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Chapter Text

She’s standing in a dark room, and Derek Simmons is there, and Leon Kennedy is laying crumpled at his feet. 

Implicitly, inextricably, her eyes go to Leon and lock there, unable to move anywhere else. He’s facing away from her, body twisted into a fractured parody of the fetal position. It’s how he sleeps, but he’s not sleeping now. No, he’s twisted into this position as if dumped down from some height. His ash brown hair covers his face. He is not breathing. 

And Ada tells herself not to panic because Simmons has tricked her before, and she knows that that’s what he wants her to do. Derek Simmons wants nothing more than for her to crumble, for her to cry, to beg. She will not give it to him. But when she finally tears her gaze from Leon and back to him, he’s fixed her with such a look of mock sympathy that she knows he knows, knows he can hear her thoughts, knows he sees her pulse beating against her temples. And she hates him so much in that moment that it feels like a hot flash, like a million stage lights hitting her all at once, like she’ll burst into flames with how angry she is. 

Then Simmons raises his hands, as if to show they’re devoid of weapons, and steps backward. He walks until his boots hit the back wall, squeaking slightly. There’s fifteen feet or so between him and Leon’s unmoving form now. Ada is still. Ada knows Simmons wants her to go to Leon, and she hates him even more for it, but she wants to more than she wants her next breath. The stand off lasts about three seconds, and then she makes her break, landing on her knees by Leon’s side. She touches his arm. He rolls over. 

Leon has a distinct scent. It’s human and musky, a little sweet. A little like oak wood. Leon smell; warm and comfortable. Ada breaths in. She does not trust herself to move her hands from her knees. Her jaw is locked in place. She does not allow a single muscle in her face to move, not to twitch or to blink. Leon smells cold. Wrong. This, more so than the clay-like set to his skin, the blue settling into the corners of his mouth, the glassy vacancy to his pretty grey eyes, allows her to take in the fact of the situation. Leon Scott Kennedy is dead, and she is sitting by his corpse. 

A nauseating wave of adrenaline travels, tingling, from the top of Ada’s head to the tip of her toes. She feels like she’s sinking into the floor. She does not allow her face to move. She controls her breathing. Far off, Ada can hear buzzing in her ears. The slight upturn to Leon’s nose, for some reason, is the sole thing she can seem to focus on. The way it curves over the bump of his nose bridge, coming up back to a flat tip. It’s always been her favorite of his features, though his eyes are so pretty as well. She’s always wanted to kiss the tip of his nose, and never indulged. The feeling hits her again with the horrible, toxic weight of an overripe indulgence. 

“He called out for you.” Ada looks up slowly. Simmon’s face is almost apologetic. Apologetic. It’s so insulting that it’s almost unbelievable. “Before it ended. Wanted me to … well, I suppose we’ll never know now.” Ada can only stare. She steels herself as a wave of tremors hit her. This man will not see her shake, will not see her cry. Her eyes feel too wide, feel as though they must be bulging from her skull. She looks back down. Leon’s face is so perfectly still. Ada reached out instinctively to brush a strand of hair off his cheek, overthinks it, places her hand back on her leg. She had, over and over, told herself that she wouldn’t do this, wouldn’t go through the mourning throughs of a widow that she isn’t and has never been. People died, and Leon was a person, so he would die. Still, still, something she was caging away screamed insistently that something was wrong, that Leon should breathe, should speak, should look at her. Part your pretty lips and breath, she thought desperately. Stupidly. She’s so stupid. Her eyes wandered lower, stop at his throat. Lovely, slim throat. She loves his neck, loves planting kisses there, loves feeling him shiver when she whispers into it. A pair of black handprints are wrapped around Leon’s lovely throat now. Bruises. She slowly looks up again. 

Simmons is watching her intently, that stupid expression still on his face. “You choked him?” She asks simply. Something should follow, she thinks, far off, some quip that is birthed in her throat but dies there as a quiet gust of air. Didn’t think that was your style, Derek. What happened to all your lackeys? Wouldn’t a bullet have been faster? Simmons is still, as though not quite knowing how to respond, before sighing. 

