“Well, Leon,” Ada Wong purred. Piers wanted to put a bullet between her eyes. “At least you spared your left shoulder this time.”
There weren’t words for how much Piers hated this. Judging by Chris’s scowl and how his hand kept twitching toward his pistol, Chris agreed. Even with the evidence provided that it hadn’t been Ada Wong who killed his people in Edonia, she was still an amoral mercenary who was too dangerous to be trusted.
Except now they were alone in one of Leon’s safehouses just north of the Canadian border, their team gone, radio silence firmly in place, and Ada Wong was the only help they had.
Yeah. Piers hated Leon’s plan.
“What can I say?” Leon croaked. “I like some balance in my life.” He sat on the couch in his surprisingly rustic safehouse. From the outside, it looked like just another log cabin, and most of the inside matched the picture, as well. Not counting, of course, Leon’s heavy duty medical equipment, the multiple weapon storages hidden throughout the cabin, and Ada Wong herself in her black leather pants and bright red top. None of this seemed balanced to Piers, and why was Ada referencing Leon’s left shoulder? Did she know how he obtained the scar there?
Because it clearly looked like a bullet wound scarring an otherwise amazing chest. They had completely stripped Leon’s upper body, leaving Leon in only jeans and boots and baring all of his scars and wounds to everyone. At any other time, Piers would have enjoyed the sight, but the open wound in Leon’s right shoulder killed that.
At least for Piers. Ada seemed to be enjoying herself as she knelt beside Leon on the couch, running what looked like a handheld x-ray machine over his shoulder while her other hand settled -- unnecessarily, in Piers’s opinion -- on Leon’s muscular chest. On their other side, hand ready at his side like he was prepared to pull out a weapon at any moment, Chris glared at Ada’s hand, clearly not enjoying a damned thing. Leon himself didn’t seem to notice or care.
Ada hummed, holding the machine over Leon’s shoulder. “If you wanted balance, Leon, you could have let the bullet go all the way through. This is definitely in the bone.”
Leon remained slumped against the back of the couch. He also seemed content to ignore Piers’s and Chris’s scowls. “In the bone? You don’t say.”
Yeah. Piers wanted to shoot her.
“Can you say anything helpful?” he snapped. He was already exhausted, beginning his day with one mission, then jumping straight to helping Leon, and now ending his day with Ada Wong of all people while Leon looked half-dead in front of him. Fuck, Piers wanted… he wanted…
The fact that Leon went to Ada fucking Wong for help and that Ada felt comfortable enough to touch Leon like this was just adding insult after insult to his awful day.
Ada smirked at him, like she knew what he was thinking. Chris’s hand twitched toward his gun again. “This is where you come in. I assume as a sniper you have steady hands?”
And just like that, Piers’s day impossibly got worse.
Fifteen minutes later found Piers hating Leon’s plan, hating Ada Wong, and hating his life. This wasn’t how he expected his day to go when he joined Chris for their dawn mission, and the only thing worse than the agony on Leon’s face was the knowledge that he was putting it there.
While Leon bit a piece of leather and Chris held him down, Piers carefully dug into Leon’s shoulder with forceps from the insanely stocked first aid kit. Ada held her device above Leon’s shoulder, helping guide him to the bullet. She looked serious for a change, which Piers would care more about if Leon’s face wasn’t twisted with pain.
Piers desperately wanted to say something comforting, but all of his attention was on digging the damned bullet out. With Ada’s free hand, she used a soft cloth to keep wiping the blood away as it welled out of the wound. Her touch remained gentle, so gentle it almost lent credence to the possibility that she gave a damn about Leon.
Almost.
“Easy, Leon,” Chris murmured. He sat beside Leon on the couch, practically hugging him in order to keep him still. His forehead rested against Leon’s temple. “You’re doing great, Leon. You’re almost done.”
Leon shivered. Piers wasn’t sure if Leon heard Chris or not.
The tools were different, but this felt remarkably like Piers was in the field, gun aimed for a do-or-die shot. His breathing maintained the slow, even pattern, hands steady even as Leon’s blood stained the nitrile gloves. He felt the moment the forcep touched the bullet, both through the instrument and Leon’s minute shudder.
