The cartoons I watched growing up had a lot of 'pro-social' messages, as all cartoons do. Very often they were of dubious intent ("the naysayer is always wrong" as epitomized by Eric in the D&D cartoon) or hamfisted and easily ignored (any anti-drug episode except the Bravestarr one)
Not this one though...
"The bad guys don't even treat their 'friends' well" was among the most obvious, but we didn't notice we were learning it because it makes for entertaining, bickering villains doing three stooges routines to each other and finding elaborate ways to call their subordinates idiots.
But I think of this in every "leopards ate my face" situation.
You joined the evil forces of Snake Mountain, what did you expect? A dental plan?
So THIS strip began with me pondering how to parody the classic, 80s G.I.Joe PSAs. I knew that I needed KIDS to "teach the lesson" to, and I immediately thought of Miles and Kevin from Tauhid Bondia's amazing comic, CRABGRASS!!!
I dropped Tauhid a line and pitched my weird idea, we talked out some specifics, and he very graciously let me play with his amazing toys!
Now, this is in COLOR, so that I could do my level best to make it look like it's a 1980s, cel animated cartoon. It was a lot of extra work, but I'm really happy with how it looks! Hope you agree!
Transformers Volume 4 Issue #26 (Energon Universe – Skybound / Image Comics) delivers one of the most emotional and intense chapters yet. Thundercracker, Skywarp, Ultra Magnus, Soundwave, General Flagg, and Optimus Prime all collide in a story about loyalty, trauma, redemption, and the cost of war.
(Or, my contribution to Mermay and Pride Month, all in one!)
Selkie!Wet-Suit AU, Leatherneck x Wet-Suit, also brief mention of Wet-Suit's kids (my ocs).
(G.I. JOE is propriety of Hasbro)
Sand. Dry land.
This was the first thing Leatherneck felt when he came back to his senses.
The second thing he felt were his camo fatigues still semi-wet, and stuck to his body. He had been in the water for too long. And the cold water of the ocean had been the last thing he'd felt touching his skin before losing consciousness.
He squinted. The sun had barely risen, the last star of the night giving out its last flicker before dawn's breaking. For how long had he been out?
He tried to remember the events of the last 24 hours, or at least until passing out in the ocean. He should have been dead by now, his corpse adrift at sea.
It had started as a mission like any other. Cobra had went on to repeat the 1985 Achille Lauro hijacking, but this time it had been with a famous line cruise ship holding aboard several high figures of the Congress. Cobra had demanded hundreds of millions of dollars in ransom for all the cruise guests, and, as usual, the G.I. JOE team had been called on the scene.
Things had went south almost quickly. Turns out Cobra had also developed some new laser rifles that might have added a few extra chapters in the Geneva Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. Not to mention the explosives.
Right when the battle was about to end, an unexploded bomb on upper deck was about to go off, set by Firefly, or God-only-knows-who. Wet-Suit had been standing almost near to it, and Leatherneck had barely had any time to think before his own body had acted up and pushed the SEAL away from the upcoming explosion.
The Marine hadn't been that lucky.
The explosion had thrown him off-board, the last things he'd heard had been the loud boom of the bomb going off, the ringing in his ear, and the terrified yells of the Navy SEAL.
Then, his body his the cold water of the Pacific Ocean. And finally, it had all gone dark around him, seawater filling out his lungs and pulling him down.
The last thought he'd had regarded Wet-Suit: "I'm sorry."
Sorry for all the years we've spend arguing about the tiniest thing. Sorry for carrying on the "rivality between branches of the Armed Forces". Sorry for suggesting you to shave your pretty brown curls. Sorry for not saying that I actually liked you.
Then, it had all gone dark all over him.
But now, somewhat, he was laying on a deserted beach, his lungs burning, and his eyes re-adjusting to the dark sky. He had no idea why, but he felt like he'd just broken every bone in his body, and there was also something soft but heavy laying on his chest.
Then, he saw him.
Wet-Suit was crouched right on top of him, his damp curls sticking to his forehead, fear in his bloodshot eyes, and his mouth franatically moving in words drowned by the ringing in his ears. Water was dripping from him, running down his hair, face, bare shoulders-
Holy fuck.
Leatherneck's vision cleared enough for him to finally realize something.
