Chapter Text
Sometimes Spy even amazes himself. It's hard to do considering all he knows about his own ample skills and helpful equipment but there are times when he would stop and pat himself on the back for being so impressive. That is if he didn't have a job to do.
Now is one of those times. How can he not be proud of himself when he's the one BLU to make it this close to the RED’s base? He left the others in his dust, caught up in the mundanity of guns and bombs and other means of making each other as dead as possible. He'd managed to slip through the fray unnoticed and make it within sight of the RED base without so much as a tear in his suit.
He can see the entrance to the base where he knows the briefcase is being kept. The entry is clear though he has no doubt there's at least one sniper covering it from somewhere unseen. No matter. There's ample cover to be had until the last three or four yards and he's got his spytron to get him through there with no trouble. Another hour or so and he'll be back in BLU quarters complaining over today's miserable excuse for a dinner.
That's what he's thinking anyway, when the rocks on the ledge above him and shaken loose by a powerful explosion. He sees them coming and jumps to the side, certain he's clear of them until his leg is engulfed in agonizing pain.
Spy falls hard to the ground, barely managing to catch himself on his hands and avoid breaking his nose. He tries to stand, certain he's been seen only to fall again with a pained cry. Turning he sees that his leg, in addition to being at least broken, is trapped between two of the large rocks he'd thought he'd jumped free from.
"Oh, merde!" he mutters, trying to turn over and sit up to shift the rocks. The movement sends another shock of pain through his leg. There's no way he can move and trying to shift the rocks from this position is impossible.
Frantically he pulls his spytron out of his pocket and turns it on, rendering himself invisible. This close to the enemy base he has no choice but to try to stay hidden until an ally comes to save him.
As it turns out, he’s a better spy than he thought, because he really is the only BLU this close to the base. He uses his spytron sparingly because a fair share of REDs pour in and out of the entrance, but there isn’t a BLU in sight.
He tries to move the rocks again, only to collapse a different part of the pile and he causes a small land slide over his back. He cries out, but he’s lucky none of the rocks that fell were big enough to seriously hurt him. He has to cloak invisible in the next second to avoid being seen by a RED heavy, and has to leave the rocks digging painfully into his spine. The second he’s clear, he shoves them off his body with a curse.
He wiggles his cigarette case free of his trouser pocket. If he can disguise as a RED, maybe one will help him out and might even get him to a medic before he sneaks out. But, just his luck, when he opens the slightly bent case, the screen is cracked quite neatly in half. His spytron is useless if he can’t tell it which cloak to use with the remote device, so all he can do is use the button on the watch itself to turn himself invisible whenever necessary.
Forehead hot, he lays it down on the concrete under him with a loud groan. Why he ever agreed to be moved to the base in Colorado he’ll never know.
“The trees will be a nice scenery change, they said!” he complains. “The fresh air will do you good, they said!”
An hour passes with still no sign of anyone in BLU. More than three dozen reds of various ranks have come and gone but Spy has yet to see anyone in a blue uniform pass this way.
"Maybe they all forgot about ze briefcase," he muses to himself. "Per’aps they all fell and hit zeir ‘eads and woke up even stupider zan usual. ‘As no one noticed I'm missing?" he wonders.
"Do they think maybe I stopped and decided to ‘ave dinner with ze Red spy?" he complains, propping himself up on his elbows. He looks in his cigarette case but finds only one cigarette left. Best to save it for later, he might need it for warmth if no one finds him before night fall.
"Zis was my third best suit too. And now it's filthy if it isn't torn to shreds." he glances back at his throbbing leg and sees a tear up to his knee. "Just as I suspected. I better be reimbursed for zis. I agreed to risk my life for zis war, not my wardrobe."
He’s resorted to gently thudding his head against the concrete out of boredom – and to give him something to focus on other than the burning ache in his leg – when he hears a familiar voice.
Well. A familiar shout.
“Ha! Take that, maggots!”
His head snaps up. There can’t possibly be two people in the world with a voice like that. He twists and tries to look in the direction of the voice, but even if the rocks weren’t obscuring his vision, his leg prevented him from doing much twisting.
“Soldier!” he calls out, but his voice is swallowed up by an explosion from the American’s rocket launcher. He shields his eyes from a spray of dust, and realizes that it must mean the soldier is very close.
