They’d gotten them back–of course they had, they always did. But it was different this time, the leader looks into the back seat where one of the team has the whumpee’s head in their lap. Normally by this time the whumpee would be making some joke about needing a pay-raise, or a vacation, making the team laugh in relief. This time they are silent, their eyes open and vacant, just barely trembling despite the emergency blanket they are wrapped in. The teammate holding them is running a gentle hand through their dirty hair, the whumpee doesn’t seem to notice.
The sight sends a pang of worry through the leader’s middle. The whumpee was never quiet, not even when they were on a stealth mission, which might be the reason why the whumpee was captured so often.
“Hey,” the leader calls over their shoulder as they pull into the driveway of their base, forcing a smile onto their face, “The medic is going to yell at you again, so it’s not all bad.”
The whumpee doesn’t respond, they mumble something imperceptible and the teammate holding them meets the leader’s eyes in the rear view mirror, they are worried too.
“What did you say bud?” The leader tries to keep the terrified edge out of their voice and almost succeeds.
“D-don’t bother,” the whumpee repeats, their voice normally sarcastic and dramatic is monotone, they sound hopeless and broken.
The leader puts the car in park and goes around to open the door, helping the teammate carry the whumpee inside, the whumpee doesn’t try to stifle their groans as their wounds are jostled. They set the whumpee down gently in the bed in their thrown-together medical center, teammate leaves to call the medic. For a moment leader watches whumpee, realizing that of all of them the whumpee has been in this situation the most times. But the whumpee never seemed to care, they were always ready to take one for the team, often sacrificing themselves for the others, they were so strong that to see them this broken was terrifying. They weren’t so badly injured, they had been far worse in the past, they’d only been interrogated for twelve hours this time, the whumpee usually liked to brag that their personal best was three weeks.
They weren’t bragging now. They were so pale that it made the blood and bruises on their face stand out in a far harsher contrast. Part of their uniform was ripped away revealing long slashes, not deep but long, their torso had gone almost completely purple as the bruises set in. one of their wrists was swelling, probably broken, but the medic was coming. Didn’t the whumpee know that? Didn’t they remember the time the team had uncovered them from a collapsed building after being trapped for eighteen hours, impaled on a iron spike and they had given the team a shaking thumbs up while blood poured from their mouth before they passed out? What had those bastards done to them?!
“Whumpee?” The leader starts, trying to keep themselves calm, taking the whumpee’s good hand, “What happened in there? huh? Did they use some chemical agents or something?”
It takes the whumpee a while to answer, “N-no, no-nothing crazy b-boss.”
“Did they threaten someone you love?”
“Nah, boss, ju-just the usual tr-treatment.”
The leader is silent for a moment, squeezing the whumpee’s cold hand in their warm one. Where was the medic? Something was seriously wrong here.
The whumpee broke the silence eventually, their voice ragged from emotion, “Th-they told m-me I ha-had somethin’ wr-wrong with me,” they stated, “Th-that I was sick.”
“Th-they saw the scars,” the whumpee didn’t meet the leader’s eyes.
“Is that why you’re upset?”
“N-no, M’jus, m’tired b-boss, of al-always hurting, m’tired,” the whumpee was fading, slipping toward the darkness.
Guilt washes throught the leader’s chest as they realize that they’ve taken it for granted that the whumpee was always fine, that they’d taken the loud comebacks and the jokes as anything other than gallows humor.
“Oh,” the leader let go of the whumpee’s hand, feeling so terribly responsible.
“Don-don’t leave m-me boss, I’ll g-go ba-back if you need m-me to, jus’ g-give me a minute, m’stronger th-than the others, I-I can ta-take it,” the whumpee was practically begging, tears forming in their eyes, after all the team was the only family they had, if the team needed them to get hurt, to smile in the face of torture they could do it, they could do it because they loved their family. They couldn’t lose them, and maybe if they were weak the team wouldn’t need them anymore, the whumpee couldn’t let that happen.
“Get some rest buddy, okay?” the leader’s lip trembled as tears of their own threatened to spill, “I’m not going anywhere.”
The whumpee slipped into unconsciousness at the same time that the leader decided that they were never going to let this happen to them again.
The whumpee had protected the team from harm for so long, and now it was time for the leader to do the same for them.
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