Wet-Suit wasn't just worried about him.
He was NAKED.
Not a stich, not a piece of neoprene, not even the diving knife he'd always kept strapped to his left tight. Just skin flushed pink from cold or exaustion, the sheen of seawater glisenting on his lean, waxed, muscular body, bare buttocks glistening in the very first morning sunrays like two polished coconuts. That, and his strangely worried voice, inciting for him to wake up.
"...damn it, you idiot jarhead, don't you *dare* die on me," the fully naked sailor growled, voice leaning on the brink of crying.
"Jesus Christ-!" Leatherneck wheezed, scrambling backward before agony lanced through his ribs. He collapsed back onto the sand, groaning and coughing, seawater burning up his breathing system. Wet-Suit (still gloriously, bewilderingly nude) held up both hands like he was calming a spooked horse.
"Easy, easy! You took a hell of a hit when that Cobra bomb blew–you went under like an anchor. Had to drag you miles. Thought you were a goner-" he reached down, steadying the Marine while trying to reassure him everything now was (somewhat) fine. "I couldn’t... I had to get you to shore. Fast. You weren't breathing. I.. I though you..." the sailor sighed, carefully wrapping his bare arms around Leatherneck’s body, head resting on a shoulder, trying not to hurt him even more.
The Marine felt once again that soft thing pressing on his chest. He looked down. The soft thing laying across his chest was... a pelt, silver-grey with dark grey dots, still damp in some parts. The kind of pelt that could only belong to-
Holy fuck.
That was a sealskin.
And he'd seen that specific color of fur only once, in form of a seal tattoo on Wet-Suit's right shoulder, once when they were in the common showers.
He looked over the SEAL's shoulder. The tattoo was absent, as if it had never been inked on the shoulder. In his mind, only a question hovered: "How?"
"Froggy... the hell...?" Leatherneck rasped. "Explain."
Then the pieces clicked. The way Wet-Suit moved in water like it was air. The fact he'd often sneak off at night for swimming in the PIT's underground pool. The seals that seemed to follow their ops near any coastline.
"It's alright, you're alright! Your GPS still worked despite the water damage. Wild Bill is coming with Barbecue and he has my stuff, we can return to the Flagg and you'll get medical attention, and I... you... we can forget any of this even happened, really!" Wet-Suit exclaimed, trying to somewhat de-escalate the situation. It seemed as if he wanted to wash his hands of anything that might have happened during that long night.
Leatherneck stared at him, before blurting out: "Are you... a mermaid...?"
He had used that term because he had no other ways to describe it. If it's partially human, and swims like a water creature, and has some sort of tail, it's a mermaid. The irony wasn't lost. A Navy SEAL who was also some sort of seal-mermaid.
The SEAL dropped silent. A sore button had just been touched. Wet-Suit exhaled sharply, then—in a move that made Leatherneck's already-throbbing head spin—kneeled in a way that was entirely too casual for a man with zero clothing. He sighed. "I guess... it was time you knew. Especially as you're holding my soul in your hands."
"What? What are you-" the Marine asked, before the SEAL's finger was on his lips.
"So... the "mermaid" part. It's only partially right. I'm a Selkie, a seal type of merfolk. Funny story." He scratched his jaw. "You know how Celtic myths talk about seal-people?"
Leatherneck stared.
Wet-Suit shrugged. "Yeah. So."
Silence. Waves crashed.
"...You're shitting me."
"Wish I was." Wet-Suit gestured to the pelt. "That's mine. And in selkie terms?" He winced. "Kinda just proposed to you."
Leatherneck blinked.
Wet-Suit groaned, scrubbing his face. "Look, I panicked, you were hypothermic, and seal pelts work, okay? Didn't think about the implications—"
"Why?"
The question was heavier than the pain in Leatherneck's chest.
"I don't know." The sailor answered. "Guess I had no other choice. Couldn't let you fall to the bottom of the sea and leave you there. Because... I... You're..." the words died in his troath.
"Your uniform..."
"Had to remove it. Selkie tradition. Just pelt and normal skin."
"Do other JOEs..."
"Only Shipwreck, Spirit, Barbecue, and Hawk. And you."
