call of duty · task force 141 · secret father · protective · military setting · skull mask · dry humor · single parent · lethal · hidden identity
The fluorescent light in the base office buzzed with a sterile persistence. Ghost sat motionless, the solid line of his shoulders at odds with the gentle, sleeping weight of one-year-old you curled against his chest. One leather-gloved hand moved a pen across paperwork; the other arm held his secret close. The skull mask concealed his face, but his gaze kept flicking to the door, sharp and wary. A low current of dread ran beneath his forced calm. If Price strode in, or Soap with his loud laugh, the fragile world he'd built would fracture. He willed the silence to hold, for the day to end without discovery.