Work Text:
Their home for the night was the only island of light for miles in this vast desert. A neon “vacancy” sign blinked over a mostly empty gravel parking lot. The lot across from the motel was a large, dark gas station, mechanic's shop, diner, and general store combination. Instinctively, Heavy glanced down at the gas gauge. They'd need to fill up before leaving tomorrow morning if they didn't want to risk running out in the desert.
Scout jerked awake when their tires hit gravel. “Man, did I say anything weird?” his mouth was moving as soon as he was conscious.
Heavy put the car in park, letting it idle in front of the office. “Were asleep.” The younger man had been mumbling nearly the entire time he had been snoozing, but it hadn't been much that Heavy could understand; American school talk, he was pretty sure, with one clear, distinct instance of the younger man asking him how his meal was today before falling back into his seat.
Scout scrubbed a hand over his eyes, “I know. My brothers… never mind.” He was out of the door and stretching before the car was off. Heavy pulled himself out of the driver's seat with considerably more effort. Cars just weren't built for people his size.
“Going to check in, don't go too far.” Heavy made sure the keys were in his pockets, then clicked the door lock on his side. He placed a hand on the cool driver's side back seat window; a pile of luggage was draped in a facsimile of carelessness across the rear bucket seat. Sasha was hidden in the seat under them. He tried not to think about the grease and lint that might be pooling in her curves and sent her a silent apology, but took strength in her proximity before going into this next battle.
Scout caught up as Heavy was entering the office. He tried to push Scout back out, but the woman behind the desk had already seen him. Fine. They went in together.
“Welcome to the Knight Inn! Do you have a reservation?” She set the guest book on the counter, but kept a protective hand on it.
“Hello,” Heavy tried his least intimidating tone. The expressions on her and Scout’s faces told him he wasn't sounding much friendlier than he did when he was roaring his battle cries at the BLUs. A pool of anxiety was building in the center of his stomach.
Scout took advantage of his momentary silence, “Hey there, sweet thing.” He leaned on the desk in front of her. The receptionist kept her hand protectively on the guest book, but she didn't move away from him. “Sorry for the late check-in, but we got a reservation. What's the name, big guy?”
Heavy nodded, “Ah, yes, for Red?” The woman glanced at him, but mostly kept her eyes on Scout. Sometimes, he was jealous of his younger teammate’s social skills. None of them had particularly easy lives before signing up, but he wondered sometimes if he'd be just as talkative as Scout if talking hadn't meant capture or death for most of his younger years.
Heavy was mostly shut out of their interaction, which did nothing to loosen the tightening fear around his heart. The young woman passed him a key in exchange for a few twenties. “Your room is right down the way there. Have a good night,” a clear dismissal. Heavy nodded. He needed to eat, shower, and sleep. Maybe once he felt more like a person, it wouldn't be so uncomfortable to be around others. He took the key with a grunt and turned towards the door. To his and the receptionist's surprise, Scout followed him.
“Early morning tomorrow, have a good one!” Scout easily caught up and kept pace with him. Their room was way down at the far end of the building, so they got in the car to move it.
Heavy turned the key. “I think girl wanted you to stay.” He checked the mirrors and backed all the way over to their room.
“Yeah?” Scout sounded curious, but headed for their room instead of back towards the office, “Would you? After a six-hour drive?”
Heavy felt his face getting warm, but dodged the question by bringing in the bulk of their luggage. They had way overpacked under the impression it would look less suspicious and hopefully distract from their secret compartments should they get stopped. He dropped the bags unceremoniously on the bed Scout wasn't lying on.
“Don't sleep yet, call base.” He went back out to the car to check on Sasha one more time. She was wrapped snugly to prevent damaging her elaborate machinery. He gave her a small pat and closed the seat again. Heavy grabbed his actual travel bag and locked the car.
Scout was still face down on the bed, but the screen they used to securely call in was plugged into the phone jack and ringing. Scout yelped and rolled away when the bed dipped under Heavy's weight. He shoved the larger man aside so they could both fit in frame. His hair looked a lot longer now that it wasn't being held back by his hat and curled into his eyes.
Engineer answered on the third ring, Pyro barely visible under a pile of blankets over his shoulder. They were pressing a pillow over their face against the light, a stream of quiet complaints barely audible over the line. It didn't look like Engineer had been asleep yet, but he had clearly been getting ready for it. The dark rings on his forehead from where he'd rest his goggles at the end of the day had only just started to fade. “How was the drive, boys?” he kept his voice down, even though Pyro was clearly still awake.
“Uneventful,” Heavy said.
“Boring,” Scout said at the same time.
“That's what you want, ain't it? Save the excitement for the mission.” He tapped away at his pda, “Alright, fellas, your position is noted and mission progress updated. I'll give ya a call tomorrow morning if anything changes. Good night.” Pyro mumbled something from their blanket and pillow nest. “And a good night from them too,” he added with a fond little smile.
“G'Night Engie, g’night Py,” Scout waved at the screen. Heavy nodded, not realizing until the screen went dark that Pyro couldn't see him. Hopefully Engineer would tell them he hadn't snubbed their well-wishes.
They held their position, watching the dark screen for a moment, then Scout flopped face-first back into the pillows. Heavy looked at his bed, still covered in luggage.
It probably wouldn't hurt anything to just shove it all on the floor and lie down himself, but he couldn't do it. Any mess he ever made felt like a ticking time bomb hanging over his head, and he'd never get to sleep thinking about it. Instead, Heavy got up and pulled the two suitcase stands out of the closet. He piled the luggage evenly between the two, leaving the bags that held their actual useful luggage on top.
The pipes protested and creaked before giving up any water. It did get hot pretty quickly, at least, and once the initial blast drained away, it was clear and odorless. Definitely not the worst motel bathroom he'd used. Heavy let himself indulge in the rare luxury of a private shower. The tension of being behind the wheel for a straight six hours melted down the drain, carried on a fine layer of dirt from the open car windows. By the time he turned the water off, he was too relaxed to do anything but force himself to brush his teeth and go straight to bed. Heavy pulled new underwear on and turned the sink faucet on in case it needed a moment too.
A cold breeze brushed his shower-warm skin, setting his arms prickly with goosebumps. He held his hand up to the exhaust vent in the ceiling, but that wasn't the source. Heavy looked at the swoop of toothpaste on his brush and decided he didn't care. As long as they didn't wake up covered in bugs, it wasn't a problem that needed solving right now. He stuck the brush in his mouth, wincing at the overly menthol flavor of the unfamiliar brand. When he was done, the day scrubbed away and his body reset, it wasn't the Heavy Weapons Guy looking back at him in the mirror, but Mikhail. It was increasingly rare that he could find the difference between the two anymore, even in the sacred hours between work and sleep.
He stopped just long enough to pull the shoes off Scout's feet and toss the folded blanket over him before he sank down into his own bed. It was too small. Most beds were too small for him. Misha closed his eyes, his feet dangling out over the edge of the bed and out from the bottom of the sheet. There was some solution to this, he was sure, but his brain was barely running on fumes. He realized, as consciousness fled like roaches in the light, he hadn't eaten since before they left.
He woke once in the night to find Scout sitting up in his bed, the outdated TV on and showing static.
“Uh… sorry, did I wake you?” He sounded distracted, one eye in shadow, the other flickering around the room.
Heavy looked at the TV, then back at Scout, then rolled over so the light wasn't in his eyes and went back to sleep.
The TV was still on in the morning. Text was scrolling across the bottom now, with most of the screen taken up by an ad to advertise on the channel. The inoffensive Muzak switched over to a slightly jazzier piece as the ad gave way to a weather report. Dry and hot, same as always.
The screen on the shared nightstand beeped with an incoming call. Heavy flipped it around so it faced his bed and pushed the answer button.