“He was in my way.” God, how his voice grates. Ada is not furious, not angry, not sad. She is burning to death from the sheer size of the loathing that’s taken a hold of her. It is going to eclipse her. It is going to destroy her. Simmons smiles, he smiles, and takes a tentative step forward. “My way to you.” 

Ada does not break. She does not snap. She does not shatter into pieces. 

Ada combusts. 

She’s across the room before she has the thought to move. Simmon’s eyes barely have time to widen before she’s slamming him into the ground. The crack of his skull on stone is sweet. Utterly gratifying. She grabs ahold of his lapels, his stupid fucking lapels, and slams him down again, again, again. A third time, a fourth time, until there’s red flying through the air. All semblance of training in her muscle memory is gone. Her hands go to his face, clawing, tearing. He turns his head sharply to each side, but Ada snatches his cheeks in each hand and slams him into the ground again . The crack this time is a wet crunch and Simmon’s mouth opens to cry out. Ada barely hears it. She can’t hear anything but blood rushing through her skull. Her thumbs find sockets and plunge into them; Simmon’s eyes burst apart in two wet pops and he shrieks. Far off, Ada can hear herself chanting something, a low, primordial growl crescendoing to a shriek as she forces her thumbs deeper and deeper into his skull. 

    “ Son of a bitch, you son of a bitch, I’ll fucking kill you, I’ll kill you, I’ll- ” Simmons thrashes. Ada is unperturbed, bringing a fist back and jackhammering it into his nose. “ You stupid motherfucker, you stupid ugly FUCK! ” She can’t stop. She doesn’t want to stop. Simmons has ceased struggling. He twitches oddly under her. His bones shatter. His cartilage reduces to a formless sludge. Ada keeps hitting him. She wants to turn his head to strawberry jam, to reduce his body to ash under the heat of her fury, to bring him back to life and kill him again a thousand times, a million times, until the sun burns out and the stars fall to dust. She is a black hole of fury and grief and she pounds Simmon’s head into the floor. All consuming. 

    An odd wave of nausea hits Ada as she pulls her hand back, and she grinds to a halt. The room is dark, and a fine pink mist now ghosts the air. She blinks. When did she start crying? Where am I? Ada doesn’t know how she got here. Her knuckles are split in a dozen places. Her forearms are slick and shiny with bright red blood. 

    Then, as she watches, the blood begins to lift and dissolve. She blinks once, then again. It’s finally happened; she’s lost it. But no -sinking familiarity hits her- she’s seen this happen before. Fuck. I'm in a training simulation. All around her, the walls begin to flip, like game tiles. Leon’s body dissolves slowly. She scrambles toward it, some latent instinct wanting to hold him one last time, but he is gone by the time she gets there. It wasn’t real. Just a training simulation. It’s not 2012, and Simmons was already dead. She is kneeling in an empty room, her hands groping around the ground for nothing. Who did this to her? Like a caged animal, Ada’s eyes dart about. The rage evoked in her is still there, still burning hot in her gut. Whoever did this to her is going to pay. The new room, the real room, is white and shiny. There’s a small viewing window in the far corner. On the other side there’s- 

    There’s- 

    She locks gazes with Leon and a horrible choking sound leaves her lips unbidden. He’s wide-eyed, staring. He just saw all of that. Ada’s distinctly aware, all of a sudden, that she has not stopped crying. Her mouth opens and closes. She’s never lost it that badly before. And Leon just saw all of it. Pain splits her skull; God, how her head hurts. What is happening? 

    Ada sways. Whatever drug they gave her to make that seem real is hitting her all at once. She keeps her eyes on Leon, hoping her expression, for once, conveys what she’s thinking. Jackass. Traitor. See what I would do for you, you fucking jerk? He only stares back. Leon, always wearing a transparent brave face over his obvious feeling, is utterly unreadable to her in this moment.  Over the intercom system, a series of commands issues that the simulation is over. Then Leon turns to speak to someone else, someone Ada can’t see out the window. She hears the low murmur of his voice over the intercom. 

    “See how much she loves you?” whoever it is says. 

    Ada sways again, and this time, she falls. She is out before she hits the ground. 

Chapter Text

They have to herd her in at gunpoint. 