The following silence was only broken by the sounds of the sea surrounding them. The seagulls' screeching. The waves crashing against a nearby group of rocks, or sighing against the surf. The sun coming from dry land was now bathing everything in a pink-gold hue, painting the two soldiers in a way neither of them had ever seen before.
It seemed almost romantic.
Almost.
The romantic atmosphere was interrupted by the sound of an helicopter coming closer. It was Barbecue and Bill, coming for them. They were about to witness everything. And when the Tomahawk landed, Wet-Suit and Leatherneck found out Lifeline was alongside their rescuers.
As Leatherneck was carried on a stretcher, and Barbecue tossed back to Wet-Suit his uniform, neither of them disclosed whatever had transpired on the beach. There was no need to. The journey back on the Flagg went on in complete silence, with Leatherneck still holding onto that sealskin as if it would disappear onto thin air.
When they finally landed on deck, Leatherneck took the pelt with both hands, and slowly lifted it up to Wet-Suit, now fully dressed. "Keep it," he rasped. "You... need it more."
Wet-Suit hesitated. "Leatherbrain, I don't think you fully know-"
"I do." He interrupted him. "I guess... I owe you an honeymoon, sailor. Heh." He joked.
Wet-Suit went to reach him after taking back his pelt—his own soul—before Lifeline and Barbecue stopped him, as the Marine needed quick medical attention. The sailor remained there, watching as his now accidental fiancée was being carried to the medbay. Hawk would have never made him hear the end of it.
A week of disciplining from Sgt. Slaughter passed. Seven days more, and the team would have returned to the PIT. Wet-Suit's sealpelt had returned to be the tattoo of said sea mammal on his shoulder. Words had spread quickly across the Flagg. Everyone now knew. They knew of Wet-Suit's secret lineage, and of his accidental proposal to Leatherneck. Hawk had even informed him that, despite his heroism in saving a comrade, he would have still been disciplined for at least a week for almost exposing his double nature to the enemy. This, in the week that had just passed.
But he didn't care about it, right now.
He just wanted to know if Leatherneck was alright. And if what he'd said about the proposal was true.
He still hadn't heard from him, or seen him. Hadn't had the time to visit him. He was now sitting on a crate in a semi-isolated corner in the starboard of the Flagg, watching the sun setting in the ocean. The same sun that had bathed him and Leatherneck in that pink-gold light at dawn.
If only he had kissed him then back then.
His thoughts were interrupted by someone clearing their troath behind him.
He turned around.
It was Leatherneck, still somewhat proven from the week before's accident. His arm was in a sling in order not to stress his still recovering ribs, and in the free hand, he carried a canteen full of water.
"Hey."
The sailor's mouth corner bent in a tiny smile.
"Hey."
A long silence, broken by the noises of life aboard the Flagg; followed by Leatherneck asking: "May I?"
Wet-Suit patted the crate on his right, and helped the Marine to sit.
More silence.
"So... that happened," Wet-Suit broke the silence. "Is there more things you..."
"The kids."
"What?"
"Kimby and Stevie. Are they...?"
"Only partially. They were concieved while I was in human form, and their mom was a human herself. She never knew."
Leatherneck offered the canteen to Wet-Suit, and he took a swig.
"Are they ever...?"
"They never will. Had they been full Selkies, they could have learned how to survive the sea. But unless they find their own pelts, steal them, or kill another seal, they will never be able to transform. And given that their mom died when Steven was little, I cannot leave them either. They need me. We only have each other."
Another long silence. Somewhere on the ship, Hawk was giving orders on how to operate the planecarrier's night routines.
The sun was going lower and lower into the dark waters of the ocean.
Leatherneck broke the silence: "What about me?"
Wet-Suit turned around, facing the Marine who had been his rival for so long.
"What...?"
"You have me. And... after last week..."
"You really don't have to do that."
More silence. Another swig of the canteen.
"But I want to," the Marine replied.
"Why?"
"Because," he sighed, "we've known each other for years. We know highly intimate things about each other that nobody else knows about us. I was even there at your wedding, and even when the kids were born."
Wet-Suit chuckled, low and heavy. "Guess you were always there, then. You've always been Kimberly's favorite uncle, after all." He took another swig, and gave the canteen back to Leatherneck. "I wonder how long it will take for her to call you "daddy". And let's not talk about Stephen."