Spy was sitting in his smoking room, already half a glass of wine into the dawn. “Where is the other one?” he snapped instead of a greeting. Heavy rolled his eyes and flipped the screen around to show Scout, who'd startled awake at the sound of an angry French accent. He flipped the screen back to give Scout some privacy. “Change of plans, the target is on the move.” The accusation dripped from his words, what did you do?
Heavy was used to dealing with children throwing tantrums, however old that child was. “What does this mean for us? We return?”
Spy continued to fume dramatically, “Non, stay in place for now. We do not know if this is a temporary setback yet.” He took a drag on his cigarette, “Perhaps I can still snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.” Heavy started to tune him out. Spy only got wordy and theatrical when Scout was involved. He had his answer; they were supposed to wait.
That presented its own problem. There was nothing around here, and he could hear Scout’s stomach growling as he rolled off his bed and stumbled into the bathroom. The noise set off every nerve in his body. It was the soundtrack to the darkest moments in his life, and not a distraction he needed right now.
From the tone of his voice, Spy was finishing his monologue. Heavy focused again to catch the important information in his wrap-up.
“...someone will check in at 18 hundred. Be near the screen.” He tapped the ash out of his cigarette and leaned closer as though he could see outside of the limits of the camera. “Is Scout still asleep?” Something shifted in his tone.
Heavy shook his head, “In shower. Do not worry, I will tell him all this.” The drone of the shower was barely muted through the thin walls. He was surprised Spy couldn't hear it, or the off-tune singing Scout treated them to in the communal showers.
Spy reached out to turn the screen off and stopped, “How is he doing?”
Heavy frowned. He couldn't check his identity through the video feed. Spy seemed to notice that his metaphorical mask had slipped in a sense and tugged absently at his physical one. “He is the least experienced of any of us; I was against sending him out on this mission from the start. Even if Respawn does work at this distance, when the boy dies, you'll be left without backup and with a target possibly out of reach of our professional assassins.”
He glanced at the wall again; the shower was still running, but the singing had stopped. Could he hear this conversation? Heavy leaned into the screen and lowered his voice, “You are trying to get him killed? You are trying to lower his focus? You are supposed to be on his team.” He felt ridiculous threatening a screen, but Spy was sabotaging his mission.
Spy stared into the screen as he took a long drag off his cigarette. Heavy didn't say anything either. In the next room, the shower squeaked off.
Spy broke first, “Check in at 1800.” He flipped the screen off at his end, sending the screen in Heavy's hand into static. He let the snow play until Scout emerged from the bathroom, his hair dripping down his face.
“Wazzat Spy?” He let the towel drop in front of his suitcase. Heavy frowned at the offending fabric; he'd defend Scout as a mercenary to the death, but he left a lot to be desired as a housemate. He grunted in response and grabbed the towel before it could get their home for the foreseeable future mildewy. Scout hopped back out of his way, falling with a thump onto his bed. His hair fell into his eyes, and he shoved it out of his vision. “Come on, man. What did Spy say?”
Heavy draped the towel over the wooden chair near a tiny desk in the corner of the room, where it could dry better. “Too much,” he replied, “but there is problem with target.” He turned back to Scout, who had his head tilted to one side like a confused dog. He quickly looked away, realizing his teammate was still naked, “Uh, they will call back at 1800 to tell us more.”
Scout pushed past him again, selecting one of his uniform shirts before rejecting it in favor of a threadbare grey tee. “Well, what are we supposed to do before 2 o'clock?”
“Six o’clock.”
“That's worse, ain't it? Check out is at, like, noon here.” He sat at the edge of Heavy's bed to pull his pants up, which were similarly worn through in patches. Heavy dug through Scout’s suitcase in disgust, looking for any pair of socks that didn't have holes in them.
He didn't have an answer for Scout yet. They needed to be near a telephone jack to call in with the screen, so they couldn't just keep driving until later in the evening and hope they found other accommodations. He absently folded Scout’s shirts, “We… we go eat. Need food to think.” Scout was nice enough to keep whatever comment he was making subaudible. “Maybe call back before check-out. Get another hotel, or get the signal to go. Need to get gas before we go today.”
Scout shoved his feet into a pair of sneakers and hopped up off the bed, “Kay.” He lingered by the screen just long enough for Heavy to notice.
Again, Heavy wondered how much of Spy’s strange vendetta against him he'd heard. He ground his teeth as he laced up his own boots. Should he ask? Would that make it worse? In the end, he kept silent once more.
The early morning heat hit them like a physical wall. They took a moment to crank the windows down before starting the car.
“Maybe it's some kinda blessing, waiting till later to drive, yeah?” Scout spun his copy of the room key around a finger as they crawled out of the parking lot and across the street. Heavy grunted, not really focusing on the conversation. There were signs for a diner around the back of the convenience store; a few large trucks were either tucked away near the edge of the desert or gathered up around the entrance. He pulled their car carefully alongside a dusty box truck. Scout was still talking.
“...Ma was always all cultured like that, though.” He slammed the passenger door shut, pulling his shirt away from where contact with the polyester seats stuck it to his back. Heavy tried to do the same, discreetly, but it was hard enough to find shirts that fit him, let alone fit loosely enough to fan himself with.
He caught up to Scout again at the door where a bell tied above the frame announced their arrival. A swirl of the sweet, spicy, and savory scents of traditional American breakfast crawled straight to Heavy's stomach, which answered with a loud growl. Scout was practically drooling over the pastry case and didn't seem to notice.
“Just seat yourself whenever you're ready,” a woman in heavy makeup called from behind the counter, waving a hand clinking with rings towards the scattered booths and tables. A few patrons looked up at them before silently turning back to their food.
“Used 'ta work in a joint like this,” Scout bragged to Heavy, or maybe the room at large. “Counter was always the best seat in the house.”
Heavy looked skeptically at the fixed stools as Scout hopped up and smoothly swiveled into place. “Maybe… maybe we sit at table?” The waitress was already making her way over to Scout. He wasn't going to be spared this embarrassment, was he?
“You ain't gonna get the true diner experience like this at a table,” Scout swiveled back and forth, seemingly without noticing the excess movement. He patted the seat next to him, set nearly right up against the counter. Heavy sighed and gingerly set himself on the edge of the stool, putting his weight on it slowly. It held, for now, but protested as he turned it towards the counter. The world wasn't built for men like him, but his skinny, outgoing teammate always fit right in.
Heavy’s belly hit against the counter before he could fully turn in. He swung back the other way quickly, pretending to himself he'd meant to watch the door.
The waitress, the sole employee they'd seen so far, dropped off two coffees and oil-stained paper menus. “I'll be right back for your drinks, sugar.” She switched one pot of coffee for an orange-collared one on her way to a far table.
“Know what you want, big guy?” Scout glanced at his menu for a moment, then swiveled out to look at what the other diners were enjoying. “Potatoes look good, can't go wrong with diner potatoes.”
Heavy wished he'd brought his reading glasses. “Edith Hash? Johnny Cakes? What is this?” He squinted at the paper. A few dishes had descriptions, but not many. Most were just a name and a price.
“What? It's breakfast food. Just order whatever, it'll probably be good.” Scout swung his feet, “Well, except the fruit. We always said it was fresh and seasonal, but it was just whatever we had canned at the time. They don't actually expect you to order it, so they don't keep it fresh unless it can be sliced on a pancake.”
Heavy grunted, “Strange American culture…”
Scout turned on him, “Strange? What? Come on, man, diners are like, the most regular restaurant you'll ever…”
“Do you need some more time to decide?” The waitress appeared silently. She sounded amused by Scout’s declaration, but people were always smiling around him.
