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Scout hates doctors.
When she was a kid, she never saw them unless someone was real sick or dying. One of her brothers never handled the flu well, and it only meant trouble when winter came ‘round and they already couldn’t afford heating. Then came the stuffy waiting rooms and bills her Ma could never pay off.
Scout hates doctors, but she ain’t scared of them. That was for cowards, and she ain’t a coward.
See, doctors had fancy 10 year degrees and thought they were better than you for it. Scout didn’t need a college education to know when something's wrong and needs fixing. She’s effective and she ain’t a nerd. Doctors cared about that hygiene stuff, ironed their shirts all proper, and had heart attacks when they saw the sugar content in her Bonk.
What they didn’t do is try to gut you like a fish and replace all your soft bits with yeti livers, and Scout was pretty sure they weren’t supposed to be rummaging around your guts with their bare hands either.
So she’s dealing with next-level stuff here. The final-boss of doctors. One who’d rather hurt than heal. That would scare off most people, but Scout ain’t most people.
Besides, Medic ain’t really her problem most of the time. Looking for the doctor in the middle of the battlefield was less convenient than patching herself up with a medkit.
But it was a different question outside of battle, when respawn was shut off and you didn’t have all that magic healing crap to fix you up instantly.
Scout is an expert doctor handler, though, so there was nothing to worry about.
“Yo, doc, let me have that healin’ gun for a sec!” She shouts, announcing her arrival by slamming the door to her lab open.
Medic is hunched over some surgical table, back turned to the entrance. Set up around it are lights that are bright enough to momentarily blind Scout, and she has to rapidly blink the dots from her vision. Surprisingly, the table isn’t covered in blood and guts and severed limbs, just a bunch of machinery and loose screws.
“Not possible,” Medic says, hardly reacting. “Come back later.”
Scout bounces her foot impatiently. “This is more of a now issue.”
Medic continues ignoring her. Whatever she’s messin’ with, it kind of looks like the Medi Gun, but Scout isn’t paid to know about machines, she’s paid to run fast, so if Medic isn’t dismembering more people, good on her, but she just wants to fix her damn leg.
“What are you doing?” Medic says as soon as Scout starts sneaking her way to a cabinet.
She freezes. “Uh. I’m just-“
Medic takes in a sharp breath.
“Sit,” Medic gestures vaguely behind her and stands from her wheely chair, which pushes it in Scout's direction. Her chest is all puffed up when she walks in the opposite side of the room and starts rummaging through… a trash can.
“Look, Doc, I ain’t playin’ any games,” Scout says firmly, kicking the chair back. It rolls and comes to a stop in the middle of the room. “Whatever freaky ideas you got, I don’t wanna hear ‘em.”
Medic straightens up from where she was bent over the trash and slowly turns to her. She’s holding a box in her hand and… Right, so the actual healing stuff isn’t in the medical cabinets- Scout should’ve assumed that.
There’s a few seconds where they stare at each other before she starts very quickly walking towards Scout.
Oh, shit, she thinks, and looks around for something she can use as self defense before the doc rips her apart.
She doesn’t expect Medic to lay her hand flat against her sternum and push her back until the back of her thighs hit the surgical table. She sweeps aside the metal scraps and some go crashing to the floor. “ Sit ,” She says more forcefully. Scout closes her mouth and does just that.
Medic takes the wheely-chair and sits in front of her legs. From this angle, Scout has to look down at her.
Okay, this is a little awkward. Doc is really close, and from above she can see her eyes from behind those little glasses and the individual dried flakes of blood on her cheeks and-
“Ouch, ow ow ow!” Scout hisses as Medic grabs her by the ankle and lifts her leg up.
“Oh, stop it,” Medic dismisses her. Her bare hands squeeze her calf, leaving bloody fingertips all along her pants. “How did this happen?”
“Does it matter?” Scouts cheeks flare red with embarrassment. “Just-“
“Are you in a rush?”
Scout wiggles uncomfortably in her spot. She looks around the room but can’t seem to find a clock. They’re in ceasefire and aren’t due for another mission until the next day. As much as Scout wants this to be over already, she couldn’t really lie about it.
“Yeah, actually, I’ve got a hot date that I really don’t wanna miss so let’s wrap this up, how about it?”
“Ah, so you’re not. Good,” Medic wipes one hand on the front of her pants and Scout scoffs. “Now, I believe I asked a question.”