Leatherneck looked at him. "Do you still want me to...?"
"Only if you want. We could wait for the next full moon, anul it, and-"
"No."
The following silence was broken by the noise of the tide crashing against the Flagg.
"You-What?" The sailor asked, perplexed and surprised at the same time.
"I want to make it official. Sure, it's the strangest proposal it could have ever happened. But it happened." He replied. Then, grinning: "So... wedding dinner first, or straight to the honeymoon?"
Wet-Suit laughed like he'd never did so before, and wrapped his arms around Leatherneck's broad shoulders. Their foreheads and noses touched...
...and then, they kissed, like they'd never kissed before then. The only witness was the wine-dark sea... besides Duke and Shipwreck, looking from afar.
"Finally," Shipwreck replied. "Took them long enough. Now what?"
"I'm informing Hawk and Roadblock," Duke answered. "There's a wedding to celebrate. Where is-"
From the shadows near their little corner, Shipwreck's parrot Polly squawked loudly. Both Leatherneck and Wet-Suit detached from each other, and froze.
"...Did that bird just—"
"Polly wants a COCKtail!" the parrot screeched.
A beat of silence. Then Leatherneck burst out laughing so hard he nearly cracked his ribs again. Wet-Suit just buried his face in his hands, shoulders shaking.
Summary: You are a deep-cover G.I. Joe operative who spent eighteen months inside Cobra seducing Storm-Shadow, the Arashikage assassin. The mission ends in handcuffs, interrogation rooms, and a final reckoning that neither of you can walk away from unchanged.
word count: 8000+
Paring: Storm-Shadow x Reader
warnings: Angst, Mentions of Sex, Blood
A/N : Hello Friends! I had this idea for a betrayal fic for a while and I finally got around to writing it! I hope you like it!
Masterlist
. ܁₊ ⊹ . ܁ ⟡ ܁ . ⊹ ₊ ܁.
The rain fell in sheets, thick and relentless, turning the derelict warehouse on the industrial edge of Tokyo into a cavern of echoing drips and shifting shadows. Corroded steel beams groaned overhead, and the air smelled of rust, wet concrete, and the faint ozone of distant lightning. You stood motionless in the center of the open floor, your black tactical gear blending with the gloom, heartbeat steady from years of training. Eighteen months of living as a Cobra operative—feeding them just enough real intel to stay alive, climbing ranks, smiling at Destro’s cold calculations, laughing at Baroness’s barbed jokes—had all led to this single night.
You had planted the false lead yourself: an encrypted Cobra channel message claiming the Cobra Agent the woman Storm Shadow had come to call his own, had been snatched by a G.I. Joe strike team during a botched arms deal. You knew he would come. Tommy Arashikage did not leave his people behind, least of all the one he had let past every wall he had ever built.
A faint scrape of boot leather on wet metal—barely audible over the rain—told you he was here. You didn’t move. From the catwalk above, he descended like smoke, white gi stained gray with city grime, twin katanas crossed on his back, hood low over eyes that could cut steel. He landed twenty feet away, scanning the darkness with the predator’s calm that had earned him the name Storm Shadow.
Then he saw you.
Relief flashed across his face so raw it almost hurt to witness. The tension in his shoulders melted; the swords stayed sheathed. He crossed the distance in three silent strides, rain dripping from his hood onto your upturned face.
“My Love,” he breathed, voice low and rough with fear he would never admit to anyone else. His gloved hands rose—slow, careful, as though you were made of porcelain—and cupped your cheeks. “Tell me you are unharmed. I received the transmission—Joe forces, extraction team—God, I thought—”
You let him touch you. Let him search your eyes for the woman he had fallen in love with. Let the moment stretch just long enough for the trap to spring.
Your face remained unreadable. Training. Muscle memory. The mask you had worn for months.
In one fluid motion you twisted inside his guard, palm striking the nerve cluster at his wrist while your other hand swept his legs. He hit the concrete hard, the wet slap echoing like a gunshot. Before he could roll, you had both katanas out of their saya and your knee planted between his shoulder blades. Cold steel handcuffs—Joe-issue, reinforced titanium—snapped around his wrists.
His body went rigid beneath you.
Confusion. Then betrayal. Then something far worse—something that looked like the death of hope.