“How's the coffee, doll?” Scout gave her a 1000-dollar grin, pushing his hair out of his eyes with a flourish.
“Most drinkable Joe for miles, according to my regulars,” she answered back easily.
“Only!” A nearby man called. He was dressed similarly to Scout, with a thin tee and a brimmed hat. A few scattered customers laughed, including Scout.
“Yeah, alright. Give me a regular and just leave the sugar bowl here. Or bring the syrup, my ma used to just add a touch of maple when she needed a pick-me-up in the morning.” He slid the menu back across the counter, “I'm thinking French toast anyway.”
“French toast? Like crepes?” Heavy scooted back enough to fit under the counter, barely, but it was less awkward to talk to the woman this way.
Conversation around them quieted down. The sizzle coming from the window into the kitchen was punctuated by a distant clatter of pans.
“No, it's like… you've had it before. It's that sweet bread in egg mix stuff.” Scout tapped the counter, “Eng… uh… we make it sometimes. For breakfast.”
Heavy felt like everyone was still watching him, judging him for not knowing about this toast. “Just… steak and egg, please. And potato.” He hunched down, but couldn't make himself much smaller in this chair. It felt like a spotlight here at the front of the restaurant. The waitress left as quickly as possible.
“Sausage too, please! Links if you got ‘em! Thanks!” Scout dropped back down into his seat, “Engie makes it, and Spy complains every time that it's not ‘real cuisine’ or whatever.”
Heavy swung back around to sit more comfortably until their coffee or food arrived. The nearest tables had cleared out, and the further ones were leaning in to talk quietly amongst themselves, sending him the occasional glance or glare. “Scout,” he whispered, “is this normal for diner?”
He turned to look where Heavy was looking, “Eh, maybe for truckers? They got places they need to be. Or, maybe they're afraid of me?” The idea solidified into certainty right before Heavy's eyes. Scout sat up straighter; the rocking back and forth on the stool slowed.
Heavy hid a smile behind his hand, pretending to clear his throat. He'd seen Scout kill a man his size with just a baseball bat and still didn't find the man intimidating. Maybe that was the better problem to have? He looked across the restaurant again, now emptier than before. They hadn't even gotten their coffee yet. “Perhaps.”
Scout looked around too, folding himself up into a pretzel on his stool, still spinning with his hands on the counter. “Hey, if we're gonna have to stick around a bit, I can't call ya Heavy, can I?”
Hmm. Heavy studied the faces around them, which were continuing to thin out, “Why not? Heavy and Scout are not so strange, are they? Not like Sniper or Spy.”
“Cuz it sounds like I'm calling you fat?”
“You call me fat three times a day.”
Heavy was surprised to look over and see Scout looking ashamed. He didn't know that was an emotion the hyperactive young man was capable of. He didn't meet Heavy's eyes, “Yeah… maybe… I don't mean it, though. I mean, you're-”
His rambling was cut off by the return of the waitress. She put two empty cups in front of them, looking over her shoulder to the kitchen, where two men were peeking out of the holes in the kitchen doors. “Sorry about the delay, sugar, we're working on your food right now.” She pulled the two carafes off the heater, «Regular or Decaf?»
«Regular, please. Thank you.» Heavy scooted his mug closer to her while she filled it with coffee from the black handled carafe. She slipped a brown ringed coaster under his cup.
Scout rubbed his ear, “Uh, what was that?”
The waitress, Heavy could not find a name tag on her, looked at him, then repeated «Regular or Decaf?»
“Yeah, that's what I thought you said.” Scout gripped his mug, holding it uncertainly halfway towards the waitress, “And that is…?”
“Decaf, Scout, decaffeinated. No caffeine,” surely that was a word he knew, right? He drank five energy drinks a day, more if they were fighting. “He'll take regular, too, please, Miss. Thank you.”
Scout flinched at either his raised voice or at being called by his class title. Either way, Heavy regretted his outburst immediately.
The woman poured his coffee and hurried back into the kitchen. The restaurant was empty now. Even the music seemed to have stopped coming over the radio. Heavy sighed, rubbing a hand over the stubble on his head. No, he shouldn't have yelled. It was always surprising to run into something basic that Scout didn't know, but he couldn't help not knowing what he hadn't been taught.
“I am sorry-”
“Was that Russian?”
They spoke over each other. Scout took advantage of his quicker speech and repeated, “Was that Russian? Bends coughina? Do you know that broad?”
“Bez… nevermind.” Heavy waved his pronunciation away. He hadn't even noticed the switch in language. “I do not know every Russian.” As paranoid as the other customers had acted, he wondered if she had been trying to sniff him out as a Soviet spy. They'd said the word a few times, hadn't they? Nothing about him was stealthy, and he couldn't exactly hide his origins in any situation where he had to speak. That only left the possibility that she had been trying to be nice to him by using language he'd better understand, and in his experience, people weren't just nice to you for no reason. “Perhaps we pay for coffee and leave?”
Scout groaned, “Without breakfast? There's nothing else for miles, man, you heard that trucker.” He punctuated his protest with a drink of coffee and an exaggerated sigh of satisfaction.
Heavy looked down into his cup as Scout began dumping sugar from the canister into his mug. It was the same coffee she'd given her other customers. He considered “accidentally” smashing the mug, just so he could watch where she pulled them from.
“No, we should go.” This interaction had just been too strange. He pushed the coffee away from him. The attached gas station probably had the same coffee, but he could choose his own paper cup.
“Hev-” Scout nearly tripped trying to follow Heavy as he stood up and started for the door. “Heavy. Stop! We already ordered. They're working on the food right now, just wait.” He tugged on Heavy's forearm, who wouldn't have slowed if he wasn't worried about Scout hurting himself trying to stop him. He pulled out his wallet a few feet from the register, right in front of the doors to the kitchen. He waved a bill and set it exaggeratedly on the counter in front of the observers.
The doors burst open. Heavy caught a brief look at the two hiding in the kitchen as the waitress burst out. One looked younger than Scout and was wearing a white shirt spotted with grease stains; the other was older even than Heavy and was dressed in a suit and fedora. They locked eyes with him before both ducking away out of sight.
The waitress was waving a thick paperback at Heavy, “Wait! Umm,” she looked back down at the book, «Eggs.»
Heavy ducked down to look at the book she was waving at him. It was an English-to-Russian phrase book.
“Sorry,” Scout stepped between them, “Sorry. Any way we can get that grub to go?”
That diffused the anxiety on the woman's face, “Ah, of course. Bill’s real sorry for the delay. It doesn't usually happen, he's just,” she glanced at Heavy again. “He's new. It's his first breakfast rush.” She consulted the book again, flipping with a shaking hand, “Is vinny.”
Heavy raised his hands defensively. “Is fine,” he reluctantly grumbled. He put a few more bills on the stack, more than enough to cover their breakfast and a bit more for the trouble he wasn't sure how he caused. “I will get gas.” Scout let him go again without protest.
He was able to indicate the gas he wanted without words; being the only car at the pumps helped greatly.
He leaned against their car and watched the numbers on the pump go up. It was rare that there wasn't an attendant available to pump your gas, but he couldn't imagine a more boring job in a place like this. At least it was quiet, and the air still clung to the nighttime coolness of the desert here in the shade.
“Yo!” He could hear the slap of Scout’s shoes and the crinkle of paper as he ran closer. “I dunno if there's silverware in here or not, so I'm gonna run into the station and see if they have any.”
Heavy turned to look at the paper bag he put on the passenger car seat. There were paper takeout containers labeled in shaky Cyrillic. Or, it looked like they'd tried. “You ordered more food?”
“Wha- no. They just put our stuff in the doggy bags.” Scout lifted the lid on the top container, “Man, that's a lotta sausage. Maybe we did scare ‘em.”
