Moving to Sentinel | Gideon x 'Cleaner'reader
If anyone told me seven months ago, that a recruit will come and change me, I would laugh in their face. But now, here I am, looking at her file, and I have nothing to say but praise. I always told myself "She's a rookie, just like Mitchell was. She doesn't know a damn thing.", but when I saw her doing her personal training, fuck me, I was impressed. And after a while....
"Gideon, you have 48 hours to write recommendation for L/N. I wrote it and Mitchell did too. She deserves the best recommendations." Irons said to me while we were on a meeting. I fucked up.
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I was harsh towards her from the beginning. Well, I was harsh towards every recruit, but she had special treatment from me.
"You think they'll have mercy because you're a woman? Quite opposite, you'll be in HELL, so move your arse, L/N!!!" – "I don't know why you joined Atlas, you're just a disappointment, not just for Atlas, and for your parents too."
But little did I know, she had problems with self-respect. I didn't know she's been through a lot in her younger days. Mitchell told me that he heard her sobbing. I just ignored it, and put more salt to her wound.
After a long period in Atlas, she was among the best soldiers. Irons gave her to be a leader of special unit that was the worst unit in Atlas. It was a challenge, a task no one ever did. But Y/N did it without a mistake. There were few who lost their life in the unit, but she took them as an example for others. To show them what will happen if orders were not followed. From then I haven't seen her. There were rumours that she was K.I.A. and I believed it was true.
One morning I came to our gym which was always empty in the morning, but this morning there she was. Fuck me, I was impressed. When she stopped, she turned around towards me and stayed silent. Y/N didn't looked the same at all. Her y/c/e coloured eyes were tired without that shine she had when she was a Rookie. Her face full of scars, her body strong but tired.
"Good morning Captain" said Y/N while picking her things from the bench.
"L/N, I thought you were..."
"Dead? The rumours are true, Captain. Y/N is dead."
"But I suppose someone else is born, yea? Let's end this crappy thing. What happened with ya? One period, you're all girly, crying in her room after someone yells at you, then the other period, you became a whole other person."
"You happened." I looked surprised "You didn't care for anyone. You always say that no one knows a damn thing, and that no one will be better than you."
"That's just to keep you motivated."
"It helped. Thanks to you, I became who I am now. Commander of my own unit."
"How did you manage that? No one else wanted to be a commander to them."
"I cleaned what's necessary."
"Cleaner – that's you. Well at least we got someone like that in Atlas."
"Not for long. I'm going to the Sentinel."
I kept staring at her like a complete idiot. Not because she’d changed — hell, everyone in Atlas changed sooner or later — but because she looked at me like she already buried her past, and I was standing on the grave.
"Sentinel, huh?" I repeated, trying to keep my voice steady.
She nodded while adjusting the strap of her bag.
"They need someone who knows how to get into places… and out of them," she said, her tone colder than the metal floor beneath our boots. "Irons approved the transfer."
"He did?" My voice cracked, barely. Great. Captain Gideon, decorated soldier, panicking like a boy seeing his crush walk away. She noticed — of course she did.
"You look surprised, Captain," she said with that detached little half-smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
"I am." I took a step closer. She didn’t move, didn’t flinch, but her jaw tightened. "I thought you were K.I.A. for months. And now you’re—"
"Alive?" she finished for me. "I told you. Y/N is dead. The one standing in front of you is someone else."
I hated that. I hated how she said it like she was proud of burying the girl who used to smile after training, the girl Mitchell had to calm down after my yelling, the girl who—
…who I pushed too damn far.
"L/N," I started quietly, "you think becoming stone is strength. It isn’t."
She froze. Not because of my words — but because of my voice. I never spoke softly to her. Not once. She turned, fully facing me. The scars on her cheek dragged my attention for a second too long.
"Don't start caring now, Captain," she whispered. "You're late."
"I know," I said, stepping even closer. "Believe me, I bloody well know."
Her eyes flickered — recognition, disbelief, maybe even anger — and then she scoffed.
"You only want to care because Irons told you to write a recommendation."
"That's not it."
"Then what is it?"
I opened my mouth. Closed it. Damn it, Gideon, just say it.
She shook her head, disappointed. "Exactly."
She moved to leave, but I grabbed her wrist — gently, not commandingly. She looked down at my hand, at the hold she could easily break if she wanted to.
"Let go," she said.
"Not until you let me say this," I breathed. "I was hard on you because you had potential. But somewhere along the way, I stopped seeing you as just another rookie." I swallowed. "And that scared the hell out of me."
"Gideon…"
It was the first time she said my name without my rank. And it hit me harder than any blast in the field.
"You became someone I couldn't afford to lose," I confessed quietly. "So I pushed you away. Harder than anyone else."
She blinked. Once. Twice. The ice around her cracked — not much, but enough to see the warmth behind it. "That doesn’t change what happened," she whispered.
"I know. But you deserved better from me. You still do."
She pulled her wrist back, but slow, not harsh. Her voice softened, barely:
"I don't know if I can trust you."
"Then let me earn it," I said. "Not as your Captain. As Gideon." For the first time in months — maybe years — something like life sparked in her eyes.
"Sentinel leaves tomorrow," she murmured.
"I know."
"You’re not coming with us."
"I will if you ask."
She stiffened, surprised.
"I thought nothing scared you," she said with a tiny smirk.
"Only one thing does," I answered. "Losing you again."
She looked away quickly, hiding the fact she bit back a smile. "You're impossible."
"I’ve been told."
She finally moved toward the door but paused long enough to say:
"Meet me tonight. The roof. If you're serious."
Then she left — not cold, not distant, but something in between. Something dangerous. Something promising. And for the first time since she vanished, I felt alive too.