I guess looking at older schematics was too much fucking work for your analysts.”  

You lean over the table, glaring directly into the Director's eyes. “Your planners are assuming the enemy is going to behave predictably and according to conventional military rules. These people are dealing bio-organic weapons. They don't play by the Geneva Convention.”  

The Director’s face goes from mauve to a deep, embarrassed crimson as he realizes he has absolutely no data to counter your points, because every single word out of your mouth is entirely, undeniably correct. Around the table, the other military officials suddenly avoid eye contact with him, quietly nodding and adjusting their papers, silently acknowledging the massive, fatal flaws you are exposing.  

“So go ahead,” you finish, tossing your pen down onto the table. “Send them in through the front door. And then you can be the one to explain to the families why their sons and daughters are now sentient, mutated piles of sludge.”  

You sink back into your chair, breathing heavily, the thumping in your head returning with a vengeance.

Evan leans over, rubbing his temple. “Always the same shit with you,” he whispers, though there’s a fond, weary undercurrent to his voice. “You could at least try to soften the tone, you know? Just once? For the sake of my blood pressure?”

You turn your head slightly, a small, sharp smile playing on your lips. “I could soften it, Evan. I really could. But I just don't give a fuck anymore. Seen enough crap that makes Guantanamo seem like a great retirement destination.”

The front of the room is silent for a painfully long moment. The Deputy Director looks at the screen, then at his notes, and finally clears his throat, his posture deflating. With an incredibly grudging, bitter nod, he addresses the room. “We will... take these variables into consideration. The briefing is paused for sixty minutes while we recalculate the insertion vectors.” 

“Of course you will,” you murmur, leaning back and tapping your pen lightly against the table.

Evan exhales, a long, weary sound. “You know, one day they’re actually going to throw you out of one of these rooms. Permanently.”

You shrug faintly, a playful glint returning to your eyes now that the pressure is off. “Then they shouldn’t invite me. I’m a terrible guest.”

He snorts under his breath.

Across the table, Leon Kennedy is still staring. 

He isn’t offended. 

He looks captivated, his blue eyes wide with a mix of shock and dawning respect. There’s a faint, almost imperceptible twitch at the corner of his mouth, like he’s fighting the urge to grinright there in front of his superiors.  

He looks like a man who has spent far too many years surrounded by tightly wound politicians and yes-men who are too terrified of losing their pensions to speak the truth—and he’s just realized he's sitting across from a kindred spirit.

You catch his eye, hold it for a second to make sure he’s paying attention, and give him a quick, mischievous wink.

Leon blinks, completely caught off guard. A faint, genuine flush of color creeps up the collar of his shirt and colors his neck. He looks down at his folder, clearing his throat awkwardly as you turn your attention back to your coffee, thoroughly satisfied with the morning’s entertainment.

──────•✦•──────

The tarmac at the private airfield in the Eastern Slav Republic feels like a sheet of ice, the kind of cold that doesn’t just nip at your skin but takes a personal interest in your bone marrow. As the transport plane’s ramp hisses open, the Eastern European wind rushes in, smelling of jet fuel, pine needles, and the vague, metallic tang of an impending storm.

You pull the collar of your shearling jacket up against the chill, stepping down the ramp onto the frost-heaved asphalt. Your boots crunch on the thin layer of ice already forming over the puddles. Instantly, that familiar, leaden weight settles deep in your chest—the crushing boredom and cold dread of another black ops circus kicking off in a corner of the world that God forgot.

A few yards away, Leon Kennedy is hauling a heavy tactical crate off the hydraulic lift. He handles the weight with an easy, fluid strength, his biceps straining against the fabric of his dark tactical shirt, but his head isn't entirely in the game. 

Ever since you verbally castrated the Deputy Director back at Langley, the boy has been walking on eggshells around you, trying to solve you like a puzzle he can't quite piece together. He’s clearly used to two types of people: starry-eyed rookies who treat him like a plastic action figure, or stiff STRATCOM suits trying to measure their dicks against his file. 

He isn’t used to a woman who treats him like a regular peer and tells his bosses to shove their tactical maps where the sun doesn’t shine.

