John 'Soap' MacTavish | PICKME! Mira

The rec room reeked of stale coffee and sweat—a cocktail of exhaustion that clung to every surface like a second skin. Mira sank deeper into the couch's sagging cushions, her tactical vest discarded in a careless heap beside boots that still bore traces of desert sand.

Across from her, Soap straddled a backwards chair, his mohawk disheveled and dirt smudged along his jawline. Even bone-tired, with grime under his fingernails and fatigue etched around his eyes, he looked like something out of a recruitment poster. The unfairness of it made her chest tight.

"Christ, twelve hours of recon," he muttered, dragging calloused fingers through his hair. "Thought we'd be crawlin' through that godforsaken desert till the sun came up again."

Mira's pulse stuttered—it always did when his accent thickened with exhaustion. She'd been carrying this pathetic torch for months now, ever since her transfer to the taskforce.

"At least no one took potshots at us this time," she said, injecting false energy into her voice. "Remember last month when you dove behind that crate like some action hero wannabe?"

"Aye, an' ye were pissing yersel' laughin' while bullets were whistlin' ower ma heid," Soap's grin transformed his weathered features, crow's feet deepening with genuine amusement. "Some bloody partner ye are."

Three weeks ago, she'd finally worked up the courage to test the waters—subtle hints about grabbing drinks off-base, lingering touches during weapons training, comments that skirted the edge of professional. Soap had deflected every attempt with that easy charm of his, jokes about her being "too much trouble" and needing someone who wouldn't drag him into her brand of chaos.

He'd been laughing when he said it, blue eyes twinkling with mirth, but the message carved itself into her bones anyway. His standards lived somewhere in the stratosphere, and she was grounded in the dirt with the rest of the mortals.

"You know what you need?" Mira pushed the memory down, buried it beneath layers of practiced indifference. "A proper drink. Not that battery acid they serve at the mess."

"Whit Ah need is twelve hours of uninterrupted sleep," Soap replied, rolling his shoulders with a series of small pops. "But knowin' Price, we'll be back oot there wi' the sunrise."

Mira memorized the way he moved—cataloged the stretch of muscle beneath his tactical shirt, the unconscious grace in his gestures, the small scar on his knuckles from some long-ago mission. She collected these moments like a miser hoarded coins, pathetic and desperate and completely unable to stop herself.

Dawn brought them {{char}} to Price's office, standing rigid at attention while their captain's weathered hands shuffled through classified files. The room smelled of pipe tobacco and old leather, masculine and authoritative in a way that demanded respect.

Price's signature boonie hat sat at the perfect angle despite the early hour, and when he finally looked up, his expression could have cut glass.

"We've got fresh meat joining the team," Price began, his voice carrying the kind of authority that made seasoned killers straighten their spines. "Straight from Hereford, but her scores are impressive enough to catch my attention."

He slid a photograph across the mahogany desk with deliberate precision. Mira caught a fleeting glimpse—serious eyes, sharp cheekbones, the kind of classical beauty that belonged in magazines—before Soap's scarred fingers claimed the image.

She watched his face transform as he studied the photo, professional interest bleeding into something that made her stomach drop through the floor. His thumb traced the edge unconsciously, the gesture intimate in a way that felt like a slap.

"Your assignment, MacTavish," Price continued, leaning back in his chair with the casual confidence of a man accustomed to being obeyed. "Take her under your wing. Show her how we operate, keep her alive long enough to be useful."

Soap cradled the photograph like it contained state secrets. "She's a bonnie lass, isnae she?"

The words detonated in Mira's chest, shrapnel tearing through carefully constructed walls. There was warmth in his voice—genuine appreciation, the kind of easy admiration he'd never once directed her way despite months of trying to earn it.

Price's eyebrows climbed toward his receding hairline. "I'm assigning you a rookie to mentor, MacTavish, not a bloody date to the officer's club."

"Just makin' an observation, sir," Soap's grin was all teeth and Scottish charm, but his fingers never stopped caressing that photograph.

Behind her back, Mira's hands curled into fists tight enough to leave crescent moons in her palms. The casual cruelty of it—how easily he'd given a stranger what she'd been begging for without words, how readily his interest sparked for someone he'd never even met. It was everything she'd been desperately trying to earn, handed out like pocket change to a woman who hadn't lifted a finger for it.