Heavy sighed, pulling the nozzle out of the car. Scout was already inside the convenience store when he turned around to ask more, so he climbed into the driver's seat.
The car already smelled amazing. Heavy's stomach growled loudly, reminding him he hadn't eaten since lunch yesterday. That, of course, reminded him that Scout hadn't eaten since yesterday either.
Scout was passing one of the big plate windows with his arms full of cans. He stopped by a display near the door, and Heavy took his chance. He pulled out a few of the containers, barely able to make out what they had intended to write. The heaviest container held what he was looking for: the potatoes Scout had recommended. He quickly tipped half the container into the box with the sausage links, nearly filling it to the top. Scout was right, he noticed distantly, trying to restack the boxes. American portions were already generous, but they had been laden down with breakfast. They could probably feed two other people with this, even with Heavy and Scout’s large appetites.
Everything looked undisturbed by the time Scout was coming out with a bag in each hand.
“Hey, if we gotta stay another night, they got an impressive amouta booze. Like, imported vodka and stuff.” From the look of his bags, he hadn't bought any. Heavy craned his neck to look at the store again. It looked like any little gas station he'd seen since moving to the deserts of America.
“Hmm,” he put the car in drive and brought them back across the street.
Scout took the little writing desk to eat while Heavy moved his containers to the nightstand.
“I'm not sure it's your flavor, but I got you something,” Scout rummaged through his bags, pulling out a garish yellow can of Bonk. Heavy was about to politely decline when Scout threw a different can at him. He let it hit the bed and roll down beside his leg before picking it up. “You ever have a moo-cha before?”
It was canned coffee. What an invention.
“What does this mean?” Heavy pointed at the MOCHA FLAVOR tag.
“Moo-cha, it means moo chocolate. My brother was a soda jerk, and he used to make them by putting chocolate syrup in the coffee.” Scout pulled out a bundle of paper napkins and wrapped plastic cutlery.
Heavy cracked the can open. It was chilly to the touch, and part of him expected American magic to make the coffee inside hot. It was cold as it rushed under his tongue, and very, very sweet. Something about it was very Scout; unexpected and too sugary. It was incredibly thoughtful of him to grab him anything, so he kept any criticisms to himself. “Is nice. Thank you, Scout.”
His thousand-watt smile warmed Heavy's heart. He ducked and turned to his food. It had cooled off during the wait and was now just on the wrong side of warm. He didn't care; he barely tasted it once his body remembered how hungry it was. The fluffy eggs and crusty steak finally registered as delicious once the memory of the roaring winter hunger died down in his body. Scout was doing unspeakable things with ketchup on his eggs, but he hadn't been wrong to suggest the potatoes. “Good food,” Heavy said, resting back against the wall behind his bed. He tried another sweet sip of mocha, but wasn't sure how he liked it with the savory steak.
Scout said something with a mouth full of food. He did his best to follow the story, but Scout wasn't telling it linearly, even between bites. Still, the company was nice enough, or the food had put him in a good mood.
“... Pretty sure Big Mike split town with the insurance money. Ma says she still smells the waffles when we drive past, though.” He drained the last of his Bonk, “Anyway, you think Spy’s still on call duty?”
Heavy didn't see the connection between those two thoughts. “Perhaps. I will call, then you can take over for evening check-in, da?”
Scout nodded, the last of Heavy's potatoes in his mouth.
“Yes?!” A harsh American voice barked over the line, though the screen still showed a black blank.
“Ey! Solly!” Scout wiped his mouth and hopped on the bed beside Heavy. “Flip the screen over, knucklehead.”
They caught a glance of Medic with his bloody hands inside Demo before the camera settled on Soldier's eyes peeking out from under his helmet. “Scout? Are you in a hotel room with Heavy?”
Scout set the screen on the nightstand where it could see both of them, “Well, yeah. I toldja I got a top secret mission from-”
“Heavy!” Medic shouted from offscreen. He always sounded like he was in a good mood mid-surgery, but he sounded positively delighted to have his friend call in.
Heavy couldn't help but smile back, “Doktor. Is Demoman okay?”
There was a clatter of surgical instruments into a tray, “Nein, stay.”
“Heavy! Heavy!” Demo sounded okay, unusually lucid, but otherwise normal. “Ye were right! I dinnae get all that arrowhead. Good call getting it checked, lad.”
Heavy nodded, but Scout interjected, “Didn't you respawn during that fight?”
There was a beat of silence before the two scientists burst into chatter across three different languages. Soldier cocked his head, then tilted his helmet up to look down at them.
“How is your vacation, Scout and Heavy?” Soldier asked nonchalantly. Heavy still wasn't quite sure what to make of the man. Scout seemed more at ease with his fellow Offensive teammate and took over the talking.
“I toldja, man, it's not a vacation. It's a mission.” Scout flopped back dramatically, “Didn't Spy tell you about it when he gave the thing over?”
“Yes,” Soldier said confidently, but he didn't elaborate.
Before Heavy could let his anger get the better of him, Medic appeared on one side of Soldier with a newly healed Demo buttoning his shirt on the other. “How's the mission then, boys?”
“Delayed, we need to know if we are renting room for another day,” Heavy barrelled this conversation towards productivity. They could easily get caught in this vacation/mission loop until it was time for the six pm check-in.
“Ah, Spy seems quite worried about this,” Medic said thoughtfully. “The main thing he has stressed to tell you is that you need to stay put.”
“It was good to see ya, good luck.” Demo tugged on Soldier's collar, “We're on call duty later, so we'll talk to ye then.” They hightailed it out of the infirmary. Heavy noticed Medic hadn't washed his hands clean of blood yet as he adjusted the screen.
“Apologies. Yes. Spy did leave a long letter about what I was supposed to tell you if you called.” Medic left a bloody fingerprint on said letter, “I won't read everything, of course.” His eyes scanned over the letter, frown deepening. “Mein Gott, Spy, hol dir Therapie…” he muttered under his breath. “Ahem… Basically, stay put. So, ja, rent another night. If you think it is safe.” Heavy doubted that the last line was in the letter.
“Nowhere else to go, Doc. Just this for miles,” Scout cut in.
He hadn't given it much thought when their stay was only supposed to last a few hours, but there was something vulnerable about these four flimsy walls after living in a literal fortress for the past nine months. They didn't even have the veneer of civilization to keep the peace. “I am bringing in Sasha if we stay another night.”
Medic leaned back in his chair, looking over where Heavy knew the infirmary door to be, “Well, the instructions say specifically not to let you do that. But you are the heavy weapons guy, so I will leave that decision to you.” Heavy handed the screen unit to Scout and looked through the gauzy curtain at the mostly empty parking lot. There were a few cars across the street, but once again, he was glad there was no attendant at the pumps. Medic was still talking to Scout behind him, the younger man seeming much more relaxed with the doctor now that there were hours of featureless desert between them.
Heavy let the door close behind him, cutting him off from his team. For the first time in years, Heavy thought about the cats that had kept their farm pest-free. Well, about one cat. Little Kikimora was Mama's favorite, though Papa protested bringing a cat into the house with newly born Yanina, doubly one who was named after a spirit who snuck into cribs to strangle sleepers.
He wasn't around enough to enforce his rule.
Once Misha was finally brave enough to approach the cat keeping his Mama company while they waited up to see if Papa was coming home tonight. Kikimora was a terror in the barn after Papa threw her out. He had scars to this day that were the fierce little cat’s legacy, but she was never like that with Mama.
He asked her then how she'd tamed the beast purring in her lap, and she'd just laughed, trying to explain in a way he might understand.
«Some people don't do well in crowds, little Bear. Is someone more themselves when they're scared?»
