Chapter Text
The first thing König notices about Roach is that he’s short.
König tries not to make a habit of commenting on people’s height, even in his mind. His own size was a constant point of ridicule as a child, and he has quite a skewed point of reference when it comes to things like people being short or tall.
But Roach is short —he can’t be more than five foot eight, and König can’t keep his eyes off him. Sure, there are other soldiers around Roach’s height. Plenty of them, really. Even while below the average given an inch or two, Roach’s height isn’t that uncommon.
Still, when surrounded by the rest of Task Force 141, the man looks downright tiny. König had thought Soap looked short when he met the unit, but when Roach was introduced to the team only a week or so after König, he got a whole new appreciation for… short men.
Roach’s eyes meet his from the bench across from him. They’re riding in the bed of a truck to a training simulation, and while the height difference isn’t as noticeable like this, König’s straying thoughts still cause his face to flame up behind his hood. His eyes flicker away from Roach right after he sees them start to crinkle with a smile. Roach has his mask securely in place over his mouth, but his goggles have been pushed up onto his forehead for now, allowing König the ability to read his expression a little bit.
König likes Roach’s eyes. Brown isn’t an uncommon color in Austria by any means, but they seem much rarer in England, where their base is situated. Roach’s eyes remind him of home.
Someone clears their throat, and König looks up to see Soap raising his brow at him. König blinks slowly. There’s no way for Soap to have seen his reaction through his hood—right? Did he put his eye black on dark enough? Can he see how pink his cheeks had gotten through—
“No room for nerves anymore, mate.”
König lets out a silent breath. “I don’t have nerves. I’m ready to kick some ass, yeah?”
Soap chuckles. “Aye, let’s do that.”
Not long after, the truck pulls over to the side of a dirt road and the rest of 141 unloads; Roach, Ghost, Soap, Gaz, and himself.
König has gotten along well with most of the team, save for maybe Ghost, who he can’t quite tell how he stands with. He’s not outwardly hostile, but seems to avoid him when he can. König tells himself it’s because the man has never been teamed with someone taller than him; that he’s just insecure. That helps König sleep at night, so he doesn’t ponder it much more on it.
“Arrite!” Ghost shouts, getting their attention. “This’ll be a quick sim. You’ll be split into two teams; Soap and Gaz are Team Blue, Roach and König, Team Red.”
Ghost clicks his tongue as the four men regroup, splitting off into pairs, as if to criticize them acting before being dismissed.
“Blue Team, you’re recon. Red, infiltration.”
König wasn’t put any more at ease by the other men’s unsure glances at each other—who is their target, if not each other?
“See this as a bit of… an inverse hide and seek. Your mission is to take me into custody.”
Soap scoffs. “What are we, recruits?”
“This is a team building exercise, Johnny. If any of you get shot, you lose. If you’re so confident in your ability to keep everyone alive, then you’d be willing to take on the punishment of losing all by yourself, right?”
Soap shifts on his feet silently but keeps his eyes locked on Ghost’s. König feels an uncomfortable itch crawl up his spine, his body tensing in preparation for breaking up a possible fight.
“Great,” Ghost says after another beat of silence. “You can move in on my mark, wait for me to get situated.”
Ghost leaves them with those words, and they mill around for a bit before Gaz finally speaks up, exasperated. “Why did Price put him in charge of the team building?”
Soap laughs. “Maybe he saw the humor in it?” He turns to Roach and König. “Word of advice, never take Ghost’s attitude to heart. He’s all bark, no bite. With us, at least.” His words are directed to both of them, but König feels they’re more for him than Roach. If anything, Ghost seems rather fond of Roach.
The rest of their time waiting is spent organizing their attack plan. Roach, König, and Gaz have switched their radios to a frequency without Ghost. Soap will, too, once Ghost starts the game. Until then, he’s the only one remaining on that frequency.
Off in the distance, there’s a small abandoned village. König isn’t sure if it was ever populated or if it was designed specifically for training sessions like this; either way, they all agree that the buildings are where Ghost would go, as the rest of the area is just empty fields and tall grass.
König and Roach would clear each building individually, with Gaz and Soap monitoring through their scopes to catch Ghost if he tries to sneak out of a building while it’s being searched. Simple enough, König thinks.
Not long after they establish their plan, Ghost’s voice comes through Soap’s radio, telling them he’s ready. König catches sight of Soap’s hand raising to his radio to change the frequency but is on the ground crawling towards the buildings before he can even finish.
Roach is silent beside him, grunting every once in a while as they slowly close the distance between themselves and the village. König wishes this was less of a stealth mission so that he could talk with the other man, but he supposes being partnered with him is enough of a blessing.
After about twenty minutes, they come across the first building. König stands and raises his gun, about to break the back door’s handle off with the butt of it, but Roach quickly grabs his arm to stop him.
Neither of them say a word, but König gives him a questioning look that Roach seems to understand. Rolling his eyes and then pressing his palm against a window next to them, he pushes upwards and miraculously opens the window as he does so.
“Unlocked,” he whispers, and his goggles are hiding his eyes now but König swears he winks at him as he said it.
Roach climbs through the window easily enough, but when it comes to König’s turn, it becomes obvious that the man wouldn’t fit through such a narrow hole. He flushes and clears his throat. Of course this had to happen with Roach here to witness it. His size always gets in the way, and now he will have to witness it become an annoyance to another person in his life. Humiliation seeps from his pores as he tries to find a way to get through without Roach noticing his absence.