“ Bossy ,” Scout mutters under her breath, and Medic squeezes her leg a little too hard, face hardly changing expression. “Jeez!” She yelps in pain. “I didn't say nothin’!”
What a sadist , she thinks to herself as Medic hums and rummages around that box, pulling out some bottles and bandage wraps.
“Okay, uh, this totally wasn’t my fault, for the record. But you probably don’t keep records or nothin’, do you? Anyway, it was the end of our last mission. I was kickin’ ass, stole the intel, as usual . Obviously the Spy wasn’t real happy about that, been trying to sneak up on me the whole time, and I’m just about to secure it when she appears right before my frickin’ eyes. The idiot kept missin’ all her shots, so that’s when she pulled out the knife and… Stupid move, amiright? She really thinks that little blade is gonna slow me down?”
Medic hums like she’s not really listening at all.
“So, yeah,” Scout ends lamely. “What’s the catch?”
Medic’s hand stalls. “The catch?”
“You gonna cut off the other leg? Replace my lungs with a whale bladder?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Medic reaches up to pinch her cheek hard enough to sting. She smiles wide, all her gums showing. “A whale bladder wouldn’t fit inside of you!”
Scout scrubs at her face to get the blood off.
“No,” Medic says, chuckling. “I’m going to teach you a lesson.”
“Oh, playin’ doctor ain’t enough, now you’ve gotta play teacher too?” She tries to pull her foot back, but Medics firm grip and the sharp pain stops her movement. “Are you sure you don’t just want one of my organs, or…?”
“ You came to me, ” Medic’s eyes flash with something that screams danger. “Surely, you wanted my help if you were so insistent on taking me away from my work.”
“Yep. Sure, got it,” Scout nods, looking down at the pieces of Medi Gun on the floor.
“Wunderbar. Then this will be worthwhile for us both.”
Scout hopes she doesn’t take her up on that organ offer later.
She begins to undress Scout, pulling off her sneaker and then her sock, so soaked with blood it fell to the floor with a wet sound. She rolls the pant leg up to the knee and takes her ankle in her hands again, skin on skin.
“I’m going to teach you a lesson on patience.”
“Patience?” She sputters.
“Yes, I’m fairly certain I’m thinking of the right word.”
Medic examines the exposed wound with surprisingly careful hands. Scout can feel the blood slowly running down her leg, can hear it dripping on the tile floor and hear the squeak of Medic’s leather seat. She grabs the bottle of antiseptic with red-stained hands.
“What are you doin’?” Scout asks as she begins to wash the cut.
Medic’s eyes briefly flicker up to look at her.
“I-I mean, obviously I know what you’re doing, but why are you doing it?”
Medic puts the bottle down and places her hands on Scout’s knees. As she leans in close( Scout leans back. She doesn’t like the way the doc is looking at her- Scout can never tell what she’s thinking, she can only assume it’s crazy.
“Normally, when one is injured, they need to wait for their wounds to heal. You will not always have my skill to save you from your own incompetence,” She says, voice low and steady. “Besides, it’s only a surface wound, it’s not like you’re dying. That would be no fun.”
“And this is fun? This boring… Normal doctor stuff?”
“Not at all!” Medic barks a laugh. “But, I am in the middle of upgrading the Medi Gun, so,” she makes an ‘eh’ sound and reaches for the bandages. “I must make it fun for myself.”
It was weird, watching Medic do normal doctor stuff, like properly clean a wound and wrap it up all neat. The gentle pressure of her hands is driving her totally crazy, slowly making their way up from ankle to knee as she brings the bandage around.
When Medic pulls back, all Scout can focus on is the dull pain in her leg and the heat in her face. For once, she’s at a loss for words.
“Now, we wait.”
“Wait?!” Scout exclaims. “What about our jobs? How am I supposed to do anythin’ with this?”
Medic hums as if she’s considering it, then shrugs, still smiling. “Well, that is not my problem!”
“I swear, doc-“ Scout goes to jab her, but Medic snatches her wrist before she can so much as touch her.
“You are impatient,” She says, voice suddenly cold. “Your mouth and legs run faster than your mind ever has- I will remedy that. You will wait for this wound to heal. You will change the dressing once this soaks through. Do I make myself clear?”
This time, when Scout pulls back, Medic lets her go. There’s a large hand print wrapped around her wrist.
“Yeah,” Scout swallows. “Whatever.”
“Good,” Medic seems pleased. “Now get out of my room.” She stands up from the chair and doesn’t even brush her hands off as she starts collecting the pieces of the Medi Gun again. Back to her experiments, as if Scout was never here to begin with.