The local contact, a grizzled man named Yuri with skin like cured leather and a suspicious twitch in his left eye, waits by a rusted-out UAZ. He looks ready to bolt the second he sees the American “advisors” unloading crates of high-tech hardware.

The STRATCOM team leader is already smoothing his tactical vest, preparing to march over and deliver some textbook, aggressively formal diplomatic introduction that will probably make the poor bastard leak information out of sheer panic.

You don't give them the chance. You bypass the handlers entirely, stepping past a stack of gear, and walk straight toward Yuri, your posture losing the aggressive, combat-ready edge you hold in the briefing room.

“Zdrastvuy, Yuri,” you say softly, your Russian rolling off your tongue with ease. You place a gentle hand on his forearm, your eyes softening. “We heard about your brother. I am truly sorry. No man should lose family to these monsters.”

Yuri freezes, his defensive posture melting instantly. He looks at you and sees the empathy there—the genuine, weary kindness of someone who has seen too many brothers lost.

He nods slowly, his eyes brimming with a sudden, shaky trust. He wipes his nose with the back of a dirty glove and begins to speak rapidly, the words spilling out of him in an anxious, desperate torrent of Russian. 

He points a trembling finger toward the jagged white peaks rising in the distance. He tells you everything. He details the exact paths the Chimera cell has been using to move their crates into the foothills, the approximate headcounts, and the strange, guttural noises echoing from the abandoned mining shafts at night. He is trusting you with his life because you had the decency to treat him like a grieving human being before treating him like an asset.

From the corner of your eye, you see Leon stop what he’s doing. He’s holding a tactical vest, frozen mid-motion, watching the exchange.

You can almost hear the gears turning in his head: Who is this person?

One minute you’re a human buzzsaw in a conference room, and the next you’re comforting a terrified informant in his mother tongue like a saint in tactical boots.

He is visibly, utterly stunned. The cognitive dissonance is practically short-circuiting his pretty blond head.

You finish the exchange with Yuri, promising him that his village will be bypassed in the coming sweep, and turn back toward the team. The professional mask slides back into place, though your inner monologue remains as cynical as ever.

Great. Now all I need is a coffee and a lobotomy to forget the smell of this airfield.

Evan is currently cross-referencing a digital manifest next to a stack of ammunition crates and looking predictably miserable about the temperature.

You don’t say a word as you walk up to him; you simply reach into his tactical jacket pocket with the practiced ease of a pickpocket, your fingers finding the familiar rectangular shape of his cigarette pack and the cold metal of his Zippo.

“Hey,” Evan grunts, not even looking up as you flip the lid and spark a flame. “You know, those things will fucking kill you one day," he grumbles, crossing his arms against the biting wind. "And for the love of God, you are a government employee. Buy your own damn cigarettes for once."

You flick the Zippo open with a sharp, metallic clink, shielding the small flame from the bitter wind with your palm as you light up. You take a long, deep drag, the harsh smoke burning beautifully in your lungs, before blowing a neat gray cloud into the freezing air. You wink at him through the haze. 

"Why would I buy my own, Evan? Using your supply is significantly more cost-effective. It's called resource management."

"You’re a parasite," Evan grumbles, though there’s no real heat in it. "A highly armed, middle-aged parasite."

You shoot him a sharp, playful grin and nudge his shoulder with your elbow. “Consider it a fee for my charming company. It’s a bargain.”

"Your company is a recognized hazard to my physical and mental health," he snorts under his breath, turning his attention back to the tablet, though the distinct, affectionate twitch of a smile at the corner of his mouth gives him away completely.

You feel that heavy gaze on you again. You turn your head just enough to see Leon still watching you, his expression a mix of bewilderment and something that looks suspiciously like intrigue. 

He looks like he wants to say something—probably some heroic one-liner about the mission or a polite comment on your linguistics—but he seems to realize he doesn’t have the right opening.

You catch his eye and let the smoke drift out of the side of your mouth, giving him a look that’s equal parts Can I help you? and Try to keep up.

