Chapter Text
1968, Teufort
Scout was up in the rafters. Just Scout now, nobody else knew who she was before she came here, and nobody here was ever going to call her anything but Scout. Well, maybe Louis on both ‘a those accounts, but if he said shit in front of any of the others she’d kill him and then throw him off the side of the bridge so his corpse could float around in all that nasty sewer water. Which was a thing she could do now. She could kill absolutely indiscriminately thanks to this fancy new ‘Respawn’ system, (though she’d wait as long as possible to try it out for herself, thank you very much. She’d gladly help with testing it though, as long as that meant feeding bozos through its apparently immorality inducing maw.)
So yeah, just Scout now. Everyone was fine with her being herself, especially since that front payment she’d gotten had covered everything she had ever wanted an then some. It was worth the money, since while they were all in line listening to Miss Pauling give them the fast version, no one gave her any weird looks. Well, except Louis, but he just rolled his eyes and sighed, like he’d somehow known all along. Pauling said this job was a by referral only just to make sure they all knew how fancy it was, and Scout didn’t know what that meant exactly, but what she took out of it was that she was only here ‘cause of Louis. Didn’t mean she had to be grateful.
Speaking of, there was Louis and his pack of friends. Or, Scout guessed, ‘the Spy’ now. Jeez what a name. Couldn’t have picked it himself, could he? No way was he that self-aware.
The others moved underneath her, not looking up as they headed into the base. She got up and stalked them a little, light on her feet, trying to follow the trail of the conversation, until she came upon the last thing she expected: another person.
“Hudda.”
“Christ!”
It was a good thing she whisper-yipped it, otherwise Spy and his buddies might have heard her and looked up. They also might have looked up had she actually lost her balance and went falling splat onto the concrete below. Wouldn’t that have been a totally-not-mortifying way to try out Respawn for the first time.
“Yo,” she asked the weirdo who’d copied her hiding spot idea. “Wadda ya doin’ up here?”
The rubber-suited…person moved their arms in a general motion about the theater of the metal ceiling. “Hudda.”
Watching, it sounded like. Spy had stopped beneath their feet. “Huh. Me too.” She plopped down next to the stranger. “I’m the Scout.”
“Hudda.”
Scout didn’t understand that, but she could vaguely remember the titles Pauling had been tossing around. She took an educated guess. “Pyro?”
“Hudda,” Pyro nodded.
“You don’t talk much, do ya?”
Pyro shook their head. “Hudda.”
“That’s fine, I can talk enough for both ‘a us. But not now though. I wanted to try to hear what the old farts are talkin’ about.”
“Hudda,” Pyro hummed in agreement, leaning between their knees to get a better view.
“…And you can all thank me latter,” Spy was finishing, barely glancing at the group before him as he adjusted his cufflink. What a priss.
“Negatory!” a man who could only be the Soldier barked. “You do not do what you do for thanks. Grandmas and checkout baggers want thanks; we do what we do for the glory of our great nation! America!”
“…Yes,” said the big guy next to the Medic. He had a simple name, Scout remembered. Big…Large…Big Gun Guy? Was that it? “Heavy is happy to fight. For America.” (Right, right, Heavy, that was it. She knew that.)
“On a personal note,” Medic said. “I will also not be thanking you.”
“You have a lab the size of your old house!” Spy threw up his hands, flabbergasted. “What could you possibly have to complain about?”
Medic sniffed. “Transporting my birds internationally has been the single worst experience of my life.”
“…You’re joking,” Spy said, eyes dead.
“I am allowed.”
“Speaking up-” Heavy said.
“Speaking of,” Medic corrected.
“-We still must set up roosts.”
“And get your library in order too, ja, ja.” Medic waved his hand, and addressed the other two. “Be seeing you. Spy. Herr Soldier, it’s good that you’re not dead.”
Soldier stared blankly at him.
“That’s you, imbecile,” Spy told Soldier tiredly.
“Right!” Soldier snapped to attention right away. “Hair Soldier, reporting for duty.”
Spy sighed, and in the rafters Pyro and Scout snickered.
“C’mon,” she said, tugging on Pyro’s wrist as she watched everyone head their separate ways. “I wanna see what’s up with the rest of the headcases we’ll be working with.”
She could’ve just left she supposed but, hey, new Scout deserved new friends. She could get used to weirdoes. Pyro looked at the pale hand around their thick rubber glove and nodded, a noise coming from their mask that could only be described as a joyous coo.
They followed the Soldier first. He was just as interesting as Scout had assumed, already picking fights with the Demoman over what or was not an appropriate level of inebriation for a warzone. Scout kinda wanted to see if he’d start shit with the Sniper too, but he’d slunk off as soon as Pauling’s speech was done, and Pauling herself had a seemingly endless amount of patience. Scout wondered if she’d be fun to talk to. Certainly she was cute and all, with her little glasses, and her regular sized clipboard…
“You two! What are you doing skulking about?”
“Aw crap,” Scout mumbled.
Soldier marched up to Scout and Pyro’s (admittedly rather crappy) hiding spot, and demanded recompense. “Slinking! Lurking! These are the attributes of a Spy, and we already have a Spy on this team! You’re not Spies, are you?”
“Hudda,” Pyro said, which might have been no sir or eat my shorts.
“We’re just hanging out man,” Scout complained. “We’re on the team too, got a right to be here as much as anybody.”
“Ridiculous! Women do not belong on the battlefield.”
Scout paused for a moment. And then, even though it was a bad idea because it was clear this dude was jackshit crazy, she began to laugh.
“What is so funny, missy?” Soldier demanded.
“Hah, oh man, n-nothin’ it’s just.” She wiped a tear from her eye. “That’s like a combination of two different things I really wanted to hear but put together in the worst possible way.”
“…Today’s youth are indecipherable and confusing,” Soldier concluded. “If you are going to be fighting in my war, for the love of God at least put this on. At least that way you will not be confused for some lollipop sucking babysitter.” As he said it, he took something from around his neck and shoved it into her chest.
“Dude are these your freaking dog tags?” she asked, holding them up, watching them reflect silver in the setting light, showing a miniature of the blue industrial buildings around them. “Don’t you need these or something?”
“Negatory! I have over seventy-two of these! The least I can do is make sure you are well prepared for the horrors of war.” He rounded on Pyro. “And what bout you? Are you a woman too, private?”
“Hudda,” Pyro replied, which might have been yes sir, no sir, or, again, eat my shorts.
Soldier considered this for a moment. “I have no course of action for this situation. You get a pass. For now! I’ll be watching you.”
To illustrate, Soldier marched backwards into the base, keeping his eyes(?) on Pyro the whole time.
“That was something,” Scout noted. She slid the dog tags around her neck. “I have a feeling things are gunna work out around here, y’know?”
“Hudda.”
“Yeah. You know.”