Part One: White Knight Syndrome
A desperate chase. A dashing prince. A beautiful spy with a dangerous game.
Some stories aren't meant to be fairytales.
Mincoxit Mining Camp -Adjacent
Outside Umbrella Holding Facility Compound - August - 2005
His wounds were infected. The fever raged in him. It made his skin seering to the touch. It made the blue of his eyes peaked and hollow when he bothered to open them at all.
He tossed on the bed, gasping and pained.
She studied him, curious.
When he tossed and knocked aside the table that waited with the water and the rage to cool him, her patience wavered.
All he had to do was SURVIVE until his damn rescue came.
That was it.
Why was EVEN THAT too hard for him?
She shifted toward him.
He was naked beneath the sheet she'd spread over his firey flesh. The heat of his body penetrated the thin fabric and made them dewy to the touch.
Ada caught one flailing hand and pressed it to his chest. "Stop, Leon. Desist. If you keep tossing about, you're going to alert them."
They weren't safe. Not even close.
She'd evacuated him from the compound, at no great risk to herself, but the only safe spot was her small hideout that was the maintenance shed on the grounds. It was PERFECT and ABANDONED. No one knew it was here. But it would draw attention if he didn't SHUT UP.
His back up was coming in less than three hours. He just needed to STAY QUIET.
She pinned his hands to his naked chest while he murmured and cursed in his sleep. His dreams, it seemed, were as fitful as his life. When was the last time he'd STOPPED? Not since Raccoon City, clearly.
His eyes opened, glassy and empty. He shouted at her, "You think you can take me alive!?"
Idiot.
First he got captured being a stupid boy hero and protecting the girl in the pit where she'd found him. The girl? The "witness" he'd been trying to protect? Had left him there to die.
They'd taken him and made her life that much harder.
He was still useful. When he wasn't being a white knight. When he wasn't being outnumbered and a fool without a prayer. She'd saved him in Spain. She'd saved him again in that pit.
She'd saved him now.
She was getting tired of saving him.
Her hand lifted and slapped his feverish face.
He grunted and fell silent, slumping on the mattress. "...you mean to keep me then."
"Yes." She eyed him, "Hold your tongue, Leon. Lie there and shut up. It's not difficult."
"The Ganado are COMING! You think I'll just wait for them?" And he proceeded to curse at her in a very lovely Spanish. It was ok. Until he started shouting again, "LET ME UP! YOU STUPID BI-"
She put her other hand over his mouth. It was necessary but it cost her the hand that had been holding her down.
He surged against her, caught her to him, and rolled her beneath him on the bed.
She let him, hoping it would keep him quiet.
The sheet shifted around them and she could feel the line of his thighs.
He muttered from behind her hand.
Carefully, she withdrew it slightly, "What?"
"Why are you here, Ada?"
Sometimes he made sense. She studied him from her place beneath the boiling heat of his body. His face was flushed but he was lingering intelligently again behind those eyes. "You don't remember?"
He shook his head, trying to clear it, "Is this real?"
"It's the fever. You're alive but wounded. Help is coming. I need you to stay quiet, Leon. Or you'll bring them down on us. We both know if it comes to a battle, you're useless and I can't fight them all."
"...implying what? You'll leave me?"
"To save myself? Naturally."
He shook his head again, sending his shaggy hair around his face in a tangle. "No. NO!" He was back to shouting, "I have to SAVE ASHLEY!"
"There is no Ashley here. Focus, Leon. Focus. You're safe. But you need to stay with me."
His eyes slid back to her face. They slid down her throat and the smooth skin of her collarbone. The black and red vest she wore clung to the red tank top beneath it. It was paired brilliantly with skin tight leather pants. A good outfit for fighting.
Not so good for sitting in a shack boiling with summer heat.
Sweat slid down between her breasts from the column of her throat, and his eyes followed it.
That was fine. He could stare all he wanted if it kept him quiet.
Leon shifted his eyes back to her face. "Where are you HIDING HER!?"
Damnit.
"Shut up, fool."
"I will burn this place down around our ears if y-"
Speaking of ears, she grabbed his and brought him to her. Her mouth was merciless, giving no chance for retreat. She thrust her tongue into his and stole his breath. There...was the only real way to get a man to shut up.
He resisted at first, trying to pull away, and she sealed their mouths like a pro. With a pop of pressure, she let him go enough to hiss, "Stop, fool. Stop fighting. Stay quiet now, Leon. Alright?."
