Part One: White Knight Syndrome

A desperate escape.

An unlikely ally.

And a favor that might just cost them both.

Denpasar - 2001

It was supposed to be a simple enough mission. She was to infiltrate the market proper, meet with a contact, and broker a deal for an ampule of an early form of the Daylight vaccine that was thought to have been lost in Raccoon City. Created by a doctor named Jenkins and combined with research by Dr. Greg Mueller from Raccoon University who had once worked for Umbrella as a researcher, the Daylight vaccine was engineered using V-Poison gathered from the wasps that had mutated, tyrant rich blood from a fully morphed specimen, and P-Base which was the basal genetic sample of Progenitor stolen from the Arklay lab where Mueller had worked. It was created in an attempt to leverage himself to safety after stealing a Tyrant prototype during his tenure working with Umbrella.

He was stymied in his efforts when Jenkins alerted a follow virology colleague, Dr. George Hamilton, and it was suspected that though Jenkins was summarily killed for his attempts to thwart Mueller, Hamilton may have escaped with the sample of Daylight that was now being syndicated for use against potential weaponized T-Virus outbreaks. At the behest of her organization, Ada was attempting to secure a sample of the vaccine to bring back for analysis and recreation within their private labs.

To her immense disappointment, the meeting between her and the contact - Hamilton- was interrupted by the arrival of someone who had leached onto her feed and tracked her to the meet. Hamilton was taken by the U.B.C.S. and Ada found herself strapped to a chair being interrogated by an angry faced man with a Slavic accent that was referred to as "The Mad Jackal".

She had no doubt she was at the mercy of Colonel Sergei Vladimir. He was often regarded as Spencer's most trusted officer. His time spent serving in the Soviet Army during the Gorbachev era was widely renowned. The collapse of the Soviet Union in the 90's had brought about his retirement but Umbrella, often quick to pick the bones of a military malfunction, had recruited him and given him immediate jurisdiction over their quickly forming Bio terrorist Counter Measure Service. Vladimir was a known patriot to the lost cause of the old dictatorship and likely thrilled at working with a man like Spencer who was secretly was attempting to restore such a regime to the world he wished to conquer.

The little thing that no one talked about though? Vladimir and Albert Wesker were mortal enemies. The two were like fire and gasoline - they were combustive when they touched. He was nearly as gifted in virology as the other man, and was often heard to be touting his brilliance to the ears of any who would listen. It was well known that he wanted to usurp the tyrant project long before Raccoon City had fallen. Best guess? He was making his own monsters somewhere in a basement lab like the war mongering psycho she'd come to expect.

She was fairly certain Sergei had stolen all of Umbrella's core files in Raccoon moments before the bomb had struck and leveled the city. Sergei likely saw himself a hero for the task Spencer had given him. With the government breathing hard down Umbrella's back, Spender had retreated even further into his seclusion. He was a recluse, hidden from the public eye. In his absence, he'd appointed Sergei to C.E.O. Last she'd heard, Sergei was moving all of Umbrella's data to the Caucasus region and encrypting it in a secure location.

She was betting he was here to take the Daylight Vaccine, destroy it, and guarantee that it never saw the light on a global scale production.

It was a shame for him that she'd switched the actual vaccine for a fake. The real one was cleverly hidden in a simple bait and switch at the meeting sight waiting for her to return and retrieve it. The ampule Sergei was holding was saline and food coloring to make it look white and cloudy.

Quietly, Sergei mused, "It is a curious thing, you see, to find myself in possession of something so...precious."

Ada tilted her head at him, "And what's that? The vaccine?"

He grinned, showing yellowed teeth, "No, су́ка...not this. You. Don't you know how valuable you are to Wesker? He will agree to a meeting now, to have you safely returned to his arms."

He was wrong if thought that she mattered to Wesker. Their brief affair had lasted just long enough for them to determine that neither of them was the type to be interested in anything long term. His lack of scruples somehow offended her. He had an agenda as varied and as perverse as any megalomaniac she'd ever met. The moment she realized she was going to stay in his service as a spy though, she realized that he was useful from a business stand point in helping her achieve her end game. It made for cold bed partners to know each of you saw the other as a means to an end.

