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Finn is accompanying the General and a handful of her staff on a low-visibility mission to a planet whose name he can’t actually pronounce - or, to be more accurate, he is accompanying Poe, who is accompanying the General. Rey and Skywalker are not along; apparently they had to do something unspecified with lightsabers somewhere far away, or at least that’s what Rey said, rolling her eyes and sighing at the layers of secrecy. Rey does not really understand things like operational need-to-know.
The mission is supposed to be a quiet meet-and-greet with the local officials; Poe is along to look dashing and talk about the Resistance’s brave pilots, and Finn is along mostly to keep himself busy. He’s been carrying what needs to be carried and keeping his ears open and his mouth shut, and staying close to Poe as much as possible. Diplomatic doublespeak does not come easily to Finn.
What does come easily to Finn is seeing the targeting sight as it settles on the General’s back.
“Sniper!” he barks, and launches himself forward, tackling the General sideways and away, curling around her to take the brunt of the landing on his shoulder. Thankfully, he’s completely healed, and he rolls to his feet again without a break, tucking the General behind him. The rest of the diplomatic mission is in something of an uproar - the sniper’s blaster fire hit the ground just where the General had been standing literally while Finn and the General were in the air - but the General herself assesses the situation in a single calm glance and slaps her blaster into Finn’s outstretched palm.
“Stay down, ma’am,” he says, and she does, makes herself small behind him, as he scans the rooftops and finds the telltale glint that ought not be there. He raises the blaster, aims, and fires in a single easy motion; on the rooftop, a figure lurches to its feet and tumbles over the side. Finn scans their surroundings: surely there was not only the one sniper. If someone knew the General was going to be here - and be nearly unprotected - they would probably have sent - yep.
The leader of the small mercenary gang coming out of the alley goes down to a blaster bolt before he even knows what’s happening. Finn sets his feet a little more firmly and shoots until the blaster is out of charge. By that time, there are only two of the mercenaries left, and they are charging at him desperately, clearly hoping to get close enough that the blowback will prevent him from shooting at them. He shrugs, tosses the blaster overhand into the first attacker’s face, picks the second one up as he arrives and flings him into a building - momentum, his long-ago trainer’s voice admonishes him - and goes back to the first, who is still recovering from being hit very hard in the face with a blaster, so Finn breaks his dominant arm and one of his legs and turns to drop him at the General’s feet.
It all takes about forty seconds. Respectable. If this were a sim, he’d get very high marks. He bends and picks up the blaster, checks it over - no damage - and hands it back to the General. “Sorry about the charge, ma’am.”
“Thank you, Finn,” the General says, giving Finn a broad smile. “We should really see about getting you a blaster of your own, shouldn’t we?”
One of the diplomats from this unpronounceable planet says, shrilly, “You did not tell us you were bringing a trained killer here!”
The General turns a truly terrifying glare on him. “Firstly, Finn is my bodyguard, and last I checked, bodyguards are supposed to be trained killers. Secondly, you assured me that no one would know of my presence. Shall we find someplace a little less messy and discuss the obvious holes in your intelligence apparatus?” She gathers the group up in her wake effortlessly, two of the locals picking up the damaged attacker and carrying him along, and Finn falls in near the back, noticing with some dismay the wide space everyone is leaving around him. Did he do something wrong?
Poe drops back and slings an arm over Finn’s shoulders. “So,” he says. “That was simultaneously terrifying as hell and the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Um,” says Finn, even more confused. “Can’t...isn’t that part of basic Resistance training? For ground troops, I mean, I assume pilots get different training, it’s not that I don’t think you’re awesome - I’ll shut up now.”
Poe laughs. It’s a lovely sound, and quite reassuring. “No, buddy, that’s not part of basic training,” he says ruefully. “Though as soon as we get you back to base, I suspect it’s gonna be. What that was, was the most stone-cold badass bit of shooting I have ever seen, not to mention the hand-to-hand. Somehow you neglected to mention you were a full regiment of ground troops all by your lonesome.”
“I’m not,” Finn objects.
“Buddy, you kind of are,” Poe says kindly. They walk in silence for a moment, and then Poe adds, “Y’know, traditionally saving a princess earns you a reward. I feel like I should take this opportunity to make it very clear that I am totally okay with being your reward, if that was a thing you wanted.”
“Wait, what, really?” Finn asks incredulously. “Why now?”
“Somehow I am no longer afraid I will ruin your sweet and innocent nature,” Poe says dryly.
Finn considers this. “Well, alright then,” he says eventually. “And what sort of reward are you?”
The kiss which follows is long and elaborate enough that several of the locals stop and applaud.