The researcher that Ada hadn’t been able to see before is a blonde woman in her mid thirties. She smiles placidly when Ada’s shoved before her. A shallow nod is all she gets as greeting. With a wave of nausea, Ada realizes she’s standing exactly where Leon had during her trial. Which must mean … 

Her attention snaps to the window. Sure enough, Leon’s sitting in the middle of the floor. His eyes are closed, his breathing slow. Ada feels panic begin to slowly but surely close her throat, like a slow moving allergic reaction. 

    “Is this really necessary?” Ada’s calm front is more muscle memory than anything. This woman and all the men around them have seen her at her absolute lowest; there’s no point in acting impassive now. The blonde woman turns back to her. 

    “You don’t want to watch?”

    “No, I don’t.” 

    The woman tuts. “The trial will happen whether or not you’re here.” Ada’s gut twists; it’s a frustratingly effective ploy. If she goes back to her cell now, she’ll just stew and agonize. Her jaw shuts with a quiet click of her molars. 

    The facility isn’t Umbrella, not that she can tell. Their tell-tale style of black, metal tech and obnoxious logo is distinctly absent, replaced by gadgets and walls made from an innocuous white plastic, almost reminiscent of an Apple product. Everything’s made of it, right down to the magnetized shackles on Ada’s ankles. She doesn’t remember how she got here. She’d been between jobs, spending time in … Romania? The Czech Republic? She’d gone to bed and woken up here. Apparently, there were still moves she couldn’t anticipate. 

    “What are you doing to us, anyway?” Ada asks. Below her, Leon is as still as ever. He looks so young when he's asleep . Her gaze doesn’t leave his face, even as the woman speaks up.

    “I thought you’d have guessed by now.” Her voice is casual, relaxed. “We’re examining your worst fears.”

    Ada pointedly ignores how that statement slams into her gut and then twists. She also ignores the nagging idea, no, fact , that Leon dying at Simmons' hands is her worst fear. According to science. “And?” Her voice is tighter than she’d like.

    “And?” 

    “What’s he going to see?” 

Las Plagas is a festering heat, an unkillable fever, in Leon Kennedy’s chest. 

He feels the thing pulsing there, developing limbs grasping at his ribcage, its flesh body compressing his lungs, its white hot control hammering at his blood-brain barrier. He fights it at each step, at each millisecond, because if he stops for even an instant, the thing seizes him. And he hates to think it, but the relief from the pain is so glorious that it’s nearly impossible to seize control back. So he takes the medicine to keep it at bay, he focuses on his breathing, on his steps, on his pulse, on I am Leon Scott Kennedy, I work for the President of the United States, I was deployed in Spain on a mission to rescue Ashley Graham- 

And then he trips. 

Just a little. 

Normally, he wouldn’t have even registered it. But Leon’s so tired, so bone-deep tired, that that’s all it takes. 

Heat floods his head. 

Something makes a sound behind him. A person, something cold, something to infect, to assimilate, to take. He turns to face it. A figure swims in his vision, and his hands go out without him asking them to, grabbing at the thing. It makes a sound of surprise. Soft, high. Prey. He squeezes tighter. Take it, take its life away, put new life into it. Weak limbs beat at him, but he barely registers the hits. He is like orange, steaming steel. He is impenetrable, untouchable. 

When the prey-thing falls backward, he toppled forward onto it. 

The dirt bites into Leon’s knuckles. He blinks. 

He’s in a dark room, made of worn sandstone. His hands are wrapped around Ada Wong’s throat. 

Leon makes an odd gasp-sound and shoves himself backward. “ Fuck, ” he spits, “Ada, oh fuck, God, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m …” His back hits the far wall. He swallows. Ada doesn’t move. “Ada?” Fuck. Fuck! He’s back across the room in a second, kneeling by her face this time. How did CPR work, again? Leon reaches out for her, but finds his hands begin to shake so badly that they fall back down before they can reach her. What if I just hurt her again? “Uhm. Okay. Okay, uh-” He reaches up to her neck, fingers pressing into the soft flesh beside her trachea, searching desperately for the pulse of her carotid artery. The skin there is oddly soft, its color deepened to a- Leon moans, high and panicked and so, so guilty when he realizes that she’s bruising a deep, dark purple. Hand prints encircle her neck, his hand prints, staining her porcelain skin. “Fuck!” It comes out like the grind of stone on stone, like two blades clashing together. He still can’t find her pulse. “Ada, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, okay? I’m so, so … I’m so … ” He stops. He’s lost the last bit of air in his lungs. There is no more air in the room. In the world. Leon is going to suffocate on his own heart as it heaves into his mouth. 