Ada laughed, lightly, "I don't matter to him. You're wasting your time keeping me. He can replace me with any number of women. I'm nothing to him."

Sergei arched his thick brows. "Aren't you? We shall see. Will you talk? Or will we dance?"

Ada shrugged a delicate shoulder, "I'm not much for talking, Colonel. Better put on your dancing shoes."

They bound her hands and strung her up in a cold stone room. They made a video for Wesker of her torture. It was cold water at first to make sure she stayed awake. It was shock rods to her wet skin when she didn't give them what they wanted.

The pain was something she'd been taught to control. She could handle torture. She'd been built to resist it. Sergei didn't watch the torture. It turned out he wasn't a man given to the enjoyment of seeing someone reduced to a punching bag.

She wasn't sure how long they kept her in that room. The feeling in her arms died and went numb. The first lash on her back from the whip bled badly enough it dripped down her toes where she dangled. They stuffed food in her mouth to keep her alive and dumped water in her throat.

With little choice, she was humiliated by being forced to relieve herself where she dangled since they never let her down to use the restroom. When she soiled herself, they threw water and soap on her to cleanse her. She waited for her chance to escape.

She waited for her chance to fight back.

She waited in vain.

One day the door opened and Sergei emerged looking angry. "It seems I over estimated your worthiness after all. Wesker has declined dealing for your release. It seems you are expendable. If you won't talk and I can't trade you, I have no use for you." He glanced at the men in the room with her, "Dispose of her."

He turned and left, slamming the door to her chamber.

The first masked man moved in front of her. He grabbed her face and slapped her from her partial stupor. "Wake up! I want you to fight back when I fuck you."

Of course. Rape. What else was there for men like this?

They'd rape her and then kill her. She'd be damned if she made it easy for him. He leaned in to kiss her.

Ada spit in his face.

The other man in the room laughed. The one holding her face reared back and slapped her again, hard enough now that it left her a little dizzy. He cursed her in russian and fought her for control of her legs. She tried to swing away and he grabbed her by the backs of her legs and jerked her thighs open. She was already naked. It would be an easy victory if he managed.

His hand grabbed at his fly.

And Ada shouted, "Wait...wait...I won't fight. Ok? I won't fight."

Curious, he tilted his head. "Why not?"

"Why fight? I've lost. Maybe...maybe we can both enjoy it instead, huh?"

He shrugged, stupid and eager, and shifted toward her. "I will bring you pleasure than. I will cum in you while you cry with want of me. Yes?"

Ugh.

But she smiled. "Oh, yes. Come closer."

He shifted toward her eagerly and her legs hooked around his hips. His hands dropped to continue jerking at his fly to free himself. She heard the zipper. She felt him reach into his pants to pull his erection free - and Ada kicked him in the backs of his knees.

He grunted and fell forward, she kneed him in the gut, and his friend rushed at them. But he'd be too slow to stop it. Ada wrapped her thighs around the face of the man on his knees at her feet and jerked with her hips. She twisted. The bones in his neck snapped wetly.

And the other man shouted, stabbing the shock rod in his hands into her ribs.

Her body snapped and jerked, flopped and rolled. The dead man at her feet hit the stones beneath them and didn't move. And the other man roared, "су́ка! I will gut you for this!"

He tossed the shock rod down and grabbed the knife from his vest. He wasn't going to bother to rape her. He was just going to kill her.

Ada kicked at his wrist and the knife sliced instead of stabbed, raking over her belly in a firey flick even as she kicked him in the ass to send him stumbling away.

She bled, he shouted in rage and reversed to come at her again, and Ada taunted, "Who's the bitch now? You can't even kill a woman dangling from the ceiling!"

He reversed, running at her like he'd carve her up, and Ada tried to rotate her body to finish him off. He slapped her foot as it lunged at him and drove the knife toward her ribs. She had a moment to figure she'd bleed out all over the filthy floor at her feet and the echo of a gun filled the small room.

The man slid down her body instead and fell onto his dead comrade. The knife skittered across the floor.

And Leon Kennedy stood in the doorway of her cell, head tilted.

"Ada...long time, no see."

She turned in a slow circle as she dangled. "You're seeing more than you should, I'm afraid. What are you doing here, Leon?"

