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Victor— or whatever is left of him— snatches Leon up and all Grace can do is watch.
All she can do is watch as Leon struggles; as his gun slips from his fingers and clatters to the ground; as he beats his fists against Victor’s body and struggles to reach his hatchet and fights for this brand new lease on his life with everything he has. She tries to catch her breath around the yawning, gaping chasm opening up inside her and thinks this is it, this is it, this is it—
From somewhere high, high above them, something cracks.
A boom like thunder as something breaks through the sound barrier and Victor is screaming, thrashing, screeching as a bullet punches through his skull. Leon slips, tumbles from his slackening grasp and lands in an easy crouch, fingers closing around his gun. Between one blink and the next, Leon is unloading his clip.
His hand is steady, an easy brace against the kick of the revolver, familiarity and ease in every careful, deliberate movement, and it’s only now that she realizes that this is Leon at full capacity. This is Leon, unbroken and unbowing, and she swallows the reflexive burn of tears thick in her throat at this proof of life.
“This time,” Leon says, leveling his gun at Victor’s face, “you ain’t getting back up.” The shot snaps clean through the air and Victor wails, body solidifying and then crumbling into nothingness.
The silence that falls around them is heavy but not oppressive; loud in the way silence can be after chaos, and Grace holds her breath so she doesn’t break it. Leon needs this moment of victory after everything, she thinks, and she won’t be the one to—
“Boooooo,” someone calls, and a man rappels from the ceiling, boots hitting the ground with a solid thud. He unhooks himself from the line, head swiveling first towards Grace, one brown eye studying her intently, the other covered by a— pink and sparkly?— eye patch. Once he’s determined…whatever he’s trying to determine, his head swivels towards Leon. “I can’t believe you’ve got the same shit one liners,” he says teasingly. “It’s been thirteen years. Get some new material.”
A bright, genuine smile breaks across Leon’s face, all sorts of soft and fond, and it knocks the air out of Grace’s lungs. She hasn’t known him very long, but she didn’t think he could smile like that— like the world hasn’t torn him down.
“Aren’t you supposed to be retired?”
The man flashes a cheeky smile. “That’s what my husband thinks.” He winks at Grace like they’re in on a joke together, and she feels the last of the tension ease from her shoulders.
Until, at least, someone else rappels down, too. And then it ratchets back up, settling in the line of her spine, in the tremble of her hands, the shortness of her breath.
Leon goes still, a string of complicated emotions flashing across his face like the flicker of an old film reel— there and gone and there and gone too fast for her to puzzle out.
The smile that blooms across his face when the newcomer takes off his helmet looks like it breaks him in two.
“Oh,” he says very, very quietly.
“Hi, baby,” the man says, soft and sweet and achingly vulnerable.
They don’t embrace each other so much as they collapse into each other, Leon burying his face in the hollow of the man’s throat; the other man’s arms close around him, fingers clutching at the back of Leon’s shirt, face tucking into Leon’s filthy hair.
The man with the eye patch crouches in front of her, effectively blocking her sight of Leon and his— and the other man. She isn’t offended. Whatever is happening, it’s private and intimate and she doesn’t need to see it, so she doesn’t try. She focuses instead on the man knelt down with her, expression open and kind.
She can’t not look at the eye patch— a piece of pink fabric is folded around it, messily stitched around the edges. Chunky glitter is slapped on top, thick and uneven, gleaming in the dim lighting.
She must not be as subtle as she thinks, because the man chuckles knowingly. “My step daughter,” he says to the question she isn’t brave enough to ask. “She says black is a boring color, and everything’s better with sparkles.”
“She sounds like a very smart girl,” Grace says, unable to smother her smile at the sweet, lovesick look that blooms across the man’s face.
“The smartest,” he agrees, gaze going distant. He shakes himself out of it and slings his rifle over his shoulder, offering her a sunny smile. “May I?”