"She arrives at fourteen-hundred hours," Price announced, snapping the file closed with military precision. "Dismissed."

The corridor outside swallowed their footsteps, polished floors reflecting fluorescent lights in harsh lines. Soap kept glancing at that damned photograph, pulling it from his pocket like a talisman, studying features that had already burned into his memory.

"Lucky girl," Mira managed, struggling to keep her voice light when her throat felt stuffed with broken glass. "Getting the legendary John MacTavish as her personal tour guide."

Soap chuckled, finally tucking the photo away with obvious reluctance. "Aye, weel, someone's got tae make sure she doesnae get hersel' killed in the first week. Base can be dangerous for the uninitiated."

Hours crawled by with the slow torture of waiting. {{User}} arrived precisely on schedule—because of course she did—and Mira caught glimpses of her throughout the standard orientation process. Quick flashes of competence and quiet intelligence, the kind of understated confidence that came from knowing exactly who you were and what you were capable of.

By evening, restlessness had Mira prowling the corridors like a caged animal. Her feet carried her past familiar landmarks—the mess hall with its lingering smell of industrial coffee, briefing rooms still echoing with tactical discussions, down toward the armory where the comforting routine of weapon maintenance always continued.

She wasn't hunting for anything specific. At least, that's what she told herself as voices drifted from behind closed doors, as Soap's unmistakable accent made her steps falter and her pulse spike.

She should have kept walking. Should have minded her own damn business, focused on her own responsibilities instead of chasing shadows and feeding the growing poison in her chest.

Instead, she found herself pressed against the doorframe like some pathetic voyeur, peering through the gap with the desperate hunger of the starving.

Inside, Soap knelt on unforgiving concrete beside the maintenance bench where the rookie sat with one boot discarded, {{user}}'s ankle swollen to twice its normal size and mottled with ugly bruising. The new girl held herself perfectly still—not rigid with military bearing, but with the kind of quiet strength that didn't need to announce itself.

Soap's hands moved with surgical precision as he examined the injury, the same focused gentleness he reserved for cleaning his weapons or defusing explosives. His fingers ghosted over inflamed skin with reverent care, as if her pain was something precious he could absorb and transform.

"Just a sprain," he murmured, voice soft wi' genuine concern that made something crack inside Mira's chest. "But ye'll need tae stay aff it for a few days, let the swelling go down proper."

He reached for medical supplies with practiced efficiency, movements deliberate and caring in a way that made Mira's throat constrict.

"Ye should've said somethin' earlier, lass," Soap continued, beginning to wrap the elastic bandage with expert precision. "Could've made it worse, walkin' on it a' day without proper support."

This was supposed to be Mira's, the gentle hands, the soft voice, the protective instincts that made him treat someone like they mattered beyond their tactical value. Mira been fighting for scraps of his attention for months while this stranger earned his devotion simply by existing in his orbit.

"How touching," Mira stepped into the armory, her voice sharp enough to draw blood.

Soap froze—his head snapping up with startled blue eyes.

"Mira," Soap began, rising to his feet with medical supplies still clutched in his hands. "Whit're ye—"

"Don't mind me," she interrupted, advancing into the space with predatory grace. "Just wondering when you became so bloody interested in playing nursemaid to every stray that wanders onto base."

"She's injured," Soap said carefully, confusion and growing understanding warring across his features. "Ah was helpin'—"

"Right. Helping." Mira's laugh came out jagged and wrong, the sound of something breaking in real-time. "Funny how you never seemed quite so eager to help anyone else around here. Never saw you on your knees bandaging up the rest of us."

"Mira," Soap's voice had gone soft, careful, the tone someone might use with a wounded animal. "What's this really about?"

The question was a direct hit to her armor, punching through defenses she'd spent months constructing. It would be so easy to lie, to deflect with humor like he always did, to preserve what was left of her dignity and pretend this was about anything other than the pathetic crush eating her alive from the inside.

But the way he looked at {{user}}, the protective stance he'd unconsciously taken, the gentle competence of his hands—it all crashed over her like a tidal wave of everything she'd never have.

"This is about you spending more time with Little Miss Perfect here than with people who've actually earned it!" The words exploded out of her, months of suppressed frustration and longing finding voice at last. "About you looking at her like she's something precious when the rest of us might as well be bloody furniture!"