Chapter Text
Of all the things Ingrid Hunnigan had planned on doing today, picking up an extremely loopy Leon S. Kennedy from oral surgery at a sketchy back-alley clinic was not one of them.
Sure, she’d known he had an appointment of some kind, since he’d left the office earlier with a joking complaint about doctors and said he’d be back in a few hours. A few hours had come and gone and he hadn’t returned, so at first Ingrid had just assumed he’d simply gone home for the day afterwards instead. No big deal. There hadn’t been many cases coming in lately that required field work, so Leon had been on desk duty for the past couple of weeks and was probably getting bored of the office. But when she saw an incoming call from an unlisted number on her direct line, she immediately got the feeling that something wasn’t right about the situation. And as she arrived at the address she’d copied down in her day planner, that suspicion was all but confirmed.
Apprehensively, Ingrid double-checked the business name - some vacuum rental business that didn’t even look like it was open - and went around the back as instructed, entering through an unmarked door. She went down a flight of stairs into the basement of the building, went through another door, and was met with a tiny waiting area, the space practically as small as a jail cell and just as welcoming. That was to say, not welcoming in the slightest. There was another door directly opposite the one Ingrid had come through and a row of ancient-looking, stadium-style seats were bolted to one wall. The opposite wall was blank save for a tiny window with a speaker set into it. Behind that window sat a bored-looking woman in scrubs, tapping away at a keyboard. She didn’t even look up until Ingrid knocked on the glass. “Can I help you?” She asked in a bored voice, the sound crackling through the sound system.
“I’m here to pick up Leon Kennedy?” Ingrid replied, the statement coming out like a question. “I’m his emergency contact.” This place gave her the creeps. She was suddenly very glad she carried a concealed firearm everywhere she went these days.
“Doctor Faust will bring him out shortly,” the woman droned before going back to whatever she was doing. It was a clear dismissal.
Ingrid stepped back, mind going a million miles an hour. At least the doctor’s name matched the one on the appointment on Leon’s calendar - she’d sneakily logged into his computer and checked before she’d left the office. Everything else about this situation, though, rang every alarm bell in existence. Especially since that calendar entry had been placed there by Human Resources, which meant that this appointment had been arranged and mandated by their employer. Or more accurately, their government overlords, as Leon often liked to call them.
Speaking of Leon, the door opposite the entry opened up and there he was. It only took a single glance for Ingrid to deduce that he was, as the call she’d received had stated, under the residual effects of whatever heavy drugs they doled out for oral surgery. He looked high out of his mind, and one side of his face was beginning to swell up. It took him a few seconds to get his bearings as he stood there blinking owlishly, but once he managed to focus on Ingrid he practically launched himself at her, closing the short distance between them surprisingly quickly as he mumbled incoherently through what must’ve been a mouthful of gauze. “Whoa, hey there, nice to see you too,” Ingrid said a bit awkwardly as she shifted to redirect Leon’s clumsy movements and get one of her hands positioned securely against his upper arm. He’d managed to walk a few steps unassisted in a straight line, but it was apparent that that had probably been the upper limit of his capabilities at the moment.
“Ah, Ingrid Hunnigan, I presume?” A voice came from the doorway Leon had just come through, and Ingrid looked up to find a man in a lab coat standing there. Doctor Faust, apparently. He was smiling politely, but his demeanor did nothing to assuage her apprehensiveness regarding this whole fishy situation. “You presume correctly,” Ingrid replied cautiously.
Faust just nodded as he stepped into the tiny waiting room. By the way Leon immediately tensed and began mumbling more aggressively with a few words that might have been swears coming through the otherwise unintelligible jumble of sounds, the doctor’s presence was not a welcome one. “Now now, Mr. Kennedy, I’d advise that you stop talking. We wouldn’t want to aggravate the incisions I’ve just stitched up, now would we, hmm?” He smiled again, this time a bit condescendingly.
Ingrid had already clocked this man as shady as hell due to the entire situation as a whole, and this certainly didn’t improve her opinion of him. “Thank you very much, Doctor,” she said in a clipped voice as she tightened her grip on Leon. “We’ll be going now.”
“Ah, just one moment, Ms. Hunnigan,” Doctor Faust stepped closer. “I’ve already gone over post-operative care with Mr. Kennedy, but everything’s outlined here if he needs a reminder. His prescriptions are also in here, and I’d recommend getting them filled as soon as possible.” He held out a folder as well as a little plastic tote. “And here’s some fresh gauze as well. The incisions are still bleeding a bit, but that should clear up within a few hours. If either of you have any questions, don’t hesitate to give me a call.”