A month later, Papa was dead, the farm and all their animals were state property, and their surviving family was on their way to their labor camp. He had plenty of chances to think about his mother's words there, wondering if the other boys who were trained and broken with him were who they really were. He wasn't.
Heavy reverently pulled Sasha out of her secret compartment, which felt like reuniting with his right arm.
Scout was still talking away at Medic, who was sanitizing his tools, nodding every once in a while to indicate he was still somewhat present in this conversation.
“... caught the rabbit that ate all the eggplants so Ma planted stuff in buckets the year after that but then the…”
“Scout. Go get weapon now.” Heavy sat Sasha down at the end of his bed. The sudden dip in the mattress finally got Scout up and stumbling towards the door.
“Alright, alright, sheesh…” He darted out the door, then doubled back for the car keys.
Medic waited for Heavy to pick him up. “How is it really going, Kamerad?”
“Strange.” Heavy glanced towards the diner again, “Citizens either really like Russians or really hate them. Still working on that.”
Medic hummed, drying his hands on the front of his coat, “I'll have Engineer or Ms. Pauling look for different accommodations in the area. Spy seems…” He trailed off.
“He is first handler for off-base mission,” Heavy said gently, digging deep to try and find some saving grace for the man.
“He worries about Scout, I think. The rest of us were, ah, killers? Before we were hired?” Heavy nodded. It might not be the right word, but he knew what he was getting at. “Ja, Scout is inexperienced, comparatively.”
That made a kind of sense, he supposed, even though Scout had proven himself pretty quickly on the battlefield. He thought about Kikimora again. “We teach little man to play chess. Spy’s face would be very funny.”
Medic laughed at his non-sequitor, “Sounds like you two are getting along then.” He looked down at Spy’s instructions again, lapsing into a comfortable silence.
Scout slammed the door, making Heavy and Medic jump. He was holding his bat in one hand and cross-body bag in the other.
“Well, I had better go update Spy and Ms. Pauling on the decision to rent the room another night. Demo will call at seventeen hundred if we find anything else in the area.”
Heavy turned the screen so Medic and Scout could say goodbye to each other. The device had gotten hot in his hands over the course of the long call. They probably shouldn't use it anymore until the call this evening.
“So… the plan is to stay here?” Scout pulled his shotgun out of the bag and checked for ammo. No hidden caches or dispensers out here.
“Da. I will go get room for tonight.” Heavy pushed himself off the bed, then stopped, “Come, little Scout, we go together.”
Scout hopped off the bed, failing to cover the shock at being invited along instead of just attaching himself to the situation. He didn't stop smiling as they walked to the office.
Heavy held the door open for Scout, who easily ducked under his arm. The night receptionist was gone, replaced with an older woman knitting as she watched a TV hidden under the counter. “Oh! Good morning…” she glanced at the guest book, then pulled it closer and looked again.
“Red.” Scout supplied.
“Good morning, Reds then. Turning in your key?” she asked, setting the knitting aside.
“Extending stay another night.” Heavy wielded the company card like a shield.
She didn't react as poorly as Heavy had feared, but she did double-check the name on the reservation, “Oh, of course, Mister… Red.”
“Is company name,” he said automatically, defensively, guiltily. It didn't seem to help matters. Neither did Scout's look of sympathy. He wasn't a spy!
She stood, cowing the giant with her diminutive size and steely look. Scout stepped between them, but she interrupted whatever he was going to say, “Should we just keep your card on file then?” Oh. He nodded, handing it over.
She made an engraving of the card and made him sign it.
“Michael Shu…give?” His handwriting wasn't the best either, not in this foreign script. “Why does that sound familiar?” she asked, nearly inaudibly.
“Close enough, yes. Hard to,” he searched desperately for the right word, “Latin? To make Latin?” He handed over his ID with the card. It was only lightly modified, since Spy insisted he use his real name. He realized, belatedly, this was probably the first time Scout had heard it. He was trying to catch a glimpse of the card as he put it back in his wallet.
The same anxiety was building in his chest from last night. Why was it so hard to interact with service workers?
The woman looked back at the key wall behind her; only their room key was currently missing. “I'll let housekeeping know you've extended your stay. Leave the dirty towels on the beds if you go out, and I'll have the girls bring you fresh ones.”
That was everything taken care of until this evening, then. This would normally leave Heavy a few hours of reading and a few hours of maintenance with Engie, or maybe chess with Medic, or cooking with Demo. Right now, the hours stretched into a question mark, cutting away the comforting stability of routine.
Scout pushed his bangs out of his eyes when they stepped back into the sunlight. He'd been doing that all day yesterday, too. “Perhaps there is barber nearby?”
Scout shoved his hands into his pockets, “What? Why would you need a barber? No offense.” He wasn't very convincing.
“You were in Teufort two days ago. Why did you not get haircut then?” Heavy asked, ignoring the bait.
Scout fidgeted with the dog tags under his shirt, “I dunno if you've been in town lately, but those people do not like us.”
Heavy let him into the room first. “What happened?” he asked flatly.
“Don't you start,” Scout snapped. “It wasn't my fault. I didn't do anything to the freaking barber guy, okay? He just pushed me out of the shop and told me not to come back.”
That didn't sound like the whole story. He took a deep breath, breaking the information down into manageable chunks. “I am sorry, did not mean to say it was Scout's fault.”
The younger man stood in the center of the room, “Yeah, whatever.” He finally decided to sit at the desk again, bundling his leftovers into one box. Heavy took a moment to do the same.
The silence stretched, twisting into a wall between them. Scout, naturally, was the one who found a way through it.
“Your name's Michael?”
Heavy looked up from where he was sorting through the detritus that made up their decoy luggage. “No. A little?” He piled the books he'd found onto a corner of the TV stand. “Mikhail. Dzugaev. Woman at desk knows, so I guess you should know too.”
He repeated the words a few times with Scout until he had the pronunciation down. He hadn't even asked for a shorter, easier-to-pronounce name. It meant more to Heavy than he expected it to.
“Jeremy,” he said unexpectedly. “My name, it's Jeremy.”
“Jeremy,” Heavy repeated dutifully. “Do you want me to call you this while we're on mission?”
The young man gave that some thought, then nodded, “I mean, it's no big deal, you know?” It certainly sounded like a big deal.
Heavy just nodded, turning back to his work. No chessboard, nothing to cook with, or anything to cook on, but he could scrape together a pretty good gun maintenance kit. Scout, Jeremy, turned the TV on and pulled a notepad and pencils out of his bags and lay back on his bed.
The silence this time was comfortable as the hottest hours passed by outside.
As the afternoon started to pass into early evening, someone knocked at their door. Scout had passed out with his drawing pad over his face. Heavy had no idea how he managed to sleep at all after that Bonk.
A man in a nicer suit was standing outside their door with an arm full of towels. Alarm bells rang in Heavy's head, but he nodded politely in greeting. He'd been hiding in the kitchen of the diner, Heavy realized, recognizing the fedora tilted back on his head.
“Dobryy den, Mr. Dzugaev.” His pronunciation was surprisingly good. “I would have been by to greet you personally, but we weren't expecting you for another day.”
“Ah, perhaps company gave wrong day when making reservations?” He stayed in the doorway, blocking the view of Sasha on his bed and the sleeping Scout on the other.
After not being invited in, the man eventually just handed him the stack of towels. “Oh, mistakes happen,” he said with a forced joviality, “But I hope you were pleased with our regular operation.”
How did he keep finding himself in social situations? “Yes, no complaints,” he answered shortly, ready to end this interaction.
“And you'll pass this on to your… family?” The man stressed the request, making it sound more like a plea.
“Family, yes. I will tell everyone I know about Knight Inn.”
The man turned sharply on his heel. “Please let us know if there's anything we can do to make your stay better.” He marched off towards the office.