Roach pokes his head through the window. “Coming?” He asks, and König’s eyes drop down to the ground.
“Can’t fit,” he grumbles.
Roach’s head cocks to the side, and—he laughs. König feels a lump in his throat as he turns his whole face to the ground.
“All good, mate,” Roach chuckles, and the next sound König hears is that of the door being unlocked and opened from the inside. König trudges after Roach, feeling his shoulders rise to his ears in shame.
He gets over it quickly enough, though. He loses himself in the mission, clearing every room of the house and listening to the radio as everyone gives reports to each other.
They clear out two of five houses quickly enough before König reports a clear room with no response from either Roach or Blue Team.
He immediately feels that something is off, speaking into his radio again as he searches the house for Roach. “Blue Team, come in.”
Still no response, and he feels a small amount of the tension leave his body when he enters a room and is met with the barrel of Roach’s gun.
“Roach,” König breathes, not caring about the gun pointed at his chest. “Radio for Blue Team.”
Roach lowers his gun and does so, panic showing in his posture when there’s no response. He pauses for a moment, though, and then changes his frequency to a new one. Quickly picking up on his thought process, König changes his to the same frequency. When Roach speaks into his radio, nothing comes out of König’s.
“Fucking shit,” Roach grumbles, and König sighs.
“We have to focus on Ghost,” König says.
Roach shakes his head. “No, we should wait for Blue Team to come to us, or go to them. What if they’re in danger?”
“Our mission is to catch Ghost—”
“And we fail that mission if any of us are shot.”
König grins, but Roach can’t see it. He shifts his hips casually, lifting his gun onto his shoulder, pointed upward. “Then we won’t get shot. You doubt Blue Team’s ability?”
Roach shakes his head but doesn’t put up any more of a fight, and so they continue clearing the house; only this time, König remains on the ground floor in order to cover the exits as Roach does the rest of the searching.
They finish the third house, then quickly move on to the fourth.
“You really think Gaz and Soap are okay?” Roach whispers to König as they clear out the first floor.
“They know Ghost better than us,” König replies, opening the door to a bathroom and quickly clearing it. “Plus, they’re in the middle of a field. They will see him coming from miles away.”
That seems to calm Roach’s nerves as he gives a short wave to König and goes upstairs. König doesn’t relax, waiting for the sound of gunfire. There's a fifty percent chance that Ghost is in this house, and König has a hard time believing Ghost would just happen to be in the last house they search.
However, he quickly realizes he’s incorrect as Roach comes back downstairs, shrugging.
“Nothing. Must be holed up in the last one.”
König rolls his shoulders, and the two of them quickly move into the fifth and final house.
When Roach comes back downstairs without the sound of gunfire, though. That’s when König knew something was definitely wrong.
Roach looks him in the eye—or, at least, König assumes he does. It’s hard to tell through the goggles. “We have to check on Blue Team.”
The two of them rush out of the building, heads down as they sprint towards where the two men are posted. Gaz and Soap are supposed to be on opposite sides of the field, so eventually, they have to split up, Roach to where Gaz is and König to Soap.
When he gets to Soap’s outpost, Soap is gone. His stomach sinks, and he reaches for his radio to call for Roach without remembering that it’s out of commission.
Before he can even turn around to try and catch up with Roach, a suppressed bang sounds from behind him, and something hard hits his back. He freezes, then reaches behind himself and wipes his fingers across the place that the pressure hit.
When they return, they’re bright red.
“König!”
He turns slowly, coming face to face with Ghost, who is jogging to his position.
“Go back to the truck. You’ve lost.”
König’s brain quickly catches up to the situation, and he looks back down at the paint coating his fingers. He lost.
He trudges back to the truck, seeing the rest of the team already there with their own red splotches on their bodies. Gaz’s is right over his head, thankfully hitting his helmet rather than his face. Soap’s is over his heart, and Roach’s is in the middle of his torso. The three of them give him a reluctant wave, and he waves back just as Ghost surpasses him to walk in front of the four of them.
“You realize what you’ve done wrong, right?” He asks the group, all of them looking away. “Your radios were rigged from the start. You chose the target over your team.”
The ‘you’ that Ghost says is general, but König feels as if he meant it towards him. He should mean it toward him, really. It was König’s choice to abandon Blue Team.
König’s used to things being usually far more straightforward than trying to preserve lives. Complete the mission and focus on yourself. Tunnel vision was not just allowed, it was embraced.
Ghost sighs. “I expected better.”
“Sorry, LT,” Gaz says, rubbing the back of his head.
Soap groans. “Yeah, that was… shit.”
“It’s my fault,” Roach says, and König feels guilt settle deep in his chest. “I should’ve made sure we checked on you two, I—” Roach still has his goggles on when König’s eyes flicker to him for a moment.
“No, I insisted they would be fine. It’s my fault,” König interrupts, unable to listen to Roach take responsibility for his mistake any longer. All eyes are on him now, and he feels his shoulders cave inwards a little under their weight.
“That’s enough martyrdom,” Ghost grumbles, getting into the truck’s driver’s seat. “Let’s go back to base. We can clear what you fucked up on there.”
The ride back is silent. Roach doesn’t take off his goggles.