The next time he opens his eyes, he sees the soldier’s gunboats run right by. He calls out to him again, thickly this time from the dust that collected heavy on his tongue, but he’s out of sight in an instant, running right into the RED base shouting “charge!” even though nobody was actually following him. Spy curses and lays his face down again.
But then he hears noisy bootfalls, the soldier’s metal reinforced boots clanking loudly on the concrete and he lifts his head to see the man lifting his helmet and peering back around the corner of the corridor he’d just disappeared down. He must have heard him just in time.
“Spy! What in God’s name are you doing down there?” the soldier calls, hoisting his heavy rocket launcher up onto his shoulder and putting his free fist on his hip. “This is a war, we don’t have any time to take naps!”
"I am not 'ere by choice! I am trapped beneath zese cursed rocks!" Spy shouts back. "I was almost to ze base when a bomb went off and zey fell on me and broke my leg."
The soldier approaches and looks up at the ledge over the wide open arch that leads into the RED base. There’s a large chunk of rock missing, that much he can see. He looks down at the trapped spy and hums.
“You’re still laying down on the job. Pull your leg out of there and walk it off while I do the job you’re supposed to do!”
The spy stares. “Walk off a broken leg?”
“You heard me, private! Get moving!”
"Per'aps you do not understand what 'trapped' means. I am stuck. Caught, so to speak. I am pinned by a rocky cage. I am unable to remove myself," Spy snaps. "If I could get up and walk it off, believe me my dear soldier, I would."
The broad end of the soldier’s rocket launcher crunches against the dust on the concrete as he peers over the pile of rocks with a hum.
“Oh.” He says definitively. “Alright, hold still.”
“Thank goodness, are you going to – wait, what are you doing?” the spy splutters when the soldier picks up his rocket launcher and aims it at the pile of rocks.
“I’m gonna free you,” the soldier says as though it’s obvious, and loads a rocket into the barrel of the launcher.
"If you launch zat rocket I will kill you." Spy hisses. "I am not losing my leg because you are overzealous wiz your pyrotechnics."
“You’ll have to catch me first ya sorry one-legged bastard!” soldier exclaims proudly while he lines up his shot.
Spy growls "I will never come near you again. We will never speak, not even to ask you to pass ze salt at dinner. If I so much as glance at you it will be wiz nozing but contempt if you dare launch zat rocket."
He ducks his head when the rocket fires and holds his breath. He cries out as pain spirals up his leg into his spine, but when he flexes his toes, he finds them still attached. He whips his head around to see the rocks have been blasted right off his body. His mouth drops open.
“I think I know a little bit more about rocket physics than you do, buddy!” the soldier says triumphantly, nudging the spy’s head with the toe of his boot to get his attention.
"If you had been off by so much as a centimeter you could have cost me a leg if not my life!" Spy shouts, pushing himself up. His rage is enough to numb the pain in his leg until he is on his feet.
Once he's standing the pain returns with a vengeance and he finds himself crumbling to the ground with a shout. His leg is definitely broken, a compound fraction he's betting. It's going to be hell until they get him back to the medic.
"Why are you still standing zere?" He demands, glaring up at the soldier. "Go get ze case. I will be waiting when you get back."
The soldier salutes him before hoisting his gun up onto his shoulder. “Stay put,” he orders, as though Spy were really capable of getting up to leave. He trots off like a bull, and spy can hear him shouting and shooting at REDs deep into the base.
He drags himself to cover, his leg stinging the whole way. His spytron is really getting a workout today as he utilizes it to stay hidden from other REDs running out of the base to warn those out in the field that their case is being threatened.
By the time the soldier comes walking victoriously out of the base, he’s covered in so much blood he might be mistaken for a RED himself. He looks around for any sign of the spy before the shimmer of a cloak dropping gives him away, hidden under the low boughs of a pine tree.
“Still laying down on the job, I see!” he jeers at the Frenchman, reaching under the tree to grab him under the armpits and drag him out into the open so he can get a better hold on him.
"Ow, ow! Put me down you brute!" Spy yells until the Soldier stops and sets him down. He opens his mouth to prepare a new angry lecture on how to treat an injured comrade when he's suddenly hoisted into the soldier's strong arms like a blushing bride being carried across the threshold.
"If you ever mention zis to anyone," Spy hisses, teeth clenched against the pain. "I will not only deny it but I will make public several very embarrassing photos of you from your child'ood."