"What else, sweetheart? I'm saving your ass Admittedly, it's a nice ass.."

Ada rolled her eyes and retorted, "Save the sweetheart for some simpering little girl who needs to be coddled, Leon. Cut me loose. Hurry. Maybe we catch Sergei."

"He's gone." Leon shifted into the room and knelt to dig through the guards pockets for the key to her restraints. Ada kept her gaze on him as he rose and leaned against her to unlock her. She was very, very aware of the fact that she was naked. It was irrelevant, given that she'd just avoided rape at the hands of her captors, but it didn't change the fact that she was certain they both were carefully avoiding looking at each other. "Once he ordered your murder, he left the facility and gathered what he needed to evacuate."

"There's nothing left?"

"I have a team inbound to sweep to be sure, but I don't think we'll find anything."

She tumbled loose when the cuffs gave and her numb arms flopped downward. He caught her at the shoulders as she staggered, angry at the temporary weakness. She spat, "Sorry. I don't know how long I've been dangling. Give me a minute for the feeling to come back."

She watched his jaw flex twice while he nodded.

Such a boyscout, the injustice of what was done to her would offend him. They'd torture her to no availl, of course. She wasn't going to talk. And she'd have died before she let them rape her.

He pressed a bandage to her wounded belly and secured it with tape. All so medical. All so practical. Her breasts didn't even draw his eye.

She was constantly impressed with how carefully professional he could be.

But she queried, "How'd you find me anyway?"

He glanced down at her before she eased back from his grip. "A tip came through the secure server at Langley. The CIA forward the message to USSTRATCOM and they tasked me."

"Why?"

She flipped over the body of one of her attackers and started divesting him of his clothes. Leon replied, "Someone wanted me to get the message. Who knew you were here?"

"No one. I was meeting a contact alone."

He helped Ada take the mans pants and boots. As she started to take his shirt, Leon shook his head and pulled off his own jacket. "The less you wear that belonged to this pig, the better."

Strangely touched, Ada accepted the jacket and slid it on over her torso. She picked up the man's knife and helped herself to his sidearm.

Leon swung the HK416 assault rifle from his back into his gloved palms. The heavy tactical vest he wore complimented the black on black gear that covered him. Ada stumbled a little as they moved toward the door - both from hunger, weakness, and from the large boots she wore.

He caught her arm above the elbow and gave her a shrewd look, "I have an evacuation point scheduled for oh-six hundred at a safe hour outside of Denpasar. I'll get you there and come back to assist the recon team."

"I can't go to the safe house. Not yet."

Leon gave her a narrow look as he they headed toward the facility exit. "Don't play tough guy here, Ada. Let's get you safe. You're wounded, dehydrated, and compromised. I can help you. Let me."

Ada shook her head, "I'm not being a feminist here, Leon. I have to collect what I came for. You can either help me, or let me go. Dealer's choice."

"Damn it, Ada. This isn't a request."

"You're not the boss of me, Leon. I'm grateful you came. I am. But don't let that go to your head. You're not my team leader here. And this is still my mission. I finish my missions. Help me, or go home."

He studied her in the low light of the dying sun beyond the compounds south gate. She was so god damn stubborn.

"I could make you come with me."

Surprised, her brows winged into her hair. Amusement flashed across her face. "Could you?" She stepped a little closer and the muzzle of his rifle pressed into her chest, "So make me. Pull the trigger. Put me down. Or worse...toss me over your shoulder like a caveman and carry me to safety."

She watched his jaw flex again. She watched him lick his teeth in frustration. But he did neither.

She arched a brow at him. "Time matters here, Kennedy. Which way are you going?"

She turned and hurried toward the town square. Shaking his head, he muttered, "Why does no one ever listen to me?"

And he moved after her.

She led him to the square where she'd met Hamilton and helped herself to her the vial she'd taped under the table when she'd switched the fake into her palm. Leon looked at her steadily as she rose. Ada shrugged, "I'm always looking for betrayal. What can I say?"

She held his gaze for a handful of seconds before she said, "Sergei took George Hamilton. He's a doctor who survived Raccoon. He participated in developing the Daylight Vaccine that I'm holding."

Leon jerked like she'd slapped him.