"Ada?"
Confusion. It was the nature of a fever.
"ADA!?"
DAMN HIM. Idiot.
"Shhh. It's a dream. It's all a dream, Leon. Alright? Just...a dream. Give in."
He did, almost manically. It was insane. One minute - resisting. The next - attacking. He all but threw the sheet to the side to give her the weight of him.
His mouth plunged, hers lunged up to meet him. A good kiss - firey and wet. Not their first, certainly not their last, and tempered by the flames of his fever on their merging skin.
He gasped a little as they separated, searching for air, "...I can't think..."
"No need for that now. Kiss me again."
There was THAT, as well. He always did that to her. She enjoyed him. She'd never had him. Not like this. Not exactly. A few passes in the dark. A few flirtations and touches. And kisses when she wanted him to play a game with her.
She'd used him and tortured him for years.
She liked it.
He played the game so well without trying.
She liked using him. It suited her. She enjoyed his company, to a certain extent. He was clever and charming, fashionable and funny, and useful in more ways than one. He was fast and skilled, deadly like nothing she'd ever seen when it called for it, and willing to compromise to save a mission. He wasn't entirely good and wasn't entirely bad. He straddled the line when it suited him.
A trait they shared. And one she exploited when she needed to.
His body thrilled her. He was hard and muscled, smooth and silky, honed and handsome. He was her physical equivalent.
That was about right, Ada thought, the situation was poorly timed but perfectly timed. One - he was out of it. He'd think he was dreaming if he remembered it at all.
Two - she wanted him in her control. She wanted him QUIET. If he got them detected just by being ill, she'd have to kill him. She didn't want to kill him.
Three - she wanted him in a sheerly feminine way. And she often indulged in the things she wanted. It was her one gift to herself when she'd freed herself from the shackles of her past.
If she wanted it, she took it. It was that simple.
She shifted her hands to back to stroke him, watching his flushed face. He was trying so hard to figure out what was real and what wasn't. Without sympathy, Ada instructed, "Kiss me again. They'll find us if you make any noise, Leon. Kiss me and stay quiet."
He trembled, delighting her, and spilled down into a push up motion above her. She kept working him, rolling him in her relentless fist. His mouth took hers, tasting, almost tender.
She bit at his lips and hissed a little.
And he stopped being tender.
They kissed wet and furious. They kissed hard and fast.
He was quivering above her. From fever? From need? Likely both.
Ada jerked him back atop her, looping her ankles around his ass. Eyes burning, guts churning, he rasped out, "Is this real, Ada? Are you real?"
"Does it matter?"
A good question.
And she demanded, "Be still now and listen."
He did. He went still. He was still trained better than almost anyone else she'd met. The government had spent valuable time and resources making him their eager warrior. He was practically perfect from his tousled hair to to his pretty toes.
She kept him quiet until the evacuation team came to find him. She handed him over under orders for him to taken to safety. Her team never questioned her. She paid them well to do her bidding. She paid them well for their silence.
Leon didn't even argue. Too sick. To out of it. He just did as she asked without question.
Like he'd done in Spain for the cure. He did it now - he trusted her. Even if she didn't deserve it.
She loved that he did as she requested of him. Eager. Young. He was utterly delicious. And sick or not, he was still trained to be aware. Of her. Of this. Of danger. He knew she was his best hope of survival.
He was good in Spain when she'd found him again. But now?
He was better.
He was better now than the first time he'd put his mouth on her. Even his kisses had a flavor that intrigued her.
Age had given him skill to match the eagerness. He flicked and delved, kissed and rolled, sucked and slid. It was a brutal, beautiful, bone melting assault. Her eager mouth accepted his like a feast.
The first time - he'd been so sweet. An eager boy.
She'd tracked him down after Raccoon City. She'd slipped into the hotel room where they'd shoved him after he'd agreed to work for them to spare the girl. He was going to be trained, it seemed, for black ops for undercover...for elite. She knew, the moment he said yes, she was going to get him in her pocket as an informant - willing or not. Whether he knew it or not, he was now hers. And she was going to make sure he stayed that way until she was done with him.
It didn't hurt at all that she was painfully attracted to him. His eager, excited, goody goody boy next door looks suited her. He was adorable, in a young, wet behind the ears way.