Instantly, the legendary Leon S. Kennedy completely loses his nerve.

His cheeks turn a faint, tellsome pink against the freezing cold, and he abruptly rips his gaze away, suddenly becoming profoundly, intensely interested in the adjustment strap of his left combat boot. He starts pulling at a buckle that doesn't even need adjusting, his fingers working with a nervous, clumsy speed that is entirely uncharacteristic of a top-tier federal agent.

You watch his sudden, burning embarrassment, a sudden bubble of genuine, suppressed amusement fluttering in your chest. 

You take another drag of your cigarette, hiding your smirk behind the smoke.

Poor guy, you think, suppressed amusement bubbling in your chest. He’s a legend in the field, but he’s absolutely out of his depth here.

This is going to be a very long, very entertaining week.

──────•✦•──────

Leon adjusts the weight of his tactical vest, the Velcro snapping with a sharp, rhythmic sound that matches the pounding of the blood in his ears. 

He feels like he’s trying to solve a puzzle with half the pieces missing. He’s seen a lot of things in his time—monsters that defy biology and politicians who defy logic—but you are proving to be a different kind of anomaly. 

One minute you are a hurricane, dismantling a Director’s career with the surgical precision of a scalpel, and the next, you are crouched in the dirt, speaking Russian with a softness that seems to physically soothe a trembling informant. 

It’s a jarring duality, a shift in frequency so fast it leaves him with a lingering sense of vertigo.

Evan follows his line of sight without a shred of subtlety, his gaze drifting over to where you stand by a rusted armored truck, looking entirely too comfortable for a woman in a frozen wasteland. A knowing, weary flicker crosses the older officer's face, the look of a man who has seen this particular brand of fascination take root before. 

“Careful,” Evan says dryly, his voice cutting through the whistle of the wind. “She bites.” 

Leon huffs out a quiet breath, the vapor clouding in front of his face. “Yeah, I got that impression,” he mutters, thinking of the way you’d winked at him after essentially lighting the briefing room on fire. 

“Good,” Evan replies, shifting his weight. “Then you’re ahead of most people.”

There’s a beat of heavy, cold silence between them as Leon hesitates. He shouldn't ask; he’s a professional, and he has a job to do that involves BOWs, not interpersonal psych-evaluations. 

But against his better judgment, he finds the question slipping out anyway. “She always like that?” 

Evan raises an eyebrow, a skeptical glint in his eyes. “Like what?” 

Leon gestures vaguely toward you, his hand dropping as soon as he realizes how transparent he’s being. “That. The... the 180-degree switch.” 

Evan looks back at you again, watching as you flick ash into a metal tray with a flick of your wrist, looking completely unbothered by the fact that you are the center of gravity for every set of eyes on this tarmac. 

“Depends,” Evan says after a moment. “You mean the part where she terrifies people in meetings, or the part where she talks a scared informant off a ledge like it’s nothing?”

Leon exhales through his nose, the cold air stinging his sinuses. “Yeah. That.” 

He’s trying to reconcile the blunt instrument he saw at Langley with the gentle soul currently promising a Russian man safety. 

“Both are real,” Evan shrugs, his expression unreadable. “People are rarely just one thing, Kennedy.” 

Leon frowns, unsatisfied. “That’s helpful.” 

Evan gives him a look that is pure CIA ice. “I’m not here to be helpful. I’m here to make sure she doesn’t get herself killed doing something reckless.” 

Leon’s gaze snaps back to the older man. “Reckless?” 

Evan’s mouth tilts into a grim, knowing shadow of a smile. “You’ll see.”

The warning is far from reassuring, but it fuels the fire of Leon's curiosity. 

As Evan moves off to check the perimeter, Leon finds his feet moving toward you before he can talk himself out of it. 

You are still leaning against the truck, the cigarette tucked between your fingers, looking like you belong in a vintage spy film rather than a bio-hazard containment zone. 

He stops a few feet away, feeling that familiar, slightly clumsy charm of his start to misfire. “You know, I’m starting to think you have a twin,” he says, trying for a smooth tone and landing somewhere near 'vaguely confused.' “Because the person who nearly made the Director cry in D.C. didn't seem like the type to hold hands with local informants.”