Heavy turned to find Jeremy right behind him. “Some service, huh?” He reached for the towels, but Heavy carefully shouldered past him.
“Seems like owner might be Russian,” he said, setting the towels on the flimsy rack in the corner of the bathroom. “Would explain a lot, like fancy vodka.”
Scout pushed the hair out of his eyes, “So, we getting wasted tonight?”
“Wasted? Killed?” Heavy pulled a towel off the stack and snapped it open.
Scout gave him the entire history of Thirsty Thursday, a sacred high school tradition, or rite of passage, or something that just passed into half-stories that devolved into other half-stories as he tried to explain the cast of characters.
Heavy led him back into the main room and pulled the desk chair in front of his bed. The story didn't stop until Scout was sitting in the chair with the towel draped over his shoulders, “Wait, what's going on?”
Heavy set a sharp pair of scissors and a comb on the nightstand. “I'm cutting your hair.”
Scout shrugged off the towel, “I was thinking of maybe growing it out.” He pulled his shirt off anyway and threw it towards his bed. Heavy grabbed it off the pillow and gave it a few folds while Scout rewrapped the towel. With that itch scratched, he positioned himself on the bed with the chair between his knees.
“You need to see to fight, have the rest of your lifetime to grow it out.” He ran the comb through Scout’s hair, watching the warm light catch his sun-bleached highlights.
Scout tilted his head where Heavy pushed it, “No offense, but…”
“Used to do this for sisters,” he cut him off by pulling the hair straight with the comb and cutting off the end. No going back now.
“So, your name is Mikhail and you got sisters, huh?” That was more than most of his team knew about him, he realized uncomfortably, carefully lining up the next chunk of hair to be even with his first cut.
“I do not like to talk about them, hurts,” Heavy said.
So, Jeremy filled the silence with his seven brothers instead. Life hadn't been easy for their family either, Heavy had gathered that already, but some of the stories reminded him a little too much of the scared children sent to become fighters and killers in the boys’ camp; fighting for survival even when you weren't sure there would be enough of you left to carry on.
Heavy only stopped him to clarify which brother he was talking about, or to rotate the chair. The constant stream of information was a bit exhausting, but it certainly made time pass faster. Before he knew it, it was time for their pre-check-in check-in. “Okay, go to bathroom mirror and tell me what you think before I finish.”
He pulled the hair towel up carefully, trying not to spill too much before he got to the trash can. The screen whined and clicked behind him, finally tuning in from Teufort. Demo was standing with Spy in his smoking room, a map spread on the table between them. “Heavy!” Demo greeted him warmly, seemingly no worse for wear from his earlier surgery.
“Where is Scout?” Spy sighed, tapping his cigarette out in a pewter ashtray.
“I'm here,” Scout ran his fingers through his short strands, sitting back in the chair. “Yeah, I like it.” Heavy took his seat back on the bed, looking for obviously uneven spots.
“I'm glad you two are enjoying your little vacation,” Spy snapped, “but some of us have been working on fixing this little problem!”
Heavy felt Scout shrink under his hands. “What do you want us to do? You say stay, we stay! We want to finish mission and leave good impression too,” he bit back an insult. That wouldn't help them here. “Okay, hair is done. Shake off towel outside.”
“We're wasting time,” Demo cut in. “We didn't find any other hotels in the area. Dunno where the locals buy clothes or anything either, because other than a few houses along the way, there's nothing out there.”
“In Russia, sometimes there is just one trading post for a dozen families,” odd here, but not an unsolvable mystery.
“Aye? We used to have to travel quite a way to the nearest store, too. Kept gardens and livestock for essentials,” Demo gave him an easy smile through the screen.
Spy rolled his eyes, “Fantastic, anyway…” He waited until Scout was back in frame. “I'm calling this off. This has been a waste of everyone's time and valuable resources, including several informants who will need to be replaced.”
It was the expected call, but that didn't make the two wasted days easier to swallow. Three, with the return trip tomorrow eating up most of their day too. Silence hung over both rooms.
“What went wrong?” Scout ran a hand absently through his shorter hair.
“I would prefer to discuss this in person.” Spy lit another cigarette, “But…”
The roar of motors outside solidified and drowned out their conversation. Headlights, one after the other after the other painted the far wall, barely dimmed by the provided curtain. Scout pulled his shirt back on and went to check the window.
“Sweet rides,” he reported, unhelpfully.
“Could be nothing,” Demo cautioned.
“Lay low and return to base,” Spy ordered.
Heavy wasn't listening to any of them. It wasn't an accident that he let Sasha sing before shooting sometimes. Sometimes, fear was a great defensive weapon.
“Scout, do doors open up?”
“Yeah, ain't ever seen a gullwing in person. Wait, you could tell that from the muffler?” It was impossible to see his expression from where he was backlit by headlights.
“No.” Heavy turned back to the screen, “I will maybe see you soon in Respawn.” He pulled the cord from the jack before the two men could respond. “Pack, Scout, pack now.”
There was nowhere to hide Sasha. He wasn't sneaking her out to the car with the halo of headlights out there right now, and leaving her behind wasn't an option.
He took her into the bathroom, holding up his arm, looking for the draft again. Behind the mirror? It pulled off, revealing a narrow corridor that appeared to be studded at regular intervals with black glass. He did not let his mind process what he was seeing, only wondering if they'd need to burn down the gas station as well as the motel.
No, not if it meant stranding drivers without fuel.
“Consider everything we say today compromised,” he told Scout, passing him on his way towards the door. He grabbed the case with his plates as they passed the decoy luggage.
“Heavy? Mikhail! What's going on?” Scout followed him out the door.
“Dzugaev?!” He pushed Scout behind him, and the office door burst open. An older man, short but muscular, caught sight of him immediately.
«Mikhail? I thought you were dead.» The headlights around them dimmed and went out, leaving it no easier to see than before for the men across the parking lot.
«Pakhan Kasaevich,» he answered warily. «What are you doing here?»
The older man rushed to meet him. He hadn't seen his face in years; even his mother hadn't had his picture up the last time he'd made it through the Iron Curtain.
«Bear, my dear, is this how you treat family these days?» He stopped a few feet short, waiting for his dutiful nephew to come to him.
That Misha had died though, one of many little deaths he'd suffered in his life, literal and metaphorical. He held his ground, staying firmly between his uncle and teammate.
“Uh, what's-”
“Hush,” he tried to move him backwards towards their door.
“Who is this?” The Pakhan’s English was better than his own, though keeping his accent has been a point of pride for the man. “Oh, My Bear, your mother did worry about America perverting you…” He couldn't remember what that word meant, but from Scout’s sputtering shock, he thought he got the gist.
«Leave him out of this,» he meant for it to come off as dismissive, but the anger bled through.
«You left The Family for this child? To take a boyfriend?» Oh, right. That's what it meant.
«I left after finding everyone in the safe house dead, slaughtered in a massacre you brought down on them,» he reminded his uncle. «I bore enough of your sins for one hundred lifetimes.»
“Just tell me what's going on,” Scout had been pushed inside the room now.
«At least your mother will be spared the knowledge of your treachery, thinking you died upholding your father's values…» Heavy saw the knife coming a mile away. He was just waiting for the monologue to be done, really. He was stabbed by people with much more finesse and stealth than this a hundred times a week. He blocked it easily with the case in his hands and slammed the door between them.
“Cliff Notes,” Scout said, slotting ammo into his gun.
“No, Pakhan Ivan Kasaevich. Pakhan, it's like Don? Sir?” He'd caught Scout watching gangster movies a few times, but never stuck around long during them. He'd seen enough of that already. He struggled to pull his armor over his head. The added weight and protection felt like an extra wall between Kasaevich’s Enforcer and the Heavy Scout was relying on.