Ada’s eyes are open. 

They’re usually the color of space. Or obsidian. Pools of ink. Sometimes, when the light catches them just right, they’re melted chocolate, or warm peaty earth from which wildflowers spring. Right now, under the cave torchlight, they are slate grey. Ada does not blink, and she does not breathe. 

Leon feels like he’s been doused in boiling water. For a moment, he can only kneel there, swaying slightly as he battles back his tunneling vision. A feeling adjacent to incredulousness seeps in. Ada, who’d survived falling down the chasm in the Umbrella labs while shot in the chest, finished by him? "No, no, no, I ..." Was he that useless? That destructive? A panicked little laugh bubbles up in his chest and gurgles up his throat. It leaves him in a long, pained, throaty creak. His shoulders are shaking. A wall of pain slams into him all at once. It’s so acute as to be physical; Leon doubles over, a hand pressed to his sternum as if to quell the feeling raging there. He’s reaching for Ada’s face, cupping her cheek, touching her hair. He doesn’t deserve to touch her. Leon keens, doubled over. Words bubble and burst from his trembling lips, an incoherent stream of “sorry” and “God” and “Ada”, over and over and over. This is insurmountable. Inescapable. He’s going to die from it. 

Fingers lace into his hair, scratch at his forehead and his cheeks. This isn’t real. Can’t be. Can’t be what’s happened. 

This isn’t real. 

This isn’t real. 

When Leon opens his eyes, he’s somewhere else. 

Before him, only a shiny white floor extends. Slowly, he uncurls from himself. It’s not 2005. He hadn’t killed Ada that night. He’s somewhere else, somewhere underground, somewhere held captive. Leon blinks tears out of his stinging eyes. He’s kneeling, kneeling in the simulation room, exactly where Ada had during her trial. Which must mean … 

Both of her palms are pressed to the window when he looks up. Her face is as cold and expressionless as marble, but her chest rises and falls quickly. Leon can only pant slowly and stare up at her, the last of his tears draining down his cheeks. There is a long moment where the two can only stare at each other. Ada raises her hand back and claps it weakly against the glass again. 

He knows how she feels.

Chapter Text

It must be a cruel joke, Ada thinks when she hears footfalls down the hallway into her holding cell. She stands, goes to the bars, and is met with the barrel of a gun to her eyes. 

    “ Back the fuck up ,” someone tells her. 

    Ada retreats to the back of the room as more men pile in. All in combat gear, all carrying semi-automatic weapons. She’s not an idiot; this is not the moment for an escape attempt. So she can only stare as two of the men haul a stumbling Leon in. The two catch each other’s eyes. Leon looks exhausted, all swollen, handmass eyes and mussed hair. The two let go of him, and he collapses to his hands and knees without ceremony. Ada feels the urge to go to him shoot through her, but holds steady against it. She doesn’t even twitch. “What is this?” She asks slowly. No response from the soldiers. They begin to file out, guns still raised. “Hey. What the hell?” 

The doors latches and locks. 

Boot falls retreat down the hall. 

Ada waits until she hears the door at the end of the hall latch. Then she’s on the ground beside Leon, eyes wild. He has not moved. She doesn’t know what to do with her hands all of a sudden. One hand on the back? Touch his face? She wants so very badly to touch his face. “Hey.” 

He flinches. Ada straightens up. “Hey,” she repeats, with a little more force. “I, ah. Are you alright?” 

The air hangs heavy for a long moment. Leon inhales, a shaky thing. “I, uhm.” His voice is rough and wet. “No offense, Ada? But I don’t want to talk to you right now.” 

She blinks, hard. “Okay.” 

He looks up suddenly. There’s anger twisting his pretty face. “I can never get a read on you, you know that? Do you want to comfort me, or keep running away from me? God! ” The last word quavers. Ada is still. 

“You’re angry with me.”

