The last time you’d seen the boys look this scared was when Makarov almost blew Johnny’s head off, which…spelled great things for your situation.
You’d been called in on a tip that a home in central London was the hub for a home-grown terrorist organization planning some sort of public attack. Stakes were high, but when were they not. For a while, things were going according to plan. Good, even. You should’ve known it couldn’t last.
You and the rest of the 141 followed your normal positions and breech protocol for a populated area, Price and Gaz going in through the front, Ghost and Soap through the back, and you getting in through a second-story window. A song and dance you’ve done a million times before.
You were pleasantly surprised when each of you called out a “clear!” without much hassle. Maybe the organization had already bugged out? Still, there was another level to check.
“Pushing to third,” you say down your radio.
“Rog,’ keep us apprised.” Price says back.
The place honestly looks abandoned, you figure you’ll be fine on your own, so you don’t bother requesting backup.
The third level starts out much the same, no movement, just normal house that looks emptied in a hurry. Until you see the last door.
It’s gotta be some sort of clean-room. Instead of a normal wooden door, they’ve jury-rigged a glass sliding door. Inside of the room, white sheets of plastic encasing everything. You can barely see into the room beyond a sliver left open in the sheet. Odd, you think, and open the sliding door. This has to be where the magic was happening. Maybe a bomb-making studio?
“I got something up here. No tangos, just some weird clean-room.”
“Heard, we’re coming up.”
Except when you finish sliding the door open, and push the sheet aside, a motion sensor dispenser activates. Like those scent ones, but you don’t think it’s Febreeze in there. A white powder blows into your face, getting into your eyes and nose immediately. You cough harshly, shaking your head and turning back around, trying to rub it off your face.
“Fu—fuck-“ you cough out.
Reality hits fast. This is not for making bombs. It’s for making biological weapons. And you were just exposed.
The team climbs the stairs, you can hear them about to step into the room, which cannot happen. You don’t know what you were just hit with and you don’t know how far it traveled, but if there’s a chance it’s contained to this room, they’re not getting in.
You whirl around, wanting to close the door, but it happens without you moving a muscle. Some sort of mechanism engages, slamming the sliding door shut and locking it. The boys stop short, confused at first to see the door move on its own. Until a morbid realization dawns on their faces.
With the sheet pulled aside, they can see into the room, no, the lab. Biohazard fridges and waste boxes, haz suits and a biosafety cabinet. And you, in the middle of it all, exposed.
Johnny rushes forward, trying to pull the door open even though he just saw it lock.
“Sergeant…” Price’s warning tone bleeds through the door. You can tell he’s using it to cover his dread. “What’s going on?”
“Open the door, bird.”
You cough again, which does nothing to aid their fears, “afraid I can’t, Johnny,” you put down your gun, and start taking off your gear, “they weren’t making bombs.”
“They were making biological weapons.” Finishes Simon grimly.
“Affirm.” You’re trying to keep your cool, but you know there’s a high likelihood whatever you just inhaled will kill you.
Unfortunately, this is a reality of your job, which means you have some crash course training on it. Which means you know what some of the first steps are. You start stripping of your outer layers, which are presumably covered in the substance.
“You need to lock this place down. Get away from the door, I don’t know how far it travelled. Call a containment team and the nearest hospital with a quarantine wing ready to receive a patient exposed to an unknown biological. They’ll need to set up—“
You’re cut off. “Hey,” Kyle puts his hand on the sliding glass, immediately going directly against what you had just said about stepping back, “you’re gonna be okay.”
It’s only then you notice how badly your hands are shaking while you try to unbutton your jacket. You drop your hands.
“I know.” It’s a lie.
John is already on the phone with Laswell, getting in contact with all the right people for your situation. You knew you could trust him to keep his head steady, even now. (John is trying to stop his own shaking, he knows he needs to be strong for you).
Johnny is at the door now, “show us what dosed you.” He demands.
You shake your head, “no, you all need to leave. If anything else happens you can’t be—“
“We’re staying.” Simon cuts you off firmly.
“Bu—“ you try to start again.
“That’s final.”
You don’t try to argue anymore. You just grab a face shield from the wall and start ripping down the dispenser. Sure you’re already dosed, but you don’t exactly want to repeat the experience.
You show it to them. It really is just a modified scent dispenser, you could get one at any store. They immediately start analyzing.
“Well it’s cheap, they could’ve gotten that from anywhere, so they’re not well funded?”
“No, but look at the lab, it’s sophisticated. You can’t just get those supplies from anywhere.”
“Why bother setting up a trap if you’re actively using the space?”
