Chapter Text
It was kind of funny, really, if Jeongguk stepped back to think about it.
The whole situation was precisely what every space ranger (no exceptions, no matter what Yoongi would insist) imagined at least once in their early trainee days. When they knew nothing more about the job than what brochures and corporate videos and TV could tell them. When the occupation looked spick and sparkling, all glory and action and tight-fitted white ranger suits; when any thoughts of death, injury or the dreaded traditional seven-hundred-push-ups-while-singing-the-planetary-anthem could never have crossed their minds. It was a scenario, completely cliched, that every cadet fantasised about before they knew any better.
Rescuing a beautiful hostage held captive by evil alien enemy forces, breaking through tight security with laser guns blazing, and heroically saving the day.
Except now it was actually happening, and Jeongguk could still barely believe it was happening, and it wasn’t funny or glamorous or heroic at all. Because there were very real alien enemies in the same facility as he was and Jeongguk had a very real bleeding wound throbbing hot on his shoulder and the very real, very terrifyingly real hostage was Kim Taehyung.
“V, can you hear me?” Jeongguk all but yelled into his headset as he ducked into yet another white corridor, narrowly escaping a blast of searing heat from what he sincerely hoped was just an automated weapon. “V, come in. V, come in.”
No answer came. Which was to be expected from anyone captured by alien hostiles, even if that someone was a trained space ranger, but Jeongguk couldn’t keep himself from trying. Swearing under his breath, he scoured the walls for any indication of where he was in the compound, any form of label or map or fucking colour code - the place was a maze of white corridors and locked windows, and Hoseok’s scans couldn’t map the interior of the building no matter how hard the weapon-tech had tried, and Jeongguk had no fucking idea where to even begin looking for “a control room or something-” where Taehyung had described being held before communication got cut off.
(Taehyung had said it in a hushed voice, kept carefully clear even as it shook with ragged breaths, a voice that cracked a little, only once, when he’d said Seagull please hurry, a voice that had sent adrenaline and fear and fury rushing through Jeongguk’s veins, and, fuck, Jeongguk was going to tear apart the bastards if they touched a strand of hair on his boyfriend’s head.)
A sudden beeping sound came in Jeongguk’s headset - the incoming message sound, he recognised with anticipation - as he turned down to the next corridor. “This is Rapmon, calling Seagull,” came a familiar voice. “Backup has arrived. Repeat, backup has arrived. Over.”
Jeongguk could have cried of relief, had he been less occupied with scanning the wall he was pressed against for signs of electronic activity behind it. Instead, he quickly replied, struggling to keep his voice professional, even though the people on the receiving end were more like brothers than teammates to him.
“This is Seagull. Here’s the plan. Split up and search the compound - Jin, take east, Suga and Baby, go west, Rapmon - south. I’ve already covered about halfway north from the entry point. Report if you find anything like a control room or have a direct visual of V. Safety is of priority - is that clear?”
As the affirmative replies flooded in, Jeongguk hurried on to continue with his search, trying to ignore the constricting feeling in his chest. Having backup - the rest of his usual team, no less - was a comfort, but Jeongguk was still far from at ease. The compound was nearly impossible to navigate and there were alien enemies prowling around and somewhere, somewhere in some control room or something, was Taehyung. Taehyung, who could be being beaten or poisoned or skinned alive, or lying cold in a pool of his own blood. For all Jeongguk knew, he could have had his organs shipped to seven different star systems, or been bodily flung into a black hole. So, yeah. Jeongguk really had no reason to feel comforted yet.
(A part of him wondered, again, how the hell their seemingly ordinary mission - to scout the area where the upcoming Inter-planetary Safety And Cooperation meeting would be held - could have ended up with him and Taehyung caught suddenly in a fierce struggle with unknown individuals of god-knows-what alignment, behind a deceptively ordinary warehouse on the alien landscape, jabbing and punching and deflecting semi-fluorescent blades of a material they’d never encountered before, struggling for their lives under the darkening red sky. And how the hell had he let Taehyung be the one to get caught, to be the one who noticed first and shoved Jeongguk away from the hostile's teleporter-like device. How Jeongguk wound up being the one to watch, dumbfounded, as his boyfriend blinked out of existence before his eyes along with the rest of the entire warehouse. To feel like his world was crushing in around him as he desperately called for backup, sprinting to their ship and tracking Taehyung’s coordinates as well as he could from their headsets, with no idea of what had just happened or who to blame other than himself.)