You turn your head slowly, a curl of smoke drifting from your lips as you look him up and down with that devastatingly dry, self-assured gaze. Leon feels a sudden, sharp urge to check if he has something on his face or if he’s standing in a puddle. 

“It’s called multitasking, Kennedy,” you reply, your voice a low, melodic contrast to the harsh wind. “You should try it. It saves a lot of time on paperwork.” 

Leon lets out a short, dry laugh, leaning his shoulder against a stack of crates to hide the fact that he’s slightly off-balance. 

“I usually stick to one personality at a time. It's less confusing for the monsters I shoot.” He pauses, his blue eyes searching yours, trying to find the seam where the two versions of you meet. “Which one is the act?”

You take another drag of the cigarette, your eyes softening just a fraction, though the sharp intelligence behind them remains. 

“Neither,” you say simply, exhaling the smoke into the gray sky. 

You flick the ash away and step closer, invading his personal space just enough to make his heart do a weird, uncoordinated stutter. 

“You’ve been at this circus long enough to know that being a ‘golden boy’ is its own kind of mask,” you murmur, your tone shifting into something terrifyingly perceptive. “Am I right?” 

Leon feels a hit of genuine, stinging recognition. He’s spent years being the hero, the survivor, the flawless agent, often at the cost of the man underneath the leather jacket. He looks down at you, realizing that for all your sarcasm and sharp edges, you are seeing him with a clarity that most people miss. 

“Maybe,” he admits, his voice dropping an octave. “But I usually wait until the second date to get profiled.” 

You let out a genuine, raspy laugh—a bright, surprising, beautiful sound in the miserable gloom of the airfield—and pat his upper arm with a hand that is surprisingly, comfortingly warm despite the freezing cold.  

“Don’t flatter yourself, Kennedy,” you tease, your eyes crinkling at the corners. “I’m not profiling you. I’m just trying to see if you’re actually as interesting as your redacted file claims you are.”  

As you pull your hand away and walk off to rejoin Evan at the command vehicle, Leon is left standing entirely alone in the freezing wind. He stares at his clipboard, completely tongue-tied, realizing that for the first time in a very long time, he is the one who has been left entirely caught off guard.

──────•✦•──────

The sterile, flickering lights of the facility hum with a low-frequency buzz that sets Leon’s mind on edge, the air thick with the antiseptic tang of chemicals and the metallic stench of old blood. 

The raid was supposed to be a surgical strike—in, out, secure the samples—but as the sirens begin to wail, Leon knows the "plan" he’d defended back at Langley has officially gone to hell. 

He is moving through the corridors with his gun drawn, his senses dialed to an eleven, when the wet, rhythmic slapping of flesh against metal echoes from the ceiling vents. 

Before he can even shout a warning, a pair of Lickers drop from the shadows, their raw, exposed brains glistening under the strobing emergency lights and their elongated tongues lashing out like whips.

Leon’s instinct is to dive in front of you, as he prepares to shoulder the brunt of the assault, but you are already three steps ahead of him. 

You don't scream. You certainly don't freeze. 

Instead, you drop into a low crouch, your movements fluid and practiced, and unleash a controlled burst from your submachine gun that catches the first creature mid-leap. 

You move with a lethal, terrifying grace, pivoting on your heel to put a round through the second creature’s skull just as it lunges. 

As the monsters slump into twitching heaps of gore, you don’t even look winded. You simply glance over at Leon, who is still half-poised for a heroic rescue that wasn't needed, and offer a devastatingly calm smirk. 

"Don't worry, Kennedy. I can actually shoot," you say, your voice dripping with that dry, playful sarcasm that seems to be your default setting. "Try to keep up, pretty boy."

Leon finds himself completely stunned, a sudden, ridiculous wave of heat rushing up his neck at the nickname. 

Pretty boy. 

