a/n: heyy, this is my first ever request, so I really hope you like it!!! I originally imagined it with re4 Leon, but I think it works perfectly for any version. also i hope i did this request justice and included everything that was mentioned!
requested by: @hazbinlove
warnings: heavy angst, descriptions of past torture/brainwashing (HYDRA-style, starting in childhood), violence, PTSD triggers, hurt/comfort, established relationship, mild language
summary: after years of hiding your past, you never expected Leon to discover the truth. When he stumbles upon old HYDRA footage showing the brutal torture and brainwashing you endured since childhood, everything changes.
pairing: fem winter solider!reader x leon s. kennedy
my MASTERLIST (not done yet)
The apartment smelled like burnt coffee and gun oil, the way it always did after a long week. Leon had kicked off his boots by the door, leather jacket slung over the back of the couch like he owned the place, which, technically, he did. You were curled into the corner of that same couch, knees drawn up, scrolling through encrypted DSO briefings on your tablet. The city lights bled orange and gold through half-closed blinds, painting stripes across your bare legs.
Leon dropped down beside you with a groan that was half exhaustion, half theater. “Remind me why I let you talk me into taking that joint op with the BSAA?” He reached over, stole the tablet from your hands, and set it on the coffee table. His fingers lingered, tracing the faint scar that ran along your wrist, the one you always told him was from a bad fall during basic training. “Next time, I’m benching both of us. We’re getting too old for this shit.”
You laughed softly, the sound automatic, practiced. “I think only one of us is getting older, old man.”
He grinned, that crooked, cocky smile that had hooked you the first time you’d crossed paths. Back then you’d been just another DSO asset with a thick classified file. Now you were his, his partner, his quiet in the storm, the only person who could make Leon S. Kennedy shut up long enough to let someone else carry the weight for a minute.
He tugged you into his lap, arms locking around your waist like it was the most natural thing in the world. “Yeah, well, you keep up pretty good for someone who claims she doesn't age.” His voice dropped, warm against your ear. “Missed you out there today. Place felt empty without you watching my six.”
You leaned into him, breathing in the familiar mix of his aftershave and the faint metallic tang that never quite left his skin after missions. “I was on comms. Someone had to keep you from blowing up another helicopter.”
“Semantics.” He kissed the side of your neck, slow and deliberate, the kind of kiss that said we’re safe, we’re home, the world can wait. For a moment, everything was normal. Just Leon, just you, the low hum of the city outside, the distant promise of takeout and a night where neither of you had to be soldiers.
But normal never lasted. Not for people like you.
Three days later, Leon was in the DSO archives, chasing a ghost.
The lead had come in through a back-channel tip: HYDRA remnants (yes, that HYDRA) had been funneling bioweapons tech into Umbrella’s old European black sites. The higher-ups wanted it buried before it leaked to the press or, worse, before it woke something up. Leon volunteered because he always volunteered when the word “brainwashing” showed up in the file. He told himself it was professional curiosity. He didn’t tell anyone the real reason: he’d seen the way your eyes went distant sometimes, the way you woke up gasping at 3 a.m. with your hands clenched like you were still holding a trigger.
He wasn’t expecting to find you.
The server room was cold, sterile, lit only by the blue glow of monitors. Leon’s gloved fingers flew over the keyboard, cracking the last encryption layer. A folder labeled “Asset Designation: WINTER-07” popped open. Video files. Dozens of them.
His stomach twisted. He clicked the first one.
Grainy footage filled the screen. A concrete room, fluorescent lights buzzing overhead. A child,no older than eight, strapped to a metal chair, wires taped to her temples. The same scar on the wrist. The same determined set to the jaw that he knew better than his own reflection.
A voice off-camera, clinical and cold: “Initiate Phase One. Wipe the slate.”