Oh, this doctor certainly wouldn’t be hearing from either of them ever again, if Ingrid had anything to do with it. “Understood,” she said as she used her free hand to stuff the folder and the gauze into her bag. “Come on, Leon.” She tugged on Leon’s arm, turning him towards the door.
“Have a pleasant day,” Doctor Faust called after them with more fake niceness.
There were many phrases Ingrid would have liked to throw back at the doctor, but she was a professional and knew when to pick her battles. “You as well,” she said simply. And without further ado, she opened the door she’d entered through and ushered Leon out.
As soon as the door closed behind them, Leon once again began mumbling. He seemed very insistent upon communicating something, but maybe only one word out of every ten was even halfway coherent. “You heard the doctor, Leon,” Ingrid said placatingly. As much as she disliked the guy, he had given some sensible advice. “Try not to talk too much right now, okay? You can tell me later.”
At this, Leon made an unhappy sound. He probably would have launched into another round of mumbling anyway had he not been led to the base of the stairs and forced to use all of his limited brain capacity to convince his body into cooperating to climb them. It took some time, but he managed to make it all the way up with the help of Ingrid on one side and a death grip on the railing on the other. He blinked in the late afternoon sunlight as Ingrid fumbled for her keys and began to lead him over towards where she’d parked. They were almost there when Leon came to a dead stop, looked over his shoulder, and uttered the first coherent set of words to come out of his mouth so far: “My car…”
Ingrid followed his gaze and sure enough, Leon’s current joyride was parked a few spaces away. Like many men his age, he was really into things that drove fast, looked flashy, and made a lot of noise. He was going through a Lamborghini phase right now. Ingrid had long since resigned herself to the fact that she’d probably never understand, but hey, if cars and motorcycles made Leon happy then she was glad they existed. Thankfully he was considerably more careful with his personal vehicles than any government-issued ones, so as a result the Lambo didn’t have a single scratch on it. To be honest, though, Ingrid didn’t feel comfortable driving it. Her sensible midsize sedan suited her needs just fine, thank you very much. “We’re taking my car,” she informed Leon, tugging him forward.
Leon didn’t move, and let out a sound that could only be described as a whine as he looked forlornly at his shiny sports car.
“Oh boy,” Ingrid sighed. She knew Leon very well - it was a big part of her job, after all - and she knew immediately that he was not going to let this go, regardless of how drugged up he was. “Leon, we’re not taking your car. I’ll send someone to pick it up for you later, okay?”
There was that sad, forlorn whine again. Leon still didn’t move, and didn’t take his eyes off the Lambo.
Ingrid let out another sigh. “Okay, I hear you. I’ll call someone to pick it up now. If I do that, will you come sit in my car?”
Leon considered this. After a moment he nodded and started forward again, much to Ingrid’s relief. He allowed her to lead him to the passenger side of her car and sat down once she opened the door for him, then looked up at her expectantly.
“All right, all right, I’m calling!” Ingrid couldn’t help but smile as she pulled out her phone. She’d seen Leon through thick and thin for years now, and the fact that he trusted her so completely to take care of everything warmed her heart. In short order, she made a call back to the office and coordinated a pickup between a couple of coworkers, ensuring that the one who’d be driving the Lamborghini was also a car guy. “Okay, Leon. Blanchard and Rodriguez are on their way,” she reported as she hung up and rested her arm on the still-open passenger door. “Rodriguez is gonna drive your car back to the office and we’ll keep it there until you’re ready for it. Sound good?”
Leon nodded again, settling back in his seat. Ingrid was about to shut the door when he put a hand to the swollen side of his jaw and made a little sound of alarm. A string of bloody saliva leaked out of the corner of his mouth.
“Ooh, okay, looks like it’s time to change the gauze.” Ingrid pulled a tissue out of her bag and handed it to him. “Here, can you clean yourself up while I get it ready?”
Fortunately, Leon was coordinated enough to wipe his own chin. He was also coordinated enough to reach into his mouth and grab the saturated wad of bloody gauze inside it, regarding it with a look of disgust once it was out. “Gross,” he slurred. Although his speech was still impacted by everything else he had going on, it was much easier to understand him without half of his mouth being full.
“Yeah, gross,” Ingrid agreed. She hurriedly emptied out the little bag the doctor had given her - luckily the gauze was wrapped in several sterile packages - and held it out. “Put that in here.”
Leon did so. “This ‘s so fucked up.”
“You definitely weren’t expecting oral surgery today, huh?” Ingrid said sympathetically as she dug around in her bag. There wasn’t a bathroom around to wash her hands in, so hand sanitizer would have to do for now. She pulled out the little bottle and squirted some out into her palm.
“No.” Leon’s face darkened and he looked up at her again, suddenly frantic. “Wait, di’ you know?”
