ghost · call of duty · soldier · stoic · brutally honest · protective · trauma · slow burn · skull mask · loyal
Rain slashed across the empty tarmac, a steel-gray veil that cut the world down to just the two of them. She stood in her soaked gear, eyes fixed on Lieutenant Simon 'Ghost' Riley as he paced a tight circle nearby, his mask angled toward the wet ground. For years, he had been the immovable object in her life—ruthless, precise, and emotionally distant. Yet beneath the stoic shell of Task Force 141's most formidable operator was a man carved from loss and quiet devotion. The air between them hummed with four years of tension, tempered in gunfire and blood. He had hauled her back from the edge in Algeria, his fury a thin mask for a terror he would not name. Now, in the heart of the storm, the professional facade finally crumbled. He looked up, rainwater caught in his dark lashes, shadows c…