Riley Finn's History
Early life
Native to Huxley, Iowa, Riley grew up in a rural setting with fairly strong and self-reliant women around him. Every Thanksgiving, he and his family would stay at his grandparent's house for thanksgiving dinner before they would take a walk down a river with their dogs. He likened the thought to a Grant Wood painting.
College
Prior to 1999, Riley joined the military, and was trained in special operations before being selected to join the Initiative. The Initiative was a secret government military organization located in Sunnydale aimed at researching the demons that inhabited it because of its Hellmouth. Their headquarters were underneath UC Sunnydale, where Riley and the other soldiers masqueraded as students. By the time he started to graduate school, Riley was already one of the Initiative's high-ranking soldiers and thus led a double life, both a secret agent and a college student residing at the Lowell House. His two friends and fellow initiative agents, Forrest and Graham, as well as many other operatives resided in the Lowell House and used it to enter the Initiative via a secret passage. He was also the assistant teacher to psychology Professor Maggie Walsh, who was one of the leading scientists at the Initiative and fed him drugs that enhanced his physical attributes.
At the beginning of the 1999 school year, he met freshman Buffy after she accidentally dropped her textbooks for Introduction to Psychology on his head.The two then on continued to share an unspoken attraction to each other. He realized his feelings for her after he punched Parker for making inappropriate comments about Buffy. While Riley did his best to keep Buffy from finding out his secret life, Buffy also wrestled to keep her secret life as the Slayer. They both came by each other during their duties when the vampire Spike, named "Hostile 17" by the Initiative, escaped and attempted to kill Buffy's friend Willow, but couldn't because of the behavior-modification circuitry. During a simultaneous rescue, Buffy and Riley got into a fight in Stevenson Hall but failed to notice each other because Riley was wearing a military face mask, hiding his face while Buffy purposely covered the room in a blinding smoke by firing a flare gun.
The truth eventually came out when a group of demons called the Gentlemen stole everyone's voices, leading Buffy and Riley to catch each other on the job. They quickly worked together to defeat them, killing several of the Gentlemen's footmen. Riley saved Buffy with his taser blaster and Buffy used sign language to tell him of the box containing the voices. Despite the fact Buffy hoped Riley would be her "Joe guy," she still found comfort in the fact he was a regular human and that his ability to fight demons allowed her to worry less about his safety.
Buffy and Riley started their relationship and both fought demons together and continued saving each other's lives and the world, although Riley was never quite let into her inner circle while he suggested Buffy to the Initiative where her strength, speed, stamina and fighting skill impressed him and Maggie Walsh, though her tendency to ask questions and inability to follow protocol led to the other soldiers finding her irritating while Professor Walsh came to loathe her as she thought Buffy was taking Riley away from the Initiative. After Buffy and Riley hunted down a Polgara demon, the two passionately slept with each other for the first time, also being the first time for Buffy to wake up after sleeping with someone and that person still being right by her side. However, Professor Walsh watched them while they were in the act via a surveillance camera, so she attempted to get Buffy killed with a faux mission and a faulty taser gun.
After the mission failed, Riley was devastated by Walsh's betrayal and left her mid-conversation despite her orders for him to stay. After hearing Walsh's following death at the hands of the bio-mechanical demonoid named Adam, Riley was greatly effected and started take it on Buffy, though this was largely due to the drugs given to him from the Initiative which started affecting his health. As he started to get violent and irrational, aiming a gun at a civilian in Willy's Place, a demon bar, Buffy convinced Riley to get some rest at Xander's basement, while she snuck into the Initiative compound with Xander in disguises to find out what project 314 was about. Riley instead followed her, hurting Willow in the process and, along with Buffy, Xander, and Dr. Angleman, he met Adam, who recently made a stir by killing and mutilating a small child, which led Buffy to believe it was the act of a Polgara demon. Riley attacked Adam but was easily beaten along with Buffy and Xander while Dr. Angleman was killed. After Adam escaped, Riley was treated at the Initiative hospital.