Scout stands, shifting from foot to foot and wincing at the pain. She spares a glance at Medic and quickly looks away, limping off to the door. Patience- What a load of bullshit. Scout will show her, then she’ll be the one laughing instead.
-
Except, it doesn’t really work out like that.
Even when the bandage soaked through, Scout didn’t touch it until the next morning. She let it stain her bedsheets, getting all sticky and gross, not caring how much it hurt or if it’d get infected. Undoing it meant getting rid of all of Medics work, and Scout needed her bandages to wrap her knuckles anyway, right?
Medic is the respawn room while everyone is preparing for the mission, new and improved Medi Gun in her hands. Scout hangs by the doorframe and lets herself stare, just for a second.
She never really took note of Medic in these brief moments before war broke out. A spitting image of a well composed, proper doctor, with straight posture and a stern expression. Medic was terrifying on the battlefield, but in these brief moments she was more unsettling than she ever could be while tearing you apart limb from limb. The madness was wrapped in a neat package of starched coats and combed hair, not a gray streaked hair out of place. If she wanted, she could blend into normal society without raising any suspicion.
Scout shakes her head and strolls into the room with practiced confidence. Just go up there and ask for a quick healing beam, then this whole leg issue would be done with.
Medic looks down at her with cool blue eyes.
“No,” She says simply.
“The hell do you mean no?”
“I did say I was teaching you a lesson, didn’t I?”
Scout can hear everyone in the room freeze. 7 heads turn to stare at them.
Scout clenches her fists and holds Medics stern gaze.
Patience , she said. Scout knows everyone in this room is expecting her to lash out or do something equally stupid. She wasn’t going to give them that satisfaction.
Scout goes storming out of the room, staring at her feet the whole way.
Okay, so no heals, who cares? Scout’s been patching herself up her entire life and she’s never needed the Medic, she’s been just fine with resupply and various health kits around the battlefield.
So she fights. She gets shot, and blown up, and stabbed. She’s starting to realize this limp is a serious pain in the ass. She can’t run as fast as usual, can’t make the same jumps, and when she curses, it’s Medics name on her lips. Good-for-nothing, pretentious doctor, just like the rest of ‘em! The woman heals everyone else on the team and is practically glued to Heavy the entire time but can’t spare a minute for Scout? How was that fair? Demo nicks her with a sword, then Pyro narrowly misses her and leaves a nasty burn across her back, and Scout’s thoughts drift to Medic. She could heal her with the simple pull of a trigger, but refuses because she wants to prove some point. For what?!
The pain pulses across her skin and when it isn’t enough to kill her, she imagines those hands from yesterday, feeling up her leg or holding onto her wrist or-
Wait, she’s imagining what?
Scout is laying with her back to a wall, taking a breather to patch herself up after the BLU Sniper got a lucky shot in her thigh. Her body burns with adrenaline. The realization makes her recoil, dropping the bottle in her hand.
This was weird.
Because Scout hates doctors.
So Scout definitely shouldn’t want to be touched by a doctor.
Scout carefully peeks over the window she’s sitting under, watching her team push the payload across the rusty tracks. Heavy is front-lining and Medic is close behind, focusing all of her healing on her.
Scouts gut twists. It’s the same feeling she would get when her Ma would pay more attention to her brothers, or when the other pretty girls in highschool would pay more attention to the football players than her.
She quickly turns back around and goes back to fixing the bullet wound in her leg. She’s too hasty to be thorough, thoughts racing.
No, no way in hell is she getting jealous over freak 1 and freak 2. Whatever happened last night was never gonna happen again, because Medic wasn’t a doctor that healed or gave gentle touches. She was a mad scientist who kept heads in fridges and dismembered people with bone saws and liked big strong women with miniguns.
Scout stands on shaking legs and readjusts the grip on her bat. Whatever. She has a job to do.
-
Days pass. The wound heals during their days off work, which means the root of Scout’s issue was dealt with now. No more visits to the infirmary, no more limp.
Scout still thinks about it.
She decides to mention it one afternoon while she’s hotboxing the camper with Sniper. They’re cramped on the bunk, laying side by side and facing each other. Sniper barely fits in her own bed length-wise, knees folded up and shoulders hunched. Scout drums her feet against the opposite wall.