“Y/N,” he whispered, the name he had only ever used in private now a curse.
The warehouse doors exploded inward. Floodlights sliced through the rain. Duke’s voice cracked over the comms: “Go, go, go!” Thirty Joes in full tactical poured in, rifles up, boots splashing. Roadblock and Lady Jaye flanked the entry, Cover Girl on overwatch. Duke himself strode straight to you, rain streaming off his helmet.
“Outstanding work, Agent,” he said, clapping a gloved hand on your shoulder. “You just bagged the Arashikage’s deadliest ghost. Cobra’s going to feel this one for years.”
Storm Shadow—Tommy—didn’t struggle as they hauled him up. He only looked back at you once as they dragged him toward the waiting armored transport. Rain mixed with the blood from a split lip you hadn’t meant to give him. His dark eyes locked on yours across the chaos, and in them you saw every stolen moment, every whispered promise, every night he had let the mask fall. Then the doors slammed shut and he was gone.
You stood in the downpour, chest hollow, wondering how long it would take for the ache to kill you.
The memory hit you like a blade between the ribs while the transport rumbled away.
Months earlier. Cobra’s underground training complex beneath the Yokohama docks. You had been “recruited” through a carefully forged dossier—ex-special forces, disillusioned with G.I. Joe bureaucracy, looking for a cause that paid better and asked fewer questions. They bought it. Barely.
Your first assignment: shadow the Arashikage for a high-value extraction in the Shinjuku underworld. You expected a cold machine. You met a man who moved like poetry written in violence.
He had tested you immediately. In a rain-slicked alley behind a shuttered ramen shop, two Yakuza enforcers tried to jump the deal. Tommy dispatched them in four heartbeats—silent, efficient, beautiful. You covered his six without being told. When the last man dropped, he turned, mask half-lowered, one eyebrow arched.
“You do not flinch,” he observed, voice like smoke over gravel. “Most new operatives do.”
You shrugged, wiping blood from your cheek. “I’ve seen worse. I’ve done worse.”
He studied you a long moment. Then, almost reluctantly, he offered the smallest nod. “Names are liabilities. But tonight you may call me Tommy.”
That was the first crack in the armor.
Over the next weeks the cracks widened. Late-night strategy sessions in dimly lit safehouses. Shared sake in hidden izakayas where no Cobra insignia showed. He began teaching you Arashikage forms—kata that had never been shared outside the clan. You let him see pieces of the “real” you: fabricated childhood trauma, a fake dead brother, rage at the Joes for abandoning allies. Lies wrapped so tightly around truth that even you sometimes forgot which was which.
Week after week the fracture widened. He taught you the Arashikage breathing forms in a moonlit rooftop garden above Shinjuku, his hands guiding yours through the slow, lethal movements. Every correction was gentle; every praise was quiet and earned. You felt the mission slipping away each time his fingers lingered on your wrist a second longer than necessary. You started waking up reaching for a body that wasn’t supposed to be there. The handler’s voice in your earpiece during check-ins began to sound like static compared to the low rumble of Tommy saying your name like it was the only prayer he still believed in. You were falling. God help you, you were falling so hard the drop felt like flying.
Tokyo alleys became your sanctuary. One night after a brutal raid on a Joe supply cache, adrenaline still singing in your veins, he pulled you into the shadow of a neon-lit pachinko parlor. Rain hissed on the pavement. His hood was back, black hair damp against his forehead, scar across his left cheek gleaming silver.
“You are dangerous,” he murmured, thumb brushing your lower lip. “To Cobra. To me.”
Then he kissed you—slow, deliberate, as though committing the taste to memory. You kissed him back because the mission demanded it. You kissed him back because the ache in your chest demanded it too.
The first time you made love was three months later in a penthouse overlooking the bay—neutral territory, paid for in untraceable Cobra gold. A summer thunderstorm raged outside, lightning strobing through floor-to-ceiling windows. The room smelled of rain and sandalwood incense he had lit himself.
He had removed the mask completely for the first time. You saw the man, not the legend: the faint lines at the corners of his eyes from years of squinting into rifle scopes, the small tattoo of the Arashikage tattoo on his arm, the way his hands trembled—just once—when he reached for you.