But his body wasn't. His body wasn't anything but delectable. Honed and perfect. Maybe not such a simple thing, she mused, you had to train hard to look that good.
The deal was looking better and better. Owning an informant could sometimes be enjoyable.
And she'd known the moment he emerged from the shower to find her in his room, that she was going to enjoy the hell out of the game of possessing Leon Kennedy.
The more they played, the more the game bound them both. She had somehow linked herself inextricably to a man who worked on the other side of the great divide. It was terribly within her enjoyment to bounce to whichever side suited her agenda.
She worked with or for whomever she wanted.
But somehow she always ended up tied to Leon Kennedy.
Apparently, a filthy city had been the beginning of a life time of little moments that would wind them together like snakes.
The game began in the rain on the darkest night of their lives...
NEST- Raccoon City - 1998
There was a moment where she knew she might have over played her hand. As the cable car guided them to Nest, as she knew she was too wounded to walk the distance to get the sample, she knew she had to get the rookie cop to help her. Manipulating men was often as simple as flashing a long slide of thigh...but he was different.
Determined and brave, he didn't flinch like normal men faced with the horrors they'd seen. He rolled with it. He ran with it. He raced against time to help her without knowing she was the thing he should be destroying.
He'd been so confused - if she was FBI...how was she here alone? If she was FBI, where was the back up? Where was the cavalry? Where was the evacuation? Why did she need him?
"But I don't understand how that ca-"
And she'd gripped the side of his face to kiss him.
It was the first time she realized that kissing him was the perfect way to gain his silence.
He stopped talking to let her.
As she leaned back, she said, "I like you, Leon," Hell, that part was true she didn't even need to fake it, "I need your help. If I could do it myself, I would. But I can't. We can't let the sample fall into the wrong hands. I need you to trust me. I need you to help me. I want to see you again. But we have to..."
He studied her, shrewdly, with those blue eyes that said he wanted to believe her...but he had a dozen reasons to doubt her.
Her hand slid against his knee, around the inside of his thigh. He glanced between it and her face. Eagerly, she pleaded, "Please...help me. So I can make sure this never happens again."
There.
Perfect.
She appealed to his need to protect. It was what made him a cop. She knew, as she pushed the button, that he'd do it. He'd do it to save the world. He was just that kind of man.
And he did. The rookie. The kid. He walked alone into the NEST and came back with that sample. It was how she knew there was no one else on Earth like him.
On the bridge, facing him, she knew someone had spilled the beans about her. Someone knew she was a liar.
His face...she'd never forget it.
He held the sample out like a taunting red flag to a furious bull. "This what you want?"
It was. But she didn't need it. She didn't need it at all. She'd stolen a sample from the idiot that tried to take the cable car to safety while she was sitting on it. She had a sample. She didn't need the one Leon carried anymore.
But she couldn't let him have it either.
Ada shook her head, lifting her gun. "Don't do this. Please. Leon...give it to me. Come with me. Let me protect you."
Surprised, he arched his brows, "From whom? You're the bad guy, Ada! Tell me it's not true. Tell me you haven't been screwing me from the moment we met. Tell me I'm wrong."
She lifted the gun to eye level on him. "Please...don't make it personal. It's my job. But I can protect you. Give me the sample. Drop the gun and come with me. Come with me now and I'll get you out. I'll make sure you are protected."
He shook his head - and raised his gun on her. "From whom!? Who wants me dead? You're the threat here, Ada. You are!"
The bridge began to collapse around them. She thought - he's going to hold that gun on me until we both die...boy scout.
She raised her tone to a level of demand, "Give me the sample and walk away. Now, Leon. Don't make me kill you."
Leon laughed, derisively, "You won't kill me, Ada. We both know that. Drop the fucking gun."
She itched her finger over the smooth trigger. She thought about it. But she hated killing. She hated it. It wasn't in her nature to slaughter unless necessary. And she'd meant it - she liked him.
She lowered the gun, laughing, "You clever bastard. So what now?"
"I guess we see how badly you want this sample."
He held it out over the edge of the bridge, over the abyss, "Go fetch, Ada."
He dropped the sample. The bridge pitched and spilled her forward. And the gun went off. Simultaneously. Back to back to back.
She tumbled. Leon stumbled. At the arch way, Annette called, "No sample for anyone now...you fucking bitch."