The little girl, you, screamed as electricity arced through the wires. Not just pain. Erasure. They played it over and over, layering Russian commands, English triggers, that made your small body convulse. “Winter Soldier protocol adapted for juvenile asset. Obedience through pain. Memory replacement through repetition.”
Leon’s hand froze on the mouse. He couldn’t breathe.
Another file. You at thirteen, already lethal, eyes glassy as handlers barked orders in a language you’d been forced to forget was foreign. “Kill the target. No hesitation.” The camera caught the exact moment the light left your eyes and something else, something mechanical, slid into place.
He watched you grow up in fast-forward hell. Seventeen now, strapped down again, a new metal arm prototype being bolted on while you thrashed and begged in a voice that still cracked like a child’s. “Please...please, I don’t want to forget...”
A handler’s laugh. “You don’t get to want anything anymore, Soldier.”
Leon slammed the laptop shut. The sound echoed like a gunshot. His hands were shaking. He’d seen a lot: zombies, cults, psychopaths but this? This was surgical. This was you, carved apart and rebuilt into a weapon before you’d even had a chance to be a person.
He didn’t remember driving home. He just remembered the way the key felt too heavy in his hand when he pushed open the apartment door.
You were in the kitchen, chopping vegetables for dinner like it was any other Thursday. Soft music played from your phone. You looked up, smile already forming until you saw his face.
“Leon?” The knife stilled. “What happened?”
He crossed the room in three strides and pulled you against his chest, hard enough that the knife clattered into the sink. “I found the files,” he said, voice rough. “HYDRA. The chair. The wipes. All of it. You were eight, baby. Eight.”
The world narrowed to the sound of your heartbeat against his. For a second you didn’t move. Then your body went rigid, the way it did right before a mission drop. Muscle memory older than either of you.
“You weren’t supposed to see that,” you whispered.
Leon pulled back just enough to cup your face, thumbs brushing your cheeks like he could erase the years. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I’m not that girl anymore.” Your voice cracked. “I burned the last handler myself. I thought that if I never said it out loud, maybe it would stay buried.”
He wanted to argue. He wanted to burn the entire organization to the ground a second time. But the way your eyes were glazing over told him the real fight was about to start right here in your kitchen.
The trigger phrase slipped out of him before he could stop it, something he’d read in the files, spoken low and accidental. “Longing.”
Your pupils blew wide. The shift was instant. One second you were his girlfriend. The next you were the Winter Soldier.
You moved like liquid death. Elbow to his solar plexus, driving the air from his lungs. He staggered back, catching the counter. “Shit, baby, it’s me...”
But you weren’t hearing him. The metal arm, cybernetic, hidden under your sleeve until now whirred to life as you lunged. A roundhouse kick caught him in the ribs: he felt something crack. He didn’t draw his gun. He wouldn’t. This was you, fighting the ghosts they’d stuffed inside your head.
You grabbed him by the collar, slammed him against the fridge. Magnets and takeout menus rained down. Your eyes were empty, terrifyingly calm. “Mission parameters?” The voice wasn’t yours. It was colder, flatter, laced with static.
Leon tasted blood. He’d bitten his tongue. Good. Pain kept him present. “Stand down, Soldier,” he said, forcing authority into his tone even as his heart shredded. “That’s an order.”
You hesitated, just a fraction. Long enough for him to twist, hook a leg behind your knee, and take you both to the floor. He pinned you beneath him, knees bracketing your hips, hands locking your wrists above your head. The metal arm strained against his grip, servos whining.
“It’s me,” he repeated, forehead pressed to yours, breathing hard. “Leon. The guy who burns the coffee every morning because he’s too busy staring at you. The guy who sings off-key in the shower just to make you laugh. Come back to me. Please.”
Your body bucked once, twice. Then the fight drained out like someone had pulled a plug. You blinked once, twice and the emptiness cracked. Tears spilled hot and fast down your temples.
“Leon?” Your voice was small, broken, the same one from the video at eight years old.
