Valentine's Week Angst Day Five: Heavy/Medic - Broken Promise
Day five of @dontneedadispenser Valentine's event.
Content Warning: Off screen major character death
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Heavy was not one to break a promise. If he said he would return then come hell or high water, he would return. Medic merely had wait. There was plenty of work – both mercenary wise as well people in need of illegal but cheap surgeries – here in America and sometimes crossing the border into Canada to keep him occupied and making a living in between working on personal experiments. Medic was not in constant need of attention from his lover for fear of losing him to someone or something else. Nor was he was a worry wort; Heavy was more than capable of taking care of himself so there was little use fearing for him.
But still… as he glanced up at the clock hung on the bedroom wall again, it ticked over to midnight. Officially, as of today it had been a full year since Heavy had left for Russia, promising he’d return in a few months. Perhaps Medic should’ve gone with him after all. He’d thought about it but hadn’t wanted to leave his work or birds in someone else’s care for that long and wouldn’t have been able to do much other than be along for the ride. So he’d stayed, trusting Heavy to return to him soon.
With a sigh, Medic stood, his bones creaking and popping audibly due to how long he’d been sitting there. He moved to the bed, barely taking the time to put his glasses on the nightstand before crawling into it. Perhaps in the morning, he’d wake to hardy knock on his door and upon answering it, Heavy would apologize for how long he’d been held up and possibly the trouble he’d had catching up with where Medic had all moved around to.
The next morning
Medic woke to a quiet empty room as had been the norm for the past year. Expecting anything else would’ve been purely wishful thinking. Something he was not foolish enough to have done but… he’d still hoped and thus was still disappointed.
Staying in bed would be nice, preferable even. He needed to tend to the birds though and had some experiments in the lab that needed checking. And so, with a resigned sigh, he got up anyway.
Later that day
As usual, somehow despite how busy she always was, Miss Pauling answered the phone after only the third ring. “Hello, Medic.” And also as usual, despite Medic having changed locations since last they’d talked over the phone, she somehow still knew it was him. “You need something or are you calling just to chat?”
“I have a favor I need to ask of you.”
“Of course you do. No one ever calls me just to chat and I don’t have time to just sit around and chat anyway. So fine, what is it that you need?”
Perhaps in the future Medic should call her just to chat if she actually wanted someone to. For now though… “It’s Heavy. As I’m sure you know, he went to Russia to visit his family. He promised he would be back in a few months but it’s been a year. I am sure it is nothing, that he was just held up somewhere and will be back soon but… do you think you could check anyway?”
“Hmm…” The sound of a keyboard clacking came from the other end of the line. “I’ll look into it.”
“Danke. I know you’re busy so I appreciate it.”
She hummed an acknowledgment. “I’ll call you back when I have something.” And without further ado, she hung up.
Medic placed the phone back in its cradle. Hopefully Heavy would return before she called back.
A couple weeks later
The doorbell was likely not Heavy, visitors, while uncommon, did still stop by for various reasons sometimes after all. But, as has become the norm for a while now, the fact that it could be was enough reason for him to step away from the body he was currently dissecting, quickly wash the blood of his hands and fast walk over to the front of the house to answer the door.
Alas, it wasn’t Heavy. It was Miss Pauling. It had been a few years since he’d last seen her in person but she still looked the same as she always had just a bit older; prim, proper, and serious. “Hello again, Medic. I have news. ” Her expression remained strictly professional, implying it wasn’t good. “The kind I wouldn’t feel comfortable delivering over the phone.” For sure bad news then.
“Of course, come on in, Frau.” Medic forced a friendly demeanor as he stepped aside and gestured her in. He wasn’t worried; Heavy was the strongest man he’d ever known and one of the most dangerous, he could take care of himself. Surely this was about something else. Someone else on the team had died. Devastating truly, but not unexpected, given their line of work it was bound to happen eventually.
Miss Pauling led the way into the living room. “You might want to sit down for this.”
Medic didn’t do so. She had him far too nervous to just sit down. “What is it?”
She paused for a moment before shrugging and digging into his purse to pull out a newspaper clipping. After unfolding it, she handed it to him without a word.
It was in Russian. Medic knew just enough to be able to decipher that it seemed to be a short article about a plane crashing into the ocean. Reportedly, there were no survivors.
“What does this have to do with…” Medic trailed off because he didn’t know what this was supposed to be about.
“That’s the plane Heavy was on when leaving Russia.”
Medic understood why she’d suggested he sit down for this as standing upright suddenly seemed more difficult somehow. “Are you sure?”
“I had Spy look into it and then had him double check. He was pretty sure. I’m sorry for your loss.”
If it were anyone other than Spy, Medic would’ve suggested that maybe her informant was mistaken. Doing so would’ve been silly as she didn’t work with people who were unreliable. But as Spy was a friend, it was even less likely he would’ve overlooked or missed something out of laziness and not caring.
“And you are absolutely certain that Heavy didn’t survive?” If anyone could survive a plane crash it was Heavy.
“The plane went down seven months ago. If he survived and found his way to shore, he would’ve shown up somewhere by now. And, just to make sure, I had Spy and some other informants who were in the area snoop around the nearest coastal towns for anyone who’d washed up recently that fit Heavy’s description. None of them found anything.”
So for the past seven months or so Heavy had been dead and Medic had had no idea. He’d just blindly assumed that, as he always had before, Heavy would keep his promise to return safe and sound. He hadn’t even died in battle as he’d wanted but instead in the middle of the ocean, alone.
Finally, Medic gave into his body’s desire to sit as he sunk down to couch, putting his head in his hands. Having someone to blame and get angry at would’ve been nice but… there was no one. It had been an accident because those happened sometimes even to the strongest of people. And there wasn’t anything Medic could do to change it.
