Chapter Text
A strange, thick, humid dread made the small bedroom they sat in feel even smaller than it actually was. With a semi-grey, semi-clean carpet and two semi-made beds pushed up against opposite walls, the room was nothing to gawk at. It had been hastily thrown together months ago when no one in the emergency base had a place to sleep, thus care hadn’t been taken to ensure an Ikea model-like, perfectly-decorated apartment. Little dents in the walls deflected the gross LED light in odd ways surrounded by chipping paint and unidentifiable stains.
It was barren in terms of furniture. Besides Bandits' bed, the one on the far side under the window, there was a little rotting wooden table void except for an alarm clock, a half full bottle of Nyquil, and a beer can.
Dominic never liked ‘getting comfortable’ in his dorms. Never truly put in the time to make his rooms feel like a home.
He had been living there for the better part of a year now. They were situated in a small town near Lyon, France after a bomb threat in a local theater. Most Rainbows operators were now there with him after the mission had failed horribly, had taken the lives of 28 civilians, 3 first responders, and 2 operators whilst demolishing the building in the process.
Thanks to an error in briefing distribution, the operators at Rainbow weren’t informed of the crisis quickly enough. When first investing in the rehabilitation of Rainbow, the participating NATO states agreed that it would be used as the panic button for all involved. That the government could count on Rainbow to swiftly clean up after the biggest messes that the countries would face no matter where they were currently deployed at.
This was the original agreement, that if the White Masks or their equivalent found themselves in Britain, Russia, America, Germany, or France, that team Rainbow would arrive as quickly as humanly possible to lend a very powerful hand. That’s why France's governor was pissed when no one returned his urgent calls that early Wednesday morning for another crucial 14 hours.
A full house of over 600 upper class men, women, and children had gone to see an adaptation of Sweeney Todd but instead found themselves held captive inside of the grand citadel by an organization calling themselves “Le Deuxième Monde” or LDM. Thankfully, unlike the White Masks, the LDM didn’t seem to be driven by exposure or inflicting fear and respect. The GIGN had determined that their threats of ‘blowing everyone sky high with bombs’ was more of a ploy to get what they really wanted; 180 million in cash.
The sweet words of a handful of negotiators had held the LDM off for a full 23 hours whilst the theatre full of people rested eerily quiet, waiting and waiting for the Rainbow units who should have been there already. The local antiterrorist units were told to act as backup to Rainbow thus they stood around the building, useless, scared.
And when Rainbow finally got the message, when they finally made the 8 3/4 hour long trip from their permanent base in Ottawa, CA to the little Village in France, the LDM had grown impatient.
Put simply, the mission was a bloodbath. A well placed bomb went off near the main balcony pillar and had collapsed 80 metric tons of concrete and steel on a swarm of people's heads. People had been publically shot, crushed, blown apart, and mutilated, and a large part of the blame was on Rainbow for the wait and messy execution.
Now virtually everyone from Rainbow was in France because of the backlash the unit was receiving. In order to preserve the GIGN Rainbow ops and not have them revoked or redistributed following a public conference between Harry and a furious Jean Castex, France's Prime Minister, the GIGN, SAS, SASR, GSG 9, Spetsnaz, CBRN, BOPE, and the JTF 2 were all on mission status standby in France, and all of them had been on it for months now.
Every single member was tired of being trapped in Lyon on high readiness mode, but there was nothing they could do but wait and hope that Mr. Castex would dismiss them.
Though it wasn’t their fault, that was one of the petty petty reasons that Bandit was ticked off at the GIGN frenchies. Was one of the tiny little reasons why he didn’t flinch to blame Olivier Flament for his little slip up that morning. Or at least he childishly wanted to blame that for his lack of reluctance in agreeing with Elias after the man had blamed Olivier for the “Streicher” incident.
Dominic would like to have thought that he was getting more considerate as time went by. He was painfully aware of how much of an asshole he seemed to be. He never meant to. Never planned to be the one to give Mozzie a full blown nervous breakdown after playing a ‘harmless’ prank on him by pretending that his wife had died while he was away on a mission. Didn’t want to be remembered for the time he’d yelled at Monika and Elias to ‘get the fuck out of his face’ after the two of them had single-handedly stopped him from stealing an exspensive watch while black-out drunk.
