Simon 'Ghost' Riley - The Spiders Web

6

The team were up late, nothing better to do and betting on card games between them. When they switched to poker and Tina was goaded to play a round after mostly sitting out and observing, she had told Soap seriously, "I've not played poker much."

Which he thought was outrageous, and promptly forced her to play a round to prove herself.

She had, and had lost them all bets. Because she had fucking won and they had all bet on Soap to win.

She had hid her grin in her drink and shrugged, throwing her cards back onto the table. "Beginners luck."

Price had shook his head at her. "Beginners luck, my fucking ass."

She hadn't lied - she hadn't ever played poker much in her life. But she had watched them play it enough times to pick up some tricks, and that had been their own mistake.

●•●•●

Soap and Gaz liked to joke that Spider was a Ray of sunshine trying to break through Ghosts grey skies; sappy, they knew, but she was small and sarcastic and was never much bothered by his harshness. In fact, it was like a challenge. She liked pestering him to see how far he could be pushed until he snapped - and when he did, she would just grin at him, which was infuriating.

It was nothing but curiosity. The brooding, the bright eyes, the anonymity of the mask he never took off she suspected even to sleep. Curiosity, nothing more.

Where usually someone as brash and dark as him would push people away - and she suspected that was what he wanted - it flicked some sort of switch in her. Like, he's interesting, let's see if we can crack this puzzle.

Nothing more than curiosity.

She liked him, that much was obvious, and not many people did. It had taken Soap and Gaz a while, christ, but for her it wasn't even a question.

Soap once joked to Gaz that he liked her too. The younger man had nearly choked at the absurd thought.

"Are you joking?"

The scotsman nudged him seriously. "Posh girls love a bit of rough."

Gaz could only shake his head at the man. He almost had been looking over his shoulder to check she was no where near to hear, knowing that if she did they'd be done for.