(And suddenly Jeongguk was thinking about how he’d never apologised to Taehyung for being a haughty ass to him the first time they’d met; for looking down on him, talking down at him, because that was how Jeongguk thought trainees who topped all their classes were supposed to act. About how he had thought of apologising and really meant to, but first he was shy, and then they became friends so suddenly he forgot he needed to, and then he’d fallen for Taehyung without even realising - because it was easy, so easy, as easy as breathing - and the sorry on his tongue became I’m sorry for liking you instead of the words he’d always meant to say.)
(And now Jeongguk was thinking about how when he’d said I love you back to Taehyung, for the first time, it had been four weeks late. In the darkness of Taehyung’s bedroom, lying shaking under Taehyung’s blanket with Taehyung’s hand petting his hair, telling him he’d be fine, he was fine, space-sickness always passed, it was normal on anyone's first long flight, do you want me to tell you another cool story. And Jeongguk had realised, in that heady moment, that it had been four weeks, four weeks, four whole fucking weeks since Taehyung said it first and Jeongguk hadn’t dared to respond and he’d made Taehyung wait four whole weeks, how could he have made him wait four weeks - )
But Jeongguk had no more time to wallow in self-loathing, because suddenly Yoongi’s voice was hissing in his headset, “This is Suga. Baby and I have found the control room. Repeat, Baby and I found the control room. No confirmed visual but we can hear voices. Over.”
Jeongguk could feel his heart pounding in his ears as he replied. “Roger. This is Seagull. Rapmon, you and I will join Baby and Suga at their location. Jin, secure our ship so we can get out of here. Have medical equipment on standby. Suga, Baby, stay put and don’t engage unless provoked. Over.”
With the quick cascade of “Roger ”s from the team, Jeongguk wasted no time in tracking the pair’s headsets' location and taking what he gauged was the shortest route over. Three sharp turns and a side-roll to dodge another (probably) automated beam later, he turned into another nearly-identical white corridor - except that there at the far end was Yoongi, crouched near the ground, and Jimin pressed almost flat against the floor with a set of headphones on, expression dark.
Yoongi motioned for Jeongguk to be quiet as he turned the corner and gestured towards the ground, where Jeongguk soon realised a well-camouflaged - but surprisingly old-fashioned - hinged door was seamlessly embedded.
Jeongguk hurried over quietly to crouch beside Jimin, and saw that the headphones he had on were for the receiver device for their standard-issue audio probing kit. “Got the room bugged,” Yoongi muttered, plucking the headphones off Jimin and passing them to Jeongguk.
Jeongguk snapped them on, and listened.
There was a humming sound, like the faint whir of machinery. A vague clicking sound, coming in erratic bursts, like someone was typing a message or measuring something sporadic. Three - no, four - distinct voices saying something in a language Jeongguk did not understand.
And then, muffled but audible, was a voice saying I already told you, I don’t know what you mea- followed by a sharp gasp of pain, from what was unmistakably Taehyung.
Jeongguk felt his blood run cold, then boiling hot. He tightened his grip on his laser gun, mentally calculating how many shots he could squeeze out of it. He’d fired five times during their earlier fight, but it would have recharged by now, mostly, though he’d have to spare at least one shot to get the door open - and he still had the larger gun, the one not designed for close-combat, completely unused in his left holster. Jeongguk made sure the safety setting was turned off for both.
Finally, the bright dot labeled Rapmon moved close to their location in their headset’s in-built tracking system, and both Jeongguk and Yoongi looked up to see Namjoon turn into the corridor. Quickly signalling him to be silent as well, Jeongguk waited until Namjoon had cautiously made his way over, before whispering the next instructions, voice ice-cold and coursing with intent.
“Taehyung is down there. There are at least four hostiles as well. On the count of three, I’ll shoot the door open. The floor can’t be too far based on the audio we’ve got, so we can jump. Namjoon, Yoongi, Jimin, subdue the hostiles. I’ll get Tae. Shoot if you have to. The blame is on me.”