He hated the memories of how he used to treat the SAS members, specifically Mute, when they first joined. He used to put super glue in their key fobs, cut nipple holes in their uniforms, or run an electric razor through Mark's hair during meals. But Mark's hair had always grown back just as perfectly and healthily as before while Bandits never seemed to recover from the large, eye-catching scare covering half his head. Mark didn’t even look bad with a buzz cut.
He was trying to get better, he really was. He hadn’t destroyed any public property in a while, and when he did, he at least felt a little bit of remorse for it. Less alcohol. Less swearing. Less blaming his messes on others around him. Less chugging half a bottle of Nyquil before bed just to sleep for a couple of hours.
Marius sat awkwardly on the side of “his” bed next to the washroom door sipping his luke-warm cup of water. His eyes shifted uncomfortably over to the Nyquil bottle on Bandits bedside table every once in a while while he avoided the glare Dominic was giving him from the other side of the poorly lit room. It was clear just how tense the younger was. He was practically shaking.
“Are you… sick?” He asked stiffly in a poor attempt to break the wildly unpleasant atmosphere.
Dominic squinted his eyes at the other, stubbornly slouched over sitting on the side of his bed with his head in his hands. No, he wasn’t sick. Hadn’t been in a long time actually, not that he wanted to tell the other this. He gave nothing but hostile silence, his eyes daring Marius to speak again.
Marius didn’t seem to pick up on his signal to shut up.
“Erm... ah, what is your name again? Dr. Kateb had told me that you were Olivier earlier but then he called you Dominic just now..?”
Again Bandit just let silence sizzle between them, content at watching Marius squirm under his gaze. He wasn’t sober enough nor in the mood to answer the brunet's wall of questions. As much as he wanted to say that he was less of an asshole than he had been a few years prior, he felt like he could have a pass for this right now.
Dominic looked over the younger German carefully. Nothing about him seemed all that unusual. His generic clothes were clean and his shiny brown hair freshly washed that morning. Everything about him checked out to be an uninteresting ordinary guy saved for the strangely shaped scar on his right cheek, though it wasn’t pronounced or as dramatic as Dominics.
Bandit had taken the last couple of months to grow his hair out a bit hoping that it would cover up said scar. It was almost working, and he didn’t mind having hair again after he’d gone a few years with a Sailors cut. Monika also seemed quite happy with the fact that he had shaved his beard off. It was too itchy under his balaclava anyways so he kept it trimmed very short lately. Dominic was almost a little bit relieved to see his hair grow back healthy-ish for some little part of him was doubting that it would after how unhealthily he’d been living.
What Bandit did notice, however, about the man in front of him were his eyes. They weren’t anything impressive like the striking polar blue of Glaz’s eyes or the unique kindness of Docs, but instead they felt somehow more genuine in some strange way. They were a mix of dim brown, green, and silver that Dom had never seen before. To boot, Marius also had oddly long eyelashes and intense eyebrows that cast a strong shadow over his eyes only creating a stronger, more striking contrast between colours in the poor light. Bandit would never admit it but he’d be lying if he said that he didn’t think the pilot was somewhat pretty.
In contrast to Dom's own face fit with shit-brown eyes, pale cheeks, and thin lips, it wasn’t surprising that a small tinge of jealousy danced somewhere inside of Dominics stomach. He’d never been one to obsess over looks, sure, but he couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to be an especially attractive person.
Being fed up with the whole situation, Dominic sighed and stood up suddenly, but not without taking a quick swig of the half used bottle of Nyquil he had on the nightstand. The red liquid stung his taste buds and made him pull a face. It always tasted disgustingly like chemically medication with an afterthought of cherry somewhere buried in there.
Marius looked at him strangely but Bandit ignored him and instead grabbed the pillow off of his bed before storming out of the bedroom. He threw his pillow on the beat-up couch in the living room and flopped down on it without a semblance of grace, paying no mind to the way the springs creaked under his scrawny frame. He’d slept on worse.
He never quite drifted off in all honesty, instead remaining in an uncomfortable state floating teasingly close to sleep for the remainder of the night. The last memory he had was hearing Marius mutter somewhere from the bedroom “He hadn’t even measured the medication,” in some dumbfounded tone before Dominic was too far gone to hear more. Boy did the pilot have a lot to learn. It only pissed Bandit off more.