He released your wrists immediately, rolling so you were on top, cradling you against his chest. “Yeah. It’s me. I’ve got you. I’ve got you, sweetheart.”
You sobbed into his shirt, fists clutching the fabric like it was the only real thing left. “They started when I was six. Said I was… defective material. Too soft. So they made me hard. Every wipe felt like dying. Every time I woke up, I was less me.”
He held you tighter, one hand stroking your hair, the other rubbing slow circles between your shoulder blades. “I know. I saw. God, I saw. And I’m so fucking sorry I wasn’t there to stop it.”
“You couldn’t have been. No one could.” You lifted your head, eyes red-rimmed but clear for the first time in years. “I killed people, Leon. So many. They made me forget their faces, but the hands… my hands remember.”
He kissed your forehead, then your eyelids, tasting salt. “Those hands also saved my ass in Madrid. Held me together after Raccoon City anniversary nightmares. Made me coffee even when I didn’t deserve it.” His voice roughened. “They’re your hands. Not theirs. Never theirs again.”
You stayed like that for a long time, tangled on the kitchen floor, the dinner forgotten, the city humming indifferently outside. Leon’s ribs ached, but he didn’t move. He’d take a thousand cracked ribs if it meant you stayed here, present, you.
Eventually he carried you to the bedroom, ignoring your half-hearted protest that you could walk. He set you on the edge of the mattress and knelt to pull off your boots, then his own. The cybernetic arm caught the lamplight, matte black and scarred from old battles. He traced the plating with careful fingers.
“Does it hurt?” he asked quietly.
“Sometimes. When the weather changes. Or when the triggers get too close.”
He nodded, then pressed a kiss to the seam where metal met skin. “We’ll get it looked at. Properly this time. No more hiding.”
You watched him, something fragile and wondering in your expression. “You’re not… scared of me? After what you saw? After what I just did to you?”
Leon stood, cupped your face again, and kissed you slow and deep, the kind of kiss that rebuilt worlds. When he pulled back, his blue eyes were steady. “I’m scared for you. There’s a difference. And I’m pissed as hell at every bastard who ever laid a hand on you. But scared of you? Never.” He smirked, faint and tired. “Besides, I’ve had worse from zombies. You hit like a girl who’s been holding back.”
A watery laugh escaped you. “Asshole.”
“Your asshole.” He climbed onto the bed, pulling you down with him until you were curled against his side, head on his chest. His heartbeat was steady under your ear. “We’re gonna figure this out. Deprogramming, therapy whatever it takes. I’ll call in every favor I’ve got. Chris, Jill, even Ada. You’re not alone in this anymore.”
You traced the fresh bruise forming on his jaw. “I don’t deserve you.”
“Bullshit.” He caught your hand, kissed the knuckles. “You deserve the whole damn world. And I’m gonna make sure you get it. Starting with burning every last HYDRA file that has your name on it. Figuratively. Or literally. I’m flexible.”
Silence settled, warm and heavy. Outside, rain started tapping against the window. Inside, Leon’s fingers carded through your hair, slow and rhythmic, the same way he’d done after your first shared nightmare.
“I love you,” you whispered into the dark. “Even the parts they tried to kill.”
“I love every single part,” he answered. “The soldier. The survivor. The woman who puts up with my terrible cooking and worse jokes. All of it.”
You fell asleep like that, his arms around you, the city lights soft through the blinds, the ghosts a little farther away than they’d been this morning.
Leon stayed awake longer, staring at the ceiling. The rage was still there, banked but burning. Tomorrow he’d start the paperwork, pull the strings, make sure no one ever triggered you again. Tonight, though? Tonight he just held you.
Because the Winter Soldier had been forged in fire and pain and forgetting.
But you, you, had chosen remembering. Chosen him.
And Leon would walk through hell itself to make sure you never had to forget again.
thank you so much for reading!! leave a like or reblog if you enjoyed it, it really keeps me going!
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