“ No . No, I …” She shuffles around him on her knees. She wants to see his face, see it up close. Even though it’s been a day and night since her trek in the simulator, she wants very badly to confirm to herself that Leon is, in fact, alive. He still won’t look at her. His hair hangs across his face.

“But I want to talk to you .” The words sound petulant the second they leave her lips. Leon huffs out a mirthless laugh. 

“You’ve had a lot longer to process this than I have.” 

“Yeah. I have.” She expects resistance when she cups a hand under the side of his jaw, thumb brushing the skin where his ear meets his cheek. Instead, a shudder runs through Leon. It’s almost structural, like a house ready to collapse under its own weight. The anger has gone out of him, as quickly as it came. When Ada guides his face up to look at her, he obeys. The air leaves Ada’s chest with a stilted gust. Leon’s sweaty, tears stained, and his expression is unmistakably that of someone in pain. Scratches from his own nails trace the right side of his face. But he’s alive, he’s alive, thank you God, he’s alive, and Ada feels her heart swell so large that it seems to crack her ribs. Relief crests over her like a cool wave. Ada has never wanted to embrace someone so badly in her entire life. Instead, she drops her hand. “I’m glad you’re okay.” It sounds stiff and cold when she says it. 

“I’m glad you’re …” the last word refuses to leave Leon’s lips, so he mouths it instead. “Ada.” He sounds utterly miserable. “ Ada .” 

“It wasn’t real.” 

“ It felt real. ” His voice is ragged, like he’s been screaming. “Fuck, it … fuck .”

“I know.” He’s shaking. Without thinking, Ada reaches over to rub his arm, but he flinches again and she drops her hand. “Sorry.” 

“Don’t be sorry.” Leon’s voice hits a frantic pitch suddenly. He looks up finally. There’s an almost manic edge to the desperation in his face. “Please don’t- I’m sorry. I’m sorry, okay? Fuck, Ada, I’m so, so sorry.” 

“Stop it.” She doesn’t want to touch him, not now that he’s flinched away from her hands. She grabs handfuls of her pant legs. “Leon, you didn’t do anything wrong.” 

“ I killed you. ” He’s crying again, sad little chuffs of air exiting him like punches. “I hurt you, I-” 

“And I know because of that that you’d never do it on purpose.” Ada fixes him with a look. “Our worst case scenarios needed a simulation to come true, because you’d never let Simmons kill you, and I’d never let you kill me. ” He stares at her, eyes darting wildly. “Do you understand?” 

“How are you so calm about this?” His tone is almost wondrous. Ada cocks her head to the side. 

“Do I look calm right now?” 

“Yeah.” He sniffles. “Are you?” 

Ada feels electric. Ada feels the way glass must feel when it’s finally hot enough to be reformed. 

“Like you said. I’ve had a day to process.” 

Not that the whole thing hadn't shaken her fundamentally. Ada had woken, still in a drugged stupor, and vomited off the side of her cot. She’d cried, really truly wept, curled into her own side, gripped with unbearable hysteria unlike any she’d felt in years. Leon had already seen her simulation, and he didn’t need to see that as well. His expression is still wondrous. 

“You killed someone for me,” he breaths. 

Ada chuffed. “It wouldn’t have been the first time.” 

“You beat someone to death with your bare hands.” 

Ada nods. Slow, collected. “I wish you hadn’t seen that.” He’s still silent. “Does it make you uncomfortable?” 

He shakes his head. “It was ... I’d do the same for you.” 

“I’d do it again,” she says without thinking. Leon is silent. He reaches toward her, but Ada watches as a tremor catches his hand and he lets it fall to the ground. 

He’s so afraid to touch me, she thinks slowly. 

Ada goes to him. 

They don’t embrace often, so it’s odd at first. Ada laces her arms around his neck, tucks her face down into him. Despite everything, Leon is warm and solid. Alive. The smell of oak-wood hits her and a tremor floods her frame, persisting for several seconds before she can lock it down and out. When she does, she’s pulled him in tighter, his arms have caught her waist, and his face is buried in her shoulder. Gentle as can be, Ada reached up and runs her fingers through his hair. He melts, an almost imperceptible sigh pressed from his lips. His shoulders are still shaking slightly. She clutches at him. She’d really thought he’d died, in the horrible moments in the simulation. The memory washes over her like an icy shock. 