Barely waiting for an answer, Jeongguk counted to three.
The next few moments came in quick succession - one angled blast and a spirited kick from Jimin had the door off its hinges, crashing down into the chamber below, followed by the four rangers leaping down after it, Namjoon then Jeongguk then Jimin then Yoongi, the shock from landing absorbed by their specialised boots (courtesy of Hoseok).
For a split-second Jeongguk noted the surroundings - a room with curved walls, white as the rest of the building, with a complex tangle of machinery in the centre and some forms of control screens, annotated in glowing words of a foreign alphabet. Three hostiles - the same ones Jeongguk had struggled with earlier, fortunately more-or-less humanoid in shape but notably different from the regular inhabitants of the planet they'd been on - running towards them, two from the same direction and one at a different angle. The last one hung back, at the far end of the chamber, next to Kim Taehyung.
For that split-second, Jeongguk fixed his eyes on Taehyung and felt his blood freeze at the sight - Taehyung crumpled on the floor with more blood on his clothes than he had when they had last been separated, Taehyung breathing but barely moving and looking far too heartbreakingly small, heartbreakingly fragile. For that split-second, Jeongguk's vision narrowed, until he could see nothing else, nothing but how Taehyung’s arms looked impossibly thin curled defensively around his body, how there was blood on his thigh and his ankle and clumping in his hair. How terrifyingly, horrifyingly motionless he was on the ground.
But then Taehyung was turning his head slowly, and looking up at him, and then Taehyung was smiling like an angel and thank god, thank god he was alright, and the split-second was over-
And Yoongi fired the first shot, neatly expelling a foreign-but-recognisable blaster gun from the hand of the furthest hostile as it aimed to shoot just a fraction too slow-
And there was an explosive flurry of action as Jimin tackled a second approaching hostile, angling his grip to keep the weapon away from any human ranger-
And Namjoon was somehow commenting on the funny liminality of the hostiles' seemingly natural yet pseudo-organic physiology, even as so-called pseudo-organic being tried to fold him into an armlock-
And Jeongguk was running, running to Taehyung, running like he never had before, blood pulsing in his veins and fingers curled around both laser guns’ triggers. Dodging sharply to the left as the hostile fired another blast at him, not slowing even as pain bloomed in his already-injured shoulder, just raising his other arm to fire back, aiming carefully to make sure he could never hit Taehyung-
And crashing sounds came from behind as Yoongi was flung against something hard and metallic, grunting and swearing before dragging himself back to his feet, reeling and unsteady, to shoot back yelling nobody throws Min Yoongi around and lives-
And an enemy cry came from Jimin’s direction as he went for the legs, managed to slam the other down with a bodily twist, and fire once, twice with his laser setting on stun-
And Taehyung was scrambling to get away from the enemy, to stop being vulnerable as a hostage, rolling then crawling as much as he could in his state-
And Jeongguk had gotten close enough, cornering the hostile against the wall and launching himself forward the last few steps, seizing the enemy and bodily grappling with it to keep their fight away from Taehyung, barely feeling as he took blows to his side, twisting and jabbing until he managed to knock the other’s blaster gun onto the ground with a clatter-
And an unexpectedly strong limb wrapped around Jeongguk’s neck in a chokehold, and Jeongguk was just a breath too slow and struggled for breath as he tried to twist himself free-
And somewhere on the ground Taehyung was shouting, shouting Jeongguk’s name, reaching around trying to grab something, anything he could use to help but the ground around him was dipping and spinning-
And somewhere else Namjoon slammed an alien’s head with the base of his laser gun, marvelling at the strange crackling sound the contact made-
And Jeongguk felt the grip on his neck slacken for a moment, as a boot of all things came flying in to hit the hostile’s head, and that moment was enough for Jeongguk to push himself free, gasping, and twist around and press his gun to the hostile’s neck-
And somewhere behind him there was a loud sizzling noise and a victorious whoop from Jimin at the same time as Yoongi’s fuck you man I almost had him-
And Jeongguk fired a close-range shot to the neck of the hostile he’d been fighting, laser setting set to stun-
And finally the last hostile collapsed to the ground with a thudding sound-
And then Namjoon was yelling for everyone to secure the hostiles, disarming and binding them as per protocol, before assessing damage, while Yoongi sent a message to Seokjin asking him to report the situation and request further instruction from their superiors (in actual words, ask the boss what the fuck we do now) . And they were moving, moving around Jeongguk, Namjoon hefting the hostiles to one spot and Yoongi checking their cuffs were tightly secured and Jimin asking Yoongi if he was sure he was okay, he hit his head pretty hard-
But Jeongguk had stopped hearing them by then, had stopped hearing anything after he’d stunned the alien he fought with, deafened by the blood pounding in his ears and the static in his head as he turned and searched and found Taehyung. Taehyung, now lying on the ground near a wall, still smiling at Jeongguk and struggling to prop himself up on an arm. Taehyung, looking so small and thin and shaky. Taehyung, who Jeongguk rushed breathlessly towards.