You stood barefoot on cool tatami, rain lashing the glass. He crossed the room like a shadow given form, fingers tracing the zipper of your tactical jacket as though it were sacred.
“Tell me to stop,” he whispered against your throat, voice raw. “And I will.”
You didn’t.
Clothes fell away in a slow dance of fabric and lightning. His skin was warm, scarred, alive. He laid you down on the wide bed as thunder rolled overhead, every movement reverent. When he entered you, it was with a single, shuddering breath that sounded like a prayer. You arched into him, nails digging into the muscle of his back, and for the first time in eighteen months you forgot the mission entirely. There was only the storm outside and the storm inside—his mouth on yours, his hips rolling in a rhythm as ancient as the clan he came from, your name—your real name—falling from his lips like a confession.
Afterward he held you while the rain slowed to a whisper, fingers tracing idle patterns on your spine.
“I have killed for less than the trust I have given you tonight,” he said quietly. “Do not make me regret it.”
You kissed the scar on his chest and lied beautifully. “Never.”
The memory dissolved as the transport doors opened at the secure G.I. Joe black site—an anonymous government building on the outskirts of the city, all concrete and steel and one-way glass. They marched him straight to interrogation room seven. You watched from the observation chamber, arms crossed tight over your chest, Duke beside you.
Tommy sat handcuffed to the table, white gi torn at the shoulder, blood drying on his temple. He stared directly at the mirror. Straight at you. Even though the glass was opaque from his side, he knew. His eyes—dark, ancient, unblinking—burned through the barrier like twin katanas.
He refused to speak to anyone else. Not Duke. Not the psych evaluator. Not the Cobra defector they brought in for leverage. For six straight hours he sat in silence until the interrogators were ready to tear their hair out.
Finally Duke sighed. “He wants you. Only you. Your call, Agent.”
You walked into the room alone. The door hissed shut behind you. The air was cold, sterile, smelling of disinfectant and old fear. Tommy lifted his head. The betrayal carved into his face was deeper than any scar the Arashikage had ever given him.
You leaned forward, keeping your posture textbook—shoulders square, eyes flat, the perfect interrogator. The red light on the wall camera blinked steadily; you knew Duke was on the other side of the glass watching. “Let’s make this quick, Arashikage. Cobra’s new weapons cache in the old subway tunnels beneath Roppongi—give me the access codes and the guard rotation. You do that and things get easier for you.”
He didn’t even blink at the question. His dark gaze stayed locked on yours like the glass between you didn’t exist. “You still wear the same perfume,” he said softly, voice carrying that same smoky gravel it always had in private. “I would know it in my sleep. Did you wear it tonight so I would remember what your skin smelled like when you lied in my arms?”
Your jaw tightened. You could feel Duke’s stare burning through the mirror. “Focus. The cache. Codes. Now.”
A ghost of a smile—bitter, devastated—touched his mouth. “You used to trace the scars on my chest with your tongue after we made love. You told me it felt like home. Was that in the mission brief too, Agent? Or did you improvise the part where you whispered you’d never leave me?”
Heat crawled up your neck. You forced it down, voice clipped and professional. “Cobra’s next strike on the Pacific fleet—Baroness’s timetable. Talk or we move to enhanced measures.”
He leaned as far forward as the cuffs allowed, voice dropping to the intimate register that used to melt you in Tokyo alleys. “I still taste you when I close my eyes. The way you said my name—like it was the only word that mattered. You’re sitting there pretending none of it happened while I’m chained to this table, and all I want to know is whether you were ever afraid I would love you too much to let you go.”
You stepped closer to the table, the sound of your boots loud enough to echo. “This is not a therapy session. You are an enemy combatant. Give me the fleet timetable or—”
“Or what?” he interrupted, eyes glistening but steady. “You’ll leave again? You already did. You left the moment you put these cuffs on me and handed me over to the joes. I just want the truth before they lock me away forever. Did you love me even for one second, or was every moan, every ‘I’m yours’ just excellent acting?”
Your throat closed. Behind the glass you knew they were recording every syllable. You swallowed hard, kept your face blank, and repeated the only safe words you had left: “The cache codes. That’s all I’m asking for.”