Ada’s little x-ray machine made it clear that the bullet was in the bone, but it still didn’t prepare Piers for needing to pull the bullet free or the small whimpers he heard from the back of Leon’s throat. He heard Chris’s whispers increase and even saw Ada’s free hand start stroking Leon’s hair, but he kept his focus on pulling the bullet out as gently as possible.
Finally, Piers pulled the bullet out with a sickeningly wet noise. He swallowed back both nausea and apologies and hurriedly put the bullet in a tray Leon had insisted on. Leon didn’t seem to notice Piers following his instructions. Leon collapsed back on the couch, shaking, blood flowing from his shoulder even as Chris hastened to apply pressure. Chris never stopped whispering assurances to Leon, but when Piers glanced at Ada again, her cool composure had returned, hands at her aside like she had never been petting Leon’s hair.
“Well, sniper,” Ada said, sounding damnably calm, “now it’s time for your steady hands to do stitches.”
Piers hated all of this shit.
All in all, their amateur surgery plus cleanup took two hours. By the end, Leon was limp and pale and didn’t say a word as Chris all but carried him back to the cabin’s bedroom. The couch was stained with blood, and Ada stood and watched while Piers scrubbed it clean. He could keep himself from glaring at her but he couldn’t stop the growl building in his throat. It was all too easy to imagine her arrogant half smile as she watched him clean up Leon’s blood. Maybe Piers shouldn’t have been surprised that seeing Leon unable to walk on his own, barely conscious, didn’t shake her, but he didn’t understand how anyone could be unshaken by the sight. He thought he would have nightmares about it for the rest of his life. Instead, Ada watched Piers clean; Piers swore he could even feel her gaze.
Like he could feel Leon’s blood drying under his nails.
Nausea twisted his stomach, and Piers had to stop and breathe for a moment. It had been months since he had last seen Leon, and when he finally saw him again…
“Fuck,” he snarled under his breath.
“Redfield can’t stay here, you know.”
Even Ada’s voice grated his nerves. Piers glared over his shoulder at her. “Why the hell not?”
The woman stared at him, looking immaculate in the way only she and Leon could pull off. Well, Leon before today, and Piers couldn’t let himself think about that. Ada pursed her lips. Even her lipstick remained perfect. “Everyone knows Leon is close to the Redfields. By now, his enemies surely know that Redfield’s team was sent to assist Leon. They won’t be looking for just Leon now: they’ll be looking for those close to him, too. You’re the dark horse here.”
The reminder that not only was he not close with Leon but everyone knew that he wasn’t close with Leon stung more than Piers expected. He had to forcibly unclench his jaw. Sick and tired of looking at Ada’s face, Piers resumed scrubbing the couch. “How would they know? We only spoke with Agent Hunnigan, she contacted Captain Redfield directly instead of speaking with anyone else in the BSAA, and we went radio silent soon after we picked him up. Our team is trustworthy.” Unlike you.
Ada laughed, a soft, mocking thing. “And this is why Leon is the government agent and you are the soldier. Ask Leon when he wakes up. He’ll agree with me.”
Maybe it hadn’t been Ada who fucked them up so much in Edonia, but it didn’t change how much she made his trigger finger itch.
“Eyes will be on Redfield,” Ada continued casually, like she was unaware of the tension in the room. “It would only make sense for Redfield to lay a false trail elsewhere while Leon recovers.”
Piers scoffed, furiously scrubbing at the back of the couch. “And why the fuck would we trust your advice?”
“You don’t have to. Just ask Leon. Oh, and when you speak with Leon? Tell him he owes me another one.”
Piers had to stop for a moment and just breathe, so furious that if he had his gun in his hand instead of a rag, Only when he was confident he wouldn’t try and shoot her anyway did Piers turn around. “You --” he began. He cut off with a strangled snarl.
Ada was gone. He hadn’t even heard the door close behind her. Piers stared at the door, shaking with rage.
“You,” he hissed, “don’t deserve him.”
Silence answered. Piers returned to uselessly scrubbing Leon’s blood from the couch. No matter what he did, the red refused to fade. For the first time all night, his hands began to shake.