While everything at that time was sound with Buffy and Riley, problems occurred when Riley slept with Buffy's enemy and fellow Slayer Faith, who had switched bodies with Buffy and seduced him. During sex, Faith felt Riley's love for Buffy opposed to the common desire for sex she felt with other men. Because this feeling being alien to her, she left him behind in bed the next morning. After a vampire attack at Riley's church where Buffy got Faith to switch back, Buffy found it difficult to get over what happened with Faith though she eventually managed with the help of Jonathan in his altered reality.
Originally, Riley was heavily prejudiced against all demons, showing no approval for Willow Rosenberg's past relationship with the werewolf Oz. He soon realized that demons were capable of both good and evil just as humans are after helping to save Oz from the Initiative base, particularly after witnessing his superiors' inhumane treatment of Oz while in his human form. While he was initially completely loyal to the Initiative, events such as Maggie Walsh's failed attempt to get Buffy killed and the discovery that she was the one who created Adam as a super-soldier caused Riley to desire to leave the organization. Although, it was only when he helped to save Oz that he realized the extent of the Initiative's corruption and turned his back on them in favor of the Scooby Gang.
Riley then relocated in the burnt-down ruins of Sunnydale High School. After finding out Buffy visited her ex-boyfriend and ensouled vampire Angel in Los Angeles as well witnessing him beat up a couple of Initiative agents in Sunnydale, Riley assumed Buffy had slept with Angel and that he lost his soul again. The two fought; Angel easily taking out Riley with his bare hands while Riley used every tool he had. This feud proceeded in Buffy's dorm room where Riley barged in with his gun while Buffy and Angel were talking. The men then argued before Buffy broke them up and explained to Riley that Forrest had been killed. Riley then left the room out of grief.
It was discovered that Maggie Walsh implanted a behavior modifier in Riley after he joined the Initiative. Adam exploited this and used the chip in order to pacify Riley before the final battle. Riley, with no other choice, removed the modifier by lacerating himself with a shard of glass and pulling it out of his body with his bare hand. He then fought his best friend Forrest, who had been brought back as a demon-human-cybernetic hybrid like Adam, turned completely evil. Though Riley's efforts were unmatched to Forrest's new abilities, Riley managed to kill him by making him hoist a gas canister which exploded after catching a live wire.
The Initiative was destroyed in the summer of 2000, and Riley was relieved of his military standing. He was left at loose ends, and his behavior became reckless.
Recklessness
A year after he met Buffy, Riley became a full time member of the Scooby Gang, though his suggested methods and tactics were foreign to them. Riley began to see himself as beneath Buffy in strength, so he began to push his body well past its limits in the hopes that he would catch up to her. He became increasingly worried with Buffy's relationships with vampires, being jealous at Dracula's allure to Buffy, prompting him to set out in his castle and hunt for him alongside Buffy's Watcher Rupert Giles, as well as noticing Spike's attraction to Buffy while coming to him for information about Dracula.
After learning that the drugs Maggie Walsh had given him were causing his pain receptors to shut down and his heartbeat to spike, Riley initially refused medical treatment from the government out of paranoia, but Buffy eventually managed to convince him. After a brief face-off with Spike and Harmony Kendall, who were attempting to force an Initiative doctor to remove Spike's chip, they successfully managed to get Riley heart surgery, though this reduced him to a normal human being, only adding to his feelings of insecurity and weakness.
His relationship with Buffy also began to deteriorate when Buffy continuously failed to give him the emotional intimacy, trust, and honesty he craved. This was mostly due to her mother's illness and her growing interest in spiritually discovering her potential as a Slayer, having a long conversation to Spike about the two Slayers he killed while Riley went out patrolling with Buffy's friends and recklessly destroyed an entire crypt with a grenade to kill two vampires after killing one that injured Buffy.
Seeking thrills, and wondering what Buffy found so appealing about vampires — having allowed both Angel and Dracula to drink her blood — Riley began to let vampires feed from him, becoming a regular at a vampire brothel, an establishment were vampires are paid to bite and feed on the blood of willing customers without draining them completely. Buffy eventually discovered this with Spike's help and destroyed the building where Riley's secreting meetings had taken place. His behavior, as well as Spike's manipulations and a sense that Buffy would never truly love him, led to their breakup. Despite Buffy's best efforts to stop him, Riley rejoined the military and departed.