“They knew someone else was coming. So were we the target or just unlucky?”
“So what’s the point in dosing someone beyond your control? They’ll go to the authorities and you’ll be exposed?”
“Unless they wanted to expose someone. In a controlled environment. To test their work.”
While they keep going in circles about their theories, something hits you. How could they have guaranteed someone would find their workshop?
Call in a tip.
If that’s the case, the testing theory still stands. You start looking around, the boys shut up when they can tell you’re on to something. You finally see it, tucked behind a microscope. A camera.
You don’t hesitate to pick it up and smash it.
“John, call Kate back. See if she can find out who called the tip in. I bet it’s our guy.” You flip back around to them to explain your thinking, “the test subject theory stands, they wanted to see it on someone before they went big. So they called in the tip so someone would wander in here, and then they were gonna sit and watch the effects through that camera.”
“Sick fucks…” you heard Kyle murmur. You don’t disagree.
“So then what’s the main act?” Simon draws the focus back to what’s really at stake.
“That’s what we nee—“ you’re coughing again. It’s rougher this time, hurts more. You tuck your mouth into your elbow and let it run its course, but when you pull back, your arm is covered in blood.
They all stop short at the sight. It doesn’t bode well. You can hear a faint ‘John? John are you there,’ coming from Price’s phone. He’s opting to stare at you rather than respond.
“Hen…”
You wipe it away, “I’m fine. Let’s focus on what matters, the actual attack.”
They all look like they want to argue, but you can’t really argue with someone who’s dying.
John jumps into action, divvying the team. He tells Johnny and Kyle to go take a second look at the house with their new eyes to try and figure out the target. They protest, wanting to stay with you, but you think John knew if they kept worrying about you, you’d start to freak out too. You give them both a nod to let them know it’s okay.
“See you soon,” you say, more for their sake.
When they’re gone, John gets your head back in the game.
“Alright, we need to investigate this room just like any other. You’re our eyes, got it?”
You nod, taking off the face shield and grabbing a pair of gloves, starting to look around. You mostly find the expected supplies in an illegal-makeshift-terrorist lab. But two things stands out: a vial stand with 4 vials missing and a password-protected computer. You knew they were probably planning a more extensive attack, but this is more proof. And the computer, well that might just be a gold mine.
You flip around to tell them what you’ve found only to see Simon sitting on the ground fiddling with the mechanics of the door.
You rush back to the door, “hey! Stop that! Simon—“
“We’re gettin’ you out! I’m not hearin’ any argument about that!”
You kneel in front of the door, placing your hand over the glass where he’s working. “We don’t know what this is, Simon. There are people on the way who know how to deal with this, right?” You look up at John to confirm. He nods. “They’ll be able to get me out of here without exposing the rest of you. You all need to stay in commission to stop the attack.”
He listens. Reluctantly stopping his fiddling. His head drops and he brings his arm to rest on his bent knee. “So what can we do? I can’t just sit here doin’ nothin’ watching you cough up blood.”
“I found a protected computer. If we can hack in, we might be able to figure out their plans…and what infected me.” You don’t mention that the very fact they left the computer here doesn’t bode well for your situation. The only reason they would leave a liability like that laying around is if they thought you would die before getting into it.
Still, he perks up at that. “Okay, get Johnny back up here, he’s the best hacker.”
John radios down, and the moment he asks for them to come back they’re asking a million questions. Concerned that something happened to you.
“‘M fine, Johnny. Just need that big, beautiful brain of yours.”
“It’s all yours, wha’d’ya need?”
That’s how Johnny ends up talking you through how to hack a computer; it’s tedious but necessary. While you’re working, the containment team arrives. With a lot of reluctance and fighting, they shepherd the team away from the door to set up a secondary containment room where you can be decontaminated before getting to a hospital. You tell them it’s fine and try to keep a strong face, but losing sight of them makes you feel worse.
It doesn’t help that the giant bouts of coughing are getting closer together, and more blood is coming out. You catch sight of yourself in the reflection of a glass door and…you don’t look good. Your skin is pallid and sweaty, your under-eyes are dark, there’s blood lining your chapped lips…maybe it’s a good thing they can’t see you anymore.
They check in frequently, especially when you have to stop responding because of the cough. Finally, blessedly, you get into the computer.
“Fuck…”
Immediately they’re flooding the radio, thinking something went wrong with you. Unfortunately it’s worse. You’ve found schematics of an air duct system for a building. The blueprints are labeled “Palace of Westminster.”