She doesn’t know what he’s asking, and she doesn’t think she has enough energy left to care. She’s tired, she’s in pain, and she may not know this man, but Leon trusts him.
It’s enough.
She nods, and then yelps when the man scoops her into his arms, easy as anything, gentler than she’s expecting— it still makes the wound in her abdomen throb, but she doesn’t think there’s really a way around that.
“Hey,” Leon calls, and when Grace chances a glance, the other two men are no longer tangled together. They’re stood next to each other now, still a little too close. Leon levels the man holding her a stern look, though it’s belied by the haze of exhaustion softening the lines around his eyes, the set of his mouth. “She’s precious cargo. Be careful.”
“She has a hole in her side,” the man says dryly, though the corner of his eye is crinkled in a fond sort of amusement. “I’m being as careful as I can be. Right, Miss Ashcroft?” He slants her roguish smile, waggling his eyebrows so aggressively that he almost dislodges his eyepatch completely, and Grace surprises herself with an ugly snort of laughter.
“Right,” she says, hiding an embarrassed smile behind her hand. “Mr…?”
“Oops,” he says with a sheepish laugh. “Nivans, but please just call me Piers. That Goliath over there is Chris.” He jerks his chin towards the man thumbing back the collar of Leon’s shirt with a damp-eyed, wobbly sort of wonder.
“The Goliath can hear you,” Chris says, tearing his eyes away from Leon, laser focusing on her like he’s just seeing her. He lumbers closer, hooking a fingertip through one of the straps on Leon’s harness to tow him along. “Grace?”
Grace swallows, fighting the urge to fidget. She feels awkward and ungainly, especially since she’s still sitting in Piers’ arms, but she isn’t certain that her legs are ready to hold her yet.
“Y-yes,” she mumbles, shrinking further into Piers. It’s stupid, she knows, but something about Piers feels safe; something about Chris feels decidedly…not.
Not, at least, until he smiles.
And then he just looks like Leon did— worn, weary, and so relieved that it’s cracked him open right down the middle.
“Thank you,” he says, voice thick with a heavy, ruining sort of sincerity. “I— fuck, thank you.”
She shrugs and fiddles with the filthy hem of her shirt. “I didn’t really do anything. I— I mean, Leon did all the heavy lifting. I just—”
“You saved his life,” Chris interrupts, and her eyes skip up to meet his, startled at the vehemence in his voice. “You saved Leon’s life.” He smiles again and it’s all love— like he’s overflowing with it, like he’s shattered with it. “Grace, that’s everything.”
She’s not one to make assumptions about people. Or, at least, she tries not to. And maybe, seeing how they clung to each other, she thought—
It’s as much confirmation as she’s going to get without asking, she thinks, but it’s enough to put the pieces together.
She doesn’t pry. It’s none of her business.
Piers jostles her— gently, so gently— and asks, “you ready to get out of here?”
“God, please, yes.”
Behind Chris, Leon laughs.
“Can I ask you something?”
Piers tears his eyes away from Leon— he’s okay he’s healthy he’s unhurt he’s alive— to look at Grace.
She looks awkward but not unsure, white-knuckling a takeaway coffee cup, eyes settled firmly on his.
“Always,” he says, and she flashes him a shy smile.
“How, um.” She fidgets with the sleeve on her cup, tries again. “How do you just…go back to normal? After?”
He should’ve seen it coming. And he did, he thinks, even if he wasn’t entirely prepared for it.
“I don’t know,” he says honestly. “I’ve been in this fight for a long time, and I don’t know if it ever really leaves you. Officially, I retired.”
“Unofficially?”
Piers smiles wryly. “Unofficially, if Leon or Chris needs me, I’ll be there with bells on.”
She hums, brows furrowing in thought. It isn’t the answer she wanted, and Piers doesn’t have one for her. They don’t ever really get out of the fight, not once they’re in it. At least, not the three of them. Not most of their family. But—
“I can give you my husband's phone number. He’s a lot better at this sort of thing than I am. He’d be able to answer your questions.”