“I certainly didn’t,” Ingrid reassured him as she shook her head. “If I did, I would’ve done everything I could to keep you away from this dump.” She jerked her head towards the building they’d come out of. “I don’t know why the hell HR sent you here.” Her first order of business upon returning to the office tomorrow would be finding out, though.
Leon was silent while Ingrid finished with the hand sanitizer and tore open a package of gauze. Then he spoke up again, quietly: “They put a goddamn kill switch ‘n my head.”
Ingrid froze. “They what?” She asked incredulously. There was no way she’d just heard what she thought she heard.
“Kill switch. ‘N here.” Leon reached up again and tapped the side of his jaw. “Doctor said so. ‘S got a tracker an’ a poison capsule an’ everything.”
“Here, hold this.” Ingrid handed over the now-ready gauze. “Don’t put it in just yet.” She dug around in her bag again, this time frantically, and whipped out a little pen light. “Open up, let me see.”
Leon obeyed, tilting his head back. Ingrid shined the light in his mouth and was horrified by what she saw: a downright ghastly-looking implant had completely replaced the back two molars on one side of his lower jaw, no doubt screwed all the way into his mandible to anchor it in place. The swollen, stitched-together flesh around the contraption obscured a lot of it, but she could make out a wire and maybe some kind of chamber beneath the semi-translucent plastic portion. The rest of the casing appeared to be metal. “What the fuck?” She breathed, heart hammering.
“‘S a-”
“A kill switch, yeah, I heard you. Oh my god.” Ingrid couldn’t take her eyes off the thing. She tried to rationalize, racking her brain for anything else it could be, but came up empty. Normal dental implants didn’t look like this. And she would know, since she’d had several put in after taking a softball to the face in high school. Whatever this was, it certainly looked like something capable of sending and receiving a signal, and of delivering a deadly dose of poison. She didn’t want to believe it… but found that she might have to.
For several years now, Ingrid had been getting the feeling that there was something nefarious going on behind the scenes at work. She didn’t want it to be true. She’d joined the military in honor of a family tradition and love of her country, after all, and had been so proud when she’d been singled out to transfer to a special ops department. The thought of those ever-present corruption rumors - things she’d always staunchly dismissed as conspiracies - actually being true was one that she certainly didn’t want to entertain, but she just couldn’t shake it. And now here was the evidence, staring her right in the face.
Right at that moment, another car pulled up alongside Ingrid’s, startling her from her spiraling thoughts. She recognized Blanchard at the wheel and Rodriguez in the passenger seat. They’d sure gotten here fast. Well, the office was only a couple miles away, after all. Ingrid hurriedly put away her pen light. “All right, go ahead and put that gauze in, Leon,” she prompted, supervising as he did so and then bit down. “You got your car keys?” Leon nodded and handed them over.
In short order, everything was taken care of and Blanchard and Rodriguez pulled away in separate vehicles. Once they were out of sight, Ingrid got Leon fully settled and then finally got into the driver’s seat and started the engine. She cranked the air conditioning, then took a deep breath and let it out. Keeping calm under pressure was something she was very good at - it was a requirement in her line of work. “All right,” she said evenly. “Let’s just focus on one thing at a time here. First stop: pharmacy.” She opened the folder that Doctor Faust had handed her and examined the scripts tucked into one of the pockets. A broad-range antibiotic, an anti-inflammatory, and… wow. Ingrid whistled. “Leon, you had something really fucked up done but at least they’re taking pity on you. You’re getting the really good painkillers.”
Leon just grunted. He’d leaned his head against the window and was just staring straight ahead, gaze fixed somewhere in the middle distance. Probably zoning out thanks to whatever was still in his system from the operation. That was a good thing right now.
Although Ingrid had never actually been to Leon’s apartment, she knew where it was and how to get there, so she started off in that direction. It didn’t take long to come across a pharmacy, so she turned off the main road and pulled into the drive through. After she handed the scripts through the window, the pharmacist informed her that the prescriptions would be ready in half an hour. Ingrid toyed with the idea of just making the rest of the drive to drop Leon off at home so he could lie down while she doubled back for the medication, but she changed her mind when she noticed what was across the street from the pharmacy. She smiled softly, remembering what her dad had done for her after her own oral surgery all those years ago. “Leon, do you want a Frosty?”
Leon blinked slowly, turning his head towards her. He looked confused. “Huh?”
“A Frosty, like from Wendy’s.” Ingrid pointed across the street to the fast-food restaurant.
It took a few seconds for Leon to comprehend what was going on, but the moment he finally grasped it was obvious. His whole face lit up and he gave a lopsided grin. “Really?” He slurred through his mouthful of gauze.
