The city at night had a different kind of heartbeat. Thinner. Tense. Somewhere between silence and a siren.
Valken crouched on the rooftop edge, his scoped rifle steady in his hands. The glow of the street below cast long shadows through the alleyway. Two floors beneath them, their target made slow progress toward a rendezvous point.
"Target is two minutes from the hand-off," Leon said through the comms, his voice low, professional. "I take lead. Koschei, you cover from the east stairwell."
Mikhail—Koschei—stood at the building's side entrance, fingers loose around his suppressed pistol, black-gloved and exact. He didn't respond right away.
He didn't need to.
He already knew that voice. That weight of warmth behind hard authority. He knew how that voice said his name half asleep. How it broke when laughing. How it softened when Leon thought no one could hear.
But this Leon—Valken—was different. Clipped. Focused. Efficient. He didn't linger. Didn't question. Didn't glance over his shoulder the way Leon did when Mikhail made him coffee in the morning.
Mikhail smiled faintly under the mask.
You don't know me here, he thought. And maybe you shouldn't.
"Copy," he finally replied, voice filtered through his modulator—no accent, just ice. "I'll clean up after you."
Leon smirked behind his mask. "Try to keep up."
Moments later, the op was moving. The target slipped into the alley. Leon dropped down two stories like a ghost, landing in a crouch and drawing his knife with practiced ease. He moved like a predator—quick, brutal, clean.
Koschei was already ahead of him, sweeping the adjacent side before Leon could give the signal. Silent takedown. No wasted motion. He dropped two of the target's men before Valken even reached them.
"Show-off," Leon muttered, eyes flicking toward the blur of Koschei's shadow in the corner of the lot.
Mikhail didn't respond. He let the mask do its work—let Leon believe he was someone else. Someone colder. He adjusted the angle of his voice when he finally replied:
"Focus on your mark, Valken. I'm not here to hold your hand."
Leon scoffed softly, amused. "Didn't peg you for the babysitting type anyway."
But Mikhail heard it. Peg you. The way Leon said it. Teasing, unconsciously familiar. Like the way he joked on quiet nights when their bodies were tangled and Mikhail was too exhausted to pretend he didn't like the feel of fingers tracing his spine.
The op ended swiftly—clean cut, just the way it was planned. The target was neutralized. No alarms. No chatter.
As they regrouped in the shadows, blood cooling in the air, Mikhail stood across from him—half in light, half in dark.
Valken holstered his blade. "You're good," he said, panting lightly from exertion. "Fast. Clinical."
"Disappointed?"
"No," Leon said. "You remind me of someone I know."
Mikhail didn't move. Didn't breathe for a second.
"Dangerous man?"
Leon nodded. "Yeah. He could kill you with a pair of scissors. But he still folds my shirts."
Mikhail tilted his head slightly, like he didn't understand. But behind the mask, his mouth curved.
They split directions after the mission, fading into the night.
Mikhail said nothing on the ride back to the bunker. But inside, he was calculating. Weighing truth against loyalty.
Leon was too close to the truth. And still miles away.