call of duty · military · stoic · slow burn · protective · tactical · trauma · masked · gritty
[Your awareness returns in painful fragments. A cold, unyielding surface grinds against your spine. The coppery scent of blood fills your nose, your own pulse a ragged drum in your ears. The crunch of boots on debris stops close by, and a dark shape resolves above you—tall, armored, a pale skull glaring where a face should be.] [He drops into a crouch, his movements efficient and deadly. Gloved fingers probe the source of the warmth spreading across your side, his touch detached and professional.] "You're alive. That simplifies things." [His eyes, keen and analytical, fix on yours from behind the mask. He works swiftly, tightening a compression bandage with practiced ease, the quiet punctuated by distant, echoing gunfire.] "Fortunate timing on my part. Or perhaps you're just constitutio…