“Oh,” she says, cocking her head curiously. “Is he…?”
“A civilian,” Piers says, smiling a bit. And he’s always going to be one of I have any say in it. “But he wasn’t always.”
“Oh,” she says again, understanding blooming. “I— I’d like that, then. If that’s okay.”
“I offered, didn’t I?” He holds out a hand for her phone and adds Ethan’s number to her contacts, saving it under the initials EN. “Just— keep this to yourself, okay? Please? He’s dealt with enough shit.”
“Okay,” she says earnestly. “I will. I promise.” She glances at the contact. “EN?”
“His name is Ethan Winters,” Piers says. “But he goes by Ethan Nivans these days.”
Her eyes go a little wide, a little star struck. “I, um, I r-read about him. I— yeah, I know who he is.”
Piers blinks at her, taken aback, and then he laughs. “Oh, he’ll get a kick out of that. Make sure you tell him that, will you?”
She ducks her head, cheeks flushing pink, but he can see the curve of her smile. “I will. If— if you’re sure he won’t mind?”
He rests a hand on her knee, giving it a gentle squeeze. “He won’t. He’s a software engineer. If anyone knows how to live a boring, normal life, it’s him.”
She lets out a startled laugh, one of her hands flying up to cover her mouth, and Piers grins.
“Boring and normal sounds pretty nice right now,” she admits, and Piers laughs.
“Tell me about it,” he says.
Grace’s gaze shifts over his shoulder and he follows it, smiling a bit when he sees them; they’re tucked close again, Chris’s hands settled in the small of Leon’s back, Leon’s forearms resting on Chris’s shoulders, fingers playing with the hair at his nape. Chris says something, and Leon tosses his head back with a full bodied laugh— Chris moves with the motion, sliding a hand down to curl his fingers around the bend of Leon’s knee, hitching his leg around his hip so he can tip Leon backwards in a clumsy dip. Chris follows him down, their lips mashing in a messy, smiling kiss.
“They look happy,” Grace says quietly, and Piers refocuses on her.
“They are,” he says simply. He hops up next to her, nudging his shoulder into hers. “The chopper is going to drop us at their house. Leon’s already been cleared for some R&R, and Chris— well, Chris just sort of does what he wants.” He watches her closely, sees a spark of something he might call longing in her eyes. “You’re welcome to join us.”
Grace jolts, wide eyes flying over to him. “N-no, I wouldn’t want to intrude. And I— I should get back to work. They’ll want me to write a report. I shouldn’t put it off.”
Piers shrugs. He isn’t going to force her to do anything she doesn’t want to do. “Sure,” he says. “I get it. But if you’re only saying no because you think you’ll be intruding— you’re not. I extended the invite because I know them, and I know Leon. He picks up strays like there’s no fucking tomorrow.” He slides off the bench and stands in front of her, catching her eyes. “I’m serious, Grace. You’ve done more for us than you know. You’re part of our family now, if you want to be.”
Grace stares at him, silent, searching, and he keeps his expression open and relaxed. Maybe she finds what she’s looking for or maybe she doesn’t, but when she ducks her head again, he leaves her be.
“Think about it,” is all he says. He turns to join Chris and Leon, more than ready to lay hands on Leon and see for himself that he’s really okay, but slender fingers curl around his wrist, stopping him.
“I want to come,” Grace says. Her shoulders are up, jaw jutted out like she’s daring him to tell her she can’t, and he bites back a smile.
“Come on, then,” he says, tugging her to her feet and steadying her when she stumbles. “There’s a lot of people who are gonna want to meet you.”
Her smile is bright and blinding, like the sun coming out from behind the clouds, warming him from the inside out.
It feels a little bit like hope.
He feels eyes on them and turns to catch Leon’s; the older man is smiling too, a little sweet and a little sappy, eyes shining and damp.
He thinks Leon feels it too.