Chapter Text
It was comical, what could actually manage to elicit a hiss of sheer pain from him anymore. A grunt that seemed more out of shock than anything was all that had resulted in the wildly-swung morning star that put the wound in the back of his right shoulder. A cloth soaked in alcohol was more capable of breaking through the numbness.
“Sorry,” Ashley told him absently. A half-shrug was all she received in reply—probably because he was busy clenching his teeth.
She simply knelt there and gave Leon a few seconds to recompose himself—and if she wasn’t already aware of how much that shit actually stung she’d already be teasing him for needing that moment at all—before quietly reaching around his side, palm facing up. He dutifully deposited a roll of gauze into her hand, which she began unrolling.
Leon’s shoulders were broad, and for once that was actually kind of a negative thing, because wrapping gauze around his sturdy frame proved to be a difficult task. Fortunately he turned the job into a team effort, rolling it around his front for her each time she brought it around. Then she anchored it there by giving the gauze a couple of sweeps around his shoulder before tying the entire thing off.
“You’re all set,” she announced, slyly wiping her hands off in his shirt before passing it back to him. “Though I have to say, the effort pales in comparison to this nasty guy right here.” That added comment was punctuated with a brief tap on his left shoulder, where an ugly scar from what was likely a much uglier wound had long since healed over.
Strangely, he paused momentarily in his task of re-gearing. Then he glanced back to her, flicking his hair out of his eyes. “Yeah, bullets tend to leave bigger holes than spiked maces.”
“Jesus, you’ve been shot?” Ashley asked him, eyes wide. “So much for hoping that this is the worst you’ll ever go through, working for my dad.”
Leon barked out an odd, crisp laugh at that, reaching behind him to click his shoulder holster in place. “No. God no, they picked me over other available agents for a reason.”
He stood while in the process of tucking his tactical shirt back under his belt, then tentatively rolled his newly injured shoulder with a wince. “Thanks for the patch-up,” he said as he offered her a hand. She took it out of politeness more than anything, placing as little weight on his arm as she could manage.
One look at his guarded expression, and Ashley found herself swallowing down the strong urge to further inquire about the hole in his shoulder. About what had happened to make him stand out so much for this particular mission. About why, when she heard that miserable freak Salazar refer to him as “Mister Kennedy” that sounded somehow strangely familiar. Whatever it was, however, was clearly already haunting him in memory. No need to pry any further, she decided.
“Hey,” she shrugged off, “figured I could put myself to use in some way. You keep these maniacs at bay and I’ll patch you back together, and we get each other out of his mess. Deal?”
And whatever was clouding warily behind his icy eyes abruptly began to dissipate, replaced with a reassuring—and reassured—grin. “Sounds like a good plan, partner.”