“I thought I lost you.” It sounds stupid leaving her mouth. Leon shifts slightly at her words. Ada presses her face deeper into his shoulder, drinking in how he smells, how soft his hair is on her ear, how warm his skin is through his shirt. “Sorry,” she says again, without thinking. He pulls away slightly, brow furrowed in a question. “I know I’m … I don’t know how to talk about things like this.” Because any seduction in her act is a shallow facade; something formulated and practiced. Ada Wong can show off her body, can kiss you, can whisper sweet nothings in your ear, but she can’t tell you she loves you. The words rattle around her ribcage and stick in her mouth. 

Leon smiles dryly. “I … think I can surmise how you feel.” Ada snorts. It’s one of her more genuine laughs, laced with tangible self consciousness. In the simulation, she’d bared her soul, thinking herself alone, or soon to be at least. The fact that he’d seen all of it still made her skin prickle. The jig was up. She’d broken character. Maybe there was no point in maintaining the rest of her crumbling facade. Leon’s face is still wet, though he’s no longer crying. Slowly, unsure, Ada leans forward and kisses a stray tear off of his cheek. She collects some of her sleeve in her hand, uses it to dry his cheek. Wonder stackens Leon’s face again as she touches him. Want and instinct run wild in her, guiding her movement in ways she never would have allowed only two days prior. She traces the arch of his brow ridge with her thumb. She kisses his cheekbone, just at the corner of eye. She drags her fingers through his hair, relishing in the soft sigh that leaves him. Ada lets indulgence grasp her utterly and presses a gentle kiss to the tip of his perfect nose. She laughs wetly. You’re real. You’re real, and you’re alive. I love you. There’s incredulity in Leon’s eyes. And then he tilts his chin up, and he’s kissing her. 

It isn’t their first time, but it may be their most desperate. Ada feels herself lighten, prickle, warm. Leon’s arms pull taught around her waist, until they’re flush against each other, and it still isn’t close enough. Leon makes a low, desperate sound, pulls her even tighter to him, and Ada knows exactly what he means. His lips are cracked and taste of salt and copper. Ada breaks away only to kiss them again, and then again, like a ritual. You’re alive. You’re alive. You’re alive. 

There is one cot in the cell. They find themselves in it, Leon’s head in Ada’s lap. There are no windows in the cell, no way to tell day from night. “They’re going to use us against each other,” Ada said softly, when the silence has become suffocating. 

She can’t see Leon’s face, but she feels him shift uncomfortably. “I know,” he says. 

“That might mean making some really difficult decisions,” Ada adds. 

“I know.” He’s silent for a moment. “I want you to- if it comes down to it. You’ll take care of yourself.” 

Ada opened her mouth. The words I always do die there. “You first,” she offers lamely. 

Leon turns to her. “ Ada. ” She only stares back. “Fine. I’ll worry about myself if you do the same.” 

“Deal.” Ada offers him a rye smile. Neither of them mean this lame little pact. Leon’s taken priority over her work, her own health, since she first met him. And Ada can bear it, she can take that burden, she handles it with ease. And she’s watched a hundred times as Leon put himself on the line to save her in turn. Old habits die hard, and neither of them would give each other up this easily. 

Only then did boot falls begin to echo back down the hall. 

Ada is too worn down to keep it together as the door to the holding cell burst open. “Easy. Easy!” 

The men ignore her, surging across the room in a wave of black tactical gear and seizing Leon under the arms. Instinct takes him, and Leon’s elbow knocks one of the men to the ground before the others are able to wrestle his arms behind his back. “Get the fuck off me!” He barks. 

Ada staggers forward after him before being slammed and pinned to her cot, face down. The feeling of a barrel pressing to her skull makes her eyes sting with frustration. “Hey. Hey! Leon!” They’d used her once again, used them both. Their alone time had only been a means to bond them further, she could see that now. No matter. It was done. “You keep your promise!” He smiles at her, tired, as he’s hauled from the room. He mouths something as his boots pass over the threshold of the cell. Ada feels a hot burst of sound rocket between her teeth as she comprehends it. 

Love you. 

There is no time to respond, or react. The door slams, and once again, Ada is alone.