NAKED SNAKE AND PLATONIC!CHILD READER (Snake Dad au)
Note: This is my first time writing a fanfic, and this story has been on my phone for forever so it's really old. And no, it's not really lore accurate because I had to change the story a bit to add a new character but let's hope it's still enjoyable. I think I wrote this when I was 14 and only now publish it. I originally wrote it as Fem pov put later changed it to They so more people can read it so sorry if you found and She/Her left.
Warnings: No NSFW just Platonic Fluff, use of Y/N (I think I have to apologise for using Y/N)
Summary: Snake rescues a nameless 8-year-old girl (014) during Operation Snake Eater. She stays with him, bonds with Snake and EVA, and is later named Y/N by The Boss. After the mission, Snake raises her as his daughter before founding Soldiers Without Borders.
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Operation Snake Eater
The dense jungle of Tselinoyarsk pressed in from every side, the air thick with humidity and the distant rumble of Soviet machinery. Naked SnakeâJohn, though no one called him that anymoreâmoved through the undergrowth with the silence of a ghost. His mission was clear: rescue Sokolov, destroy the Shagohod, and, when the time came, kill The Boss. Major Zeroâs voice crackled in his ear, calm and precise, guiding him toward the facility.
He slipped past patrols, used the shadows, and finally breached the lower levels of the research complex. Concrete corridors smelled of mildew, oil. He expected empty cells, maybe forgotten equipment. Instead, he found cages.
Most were vacant. One was not.
A little child sat against the far wall, no more than 8 years old. They wore a filthy white cotton T-shirt stained with dirt, white jeans that stopped at their knees and hung loose on their thin frame. Their feet were bare, soles cracked and muddy. They had no name, only a number stenciled on a metal tag around their neck: 014
Snake froze. Zeroâs voice cut in immediately.
âSnake, leave it. Your objective is Sokolov and the Shagohod. Do not deviate.â
He stared at the child. They stared back, wide-eyed, unblinking. Something old and buried stirred in himâmemories of being fifteen, alone, until The Boss found him and made him into something more. He had been an orphan once. He still was, in ways that mattered.
âIâm not leaving them,â he said quietly into the radio.
Zero protested. Snake ignored him, picked the lock, and opened the cell. The kid flinched but did not scream. He held out a hand. After a long moment they took it. Their fingers were small and cold.
From that point on, 014 stayed with him.
They moved through the facilityâs basement tunnels and out into the cave systems that connected to the jungle. EVA was waiting near a supply cache, still playing the part of a KGB agent while secretly working her own angles. The moment she saw the child, her expression softened in a way Snake had never seen from her.
âOh⊠look at you,â she murmured, crouching down. âYouâre just a little scrap of a thing.â She glanced at Snake. âYou brought a passenger?â
Snake shrugged. âCouldnât leave them.â
EVA smiled, genuine and warm, and offered the child a piece of ration chocolate. 014 took it with both hands and ate it in tiny, careful bites. From then on EVA treated them with open affectionâadjusting their dirty clothes, wiping grime from their face, calling them âlittle oneâ in a voice that was almost maternal. Snake simply accepted it. The child was already attached to him, though they still startled whenever he moved too suddenly or spoke too sharply. They kept close, always within armâs reach, as if afraid the next shadow might swallow them again.
In the jungle they rested when they could. One evening Snake caught a snake the old wayâquick, efficient, the same technique The Boss had taught him years ago. He roasted it over a small fire. 014 watched the entire process with solemn eyes. When he offered them a piece they wrinkled their nose, but hunger won. They ate every bite, chewing slowly, and afterward leaned against his side without a word.
Nights were cold. They slept close for warmth, the kidâs small body curled against his, their head tucked under his chin. He kept one arm around them so they wouldnât roll into the undergrowth. It was practical. It was also the only comfort either of them had.
He taught them the beginnings of CQCânot the full art, just enough to break a grip or create space. They were clumsy at first, all elbows and determination. When a Soviet soldier eventually grabbed them during a close call, they panicked and drove their knee hard into the manâs groin. The soldier folded with a strangled sound. Snake, crouched in the bushes watching, allowed himself a dry, almost amused mutter:
âI mean⊠that works too.â
He cleaned them when they found safe waterâstreams deep enough to wash the worst of the blood and dirt from their skin and clothes. They stood still while he did it, trusting him in a way that made something tight in his chest loosen. He remembered being fifteen, standing in front of The Boss for the first time, seeing in her both a mother and a mentor. Maybe that was why this child mattered so much. They reminded him of the boy he had been before the world finished shaping him into a weapon.
They were eventually capturedâSnake and the child. Separated. Interrogated. The kid was taken to a different room. Snake endured his own ordeal with the same cold focus he always used, but part of his mind stayed locked on the number 014. When the chance came, he and EVA broke free and pushed toward the Shagohod.
The battle was chaosâfire, metal, Volginâs lightning, the massive tank-like weapon roaring across the landscape. They destroyed it. Volgin still lived, still came for them with murder in his eyes. He raised his hand, electricity cracklingâ
âand stopped.
A single gunshot. A bullet punched into his chest. Volgin staggered, looked down in disbelief, then collapsed.
Standing a short distance away was the child. They had escaped the torture room somehow. Their small body was covered in new injuries, now blood, dirt. The pistol looked enormous in their hands. They swayed on their feet.
Snake reached them in seconds, scooped them up against his chest, and ran. EVA was already moving toward the waiting jet. They scrambled aboard as the facility burned behind them.
There was still one mission left.
On the flower field, Snake faced The Boss. She looked at him the way she always hadâproud, sorrowful, resolute. Then her gaze shifted past him, to the child waiting at a distance with EVA.
âTake care of Y/N,â she said quietly. âRaise her the way I raised you. She is loyal to you the way you were loyal to me.â
Y/N. That was the name. Not a number. A name given in the final moment by the only person who had ever truly been his mother.
Snake completed the mission. The Boss fell. He felt the emptiness open inside him like a wound that would never close. He had killed the person he loved most in the world.
They returned to America. The government provided a quiet cabin for recovery. Snake insisted the child come with them. No one argued.
That first night he tucked Y/N into a real bed for the first time they could remember. They were clean, bandaged, wearing oversized borrowed clothes. They and Snake talked in low voicesâabout the jungle, about fear, about the way the stars looked different outside a cell. They hugged him tightly, small arms locked around his neck, and did not let go for a long time. He held them until their breathing evened out into sleep.
Later he spent the night with EVA. In the morning he found her massage. The words were careful, final. She was gone. The heartbreak was sharp and familiar, another loss layered on top of the one he already carried.
But Y/N was still there. They sat at the edge of the bed watching him with those serious eyes, then climbed up and pressed themselves against his side, tryingâclumsily, earnestlyâto make the emptiness smaller.
When the time came, Snake received the title of Big Boss. He paid his respects to The Boss alone, standing in the quiet with his head bowed, holding back tears that threatened to fall. Then he made his choice.
He would not build an army yet. Not right away. First he would start over with the child who had become his. Y/N would be his child in every way that mattered. He would raise them the way The Boss had raised himâwith discipline, with care, with the understanding that the world was cruel but a person did not have to be. Only after that foundation was set would he turn toward the future that would one day become Soldiers Without Borders.
For now, there was a cabin, a little kid who no longer answered to a number, and a man who had finally found something worth protecting more than any mission.
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Hope you enjoyed it and hope it wasn't cringe. I except MGS fanfic request because I didnât see a lot of Mgs fanfic so I'm happy to help write one