Christ, he’s a federal agent who has stared down a Tyrant, but you managing to call him a pretty boy in the middle of a biological weapon ambush leaves him feeling more flustered than he cares to admit. He clears his throat, quickly lowering his weapon from its defensive arc and sliding into a low piece of concrete cover right next to you.

"Nice shooting," he quips, his breath coming in short, controlled bursts. "Did you try asking them politely in Russian first? Maybe they just needed a hug and a cigarette."

You reload your weapon with a metallic clack that is entirely too smooth, your eyes fixed on the door as you raise an eyebrow at him. The flickering light catches the sharp, confident line of your jaw, and Leon finds himself momentarily distracted by the fact that you look incredibly good in the middle of a warzone. 

"If I wanted to chat with a monster, Kennedy, I could have stayed in Washington," you shoot back, your tone perfectly flat and unimpressed. "At least these ones don't pretend to have a soul before they try to eat you."

Leon lets out a short, startled chuckle, shaking his head as he prepares to breach the next room. 

He realizes, with a sinking sort of clarity, that he is wildly out of his depth with you. He’s used to being the most capable person in the room—the one people look to when the world starts ending—but you don't look to him for anything other than a little bit of entertainment. 

It’s frustrating, bewildering, and, if he’s being honest with himself, completely intoxicating. 

Leon moves with you through the flickering dimness of the lower laboratories, his boots crunching over shattered glass and spent brass casings. 

The facility is a graveyard of failed ambitions and bio-hazardous waste, but every time the emergency strobes pulse, his eyes find the back of your head or the steady line of your shoulders. He finds himself attempting to bridge the silence, his social skills feeling about as refined as a flashbang. 

"So," he starts, his voice echoing slightly against the reinforced concrete walls, "is the 'pretty boy' thing a standard CIA field designation, or do I get a special badge for that?" 

He’s trying for suave, but it comes out with that distinct, earnest Leon Kennedy awkwardness—the kind that usually works on college students or younger agents, but seems to bounce off your skin like a ricochet. You don't even turn around, though he can hear the unmistakable lilt of a laugh in your throat. 

"It’s a temporary rank, Kennedy. Don’t get too attached to it; you’re one bad hair day away from a demotion," you reply, your tone dry. 

Leon huffs a small, self-deprecating smile, adjusting his grip on his weapon. 

"Tough crowd," he mutters, though the frustration is entirely surface-level. Beneath it, he’s enjoying the friction, the way you refuse to let him settle into his usual rhythm.

As you push through a set of heavy, hydraulic double doors, the air clears slightly. You find Evan waiting in a secure junction point, leaning against a console with a rifle slung over his shoulder and a look of profound boredom on his face. 

"Hey, you," Evan calls out, his voice raspy from the recycled air. He looks you over with a clinical, brotherly eye, his relief manifesting as a grumpy grunt. "Glad to see you're still kicking. I wasn't looking forward to filling out the paperwork for a new partner." 

You stop for a second, shifting your weight and giving him a stern look.

"What, you doubt my survival skills now, Evan? After fifteen years of me pulling your ass out of the fire?" You ask, your voice dripping with faux-indignation. 

Evan doesn't even blink, his gaze shifting briefly to Leon before returning to you. "Frequently," he replies without a beat. 

You shake your head, a genuine, fond smile tugging at the corners of your mouth—the kind of look Leon hasn't quite earned yet—before you gesture toward the dark corridor leading to the main server room. 

"Look lively, boys. We've got a virus to steal and a long flight home," you call out over your shoulder, already moving forward into the gloom.

Leon stands there for a moment, watching the way you navigate the shadows with a confidence that borders on the supernatural. 

He’s supposed to be the seasoned veteran, the one who’s seen it all and done it all, but you’ve managed to make him feel like he’s back in Raccoon City—uncertain, outclassed, and desperately curious. 

He watches the sway of your tactical belt and the way you check your corners with a lethal, effortless grace, and he realizes he’s in so much fucking trouble.

It’s a ridiculous sensation for a man of his age and standing, a schoolboy crush wrapped in a layer of professional respect and a healthy dose of "what the fuck is wrong with me," but as he follows you into the dark, he can't bring himself to mind.