Jeongguk dropped to his knees as soon got close enough, arms shooting out to wrap around the other’s shoulders, to gather Taehyung into a sitting position and lean his back against Jeongguk's own body. From this close he could see the bruising on Taehyung’s neck, and that the blood in his hair came from a laceration on his cheek, just below his left eye. There was blood on the bridge of his nose, too, and the corner of his mouth, like he’d been punched. And Jeongguk felt the anger and worry and guilt he'd been pushing down twist and coil in his gut as he choked out a rattling breath.
“Fuck, Tae, oh my god. How bad are you hurt? What did they do to you? Are you okay?”
And Taehyung was smiling at him, warm and wide and sweet, as if nothing was wrong in the world. As if his useless dick of a boyfriend hadn’t just let him get captured by dangerous alien thugs with blaster guns. How the hell could he be smiling in a situation like this, what kind of idiot or masochist or angel did he have to be.
“Jeongukkie,” Taehyung murmured, relaxing back against Jeongguk, leaning his head into the hollow between Jeongguk’s shoulder and neck. “I’m okay now.”
“Don’t give me that, you idiot, you’ve been trained, for god’s sake. Where are you hurt? What did they hurt you with? Anyth-”
“Jeongguk. I’m okay. Seriously, the injuries are pretty much superficial. My guts are fine. Though they gave me some weird alien drug so I’m a little woozy, but it’s not much worse than having, like, thirty shots and maybe three-sevenths of a martini. And I don’t think they wanted me dead; they were trying to say things to me, with a little kicking and punching, so I just faked like it was really bad hoping they don’t know shit about basic human physiology, and it kind of worked, I think. I could be an actor. And- god, Gukkie,” Taehyung’s voice softened, “Don’t cry, you big baby.”
Jeongguk realised then, to his embarrassment, that hot tears had, in fact, started snaking down his face. Completely without permission. He tried to blink them away. Swallowed. Tried to forcibly slow his breathing, to tell himself that crying was completely pointless and stupid. Taehyung was here with him now, safe and sound, fuck the paperwork he’d have to deal with later. And he’d just lived the daydream of every space ranger’s early trainee days - he’d beat the bad guys, saved his boyfriend, even fought using two laser guns at once, how cool was that. There was literally nothing left to be upset about. He should be celebrating or bragging or making out or something. Jeongguk took a deep breath. Blinked hard.
He opened his mouth and promptly burst into sobs.
“Fuck,” he gasped, voice cracking shamefully, wrapping both his arms around Taehyung (injured shoulder be damned) and pulling him close, pulling him tight and close and flush against his own body, one hand holding Taehyung’s head in the crook of his neck, the other arm wrapped protectively over his stomach, fingers following the curve of his waist, smoothing over the fabric of his clothes, hoping Taehyung couldn't feel him tremble.
“I’m so sorry,” he mumbled into Taehyung’s hair, “God, Tae, I am so fucking sorry.”
And then because that wasn’t enough, it wasn’t nearly enough, Jeongguk leaned his head over Taehyung’s shoulder, angling Taehyung’s jaw to face his own. He drank in the feeling of being so close to him, so, so, close, before leaning in to close the distance and press his lips firmly but gently against Taehyung’s soft mouth, carefully trying to avoid the chaffed wound at the right corner. It was awkward, and uncomfortable, and probably looked worse than terrible, with Jeongguk sweating and bleeding and really not knowing what to do, nothing like the practiced scenes in American movies. But, frankly, Jeongguk could not care less at the moment because Taehyung was kissing him back, moving soft against Jeongguk, lips parting, easy and warm.