Ingrid laughed. That was honestly one of the most endearing things she’d ever seen. One of the United States’ most talented and badass special operatives, eyes full of wonder like a kid in a candy store at the prospect of ice cream. “I’ll take that as a yes,” she said as she pulled into an open parking spot. “Sit tight, I’ll go get you one.”
Five minutes later, Ingrid returned to the car with a Frosty in each hand (she’d decided she deserved one too). She prompted Leon to take out his gauze, and noticed that this wad was markedly less bloody than the last one had been. Well, at least Doctor Faust was competent. “Cheers,” Ingrid said as she handed Leon his Frosty, having taken the lid off and put the spoon in place for him. He dug in excitedly, the lopsided smile having never left his face. It was nice to see him really enjoying something, especially after the horrible procedure he’d been subjected to today.
Speaking of… once she finished her Frosty, Ingrid propped the folder up against the steering wheel and started leafing through the stack of papers inside, hoping to find more information on Leon’s supposed kill switch. In all of the paperwork, it appeared that it was only ever referred to as an “implant” with no specifics. On the last page, though, she found something curious. Tucked among the list of warnings about implant care was a single, easy-to-miss sentence: “tampering with or attempting to disable this device will result in the immediate evacuation of its contents.”
Ingrid’s blood ran cold. This wasn’t just evidence, it was irrefutable proof. No normal dental implant had a mechanism to detect tampering. No normal dental implant had contents to evacuate. The meaning was crystal clear: despite his usefulness, the US government saw Leon as so much of a liability that they wouldn’t hesitate to kill him should he put even a toe out of line. Ingrid felt sick.
Numbly, she tucked the folder away and pulled out of the parking space. She went back to the pharmacy drive through to pick up Leon’s prescriptions, then gave him his first dose and diligently marked down the time in her day planner. The rest of the drive was silent. Ingrid’s mind raced as Leon finished his Frosty. She decided not to tell him what she’d found yet. He should be allowed to just ride the little wave of happiness from his sweet treat a bit longer.
By the time they entered Leon’s apartment, the new painkillers were definitely kicking in. He was having a really hard time keeping his eyes open, but Ingrid patiently walked him to the bathroom and had him rinse his mouth out with salt water. She then led him to his bedroom and sat him down on the edge of the bed before rifling through his dresser for a tee shirt and a pair of sweat pants.
Despite being half asleep, Leon didn’t need much help changing clothes once prompted, but even if he did Ingrid wouldn’t have minded. She’d been there for him in the hospital plenty of times after his toughest missions. Although they didn’t hang out outside of work, they had a very friendly relationship. That was always the goal for an operative and their main handler, of course, but the two had grown to genuinely enjoy each other’s company on the job. It made Ingrid feel a bit sad that Leon didn’t have anyone else but her to put down as an emergency contact, but his other friends all lived similar lifestyles to him, she rationalized. Always traveling and often dropping out of contact for various reasons. Such was the life of those who fought bioterrorism on the front lines.
Once Leon was ready for bed, Ingrid stacked some pillows for him to recline against so he wouldn’t be flat on his back and then prompted him to lie down, tucking him in gently. Lastly, she made a trip to the kitchen to fill a zip-top plastic bag with ice and wrap it in a hand towel. Leon didn’t even notice as she placed the makeshift ice pack up against his swollen jaw. He was already completely zonked out.
Ingrid nodded to herself. The time had come. She’d done a lot of thinking on the drive to Leon’s place. She had to make a choice that could change the course of her entire life: would she do nothing, and stand by her superiors? By the career she’d built? By her country? Or would she risk it all to stand by Leon, and do everything she could to right this wrong?
The decision was a heavy one, but Ingrid made it easily. She chose Leon. She chose her friend. She chose to do what was right.
Resolutely, she sat down at Leon’s kitchen table and pulled out both her phone and her day planner. Tucked into a hidden, hard-to-access pocket of the leather cover of the planner was a tiny scrap of paper with about a dozen phone numbers written on it. These were contacts that Ingrid Hunnigan was not supposed to have, but she had anyway. These were contacts she’d squirreled away in secret over the years during the course of various missions, telling herself it was “just in case.” Maybe she’d always known in the back of her mind that this day would come. The day when she’d need the help of people who were supposed to be her enemies.
One of those people in particular happened to have a soft spot for Leon.
Ingrid didn’t hesitate. She fished out the little piece of paper, found the number she was after, and dialed it.
She honestly didn’t expect anyone to answer and had prepared to leave a voicemail. Ingrid was surprised, however, when someone picked up after only the second ring. “Yes?” A female voice came across the line.
Ingrid cleared her throat. “Hello, is this Ada Wong?”