“I mean, give me the short version, what was all that?” They'd moved into the bathroom, where Scout’s jaw dropped seeing the hidden corridor. “I knew I heard something last night!”
“Yes, owner is bad man. Pakhan is bad man. I am bad man. Now you are caught up.” Heavy offered him a boost up onto the sink.
“Whoa, so what he was saying about you being…” he gestured to the hole he was crawling through.
“No, focus Scout.” He passed him the baseball bat, “Smash through other mirror and go around. Quickly, they might be sneaking in to do the same and surround us.” He picked up Sasha, letting her beautiful song cover the sound of glass breaking.
“Hurry up, man,” Scout held out a hand through where the mirror would be. Heavy spared only a thought for what kind of metaphor that would be before thinking of his mother's cat again. What happened to her after the officers tore through their farmhouse? He hoped she escaped.
“I cannot fit, Jeremy.” As loyal as she was, he wasn't sure she would have tried. He knew who she was when she was content and comforting and when she was frightened and stressed. If any of their animals had survived the raid, he was sure she'd be among them.
He knew who he was, soaked in blood with the warm beam of the medigun at his back, who he was when he had nothing left to lose, and who he was when he had something worth protecting. He was Misha, Mikhail, Heavy all at once, made of his past and shaped by current friends. No part of him was going to let his uncle and his goons take another step closer to his new home. “Go!” he roared without looking back.
The door smashed to pieces in the other room, and he hurried out as fast as he could with Sasha spinning in his arms. The blonde with the shotgun standing in the splinters didn't have a chance. He fell under Sasha’s wrath.
With the headlights earlier, he wasn't sure how many people had come with his uncle. As many as sixteen to twenty could fit in the cars they'd brought, depending on how much they cared for comfort over numbers.
No dispensers, no caches, no medigun, no guarantee of respawn if he fell. No team either, which meant he had to change how he thought about fighting.
He'd been in their shoes before, and doubted his uncle had changed much just because he lost an entire house-worth of underlings, including, apparently, his nephew.
Being big, muscular, Russian, and well-armed took you far in a fight, or in cowing an old Jewish couple in Colorado into breaking the lease on their bookstore because you wanted to put a bar beside your illegal gambling hall/laundry. He missed that bookstore.
The first shot was from too far away, scattering buckshot loosely across the broken doorway. The gun racked and shot again, coming clearly from behind the headlights to his left.
A threat, but that was all it was at the moment. He sprayed a few rounds that way, damaging one of the headlights. He didn't move into the doorway, though. Someone tried the same strategy from the right, but he didn't bother moving to shoot this time. That might have been a second person, or it might have been the first moving into another position.
The stalemate dragged on, feeling much longer due to the tension than it likely actually was. He waited to see what they'd try next. After a few more exchanged rounds, someone turned off the headlights, one car at a time. That might mean fewer than four people out there now; it might just be a ruse. He let Sasha wind down.
It was quiet, and in that brief interlude, he could hear someone moaning in pain. It was too deep to be Scout; he'd fought and died beside him often enough to know that intellectually. That same well of anxiety built in his throat, though. Scout. He had let him down spectacularly. His past had caught up to them in this stupid island of civilization in the middle of nowhere; it was only his fault if the young man got hurt. Every harsh word Spy had said about him rang through his head. Sasha purred in his hands again, and he emerged into the dusk.
A shot exploded the wood beside his head, cutting him with shrapnel. A sharp command rang out, and several guns racked around him.
«If you weren't my brother's only son, I’d have you cut down here and now,» in front of his underlings, his uncle was playing up the role again. They hadn't seen his cowardly attempt at a backstab.
The parking lot lights were buzzing and warming up, slowly revealing the older man in the suit lying on the ground. His face was starting to bruise, and he appeared to be making the quiet sounds of pain. The waitress, cook, day and night desk women, and gas station attendant were all clustered off to the side, looking nervously from gun to gun.
«Then let them go. They aren't part of this.» Even in his native tongue, he wasn't good at these kinds of negotiations. His job had always been a meat shield or gunner. «What are you even doing this far south?»
His former Pakhan was fully showboating for his hirelings. He looked back at them, and Heavy caught a hint of a smirk as he spun to face him. He hadn't been like this when Heavy was working under him. The decadent Hollywood movies he'd rail loudly against whenever Heavy or one of his crew were caught talking about a new movie or show seem to have found their way onto his screen in the end after all.
«Revenge, child, revenge for my fallen men. What I thought you would have been doing if you'd lived through the attack,» he paused dramatically, turning his back fully on Heavy and towards his current crop of recruits. With a lurch in his stomach, Heavy realized how young they all looked. None of the goons could have possibly been alive for the Russia his uncle idolized. What was this life offering them? After walking along the line, the Pakhan selected a gun from one of the men.
«Did you betray us, Mikhail? Did you sell out your brothers like your father was sold out?» He aimed the gun in his direction, keeping his finger off the trigger. The gang moved closer, pushing their prisoners along with them. The man on the ground was kicked to get him going.
Heavy scanned for Jeremy again, but he couldn't see beyond the approaching line. He wasn't sure what he was giving the scout time for; they hadn't let people escape when he'd been on the crew. Maybe he was enough of a prize for them to forget that he hadn't been alone? He set Sasha down on the cleanest patch of gravel he could find. «I went looking for revenge. I did track down the woman who attacked us.» All eyes are on him now, his voice commanding the battlefield instead of Sasha's. «And she told me how you started it. The people we went after…» He lost his voice momentarily; he had never spoken about this outside of the safehouse where he'd eventually tracked Ms. Pauling down. «I tried to pretend it wasn't true, and that the people we were going after were the Communists who killed Papa and tortured us.»
His shoulder plate absorbed most of the impact from the shot. It had caught him by surprise, though, and he stumbled back into the doorway. Stupid. He was standing here trying to explain himself to his uncle like he'd just thrown a ball too hard at his cousins. Now even Sasha was out of reach because of his foolishness. Slowly, the ringing in Heavy's ears died down enough to catch the sobbing of the woman from the restaurant. Did she know about the tunnel and two-way mirrors in the hotel rooms? Did his mother know that her brother-in-law tried to connect with a group of Nazis when he made it to America?
Did his father?
Misha- his parents’ oldest son, M. Dzugaev- trained killer who turned the lessons of the camp guards against them, Bear the Enforcer- Pakhan Kasaevich’s most terrifying soldier; ghosts of his past that he worked to bury rose up to clutch at him and steal his resolve and focus. He just had to get to Sasha again. Her unchanging metal was the only comfort that could pull him out of this spiral. Another shot sprayed gravel past the doorway, and the crying faded under the laughter of the mob. He'd been cornered and unarmed at the mercy of a cruel mob before. It was one of his least favorite experiences on the battlefield, and here he couldn't send himself back to respawn.
Another shot, harder laughter. Heavy struggled to gather what was left of his resolve before the fight came to him again. His legs seemed to disagree with this course of action, and he had to lean against the wall just to stay upright.
“Think fast, chucklenuts!” The hollow metal clang of a bat against flesh cut the laughter off in a hurry. Jeremy's voice cut through the memories like Sasha through BLUs. He suddenly found his reason to fight.
It was over before his mind fully caught up with his hands. The gun wound down, smoke drifting from the barrel. Half of the young men had surrendered immediately, only to have their Pakhan turn on them. Jeremy had gotten to him before Heavy could turn and he lay sprawled across the gravel.
His friendship with Medic had left Heavy with some emergency first aid skills, though there wasn't much he could do for some of the young men. Surprisingly, Jeremy was able to hop in and help. “What? I had to hide some’a my scrapes from Ma growing up.” Between the two of them, they at least got the shaken employees up on their feet. Jeremy had scraped both of his knees pretty badly by jumping dramatically off the roof in his initial attack. He was more annoyed that it had torn his pants. Heavy had absorbed a few hits with his plates, but he didn't realize he was bleeding until Jeremy turned the first aid kit on him.