And, yeah, Jeongguk really didn’t care. Not that they were getting blood onto each other's faces, or that he was still crying, or that the rest of the team was still right there (save Seokjin and Hoseok, probably to their relief) and watching, awkwardly, wondering when they could interrupt. Fuck that. Jeongguk was so over caring.
He had Taehyung back in his arms, alive and likely staying that way for a good long time, and the feeling alone was so gratifying and overwhelming that Jeongguk would happily trade his whole team’s impression of him for it.
“Gukkie. It’s fine. Everything’s fine.” Taehyung murmured, breaking the kiss, but just barely, lips still brushing over Jeongguk’s as he spoke. He then pulled back more, a little suddenly, and fixed Jeongguk with a serious gaze. “And it is not your fault, dumbass. You did great, so stop crying. Seriously. I'm going to start crying too." He sighed, then smiled. "I should be thanking you for saving my life. And begging you to have my children.”
Shakily, Jeongguk managed a smile in return, even as he blinked back tears. “Sorry,” he said again. “Sorry, Tae. And fuck, I don’t know what I would have done if they really hurt you. Probably break space ranger code and blast those guys to a higher dimension.” He breathed, “but don’t ask me to have your children. I know you want your firstborn named after Jimin and I am not having any of that shit.”
Taehyung laughed, voice ringing light and smooth.
“Love you too, Jeon Jeongguk.”
-✧-
One day later - in a room of an infirmary, belonging to the headquarters of Earth’s official space ranger programme, on a white plastic chair with a wobbly leg, beside a bed with blue sheets and under-stuffed pillows and occupied by one very sleepy Taehyung, presently surrounded by (almost all of) the rest of his space ranger team in varying states of getting prepared for bed - Jeon Jeongguk was being bullied.
“-and he was giving all the orders even though Namjoon was right there,” Jimin was squeaking, voice barely coherent through the force of his own laughter. “I shit you not, he actually said, ‘Shoot if you have to. The blame is on me’ . He actually said it-”
“Come on,” protested Jeongguk, ears threatening to passionately burst into flames, “I was the only one who even kind of knew what was going on. It was, like, standard protocol!”
“I call bullshit, Jeon Jeongguk! Isn’t there standard protocol to, like, protect leaders’ rights? So we don’t just coup d’etat Namjoon to the next star system-”
“Shut up Jimin,” cut in Yoongi, “you wouldn't know standard protocol if it came out of your ass. It’s not like you read it, all you do is work out- ”
“ Well Jeongguk can’t know either, all he does is Tae-”
“Oh my god Park Jimin why were you born with a mouth,” groaned Jeongguk.
“Oh yeah, Tae, I forgot to tell you how Jeongguk kept trying to call your headset even though it was busted long ago. He was like ‘V, come in. V, come in. V, please just come in.’ Again and again for like an hour, and we weren’t there yet so he thought we couldn't hear, but Hoseok increased the connection range the day right before that-”
“Jimin, be nice,” offered Seokjin, struggling to suppress a giggle. “It wasn’t a whole hour. Just about 55 minutes.”
“Hyung, not you too- ”
“Did you really?” said Taehyung suddenly, lifting his gaze to rest drowsily on Jeongguk, voice heavy with sleep. When Jeongguk’s pinched silence and reddening ears came as an indisputable answer, Taehyung grinned. “Aww, honeycakes, I’m touched.”
“God, shut up, Kim Taehyung,” Jeongguk cried exasperatedly, as his face helpfully turned an impressively brilliant red, and a chorus of cooing erupted around him.
Thankfully, the last cowering shreds of Jeongguk’s dignity were preserved as the room door burst open, and Namjoon entered, looking extremely frazzled but neither sad nor angry. Which was a good sign. Probably.
The six in the room turned to face him in expectant silence, waiting for the verdict of the meeting he'd been called to have with their frighteningly unpredictable president. When Namjoon failed to catch the cue, staring back at them in equally silent confusion, Jin sighed.