"Yeah. That's what I have here. A prototype. Maybe the last of its kind."

They held gazes over the table - the spy and the hero. He shook his head, cursed softly, and glanced over the darkening horizon. "...fuck."

Ada took two long breaths. "We both know I can't let you have this. Not yet."

Leon shook his head again. His jaw kept flexing as he watched the sun set. Ada added, "I will give it to you as soon as we get to my safe house and I replicate it."

Surprised, he looked back at her.

Ada nodded, scanning his features. "I need to replicate it. I have to. I have my reasons. I don't want you to trust me. I don't even want you to believe me. But I need you to understand that I'm not the bad guy here."

Leon laughed, mirthlessly, angrily, "Do you think I was born yesterday?"

Ada shook her head, she backed up two steps. She watched his rifle inch up toward her. She saw him hesitate, curse, and lower it back to his side. "I could kill you, Ada. Right now. And take that damn vaccine."

"I know that. I also know you won't. You won't do it. Because part of you knows I'm right here. I'm right. If I replicate this vaccine, I can get it out there faster than the US government will. They'll sit on it. They'll manufacture it through the FDA and all the right channels while people die. Uselessly. I'll give you the vaccine, Leon, but I won't leave empty handed. I can make sure this is widely distributed before we suffer another Raccoon City. It's the right answer. Tell me you don't know that."

It was the first real time she felt sympathy for him. She watched the struggle of what was right, what was good, and what was true across his face. He wanted to help, it was all he wanted, and she was asking him to allow her to take something that the "good" guys wanted.

She wanted to tell him that Simmons and USSTRATCOM weren't the good guys. She wanted to tell him they were as dirty as Umbrella. But she couldn't. Not yet. He had To find that out on his own.

Ada took another step backward, "We have twelve hours to replicate this vaccine and get back to your safehouse. Decide how much you want to serve your masters here, Leon. And how much you want to help the world. I'm doing that. I swear I am. I'm just not doing it by your rules."

There was the sound of helicopters approaching behind the walls of the heavily populated market. His team headed to the facility, no doubt. Ada tucked the pistol in her hands in the back of the pants she wore. She poked the vaccine in the leg pocket of the fatigues.

Leon cursed, spit, and let the rifle roll to his back again. "I'll give you six hours to replicate that damn vaccine."

"Thank you. I mean it. This way."

They shifted down an alley as the USSTRATCOM team emerged into the square. Unseen, by the skin of their teeth, Ada took him down a narrow tunnel beneath the city streets to her station in the sewers. She set about replicating the vaccine in the small kit she'd set up.

Leon watched her in the dark, shaking his head, "What's with you and sewers?"

Ada couldn't stop the laugh.

The replication only took three hours. When it beeped and signaled completion, Leon speculated, "Such a tiny thing to offer so much hope."

Ada had said nothing. She was leaning against the wall where she'd been sitting while the machine crafted a sample. She was sleeping. After the trauma to her body, it was no surprise. She trusted him enough to guard her while she rested.

Surely she knew how huge that was.

Surely.

He called her name, softly, as he moved to lift the little replicated sample from the machine and store it in his pocket. Ada had the original in her own. "It's done, Ada. Let's get to the safe house."

She said nothing.

Sound asleep, she was slumped against the wall and still. Leon shifted toward her and touched her neck to be sure she was still alive.

When she didn't protest or even move, he lifted her into his arms instead. Apparently he'd saved her and he was now going to carry her to their secure location like some hero in a romance novel. Her head slid against his shoulder and her limp body left little doubt to how wounded she was.

At the safe house, he divested her of her clothes and set about treating her wounds. A sponge bath and some disinfectant was the best he could without her consent. He wasn't going to just drop her into a bath and startle her awake.

Besides, rest was the best thing for her now.

He set the rifle beside him as he took the chair beside her bed when she was dressed in his spare clothing from his assault bag. A big white shirt and some gray sweats were bettered than the filthy pig gear she'd been wearing.

He'd burn that shit if he could.

There was nothing he abhorred more than men who raped for sport. He knew it was done. He wasn't naive or stupid. He knew men forced themselves on women, especially like Ada who served in intelligence, to prove their power.

