in the quiet loop. (solid snake x reader)

04 - who dares, wins?

"My name is S..." Snake hesitated, but not enough for the other man to notice. "Pliskin. Iroquois Pliskin. Lieutenant Junior Grade."

You blinked as you heard the alias drop. Pliskin. Snake pulled up his balaclava with one hand, revealing his face. The man continued to stare him down, asking further questions.

You sat back in the van chair, exhaling. Hal began re-establishing a secure voice channel on Snake's codec.

"He pulled it off," Hal said under his breath. "Barely."

"Barely's still a win," you said, though your heart was still hammering in your chest. You watched as Snake and the man stood across from each other, like an old legend wrapped in a lie, and a rookie still looking for the truth.

The man finally lowered the rifle reluctantly. His stance shifted from aggressive to alert, and Snake, ever the soldier, watching his every move. Then the man tilted his head slightly, his eyes unfocusing for a brief moment, as if listening to something only he could hear. His lips almost imperceptibly, mouthing back a quiet response, but there was no earpiece, not even an external comm link.

"The kid's got nanomachines," Snake muttered over the codec.

You and Hal locked eyes. You reached for the nearest diagnostic trace, typing fast, pulling the man's heat signature and profile from Snake's cam overlay.

"Shit," you murmured. "He does."

Hal was already back in the system logs. "He's not on any publicized SEAL manifest. Not under DOD, not JSOC. He just... showed up."

The moment passed, and the man moved with his weapon held tight again, still unaware of how deeply Snake was dissecting him. But then, something shifted on your monitor, seeing Snake's vitals spike.

"Wait," you said aloud, fingers flying over the keyboard. "Hal, he's-"

On the feed, Snake slowed. His weight staggered slightly to one side, his boot scraping hard against the floor's grated surface. He leaned against the same staircase. Hal tapped into the vitals more deeply, running a localized scan off the biometric tag still synced through Snake's stealth suit.

"BP's dropping. Pulse is inconsistent," Hal frowned, squinting at a telemetry readout. "He's compensating through adrenaline, but it won't last."

Snake straightened again, visibly brushing the man off when the younger operative glanced his way. You saw the subtle tensing of Snake's jaw. You didn't need Hal to tell you the signs on how the weight shifted wrong on his right foot, the tightness in his jaw, and the slight tremor in the fingers of his injured hand.

You reached for your secure channel and tapped directly into his codec frequency. "You're limping," you said. "Talk to me."

"I've had worse," Snake muttered on the other end.

"That wasn't an answer."

He didn't respond immediately. The video feed showed him shifting his stance, as if to prove a point. He leaned against the wall, but then a moment later, he tried to straighten again and faltered. He hissed, just under his breath.

"Snake, sit down," you ordered, firmer now. "That's not a suggestion."

He obeyed this time, reluctantly, lowering himself against the stairs again. He exhaled slowly, hiding the pain in the sound. He slid to the floor, careful not to jolt his injured arm. You could almost see the resistance in every inch of his body.

"Do you ever not work yourself to death?"

"You sound like Otacon."

You smirked to yourself, tension easing just a hair. "He's less attractive when he says it."