Chapter Text
It's funny how he always made such bold statements --- How his motto seemed to only be I'm a lover, not a fighter, and yet...
To him, love fucking sucked. He never wanted to fall in love again, not after what had happened. Not when he fell in love, so sure he was destined to marry, so sure it would last forever, and then he was ripped from his hands. He swore to himself he would never feel such a damned thing that was akin to love ever again, for fear that he would go through the same heartbreak and the same suffocating, drowning sadness that came with losing such a thing. He promised, he made a pact with himself that he would never... Never feel it.
Yet somehow, it's funny how fate works out, huh? He stood there, in the mouth of a yawning cave, desperately calling out to him --- His heart yearning for the reassurance that they would make it out alive. Yearning for the familiarity of the strength of the man right besides him, the assurance that everything would be okay if Washington had just listened to him for once. If he had let go of his stupid death wish, and just ran to Tucker's side; If he just forgot about the idiotic hero mindset and just realized that he was a hero to him. And it was when the mouth collapsed, when all the rubble and stone fell at the touch of his fingers that Tucker realized his promise had been broken.
It was waking up, realizing that Washington was gone, that not everyone makes it back alive, in which he has to walk away and find a place the least in the open, and fall to knees to the whim of threatening tears. It was the searing anger in the back of his mind, as Washington, at someone -- Anything --- he didn't know, maybe himself --- and it was the fact that he had tried to strike a boulder out of such said anger that had him shuddering in the cold response to the aching loneliness. He was a lover, damnit.
Not a fighter.
So how was it... How was it that Agent fucking Washington had been able to single handedly force Tucker to lose every regret and pact he had made to himself that he would never fall in love, that he would never fall into the ravine straight into rock bottom, and force him to fall to shambles? How was it that he had fallen for his own Commanding officer?
How was it that he fell for the man that drove him absolutely insane? That he was so sure he hated? Or maybe Tucker was more of a masochist than he thought.
Or maybe it was the fact that Washington had shown so much care, so much love for the sim soldiers, that there wasn't any way he could have not fallen for him. Maybe it was the way how Washington took time out of his supposedly "busy" schedule just to check on Caboose and Tucker, even if he was spectacularly awkward about approaching such a situation --- There was just a certain charm in the way how he did it. There was a certain way that he just... Did things.
Love. Fucking. Sucks.
And Tucker supposed he'd have to change his motto, change his promise and bend it 'till it broke. He'd live up to it. He'd be a lover, and he'd be a fighter.
He'd fight for Washington, fight for his freedom, fight for him to be his. Promise or no promise, he needed the Freelancer back in his life.