Chapter Text
You’re, for lack of a better term, you. You’re you. And nothing works out as easy as it seems, because that’s life, and life is complicated. It’s not cruel, it’s just never only one path. It’s a lot.
When you wake up with Bandit’s arm slung over your waist, you panic.
Your problems aren’t going to disappear with love - they will improve, but you need to actively sort yourself out. After all, Bandit needs someone as much as you do. You can’t rely on a stupid, cute, German man to fix your entire life. You sit up in your bed, Bandit’s arm slipping off your body. Heart beating too fast. Knuckles clenched white around the sheets. You need to be out.
Bathroom. The bathroom has a lock and you can freshen up, but you need clothes, and you might wake him up, and you’re not ready for that confrontation yet. You go anyway. If he stirs you don’t stop to think. The quicker you’re in the bathroom, the less chance of him waking up.
You stand in the shower, hot, scalding water flowing down your body. Your unbrushed hair sticks to your shoulders. You feel... gross. And disgusting, despite the fact you were cleaning yourself.
You can’t let Bandit love you. You can’t. You’re not ready and you’re sick. Because that’s what it is, really. A sickness. Your depression and anxiety eats you up from the inside, leaving a shell of a human that Bandit doesn’t need right now.
You have to put him first. You love him, you really do, and he needs someone emotionally available to deal with him. Not you.
The bandages on your hand are soaked through, and you pry them off your skin. The gash stings, and you stare at it. Why? Why does he care, when he is more important. You can deal with yourself.
You don’t pretend to hide your crying.
He’s sat up in your bed when you leave your bathroom. The light coming through the curtains doesn’t make the scene as ethereal as you hoped. It just makes you sad. He looks over with that dumb concerned look on his face, and you want to slap it off him.
He’s him, and you’re you, and you’ve concluded he is more important.
“Are you okay?” He asks, quietly, like he’s trying to soothe a scared animal. You hate it.
“Yep. I’m fine.” You pointedly look away from him. You see him look up and down, taking in your ratty - but clean - pyjama shorts and regular t-shirt.
He sees the red rings of your eyes and your open wound and your bouncing leg and thinks about how much you hurt.
He is okay with you being the weak one. He needs someone to care for so he can heal himself, needing responsibility and needing a home. He’s built that with Jäger and Blitz and IQ but it’s never been enough - he needed something to ground him. It’s always been you. Star of the squad, unfathomably loyal, quiet, shuts herself away, haunted.
His problems are in the past, and he is in recovery. Your problems are now. He gets up and walks over to you, slowly. His hair is sticking up in so many directions and you hate it.
You hate him.
He rests his hands on your shoulders, gently, and your eyes glass over. He smiles sadly, like you did yesterday, and the hug he gives you is so soft. When you wrap your arms around his waist and hug back, he rests his cheek on the top of your head. It’s calm. You feel calm.
You love him.
You both have the week off anyway, so you lounge around in your room. Operations take a lot out of someone anyway, even without mental illness. Taxing on the heart, head and body. You tangle up together in bed again, your head on his chest and his arm around your shoulders. And you ramble. And you tell him what you think. When you shake with nerves he hugs you tighter. And you understand.
Relationships are give and take. You wanted to help but not let him help you. It doesn’t work like that. That’s you putting him on a pedestal. That’s so wrong - and you knew that illusion would be shattered the second you got into the field. You eat together, and you clean the room together, and when he smiles you feel like life is worth living again.
Guilt is something that comes and goes. Your problems come in waves of severity and that’s completely okay - you have Bandit, and you have your friends, and you have the entire team to guide you through it. Life is like that, sometimes. And most of all, you have yourself, and you have this undying want to be more than what you are. For Bandit, for the squad, for you. Life is more than this, and this is the beginning of recovery.
You and Bandit will be there for each other. Until death do you part.