“I don’t have embarrassing childhood photos,” the soldier declares, one arm curled under the spy’s bottom to avoid holding his injured leg, the other cupped around his shoulders to keep him from sliding out of his arms. Spy’s hold tightens around the soldier’s neck to keep upright and he turns his head away to hide his red face. Carried like a child, how embarrassing.
The soldier jogs quickly across the field, making a beeline to the base while dodging the majority of the fighting. Most people don’t look at him twice because they see him carrying an injured comrade, and they don’t even notice the case strapped to his back right under his rocket launcher.
Spy wouldn’t ever admit that he was impressed. He himself weighed more than 150 pounds, and he knows how heavy those blasted cases can be, and the soldier’s gun alone weighs almost 70 pounds, and he’s trotting like he does it every day. Of course, the bull-headed buffoon probably does.
“You know, private, this wouldn’t happen if you would carry a real weapon to protect yourself!” soldier says, jarring the spy out of his thoughts.
"A real weapon to use against falling rocks?" Spy challenges. "If you baboons knew 'ow to aim your guns zis sort of zing wouldn't happen."
He shifts a little to curl closer to Soldier's broad chest to shield himself from debris from the fighting. He would never admit it but he felt safe in the soldier's arms, safer than he had in a long time, despite his injury.
"Besides," he adds, "Large guns are not meant for stealth."
“Ah, stealth schmealth!” the soldier barks. “I’ve never been stealthy a day in my life, and I still have both legs! You need a real gun, your pea shooter isn’t good for jack shit!”
"My 'pea shooter' ‘as saved my life and yours on multiple occasions. If it weren't for ze land slide I would have had ze case and been back hours ago. Zanks to stealth." Spy says proudly.
“Thanks to stealth nothing, bum leg!” the soldier shouts as he jumps off a ledge and takes the impact in his hips to avoid a rocket shot at them from several yards away. He crowds spy into the ledge they just jumped off to protect him from a few falling scattered rocks that bounce harmlessly off the soldier’s helmet and broad shoulders, and then he’s off again at a jaunty gait. “You need at least a shot gun!” he continues. “Something with real substance! Getting shot with your sissy gun feels like getting stung by a bee!”
Spy laughs. "You can only say zat because I 'ave not used it to kill you. It is perfectly functional zough I do prefer my knife. It is much better for sneaking about, instead of loud boorish weapons zat announce your presence to the 'ole world."
“Sneaking broke your leg and my loud boar weapon got me the case, so who is the real winner here, son?” soldier says as he slows from a jog to a brisk walk as they make it through the front entrance of the BLU base.
"Shut up. It was ze rocks zat broke my leg. Ze rocks zat fell because of rockets like yours. Maybe it was one of yours. Maybe zis is all your fault!" Spy accuses. "'ave you considered zat? No weapon could 'ave 'elped me out zere unless you want me to start carrying a crowbar or something I could have used to lever ze rocks off me. Now 'urry up. I want to get zis leg fixed now!"
“If you carried a gun like mine you could have rocket jumped your sorry butt out of there!” soldier walks a little more quickly, turning a corner to avoid a small battalion of RED scouts that go scurrying by without noticing them. “But no, you’ve got a butter knife and a BB gun!”
Spy sighs heavily, knowing Soldier will never let this argument end. "I will make you a deal. I will let you teach me how to use a real gun and I will see if I want one wiz me in battle."
The soldier stops so abruptly that spy’s leg wrenches and shoots a terrible pain up his spine. “Are you serious?” he asks, ignoring the spy’s shouts of pain.
"You beast be careful!" Spy shouts, eyes clenched tight in pain. "Why I ever let you touch me I do not know. I must 'ave been beyond reason from ze pain."
He takes a few breaths as the pain wears down and then slowly opens his eyes. "Yes I am serious. But I 'ave a condition. You will teach me about real guns and I will teach you to be stealthy."
“Now wait just a moment, son!”
“Do we ‘ave a deal?”
The soldier hums and grumbles and groans as they continue on their way to the medical bay. On the one hand, he could finally knock some sense into the namby-pamby spy! Teach him what it means to use a real weapon! Maybe pack some muscle onto his toothpicks-and-glue body! But on the other hand, he’d have to sneak around like a snake and shank people with a glorified sharp stick.
“Mmmh, alright,” he finally grumbles as they reach the bay. “But only if I get to go first!”