And the bridge cracked and spilled Ada toward the darkness as the pain ate away at her common sense. The shot was good. Her shoulder wept copiously onto her red dress. Red - her signature color.
She tumbled -and underestimated that rookie cop. He grabbed her and didn't let her fall.
Ada gripped his forearm in surprise as she swung above the abyss. "Leon! Let go of me! Are you insane? This lab is done for! Run!"
He grunted, holding onto her, "Climb up, Ada. Ok? Climb up. Give me your other hand!"
Big hero. He wouldn't let her fall. Even though he knew...she was the bad guy.
Ada tilted her head, watching his face. "...you are better than this, Leon. Don't let them keep you. Do you hear me? When you get out of here? You run. Don't look back. Don't let them manipulate you. You're better than this."
"Ada...for god's sake...grab my other hand."
"I can't. I'm sorry. Let go, Leon. Let go."
She did. She let go. She tumbled as the bridge pitched. He tried to hang on, he really did, but his forearm was sweaty and his grip weak from his own gunshot wound. He lost her.
She pitched into the darkness and heard him shout.
Halfway into the dark, she activated the emergency flush system with her EMF Visualizer. She hit the water. She heard it rush her toward the neighboring tunnel. Her body hit the wall and flipped. It was the best she could do to stay alive.
She awoke in the water listening to traffic on the highway.
The emergency flush had pushed her through the bowels of the lab and out the sewage system to the world beyond. She should have been dead, but she was alive. She doctored her wounds and limped toward the highway.
She battled back from her own illness for four days following that night.
She woke up in a filthy hovel while Vernon the "on call doc" worked to keep her fever down and disinfect her wounds. Her leg was a mess. Her shoulder no better. She'd wondered if she'd even survive it. Vernon cleaned her wounds with vodka and stitched her up with nylon. He was the best she'd get from a company that refused to acknowledge she was alive until she turned in the sample.
She found Leon two weeks after Raccoon City, stashed away in a hotel room in Zurich. The fool. He'd let them manipulate him into working for them.
She'd been too sick, too hurt, and too slow to stop him.
So now he was the bitch boy for Simmons.
Damnit.
The anger at failing to protect him from his own martyrdom annoyed her.
She wanted to tell him all about Simmons and Wesker and the conspiracy that operated madly behind the doors he'd yet to open. But she couldn't. He had to find the answers on his own. He had to. It was the only way he'd believe.
But she'd keep tabs on him until he was ready.
She meant it - he was too good to lose to the fight this soon. He might even be the thing that turned the tide - when the timing was right. When she was ready.
He might be the key to her own freedom.
So she slipped into the hotel room where they kept him and into the shower like a ghost. Fully dressed, she stepped into the heavy spray behind him.
As he turned, her hand shot out and over his mouth. It covered his sound of surprise as she pressed him to the tiled wall and spoke, softly, "The bugs they have in this room are sound oriented. What they hear, right now, is you in the shower. They haven't started watching you yet, but they will if you give them a reason. I can't stay long - but listen, and listen closely, to what I 'm going to say to you. Will you?"
He scanned her face shrewdly. She watched the intelligence flash on him before he nodded and she removed her hand from his mouth.
"Good. There are forces in play that I can't even begin to explain right now. I told you to run."
He shook his head and hissed, "I couldn't. The little girl, they t-"
"...you fucking hero." She said it without rancor, "It doesn't matter why anymore. It's done. You're theirs now. They will train you. They will try to corrupt you. Understand me when I tell you - there are snakes in your garden of eden, Leon. Snakes. Do not trust anyone."
He tilted his head, "Like you?"
"Don't trust me either. But whatever else you do...remember that you are a tool to them. You are a weapon. Do what they want. Play the game. Get the answers. Get in where you can. So you can fight them."
They held gazes in the steaming air. He shook his head and murmured, "Why do you care what happens to me?"
Her hands shifted. She gripped his ears and brought him to her. He let her and his hand gripped her arms above the elbows on the red rain coat she wore.
Against his mouth, she murmured, "I meant what I said...I like you. Stay alive. I'll see you around, LEon."
She pressed a kiss to his mouth and shoved him away, leaving the shower.
In the quiet heat left behind, he shook his head. He rubbed his hands over his face and laughed without humor. Staring at the mirror beyond the curtain that showed she was gone.
Quietly, under his breath, he lamented, "...women."
Apparently this one? She was about to become the story of his life.