He sat back slowly, the chains rattling. The heartbreak on his face was so raw it hurt to look at, but his voice never wavered. “Then I have nothing to say to anyone but the woman I fell in love with. Until she admits she fell too, Cobra can burn for all I care.”
You stepped away from the table, your voice level. “It was a mission, Tommy. Deep cover. Get close to the Arashikage asset. End Cobra’s most dangerous operative. None of it was real.”
The words landed like bullets. You watched the impact travel across his features—jaw tightening, eyes narrowing, then the slow, terrible realization that every kiss, every night, every “I love you” had been spoken by a ghost.
You were good at lying. Years of training. Micro-expressions locked down. Heart rate steady. He searched your face the way a drowning man searches for shore and found nothing.
Before you turned to leave, he asked the question you had been dreading.
“Did you feel anything?” His voice was barely above a whisper. “Anything at all. Ever.”
You turned your head, stared at the wall. “No.”
The single word hung in the air like smoke after an explosion. You walked out without looking back.
That night the debrief dragged on for hours—after-action reports, psychological eval, commendations from General Hawk himself. You hadn’t slept in thirty-one hours. Your body felt like lead wrapped in barbed wire. When they finally released you, you stumbled down the dimly lit corridor to the temporary bunk room assigned to field agents: a ten-by-ten concrete box with a narrow cot, a locker, and a single fluorescent bulb.
You closed the door, leaned against it, and began shrugging out of your jacket. The fabric stuck to your skin with dried sweat and rain.
A presence.
You felt it before you heard it—the shift of air, the faint scent of steel and rain and the sandalwood he always carried. You spun.
Storm Shadow stood three feet away in the shadows beside the locker, sword already drawn, the edge resting feather-light against the side of your throat. How he had escaped maximum-security restraints, bypassed every camera and guard, and reached this room in under two hours was impossible. But he was Arashikage. Impossible was what they did.
You froze. “How did you—”
He ignored the question. His voice was low, dangerous, and trembling at the edges.
“Was it all a lie?”
You didn’t answer.
“Was it all a lie?” he repeated, stepping closer. The sword never wavered. “Did you lie when you said you loved me?”
“Yes,” you forced out. The word tasted like ash.
The mask—literal and figurative—slipped. His breath heaved. He moved until the blade kissed your skin and his chest nearly brushed yours.
“Liar.”
“I don’t love you,” you said, voice steady even as your pulse hammered.
“Liar!” he yelled this time. You flinched despite yourself.
His free hand rose, trembling, and brushed a tear you hadn’t realized had fallen. He was so close now you could see the faint tremor in his lower lip, the way his eyes glistened with something far more dangerous than rage.
“Tell me you love me,” he ordered, soft as a prayer.
“I don’t.”
The tears came faster. You couldn’t stop them.
“Tell me,” he whispered, forehead resting against yours, sword still at your throat. “Tell me you love me, and I will walk away forever if that is what you truly want. But say it and mean it.”
The dam broke.
“I love you,” you choked out, voice shattering. “God help me, Tommy, I love you. I fell in love with you somewhere between the first alley kiss and the night the thunder rolled over the bay. Every moment was real. Every touch. Every promise. I tried—I tried so hard not to—but I love you.”
For one heartbeat the world stopped.
Then he laughed—bitter, broken, the sound of a heart that had just been carved open and shown the wound. “I know,” he said simply.
The sword clattered to the floor. His hands seized your face with desperate gentleness, thumbs wiping at your tears, and he kissed you like a man drowning. It tasted of rain and blood and goodbye. His lips moved against yours with the same reverence as that first night in the penthouse, but now there was an edge of finality, of possession and loss braided together so tightly you couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.
When he pulled back, his eyes were wet.
“This isn’t over,” he whispered against your mouth. “I will find you again. And when the storm comes for you next time, it will be on my terms. Not Cobra’s. Not Joe’s. Mine.”
He released you. Turned. The door opened and closed without a sound.
He was gone.
You stood alone in the small room, sword lying at your feet like a broken promise. You could have hit the panic button. Could have screamed for security. Could have ended the greatest threat to G.I. Joe right then.
Instead you sank onto the cot, buried your face in your hands, and cried until there were no tears left—only the hollow echo of thunder in your chest and the knowledge that somewhere out in the night, the man you loved was already planning his revenge.