But it never failed to surprise him how often it was over looked or ignored. Even to the level of men in his department talking about women "sucking and fucking" their way to the top. It was so common to objectify a woman to diminish her that it was almost socially accepted.

Somewhere, his mother was still boxing his ears for disrespecting his date in the eighth grade. He'd been raised that a woman was a lady, even if she was the type of lady who liked to go home with a different man every night.

In highschool, Kate Jones had become pregnant. The small town he'd grown up in had been aghast. Because the rumor was that Kate had been gang raped by a few boys on the football team. No one knew who the father was because of that.

It had been a huge scandal. It was one he never forgot. His mother had pulled him aside to make sure he understood the severity of such a thing.

Always treat your woman like a lady, Leon. Imagine if some man did to your sister what those men did to that girl.

His sister was his world. Born six weeks early, they'd thought at first she was just a preemie. But it was quickly evident that she had down's syndrome and was mentally handicapped. For the first half of his life, he'd made sure that Anna Kennedy never felt an ounce of judgement or restraint because she was different.

Thick as thieves, they'd become the best friends in the world. When he'd left for the academy, Anna had given him the St. Michael medal he wore around his neck even now. She'd said, "Michael is the guardian of the good, Leon. He stands against the evil. He swings his sword for justice. Wherever you are in the world, I know you'll swing your sword to save us."

With the softness that came with a world that hadn't darkened, Anna offered hope. He never got back enough to see her. He knew the down's would limit her time here on Earth, and yet he always had a thousand reasons not to go home to see her.

He thought, strangely, that she would like Ada. Ada with her snarky remarks and her killer fashion. Ada with her flawless beauty and her firey determination. Anna would think Ada was a guardian too. She wouldn't understand how gray the shades between black and white were.

Did he?

He glanced at Ada where she rested.

Did he understand how gray the world was?

Or was he still hoping, somewhere under all of it, Ada Wong was as black and white as he was?

She made a small sound on the bed. She rolled quickly, surprising him, and her hand snatched for the pistol he'd laid on the bedside table to treat her. He beat her to it and kept it aimed at her, speaking softly, "You're alright. It's just me. You're safe."

Ada said nothing, watching him in the cool moonlight.

Leon added, softly, "We have less than an hour until extraction. Go back to sleep."

A handful of moments spilled around them before Ada whispered, "Are you going to shoot me?"

Surprised, he shook his head, "No. Why?"

"Then why are you still aiming that gun at me?"

He was. She was right. Amused, he lowered it. "Maybe I need some sleep too, huh?"

"...did you treat my wounds?"

"I did. I was worried you'd get an infection."

He'd doctored her like she'd done for him in that filthy sewer. He'd taken care of her. She owed him. How the balanced scales of justice just kept dipping for each other.

Ada answered, gently, "Why haven't you killed me? If you think I'm evil, Leon. Why haven't you finished me off?"

Leon set the pistol down on the nightstand again. "I don't know. I keep hoping I'm wrong. I keep thinking that no one is beyond redemption, I guess. You're not evil, Ada. I think you're just using your own set of morals to validate what you do."

Ada tilted her head in the dark, "And you aren't?"

She had him there. Hadn't he just went against all his protocols to help her get her own sample? What was right and what was wrong anymore?

He wasn't even sure he had the answer. He wondered if Anna did.

Leon shook his head and told her, "Go on back to sleep while you can."

"I'm not tired."

He glanced at her face in the moonlight and murmured, "I am."

She got the feeling he didn't mean physically. Quietly, she queried, "What do you want from me, Leon? You keep hoping I'll have a conversion experience and turn against the Dark Side?"

He muttered, rubbing his face with his hand, "Something like that."

Charmed, Ada sighed, "Such a boy scout."

"Maybe. But otherwise where do you draw the line between us and them?"

Us and them. He really, really, really believed she was the US. She was like him. He believed, under it all, she was good. Touched, Ada shook her head, "It's never that simple, Leon. There's no us. There's no them. There's just...survival."

He scanned her face in the filter of silver from the window. "I can't believe that, Ada. I have to know that what I do, what I fight for...it has to matter. Even if it's just a single life I save. It has to be worth it. Or what's the point?"

