The scars we choose
Ftm!Soap x reader
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The first time you see the scar on Johnny’s chest, it isn’t dramatic.
There’s no grand reveal. No speech.
It’s just you and him in his flat, rain tapping softly against the windows, the world reduced to warm lamplight and the quiet hum of the kettle in the kitchen.
He’s tugging his shirt over his head like he always does—careless, comfortable—until he freezes for half a second. Just a flicker. A hesitation so small most people wouldn’t notice it.
But you do.
You’ve learned the language of him. The way his shoulders tighten when he’s bracing for something. The way his jaw sets when he expects rejection.
The shirt comes off anyway.
Your eyes take in the clean lines across his chest—surgical scars, pale and healed, mapping a history he fought hard for. They don’t shock you. They don’t scare you.
They just make sense.
Johnny rubs the back of his neck, suddenly sheepish. “Still get in my head about it sometimes,” he admits, accent softer than usual. “Daft, yeah?”
You step closer.
“Why would that be daft?”
He huffs a quiet laugh. “’Cause I wanted this. Fought for it. Waited years. An’ sometimes I still look in the mirror and think—” He stops himself, searching for the right words. “Just takes time for your brain to catch up, I guess.”
You reach out slowly, giving him time to pull away if he wants to.
He doesn’t.
Your fingers brush over the scar gently, reverent, like it’s something precious. Because it is. It’s proof of survival. Of stubborn, relentless hope.
“This,” you say softly, tracing the faint line with your thumb, “is you choosing yourself.”
His breath catches.
Soap MacTavish—loud, fearless, explosive in a firefight—goes very still under your touch.
“You think it looks… okay?” he asks, and there’s vulnerability there he rarely shows anyone.
You lean up and press a kiss just beneath the scar, not dramatic, not performative. Just steady.
“I think it looks like you.”
For a second he doesn’t speak. Then his hands slide to your waist, grounding himself in the solid warmth of you.
“I was scared,” he admits quietly. “Before. That whoever I ended up with would see me as… complicated.”
You smile against his skin. “You are complicated.”
He snorts.
“But not in the way you mean. You’re layered. Brave. Stubborn as hell. You rebuilt yourself from the inside out. That’s not complicated. That’s impressive.”
His grip tightens just a little, like he’s anchoring himself to the words.
“Does it bother you?” he asks, softer now. Honest.
You shake your head. “Nothing about you bothers me.”
He searches your face like he’s looking for cracks, for doubt. He doesn’t find any.
The tension drains from his shoulders slowly, like a held breath finally released.
“Good,” he murmurs, pressing his forehead to yours. “’Cause I’m not planning on going anywhere.”
“Good,” you echo.
Outside, the rain keeps falling. Inside, his hands are warm, steady at your hips. His chest rises and falls under your palm—real, solid, chosen.
And when he kisses you, it isn’t uncertain anymore.
It’s confident.
Like a man who fought for his body, his name, his life—and finally feels at home in all of it.