“I got the target, it’s parliament. You need to go now. They’re going to use the air ducts—“
You’re coughing again. There’s more blood—too much blood—and you can’t inhale without it going back into your lungs. You’re choking on it as you collapse to your knees, your legs finally giving out from under you from the exhaustion. Your radio is still on.
You’re looking up at the ceiling now, eyes blurring with tears from the gagging. You should turn to your side, you know you should, but you can’t get your body to cooperate. You’re going to die, you can’t help thinking.
You can hear yelling in your ear piece and outside the door. Some sort of commotion with the containment team?
The next thing you hear is the sliding door mechanism finally releasing, and someone slamming it open. A presence at your side. You expect a hazmat, instead you’re greeted by a skull mask. Your brows furrow in confusion, he shouldn’t be in here. Are you hallucinating?
He flips you onto your side so you can expel the blood from your lungs.
“You—you can’t be—“ It’s too hard to talk.
“Shut up.”
He wipes your brow, and the blood from your chin, before shoving his pack under your head to elevate it.
“‘M sorry, I need to keep looking for what this is, you’re going to be fine. We won’t let you die.” He says to explain why he moves away from you to search the computer.
Your eyes flutter, barely catching the rest of your team holding off the containment team to get Simon in the room, trying to get in themselves. Then you’re gone.
When you wake up again there’s a tube down your throat. It causes immediate panic and gagging until multiple figures shoot up from chairs lining your bed. First you see Kyle grabbing your shoulder and cheek, spewing comforting words and telling you to calm down and breathe. Then there’s John who you see yelling out the door for a nurse. Johnny is grabbing your hand and Simon is hovering in the corner of the room like…well like a ghost.
You try to keep calm enough until the nurses arrive to remove the tube from your throat, which is as unpleasant as it sounds. But finally when they’re done, you’re semi-okay again and left alone with your boys. Which is very needed because you are incredibly confused.
They’re able to explain that you collapsed from the biological—now known to have been a modified strain of anthrax—so they rushed in to stupidly (“was heroic!” claims Johnny) save you. Simon was able to decipher the rest of the plan, how it was anthrax, how they were going to attack parliament. Kate was able to track down the source of the tip, too. Using that info, Johnny, John, and Kyle were all able to stop the attack while you and Simon were transported to the hospital to be treated. Luckily, the terrorists weren’t stupid enough to work on something they didn’t have a treatment to, which Simon was also able to find.
So really, everything worked out. Happily ever after. Even still, the boys didn’t seem happy.
Now that you’re okay, John seems to think it’s appropriate for him to lay into you, “that can never happen again.” He says sternly while moving his hands from his hips to cross them over his chest. He goes on to call your actions idiotic, saying you should have waited to investigate the room until they were there, or how you shouldn’t have kept working while infected (he seems to forget how he encouraged you to investigate the room). Still, throughout the whole lecture you can’t help but smile. You know he’s not actually mad, but was actually incredibly worried. Now he’s covering his fear using his Captain title. You’re okay with that, as long as you keep getting to hear his voice. He gets so worked up he eventually has to leave the room, claiming he needs more coffee.
Kyle leans down and kisses your forehead, “‘m glad you’re alright. Didn’t…didn’t know what we’d do if we lost you.” You barely see his eyes start to get glossy before he goes after John, also claiming caffeine.
Johnny squeezes your hand, “I’m never lettin’ you outta ma sight on ops again, mark me words!” He tries to play it off like he always does, but you hear the shake in his voice. And you recall the urgency he moved with in that house.
Johnny looks between you and Simon, some unspoken conversation happens between the two of them before Johnny excuses himself as well.
Then it’s just you and Simon. Even though you’ve been getting increasingly close to the team (maybe too close) you’ve still been walking on eggshells around him. Unsure of how he felt about you. It seems he’s unsure too, given how tucked into the corner he is. You think that will be it, doomed to sit in this silence until the others return until,
“Thought we lost ya,” he whispers. You’ve never heard him talk this gentle before.
You don’t respond. How do you to that? He’s not even looking at you.
“Never been that scared. Not since Johnny—“ he shakes his head to clear the memory. You know he’s incredibly close with them. You know the Makarov situation shook him greatly. You didn’t know he could feel the same way about you.
“…I’m alright.” Is all you can offer.
“You almost weren’t.” He finally looks at you. “I care about you. We all do. You don’t get to leave.” He says it like it’s an order.
You never expected him to be that clear about his feelings, and even though he’s technically berating you, you can’t help the warmth that fills your chest.
“I’m not planning on leaving anytime soon.”
He finally comes closer. “Good. Neither are we.”