He wasn't just a boy scout, Ada thought, he was a hero. A hero didn't just do the right thing, a hero believed what he did mattered. He fought long after the fight was lost. He kept fighting when the rest of the world gave up.

Leon Kennedy had been a boy scout in a dying city. Now, he was a hero in an endless war.

Softly, urgently, Ada admonished, "Leon...you beautiful, wonderful, selfless fool."

Her fingers slid into the latches of his vest. She watched the want and the denial spill over his face. But he didn't say no. That was his thing too. He just...didn't say no.

She went to her knees on the bed and tugged him over. He didn't touch her. He let her grip two handfuls of his vest and murmur, "Those men...they were going to rape me before they killed me."

His jaw flexed. His eyes flared. "...I know."

"You didn't even look. I was naked. I was exposed. You didn't even look."

His eyes fluttered, twice, and he whispered gruffly, "I looked. I'm not blind. I looked."

Her mouth twitched, "Did you? Did you like what you saw?"

Oh. He didn't. His face registered rage and anger. "You hurt, exposed, scared and captured? No. No, I didn't. I didn't like that at all."

Boy scout.

Hero.

She breathed, "You saved me. You were the hero right? The hero gets a kiss."

He ground his teeth, shaking his head, "How-I wouldn't. Not after that. Can you really want that? After they touched you?"

Feeling a need to soothe him, Ada cooed, "They didn't touch me. They didn't get the chance. I wouldn't let them. You wouldn't let them either." She brushed their noses together, "I don't let anyone touch me unless I want them to."

He trembled in her grip. She felt it. She saw the indecision on him. She knew he didn't trust her. She knew he wanted to.

She felt a squiggle of pity for him even as she spoke with her mouth to his and their lips brushing, "Do you want to?"

Her hands slid down the inside of his arms. She caught his wrists and drew his arms toward her until they encircled her and she set his hands on her ass. And she breathed, "Do you want to touch me, Leon?"

He didn't grab her. He didn't push her away either. She tilted his face toward her and skimmed her thumbs over his cheeks.

The breath he took was shaky. She brushed their mouths back and forth and he finally whispered, "What do you want from me, Ada?"

A good question.

Too many answers that he wasn't ready for.

So she gave him the only one that mattered right then, "...open your mouth."

He did. No questions. No hesitation. It thrilled her.

She spilled her tongue inside to kiss him. And he moved. That much of a martyr, he wasn't. He finally curved his hands against her ass to drag her into his body. He didn't grope. He didn't go under the clothes.

He didn't have to.

She was pressed so tightly to him that she knew he was happy to be there.

She let the kiss drag on until they were both breathless. Her hand skimmed down and brushed over the rigid length of him behind his pants. He didn't stop that either.

Saint or not, he was still a man.

The sound of swirling helicopter blades drew them apart. He glanced at his watch and Ada adored the flush across his cheeks that was probably half excitement, half shame for touching her.

"...shit. They're early."

She shook her head, sliding off the bed. "No they aren't. That's not yours, that's mine."

She licked her lips and winked at him. "Ask yourself sometime what you think I want from you, Leon. Be honest about it. Stop trying to make it global in scale. You ever think maybe I just like you?"

He narrowed his eyes at her. "Please. You could get a stiff dick from anyone, Ada. I'm not that good of a lay."

Her brows winged up. Her eyes sparkled with humor. "Ouch. Don't sell yourself short. You should work on that self esteem Mr. Kennedy."

"Why? You planning to prove me wrong?"

She rolled her lip under. She glanced down at his groin. His left brow winged up as she shrugged, "I never plan that far ahead. But I'm curious if the package is as good as the face."

He couldn't stop the laugh. He tried. But he couldn't do it.

She grabbed the sample from the pants on the floor and backed up. Hesitating, she finally said, "Take that vaccine back with you...and look into Javier Hidalgo."

Surprised, Leon shook his head, "The drug lord?"

"...it's not just drugs he's running."

They held gazes for so long that he finally said, "...got it...thank you, Ada."

"Don't thank me yet, handsome. See you around, Leon...my hero."

She blew him a kiss and hurried across the lawn to the waiting chopper. He watched her, shaking his head. He didn't know what game she was playing...but he'd be damned if he wasn't waiting for the next round.