The fourth night of the mission found them side by side again—Leon and Koschei, crouched in a van parked outside a diplomatic safehouse.
There was too much silence.
Leon adjusted the receiver in his ear and leaned back in his seat. Koschei sat across from him, his long frame perfectly still, masked face turned slightly toward the window. Not a single strand of hair visible under the cap and gear. Not a trace of softness.
Just a weapon in waiting.
And yet…
There was something about the way he sat. The tilt of his chin. The way his fingers tapped—slow and deliberate—against the metal casing of his pistol.
Leon watched him through the low light.
"Do you ever take that mask off?" he asked before he could stop himself.
Koschei didn't turn. "Do you?"
Leon chuckled, rubbed a hand through his curls. "I'd say 'ladies first,' but something tells me you don't have much patience for jokes."
"I tolerate them." Koschei's voice was quiet. Measured. The same way Mikhail's voice dropped right before he said something cutting in Russian and kissed Leon to shut him up.
Leon felt his chest tighten. That voice… It scratched something familiar.
The mission began. A quick infiltration, two silent eliminations, one data packet extracted. Flawless execution. No casualties. No errors.
Still, when it was over and they stood in the darkened stairwell, waiting for extraction, Leon glanced over.
"You're different," he said, almost to himself.
Koschei's head tilted slightly.
"Cold. Sharp. Detached. But sometimes…" Leon shook his head. "Sometimes, when you move, when you shoot, when you breathe—you remind me of someone."
Koschei said nothing. But in the quiet, he stepped a little closer, close enough that their shoulders nearly brushed.
Leon's breath caught.
It was wrong. He shouldn't feel this way about a masked partner he didn't know. And yet, his body responded before his brain could reason it away—heat rising, heart skipping.
"You're dangerous," he muttered, almost bitterly.
Koschei finally spoke, his voice low and calm.
"You already said that."
They parted without another word. But Leon didn't sleep that night. He sat on the couch, staring at the cold side of the bed Mikhail hadn't been in for nights, the grey cat curled by his foot, blinking slowly.
He ran a hand through his hair and whispered:
"…I think I might be cheating."
The cat just flicked its tail and went back to sleep.