“No, is fine.” He tried to push him off, but Jeremy was too fast and agile to be dodged for long. Heavy wound up on his back with Jeremy straddling him to clean the wound on his shoulder. He should have felt more embarrassed, but he'd gone through so many emotions in the past quarter hour that there wasn't anything left but exhaustion. He closed his eyes while the younger man worked on wrapping the injury with slower, clumsier fingers than he was used to. It wasn't the worst way to let his adrenaline finally crash.
His uncle hadn't died, of course, but the moment they turned their back on the motel owner, he had called the cops. They barely had time to throw all their things in the car and wipe the room down before the sirens were cutting through the pitch black night. They peeled out before they even finished the argument about whether or not to set the motel on fire.
Jeremy stuck his entire torso out of the window, watching the police cars and ambulances paint the parking lot with light again. He finally dropped back into the seat when they were out of sight. “Okay. What the fuck was that? What just happened?”
Heavy pulled sharply onto the shoulder and threw the door open. It was too much. He filled his lungs with the cool night air and held it until the nausea passed. A tentative hand patted the spot on his shoulder, right where his armor ended, bringing him back to the present.
“We need to fix car in case police come this way. Hide guns, hide anything with blood.” The door clicked open behind him as Jeremy fell back into mercenary mode.
Their car had been far enough away from the carnage to avoid any suspicious damage, but the men themselves weren't able to do much but put extra clothes over their wounds. It itched terribly at Heavy's brain to stuff Sasha into her secret compartment without cleaning and oiling her first. He left a lingering, thankful touch on her barrel before closing the seat.
Jeremy balanced the last suitcase on top of the pile, then turned it over to hide the larger bullet holes. “Gosh, I hope they let us try an off-base mission again. Next one has to go better, right?”
Heavy couldn't help the bark of laughter, which earned him a bright smile from Jeremy in return. “Yes. Hard to go worse. Good work, Scout. You are good teammate; good to have at back.” Jeremy's smile turned embarrassed as they piled back into the car.
“So, that guy got away though, huh? How much of a problem is that gonna be for us?”
Heavy rubbed his forehead, then started the car again. It would be easier to talk if he were expected to focus on the road, “Problem. Already looking for Team Fortress Industry, I think.” Was he? Ms. Pauling was very good at covering her tracks, and it'd been years since the attack on the safehouse. Six hours from Teufort was still too close for comfort. “Team will have to know.”
They were still a long way from civilization; they might have to call in the old-fashioned way from the next payphone. Heavy reached back to see if he could snag the bag with their phone screen.
Jeremy leaned back and scooted the bag into his hands. “Yeah, Spy's gonna be pissed that you kinda hung up on him.” Heavy groaned. “So… the guy mentioned your ma…”
“Yes.” He tucked the bag up under his seat. “How much did you understand?” He'd have to comb through this story for Spy and Pauling anyway; better to rip off the bandage now. He cracked the window, though, letting in the cold air to steady his winterborn nerves.
“You said he was a Mafia Don, kinda. The girls they had rounded up said something like that, like they thought you was part of it, being Russian and scary and there when he said he'd be visiting.” Scout cracked his window too, and Heavy wondered for a moment if Boston was ever covered in snow like his home was. “Heard ‘em while I was in that weird tunnel.”
“I… was.” He shifted in his seat, “Father and father's brother were part of resistance back in Russia.” His American experiences with his uncle had thrown all those memories into a murky mess. How did he pick through that mess for a stranger? He'd been in nearly this exact position before, in a silent kitchen in a frozen waste. He'd been in the position to ask the questions then, and still struggled for words. He struggled with his desire not to know, to keep his revolutionary, heroic, self-sacrificing father on his pedestal. The urge to let his mother bear the man's complexities alone, because what did his alleged beliefs, his uncle's beliefs, say about her?
Cowardice had won then, but now he was in the position of having to give answers instead of seeking them, and he couldn't hide this anymore.
“I am not… not with mob now. Uncle helped sneak me into America. Knew what Heavy…,” he glanced at Jeremy’s pale face. Maybe he didn't need to know what he'd done to the people who taught him violence in the Gulag. He censored the story, “Knew Heavy wanted to help Mama, get job and send money back so she stayed safe.”
Jeremy nodded to indicate that he was listening, but didn't interrupt. Of course, this was the time Heavy wanted a distraction from the young man the most.
“Uncle was doing illegal things, but he and Papa talked about breaking, uh,” the words danced right out of his reach, frustrating his attempts to keep his thoughts straight, “bad laws?” That was too flat an idea to encompass the revolution they used to talk about after they thought the children had gone to sleep. Scout kept staring out the window. No, at a smear of blood on the window, he realized as they passed under a street light.
“My brother had the same idea, kinda,” Jeremy said finally as Heavy looked for the rest of his story. “Ma had this fella when I was little, maybe first grade.” He caught himself, “Uh, that's maybe seven years old? I dunno what grade that is for you.” He shook his head, “Anyway, she had this fella. She's smart, and amazing, and an absolute saint, you know? But… I dunno, this guy? He was a real weasel. Came in flashy and got a ring on Ma’s finger real quick. Started making himself a fuckin’ dictator of the… no offense, fuckin' king, judge, and exec… anyway,” Heavy's confused noise was steamrolled under Jeremy's story. “Controlled the money Ma made herself, tried to kick out Jimmy when he hit 18, even though he can't really take care of himself…” he took a shaky breath. It hadn't occurred to Heavy that his teammates might also have families tucked away that they wanted to protect. Did Jeremy's mother wait up at night like his own had, first for his father, then in worry for him? Did she have a pet to keep her company?
“What happened?” he encouraged when his companion’s breathing had evened out.
“We hated ‘im. We all did. I think Ma did most of all. I don't know, I don't know what was going on in her head. First time I ever wished someone dead.” Jeremy's voice dropped, “I prayed for it.” He rubbed his eyes, and Heavy pretended not to notice. He barely breathed, not wanting to interrupt and lose this side of his teammate, “And I got him killed. Um, ran away from him when he started yelling at me one day, and he got mugged or stabbed or something when I was hiding down an alley. I was right there, and if I'd'a gone out when he started screaming again, the robber might have run, you know? I couldn't though, with the yelling." He scrubbed his wrists across his eyes, the wet tracks smeared across his face visible under the passing street lights. “And then after high school, I shot a guy in the face who was trying to kill me at work, and he was back trying to kill me a minute later.”
That was more familiar territory for Heavy. He couldn't remember the faces of all the people he'd killed anymore, but the first time he saw one come back, it was like, “Is different. Makes it game, almost, like playing pretend.”
Jeremy sighed, “You almost forget that coming back isn't how it's supposed to work.”
They both sat with that uncomfortable weight seeping into the new cracks in their armor.
“Doctor want to teach you chess,” Heavy blurted out suddenly. “And me. I want to teach you too. Is good game.” It wasn't what he wanted to say; he wasn't sure he had the words for that even in his mother tongue.
Jeremy seemed to catch a bit of his true feelings behind the offer, and let out a short nervous bark of laughter, “Yeah, yeah, alright. I wasn't sure you'd want to actually, you know, hang out again when you didn't have to.” He hesitated, then closed the distance to pat the back of his hand. “I'd like that, big guy.”
Misha couldn't guess if their blossoming friendship would actually last, but they'd always be bound together by what had happened at that inn. It was bloody, it was tragic, but it was something they'd survived together. For now, in this car that sped forever in the starlit night, they were together.