“What’s got your panties in a knot?” Sniper raises an eyebrow. “Heavy’s an obvious choice. C’mon, big hands,” She crooks her fingers suggestively.
“No way! You seriously wanna get snapped in half by her?!”
Sniper gets a thoughtful look. “Doesn’t sound too bad.”
“I’m talking about your spine , dimwit,” Scout kicks her hat off her head and Sniper cackles.
It was just a game. There’s nothin’ to it. ‘How fuckable are your teammates?’ was a natural question to ask when you’re stuck with the same 8 women all day every day. Questions that definitely have no implications of genuine desire. There‘s nothin’ to it.
“Alright, your turn,” Sniper says.
Scout hesitates. This was just a stupid game, it was better than admitting any of this stuff out loud when you’re actually sober, but calling quits would make her suspicious. Plus, Sniper was all bleary eyed and probably wouldn’t remember anything they talked about anyway. What could be the worst thing to happen? It wasn’t like she was actually interested in Medic. She was just… curious. Y’know, she needs an objective opinion. Objectively, Medic was a pretty good looking woman- Not anything you’d see in a girlie mag, but still. Objectively, Scout’s other teammates must think the same thing.
“Okay,” Her mouth feels heavy in her mouth as she asks, “Would you bang the Medic?”
Sniper snorts. “Christ, no.”
Scout goes slack jacked. “What, that easy?”
“She’s psycho. Unless you wanna wake up to your tits replaced with a baboons’, then good on you. But she’d probably try to put tentacles in place of your fanny, or replace your mouth with-“
“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” Scout rolls her eyes and crosses her arms. “She’s just a… A total freak.”
“Yep,” Sniper sniffs and takes another hit. “Alright, here’s a toughie, the Pyro.”
Scout still- still! - thinks about it.
Sniper’s answer was clear- Medic’s a weirdo, a nut, a kook, and whatever other word you could think of. Taking your clothes off around her meant nothin’ but trouble, and you’re better off having your spine snapped in half by Heavy in bed. No sensible person could look past the blood under her fingernails or the creepy smile or the medical malpractice.
Objectively, Scout was also a weirdo.
When Scout was growing up, she was known to be a troublemaker. Not just for the fact that she was a loud mouthed girl who liked to wear pants and play sports and had 7 older brothers involved in gangs. When Scout was 12, she hit a baseball on the roof of a neighbors house and had to have two of her tallest brothers stack on top of each other so she could climb up and reach it. Long story short, she toppled over into their yard, and she still has a scar on her arm from their guard dog. By 15, she was stealing those Playboy magazines that showed topless women without any censors, like, nipples and everything. She got caught so often she couldn’t so much as show her face in any corner store on the block without a cop chasin’ after her. She was always punchin’ in the teeth of annoying boys who were a foot taller than her and getting in fights she couldn’t finish. A decade later, she was doin’ the same with her mercenary co-workers.
Point being, Scout always saw danger as a challenge, more than anything.
Like she said- She ain’t like most people.
“Doc,” Scout says through a mouthful of sandwich. “I’ve got a proposal for ya.”
“Ach, you are getting crumbs all over my work!” Medic mutters, waving her away. In front of her was a petri dish with some mushroom looking thing growing inside. “Don’t tell me you hurt yourself again ?”
“No!”
“Then leave me be.”
Scout came up with a genius plan to spend more time in Medic’s lab, and she wouldn’t need to sacrifice any internal bits to do so. If patience was what it was gonna take to get to the real root of Scout's issue, then so be it.
“Gosh, just listen to me, will ya?”
Medic looks up and narrows her eyes at Scout. Her jaw works, probably with irritation. “Fine, but make it quick. I think I’ve just created a new strain of parasitic fungus that devours flesh. Oh, hand me one of those!” Medic points to a big white box on the other end of the table.
Scout curiously peeks into the box and finds it full of haphazardly thrown-in organs. She isn’t sure which specific organ ‘one of those’ could be referring too, so she pushes the whole box closer to Medic and tries not to breathe in the smell.
“So, I was thinkin’ about what you said the other day, about patience and all that,” Scout leans on the table with a hand on her hip. Medic digs her hand into the box with a loud squelch and pulls out a large intestine.
“Ja, ja. Scissors, please,” Medic holds her other hand out and Scout gives her the only pair of scissors she can see which are dull, child size ones.
Scout tries again, leaning in a little bit further. Medic is trying, and failing, to cut pieces of intestine into pieces. “ Anyway , I thought maybe you ain’t a half bad teacher. I mean, you had a license at some point, right?”
