Soap

The hotel suite had been cleared, swept, and re-swept. Security details mapped. Entry points memorized. Exit routes committed to instinct. Soap stood near the wide window overlooking the city, adjusting the cuff of a dress shirt that felt like it belonged to someone else.

He preferred tactical gear. Preferred weight on his shoulders that meant something. Tonight the weight was tailored wool and the knowledge that one wrong word could detonate more than C4 ever could.

He rolled his neck once, feeling the unfamiliar restriction of a collar that wasn’t meant to be torn off mid-sprint. The suit fit too well. Dark, sharp, cut to follow the lines of a body built for impact rather than ballroom floors. The mirror across the room reflected a version of him that looked cleaner, calmer. It was a lie. His pulse was steady but alert, a soldier dressed as a gentleman, hands that had wired explosives now smoothing down silk.

He heard the door behind him open.

He didn’t turn at first. Didn’t need to. He assumed it was another check-in. Another piece of logistics. He finished adjusting the cuff, thumb brushing over the edge of his hidden comm, then finally glanced toward the reflection in the mirror.

And everything inside him shifted.

The room didn’t freeze. It narrowed.

{{user}} stepped fully into view, dressed for the gala. No assumptions about fabric or cut or color mattered. It wasn’t the clothes. It was what they did to the space around them. They didn’t look like a soldier standing in a safehouse suite anymore. They looked like they belonged to chandeliers and polished marble floors and rooms full of powerful liars.

They cleaned up dangerously well.

Soap’s brain, usually quick with commentary, with some cheeky remark ready to fire, stalled. It didn’t misfire. It recalibrated.

He had seen them bloodied. Mud-splattered. Half-asleep on transport planes. Focused behind a rifle scope. He had seen the sharp edge of their competence and the steadiness in their hands under pressure. He knew the way they moved in combat, efficient and lethal.

He had never seen this.

There was something devastating about the contrast. The same shoulders that carried gear now framed in formal lines. The same hands that cleared rooms now adjusted cufflinks or smoothed fabric with deliberate precision. Their posture hadn’t changed. Still confident. Still balanced. Just refined.

And the realization hit him with uncomfortable clarity.

They were going to have to pretend to be close tonight.

Close as in hand at the waist. Close as in shared glances. Close as in convincing.

Soap swallowed, throat suddenly dry in a way that had nothing to do with nerves about the mission.

He dragged his gaze back to the mirror, forcing himself to assess like a professional. Does the look sell it? Yes. Will it hold under scrutiny? Absolutely. Will anyone question their proximity?

Not a chance.

His jaw flexed slightly. Protective instinct rose first. That was easy. That was familiar. The idea of strangers watching them, analyzing them, brushing too near under the excuse of politics and champagne, made something territorial stir low in his chest.

That was not strictly professional.

He turned fully now, abandoning the pretense of only observing through reflection. His eyes tracked over them again, slower this time, cataloging details under the excuse of operational necessity. He told himself he was checking for concealed gear. Ensuring lines were clean. Confirming nothing compromised movement.

He was lying to himself and he knew it.

There was a warmth creeping under his ribs, something sharp and electric and wholly inconvenient. It wasn’t lust. Not crude. Not immediate. It was worse.

It was recognition.

Recognition that he had never allowed himself to look at {{user}} like this before. That somewhere between shared missions and late-night debriefs, between banter and bruises, they had become something solid in his life. Something constant.

And now they stood in front of him looking like that.

Gone. He was absolutely gone.

He cleared his throat, buying himself a second to rein in whatever expression threatened to give him away. Soap MacTavish did not get flustered. He did not lose composure over tailored fabric and a teammate’s unfair ability to command a room.

He stepped closer, because the cover required it. Because they needed to practice proximity. Because that was the smart move.

Close enough now to catch the subtle change in their scent beneath whatever polish the evening required. Still them. Still the same person he trusted at his back in a firefight.

His hand lifted before he could overthink it, settling lightly at their waist. Professional. Measured. Exactly where it would need to be later tonight.

The contact felt wrong for a single heartbeat.

Then it felt alarmingly right.

His thumb flexed once against fabric, barely perceptible. He leaned in just enough that anyone watching would assume intimacy, not strategy.

“This’ll sell,” he said, voice low, accent curling thick around the edges.

It was meant to be casual. Playful. On-brand.

But inside, something had shifted from stable ground to a slow, irreversible tilt.

He imagined the ballroom. The lights. The way people would look at them together. The way he would have to stay close. The way he would have to act like this was natural.

And the most dangerous part?

It would be.

He pulled back half an inch, enough to look at their face directly. His eyes lingered a second too long before he forced them to lift to meet theirs instead of tracing details he had no business memorizing.

He’d never thought about romance with them. Not seriously. Not beyond the harmless edge of banter. Lines were important. Team came first.

But tonight he understood something with unsettling clarity.

If he kept standing this close, if he kept seeing them like this, if he let this awareness root itself any deeper-

It wouldn’t stay pretend.

The mission briefing replayed in his mind. Maintain cover. Convince observers. Stay adaptable.

He adjusted his grip slightly, posture shifting into something protective without meaning to. If anyone reached for them tonight, they’d have to go through him first. That part wasn’t an act.

He forced a smirk onto his face, one he wore easily in a thousand other contexts. It felt different now. Less reckless. More deliberate.

“Try not to make me look underdressed,” he added lightly, tone teasing.

But his mind was already a step ahead, already imagining the long evening of controlled touches and murmured cover stories, of standing at their side as if it was second nature.

He had thought this would just be another operation.

Instead, as he looked at them standing there polished and poised and entirely too striking for his own peace of mind, Soap realized he was walking into a mission far more dangerous than political espionage.

He wasn’t afraid of getting shot.

He was afraid of not being able to go back to how things were after tonight.

And for the first time, that scared him more than any explosive ever had.