Work Text:
There's no goddamn way any of this is real.
You had joined the military because the recruiters at your high school were way too charming. You had stayed in the military because you figured out you were good at it, and you'd met some cool and interesting people. Approximately zero percent of your decision was impacted by the (apparently commonplace??) occurrence of a dodgeball tournament.
The recruiters should really lead with that.
Regardless of what led you to where you are now, you and about 50 of your coworkers (the vast majority of whom are scary Europeans) are standing around in the base's gymnasium.
Your boss just dumped out a cage of foam balls.
And then all hell broke loose.
Minutes pass, and you're not sure whether to be thrilled that some of your scary European coworkers seem to be absolute ass at dodgeball, or scared that the others apparently play professionally outside of work.
You narrowly avoid ejection by blocking Ace's sorry attempt at a throw, and duck for cover behind some rolled up wrestling mats.
"Hey."
You nearly shit yourself.
"Oh! Hey, 'liza," you hear what could either be bloodshed or an extreme makeout session from the court and decide to focus on the here and now with Ash. You give her your best seductive look. "Come here often?"
She does not laugh. Instead, she fakes like she's gonna throw the ball in her hands at you, and laughs when you flinch.
"I was going to see if you wanted to form an alliance with me, but now I'm getting second thoughts." she says, sitting next to you.
You ponder this unforeseen circumstance. Having been double-crossed at workplace bonding fuctions before (there's a reason you and Iana have beef), you ask, "What's the catch?"
Eliza snorts. "The catch is that I don't pummel you so bad even a kiss from Doc won't make your boo-boos better." She leans in close, and you catch yourself thinking, are we about to kiss? before she's continuing, "You're either with me, or you're against me."
"Wow." you reply, "Very Anakin Skywalker of you. Am I your enemy now, 'liza? Do I have the high ground? Where's Duel of the Fates when you need it?"
Eliza scowls. "Fine. You've made your choice." She scoots back, shooing you away. "You have five seconds to run."
"What?" you say. You think you just heard the very distinct sound of Tachanka drop-kicking Mozzie.
"Five." Eliza says.
"HUH?" you exclaim. The rest of the day is really gonna suck, because you just know Doc is gonna kick everyone's asses the moment they walk into medbay for some ibuprofen.
"Four."
You scramble away, slipping on what you hope to god is water as you go (later inspection of the gym will reveal that someone (Sledge) missed spectacularly and hit a water pipe).
"Three."
Once you're out from behind the mats, you see that there's very few people left. Huh.
"Two."
Actually, taking the time to gather your surroundings, you realize that the only remaining operators are Pulse, Castle, Thermite, Ash, and you. Funny how that works, right?
"One."
You barely have time to realize that you were not Eliza's first choice for an alliance when a ball comes flying at your face.