“Huh? Well yes, a few years ago… Ooh! Did you see that? It just took a piece of my finger!”
Scout slaps her hand on her forehead, sighing heavily. She better just get to the point.
“How about you give me some more lessons?”
“What?”
Finally, Scout has her attention.
“I mean that I don’t feel like I’ve learned nothin’. My legs all patched up, but I’m still the same impatient dumbass as usual.”
Medic raises both eyebrows, giving Scout a look she doesn’t really understand.
“Wait here,” she says, and goes off to the other room attached to the infirmary- Maybe her bedroom?
Scout waits. She takes another bite of the sandwich. Ugh, if she made it, she wouldn’t have included an olive. Was that really necessary?
Medic comes back with a stack of books up to her chin, each one thicker than Scout’s whole arm. She drops them on the table with a heavy thud.
“Alright, here we are,” She adjusts her glasses and starts wiping dust from the front covers. “Hoh, I haven’t needed these in so long!”
Scout stares at the books. They’re intimidatingly long and she’s already struggling just to understand what the titles are saying. Was that ana.. Anatomic?
Maybe this was a terrible idea.
“I can’t do this, doc.”
A vein pulses in Medics forehead. “Scout, you just asked me to-“
“No, no, I can’t…” She frowns, growing frustrated with herself. “I can’t read it. I can’t do textbooks, or essays, or any of that reading and writing crap, alright? You were right, I'm just stupid.”
“When did I say that? ” Medic seems taken aback by this. She frowns, raising an eyebrow.
“Uh, okay, how about when you said I was impatient, and always runnin’ my mouth-“
“Psh, don’t put words in my mouth!” Medic interrupts her, which makes Scout blink in surprise. “Yes, I said those things, but I never called you stupid. Your dyslexia is unrelated to your greater flaws!”
Scout doesn’t know what dys-whatever was, but those words were surprisingly reassuring in their own blunt, Medic way.
Medic scratches at her hair and a stray curl falls over her forehead. “Alright, let’s see. Just for starters, we have human anatomy, immunology,” She takes the books one by one and reads the titles out loud. “Innere medizin… Ah, naturally, many of my books are in German. It seems I will have to translate them anyway, hm?”
Scout blinks, jaw slightly agape.
“Don’t give me that look,” Medic reaches across the table and pushes Scout’s jaw back up with one finger. “You already know I prefer more hands-on methods, eh?”
“You- You’re-“ She stammers, looking at Medics hand, then up at her. “You’re serious?” She points at her with the sandwich.
“When have I ever joked about science?”
Scout is frozen for so long a slice of tomato slowly slides out of the sandwich, landing directly on the petri dish. They look down to see the fungus quickly growing over it.
“Ooh! It eats tomatoes, too!” Medic claps her hands together, grinning. “Quickly, if you give me that, I won’t tell Heavy you stole her sandwich.”
Hah, now Medics' weird flesh-eating mushroom was eating her lunch. Take that , Heavy.
-
Some might say that this was a dick move, but Scout was getting desperate here.
When Scout suggested another ‘lesson’, she was hoping for a more physical kind. Physical as in handsy, not physical as in live dissections, but of course Medic had that idea. There were no charts or diagrams that could teach Scout better than ‘the real thing’, she said. At least she didn’t make Scout sit at a desk and take notes, droning on and on as she wrote on a blackboard.
The lessons went like this:
Medic would be nose-deep in a book, speaking in a mixture of German-to-English as she translated the textbooks and named off big words like thorax Scout had never heard before. Scout would go ‘ooooh, thorax , I know about that one,” and nod all smart-like while flicking her ponytail over her shoulder. Medic wouldn't so much as glance in her direction.
Then, she would pull out a baboon carcass, or take one of the dozen stolen limbs from the patients at the Teufort hospital, and make Scout watch her take it apart. The first few times, Scout threw up all over the floor, which was embarrassing around the not-crush she was trying to impress, but she was able to stomach it after a week or so.
There was nothing exciting about it. It was just a little gross and gave her horrific nightmares for a few days, which was usual after spending time with Medic. She was a surprisingly good teacher, but that’s all she did- Teach!
Scout was bored out of her mind, so she started to notice other things.
With her head tilted towards the books, Medic would constantly have to push her glasses up the bridge of her nose when they slid down. As Scout tried not to puke her guts out with her hands in some unrecognizable animal’s chest cavity, