Chapter Text
The hall was mostly empty — late enough for the caffeine crowd to thin, early enough for the night patrols to haven’t come through yet. The light buzzed low overhead. Reyna sat alone at a corner table, boots kicked up, fingers scrolling lazily through her phone.
A sharp ding.
New message.
From: Dalia 🐍
“Oaxaca next week. Streets already full of marigolds. You promised you’d come last year. And the 4 years before that. So I’m trying again.”
Attached was a picture. Dalia, leaned against a doorway lit by orange paper lanterns, face half-painted in black and gold calavera makeup. A marigold tucked behind one ear. Her smile was the kind that curled — like she knew exactly how she looked.
Reyna’s thumb hovered on the screen longer than she meant it to.
“You’re smiling.”
Reyna didn’t jump, but she did swear. “¡Coño! Back the fuck up.”
Clove raised their hands defensively, a smug grin pulling at one side of their mouth. “Didn’t mean to sneak. Just… nice photo.”
Reyna narrowed her eyes. “Keep peeking and you’ll lose those eyes.”
“I’ve been threatened worse,” Clove said, unbothered. “Who is she?”
Reyna turned her screen off. “None of your damn business.”
“So someone important, then.”
Reyna gave them a long look. Then rolled her eyes.
“She’s a friend. Ex. Invited me to Día de los Muertos.”
“Ohhhh.” Clove pulled out a chair across from her. “Spicy. You going?”
Reyna didn’t answer right away. But the twitch at the corner of her mouth was enough.
At that moment, Raze walked in with a soda can and antenna wires sticking out of her bun. “What’s spicy?”
Reyna groaned. “Nothing.”
“Liar,” Clove said, pointing. “Her ex just invited her to Oaxaca.”
Raze gasped like someone had just invented fire. “ You’re going to Día de los Muertos?! ”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Tell me she’s hot,” Raze begged. “Please.”
Clove smirked. “She’s fucking stunning.”
Raze practically bounced. “We have to go.”
“What do you mean ‘we’?”
“You think I’ve been building my tolerance to habanero for nothing ?” Raze spun toward the nearest hallway and shouted, “YO, NEON! GET OVER HERE!”
From somewhere: “WHAT?”
“We’re going to Mexico!”
Another voice — Killjoy — poked in. “For what?”
“Festival!”
Phoenix wandered in half-awake with a protein bar halfway chewed. “Did someone say tequila?”
Reyna leaned back in her chair, biting back a sigh.
This was not what she had in mind.
But when Raze looked back at her, eyes wide and bright, she said it anyway:
“I’ll host.”
The Valorant agents’ group chat — formally titled “Protocol Ops, Probably” — had lit up like wildfire the second Phoenix dropped the message.
Phoenix : “Mexico. Oaxaca. Dia de los Muertos. Two weeks off. Let’s go.”
Raze : “FUCK YES.”
Killjoy : “Only if I can bring my laptop and we’re not in a signal dead zone.”
Neon : “IM DYING YES”
Yoru : “How is this my life.”
Gekko : “I’m in. Mom’ll flip when I tell her.”
Clove : “I want to see Reyna in face paint. For science.”
Phoenix : “Everyone answer now!”
The responses exploded in emojis. Skulls. Flames. Tequila glasses. Marigolds. Most of the agents said no — as expected. Claiming they had better things to do with their free time.
And then, quietly—
A message, lower in the feed. Less color.
Sage : “No.”
Just that.
No explanation.
Reyna had seen it, of course. She didn’t react in the chat. Just noted it.
She was lying in her room, phone glowing on her chest, half-distracted by the sound of Gekko two rooms down beatboxing to nothing. The buzz of incoming messages kept crawling over the screen.
Raze : “YO. REYNA. DROP THE PHOTO.”
Reyna : “what photo.”
Killjoy : “👀”
Neon : “THE ONE OF YOUR EX. U OWE US.”
Phoenix : “we don’t make the rules”
Gekko : “you really don’t have to—unless she’s pretty”
Reyna : “fuck all of you.”
A pause.
Clove : “Got it from earlier. Sorry. Couldn’t resist.”
A ping.
And there it was.
Dalia. Leaning back against that doorway. Face half-painted. Her neckline low, her smile impossible.
The reactions came fast.
Raze : “MOTHER OF GOD”
Neon : “WHY WOULD YOU EVER LET HER GO”
Killjoy : “Whoever breaks up with her should be jailed.”
Phoenix : “Reyna explain yourself.”
Somewhere after the chaos, the subject changed.
Then Clove typed:
“Didn’t Sage say no earlier?”
Yoru : “Yeah, pretty sure she did.”
Neon : “Did she delete it?”
Killjoy : “Maybe she meant to hit yes?”
Reyna went up the messages to find it.
Sage’s answer to the invitation had changed. It used to be “No.”
Now it just said:
“Yes.”
It hadn’t been a mistake.
It hadn’t been indecision.
It had been a choice.
And she felt it like a slow pull in her chest.
Something had shifted.
Viper’s lab always hummed. Low, steady, never silent. A song of machines that never stopped listening.
Sage stood just inside the threshold, posture squared, hands clasped neatly behind her back. The door sealed with a soft hiss.
Viper didn’t look up immediately — she was pipetting something into vials. Chemical. Luminous. She didn’t speak until she was done.
“You’re scheduled for Mexico now.”
“Yes,” Sage said. “I updated my file this morning.”
Viper glanced at her.
“You’d declined before.”
“I’ve since reassessed.”
A pause. Then:
“I’ve become aware of a… sustained distraction,” Sage said carefully. “Emotional in nature. Concerning another agent.”
Viper’s eyes flicked up. Slowly. She studied Sage’s face.
Nothing on it moved.
“You’re reporting a distraction.”
“I believe it would be negligent not to.”
Viper’s expression didn’t change — but something behind her eyes narrowed. Not suspicion. Just… surprise.
Of all the agents in Protocol, Sage was the last she would have expected to report emotional instability. That job usually belonged to Phoenix. Or Raze. Or, if they were especially unlucky, Yoru. Sage didn’t indulge. She endured.
“Go on,” Viper said.
“I believed it would pass. It hasn’t. Silence hasn’t lessened it. And—” she hesitated, not for fear, but in search of accuracy. “I’ve begun to question whether I’ll be able to maintain full objectivity in the field, should it escalate.”
Viper watched Sage closely, trying to connect the dots on what she was being told. Sage waited, like Viper was a loading screen.
“Are you distracted,” Viper started, “or do you have a crush?”
Sage straightened her posture, cleared her throat and gave herself time to answer.
“I think both are synonyms.”
Viper arched an eyebrow.
“And what is it that worries you? The distraction?”
“No,” Sage replied. “The loss of center.”
That earned her Viper’s full attention.
“When I meditate, there’s supposed to be silence. That’s where I return to myself. Even in chaos, I’ve always had that center.”
She hesitated. Then added, quieter:
“Now… even in silence, she’s there.”
Viper almost smiled. Almost.
“I see.”
Sage didn’t see her expression shift — not really — but something felt off. Viper wasn’t mocking her. But there was a sharpness, a faint press of irony behind her voice.
Sage continued, unaware. “I understand the implications. Unchecked desire leads to imbalance. A breach in personal discipline. I’m not presently impaired, but… I believe it’s necessary to engage with the stimulus consciously, rather than allow it to affect me unconsciously.”
Viper gave a slow nod.
“What exactly does ‘engaging with the stimulus’ look like?”
Sage didn’t hesitate. “Travel. Observation. Immersive exposure to the subject in a non-combat setting.”
Now Viper smiled — tightly. “And the subject is?”
“…Reyna.”
Viper blinked once.
Then looked away — briefly — as if to cover it. Not shock. But something like it. She set the pipette down too hard.
“You’re serious.”
Sage nodded. “I don’t find it amusing either.”
“I didn’t say I did.”
But Viper’s eyes were sharper now. Measuring.
“You know she’s the exact opposite of everything you stand for.”
“I’m aware.”
“She’s reckless. She taunts. She kills for pleasure.”
Sage didn’t respond right away.
“She also protects,” she said finally. “And she sees through people. Not around them. Not past them. Through. It’s uncomfortable, but… difficult to ignore.”
Viper was quiet. A long pause passed between them, thick with unsaid things.
Then, softly — almost too casually:
“…So you changed your travel status because you want to be near her.”
Sage’s expression didn’t change.
“I changed it,” she said, “because I need to understand what this is. If it’s transitory, I’ll treat it accordingly. If not…”
She hesitated.
“…then I’ll address it with integrity.”
Viper stared at her.
“You know you can’t logic your way through this.”
“I’m not trying to. I’m… managing a variable.”
Viper stepped closer. Stopped just across from her.
“I assume it’s the first time you fall in love,” Viper finally said.
Sage swallowed. Hesitated. Naming the feeling as something so huge, so important, so sacred, made it hard to own it like she had been doing so far.
Risk assessment. Emotional compromise. Disruptive distraction.
Not… a natural force that needs to be integrated into who she is.
“It’s the first time I feel like this, yes,” Sage admitted.
Viper watched her for a long beat. Then nodded once — not in approval, but in acceptance.
“Very well,” she said. “Enjoy your immersive exposure.”
Sage gave the faintest smile. “I’ll be careful.”
Viper turned away. “Don’t be. Just be honest.”