Marriage
In South America, Riley met Samantha, a fellow soldier who with him initially forged a duo demon-hunters, discussing tactics and missions before discussing about Buffy. They then got married shortly after. Nearly four months since the wedding, Riley returned unexpectedly in the next year, tracking a Suvolte demon about to hatch eggs that could wipe out Sunnydale, and the one planning to sell them, known simply as "the Doctor."
However, he did not return to make up with Buffy but to ask for her assistance with Sam arriving shortly. Nonetheless, when he discovered that Buffy had been engaging in a sexual relationship with Spike, he was clearly affected, though when he discovered them in bed together and when Buffy attempted to explain the situation, he hid his emotions. As it turned out, Spike was the Doctor, and Riley blew up the nest of demon eggs beneath his crypt. His mission completed, Riley and Sam left Sunnydale again after bidding the Scoobies farewell.
One year later, when Spike's chip began to malfunction, Buffy successfully managed to contact Riley for help. Riley personally sent a group of soldiers to help, but told them that what they were to do with the chip — either repair or remove it — was Buffy's decision.
Triple agent
Over a year later, Riley joined Twilight Group to spy on Buffy, while convincing the Twilight organization that he was their "inside man" in Buffy's inner circle, and was marked with Twilight's symbol on his chest. He later met with Buffy in New York City. Weeks later, he joined Amy, Warren, and the masked Twilight as they tried to track down the Slayer Organization to Oz's Tibetan monastery. During a massive battle between Twilight's forces and the Slayer Organization, Buffy saved an injured Riley and revealed to her friends that Riley has indeed been working for her as a double agent in order to find out Twilight's plans and identity. After the battle, Riley comforted Buffy, who saw herself as a terrible leader by leading the Slayer Organization into the war against Twilight. Riley also got the United States Government to grant amnesty to all members of the Slayer Organization.
A few months after the Twilight crisis was averted, Riley was stationed in San Francisco where Buffy and the other Scoobies had settled down, and was among those who attended Buffy's housewarming party. Because magic was banished from this dimension, Riley used a surveillance van to watch out for human terrorists.
New magic
When Faith attempted to find her way by joining Kennedy's Deepscan, an all-Slayer security group, she reconsidered after she was given her a special assignment: to track down Riley, who was missing and last seen in South America. Riley had been captured by Walt Zane, and Faith counted with the help of his wife Sam in his rescue. Reunited after so many years, Faith recognized her errors against him and apologized. In turn, Riley replied that the only person to apologize to was Buffy.
After the return of magic, Riley and Sam were present in Rome and Buenos Aires to deal with the attacks of a centipede demon and a giant horned gorilla demon, provoked by the opening of portals through the Restless Door in power of the Mistress, the Sculptor, and the Soul Glutton. With the death of second Magic Council, Buffy decided that the only proper way to conduct matters concerning the new laws of magic was to have a mix of her allies in the council to prevent them from betraying her trust. Buffy appointed Riley for this role, acting as representative of human military forces.
During the Supernatural Crisis Act, Riley and Sam were brought to the Safe Zone in order to convince Buffy to renounce her Slayer powers in exchange for her freedom. She was resistant, but they explained that, despite they had their own concerns with the way the government was dealing with the supernatural, they had been deployed in San Francisco, Rome, and Buenos Aires, seeing in first hand the crisis and its effects. Buffy trusted they're judgement, and accepted having her powers absorbed.
Riley and Sam then visited Buffy after she was free from the Safe Zone, and revealed their plan to help the Scooby Gang and save the supernatural. They offered Xander and Dawn to leave the country, and fake I.D.s to Buffy and Willow. Riley and Sam drove Buffy, Willow, and Faith back to the Safe Zone, so they could invade the headquarters and discover about the Pandora Project. After the Scooby Gang defeated the Project's leader Joanna Wise, the group feared their treason would put them in jail, so they allowed the credit to go to Riley and Sam, as they were government agents. The couple was present in President Malloy's public announcement, in which he declared the policies regarding the supernatural were reviewed under the supervision of "the heroes who exposed the conspiracy, Riley and Samantha Finn," and exalted their "distinguished record of service" to the country.
