I feel like soldier gives up really personal information about himself really easily here. More easily than I find believable. It's also a huge jump in the story. First we're in johns jacked up bedroom then all of a sudden he's like "Oh yeah my mom made me think I was a lady and now I'm telling you about kay thanks". and the way he tells the information is so unnatural. "She was a nervous wreck, unstable, and got worse when my father left her, shortly after he got her pregnant with me. All she ever wanted was a little girl of her own. But then I was born, a healthy baby boy." Who the hell talks like that? When have you ever heard someone talk like that? It's also important to remember who were talking about here: the Soldier. You made soldier sound like a wikipedia article instead of the batshit crazy idiot he is. You're giving him way to much credit to understand the world around him. I'm not saying he can't have more depth to his character, but it's important to understand how he see's the world. This is a man that has tea party's with cardboard cut outs, lives in a shitty apartment with a wizard despite making millions a year, and dressed up like a robot and went trick or treating to evade the police. ("the police aren't going to believe I'm a robot forever!") You can have soldier be upset about things. You can give more complicated feelings about things. You can even him express remorse, sadness, guilt and complex emotions. You can even make him have a mental breakdown. But it's important to understand him as a character. He's not smart. He's stupid. Soldier is stupid. You need to make him process things to the best of his ability, not your ability. Have him express his feelings the way he would, not how you would. What makes sense to us, what is logical to us, isn't for a man that can't spell "weapons". So I guess what i'm saying is, everything that makes soldier special and wonderful and interesting isn't here. This fanfic isn't terrible. It is by no means bad. But it lacks something very important and essential to the craft of story telling: soul.