#TL;DR Aeon can't actually be real until Leon gets the fuck over her but I don't even necessarily want that because

[dankovskaya]

Yeah the idea of Leon being "in love" with like. His idea of who Ada is based on a couple very specific encounters wherein basically all of Ada's interactions with him are highly controlled and strategic and often catered to whatever she believes will most effectively get what she wants out of him is weird and definitely makes him seem like a moron at best and some kind of creep at worst. But he does definitely have residual attachment towards her largely as a consequence of that one night in Raccoon City and I think the most flattering way to interpret it would be that he is fully conscious and aware of the fact that absolutely nothing that Ada has ever shown him of herself is the real Ada but he can't kick the part of him that really really wants to see even a glimpse of what is under that mask.

Vaguely romantically intentioned or otherwise I think Leon just desperately wants to feel like the mutual surface level familiarity or recognition they develop over a series of semi-coincidental high-stress encounters is even remotely balanced bc even with his sarcastic and dry defensive exterior she can still practically read his mind at a glance while he never gets to see so much as a crack in her persona and doesn't even know her real name 😭

And like I don't think he actually EXPECTS to get what he wants especially by the end of re4 reunion but I think there is this like. One sided tension and maybe even grief on his part over the fact that he's probably never going to get to know who she ACTUALLY is even though she was so integral to the most formative event of his entire life mixed with the weird residual emotions he feels for spending half a decade thinking he practically killed her and all of this is in conflict with his also very real resentfulness of the way she has treated him and lied to him and distrust of her profoundly unclear motivations etc. When people say Leon is "obsessed" with Ada I don't think that's really accurate but I DO think he can't let himself think about her too often or he'll drive himself crazy wondering who the hell she is.

And of course another major reason he wants so badly to know something genuine about her is because he is so desperate for her to give him a solid reason to trust her. Which Ada naturally does not give a shit about because whether or not he trusts her fundamentally and no matter how much he might bark about it he's still gonna act like her dog when she's around cause he's still repaying his "debt" 😭 (And it's also interesting I guess to see how that changes over time i.e. by the time of like, re6, which is essentially "Ada gets framed" the game, Leon really doesn't really have any reservations about defending her and he's pretty firm in his resolution to do so. Which again you can interpret as him being a moron with a residual crush on her exterior, or you can interpret as him no longer really giving a shit about Quote Unquote Moral Concerns and playing by personal compulsive raccoon city loyalty rules 😭)

Also, in a similar vein to that, with his own presumably quite lonely and isolated and inherently dehumanizing life as a secret agent guy, he probably views Ada as the only person "in his life" who might be able to relate to him without being (in a sympathetic interpretation of Leon's perspective of his job) tainted by the same institution that has quite literally stolen his life from him. So again, it all ties back to him knowing that he doesn't know her, but wishing that he did. (I think I recall @theonlyadawong making a post interpreting that "night" they left off on referenced in damnation [which is clearly intended to be sexual😭] actually just being one long conversation wherein Leon gets to ask some of the many, many questions he's always had about her and Ada decides how much if it all she's willing to answer them and maybe asks a few in turn, and I'm just obsessed with the idea of that. Instantly incorporated into the worldview.)

All of this is to say I enjoy Aeon from a 99% one sided vaguely-slightly but not inherently romantic longing perspective but if they ever did become something explicitly romantic it would only possibly make sense to me if it was when Ada's whole...everything straight up stops working on Leon. It would have to be at a point where Leon has finally truly put her (and therefore Raccoon City by association) behind him, when he really stops reacting exactly as she expects him to, when he's actually capable of surprising her, and when he can meet her unexpected appearances with genuine indifference (all of which personally I don't think even could happen until he truly gets to make decisions about his own life again😭.) He's still Leon, he'd still help her if she was in trouble, but he's not gonna linger on it. I think only then could Leon possibly genuinely pique her interest as someone on equal standing and therefore open the door to her being even slightly inclined to share a hint of vulnerability with him and maybe actually eventually consider him a friend etc. I think knowing that he truly isn't looking at "Ada" when he looks at her would be absolutely necessary from her perspective. And this is why they kind of rule in re4make because it's absolutely the closest Leon has ever been to rejecting the dynamic that their (very meager and limited and mostly Leon-imagined) relationship was built on.