𝐖𝐄 𝐀𝐑𝐄 𝐅𝐀𝐌𝐈𝐋𝐘, 𝖺 𝗀𝗅𝖺𝖽𝖾𝗋𝗌 𝖺𝗅𝖻𝗎𝗆

(b.n) again

Set during a brutal mission — the group ambushed, storm raging, hope fading.

Lightning cracked overhead.

The once-clear sky was now bruised purple and roaring. The rain was ice-cold and relentless. The mission had gone sideways fast, traps, Cranks attacked, too many moving pieces. Someone had shouted for Bea. Someone else had screamed for backup.

Nico was bleeding.

The side of his face was cut and his shoulder was burned from a blast. But he was still running. Running toward her.

He found her near the collapsed ridge. Bea, on her knees, blood smeared across her jaw, bow snapped in half, and three Cranks closing in fast.

He didn't think.

He threw himself into the fight. Steel met steel. Fist met bone. He didn't register the pain, didn't register the panic. Only her.

Only her.

The final Crank dropped, unconscious.

And suddenly it was just the two of them in the silence of falling rain.

Bea was breathing hard. Her hands trembled, holding nothing but the broken shaft of an arrow.

"I thought you were dead," she whispered.

"So did I," Nico said, voice raw. "But I couldn't leave you."

She laughed — wet and shaky. "You idiot. You absolute idiot."

"You're one to talk," he muttered, stepping closer. "Fighting with a stick."

"You were supposed to be evacuating."

"You were supposed to be alive."

She swallowed hard. Then her eyes locked on his — amber, bright even through the mud and blood and rain.

"Why did you come back?" she asked.

Nico stared at her. And somewhere, deep in his chest, he heard it again:

"Choose each other. Again. And again."

He touched her face, dirt and all. "Because that's the choice I keep making," he said softly. "Even if it kills me."

A breath caught in her throat. Her lip quivered.

Then she grabbed the front of his jacket and pulled him in, not for a kiss, not yet but to press her forehead against his, grounding herself.

"We'll survive," she said. "We have to."

"Then that's what we'll do," Nico whispered. "Together."

They stood like that for one long second, wrapped in storm and silence, before the others called out in the distance.

The fight wasn't over.

But they would walk through fire together.