“So, Joon-ah, what’s the rundown? Who were those guys? Are we fired?”
“Oh,” said Namjoon, understanding dawning on his face. “Right. Cool. Okay. Firstly, we are not fired.”
Hearing that, the six others let out collective sigh of relief, Hoseok completely deflating onto the unsuspecting Seokjin beside him and Jimin dropping his head onto Yoongi with a relieved groan. Taehyung smiled blissfully at the ceiling, and Jeongguk smiled down at Taehyung, like the lovestruck idiot that he just possibly was.
Yoongi looked straight ahead at Namjoon, expression unchanged, like the skeptic he most definitely was.
“And?" asked Yoongi. “Who were those guys?”
“Well,” said Namjoon, pausing momentarily as if organizing his thoughts. “That's sort of the other good news. Both our planetary council and the other planet’s planetary council are glad we kicked their ass. They’re part of this underground inter-galactic smuggling gang - they sell, like, weapons and sex and stuff-”
(“Wait, they sell sex?” Interrupted Jimin. “Were they going to sell Taehyung too?”
“Oh my god,” said Hoseok, “Taehyung, you were almost a space prostitute.”
“Guys,” Jeongguk snapped, “shut the fuck up.”)
“-and our seniors have been after them for ages,” finished Namjoon. “So President Bang praised us.”
Once again, the response was collective - Jimin pumping his fists in the air, Seokjin and Jeongguk grinning, Taehyung smiling sleepily around, and Hoseok screaming his head off, as per normal. Yoongi, also as per normal, merely smirked, and leaning back a little before asking, for the second time.
“And? Come on Mr. Leader, what’s the catch?”
“Well,” replied Namjoon. “The catch is, um. There’s more than one catch.”
“Spit it out,” ordered Seokjin gently.
Namjoon swallowed. “Well, when we caught them they were in the middle of trying to hijack some experimental military weapon, at that facility Jeongguk found. And it’s good that we stopped them, because obviously it would suck for everyone if we'd just let them hijack an entire military weapon. But apparently we also damaged some wiring on the weapon; the President said a fragile circuit got mechanically-damaged by something hard-”
“Yeah,” said Yoongi, “that was my face.”
“-and so now we owe them a fuckload of money. And the other catch is the smuggler gang - we don’t owe them shit, but they have, like, a lot of guns. And now some of those may be pointed at us, presuming that we're not so forgettable as to have the whole hijack-ruining deal be left in the past.”
“So we beat up space pirates, and now they hate us. And we’re in debt, because of my face,” summed up Yoongi drily. “Just perfect.”
“But, hyung,” protested Jimin, “we beat up space pirates.”
“And we stopped another planet’s experimental military weapon from being stolen by space pirates,” added Seokjin.
“And we saved Taetae from becoming a sex slave for space pirates,” added Hoseok (earning himself a smack from Jeongguk who - clearly still sensitive from the whole ordeal - had no capacity to deal with any more Taehyung-in-danger issues, prostitution-related or otherwise).
Yoongi sighed.
“Well,” he admitted, grinning just a little, “guess it doesn’t sound too bad when you say space pirates.”
Jeongguk stayed quiet, silently rubbing his thumb over Taehyung's hand, but couldn’t help but agree. Other than the part where he had almost died of fear and all-consuming guilt and self-loathing for letting his boyfriend get captured in the first place, Jeongguk retrospectively had to admit it was pretty damn cool, what they had done. In only their second year of official ranger work, too. He grinned a little, to himself, thinking of how their juniors - still training as cadets, young and bright-eyed, pure and unjaded - would react to any story involving space pirates.
But then Seokjin was wondering out loud about what they’d do about the money, and Jimin was saying something about taking up the prostitution thing, and Hoseok was hypocritically slapping him, and Yoongi was trying to make a slow but sneaky escape.
And Jeongguk looked down at Taehyung, who looked up at him groggily, smiling sweetly, and said, “You know, Jeongguk, I think Jimin’s right.” He giggled, “we could be space strippers. I’ve always wanted to try stripping. Even better in space. Bet we’d see really weird aliens naked.”
And, in that moment, Jeongguk decided that, forget it, the fantasy he’d always had as a trainee was not heroic, or glamorous. At all.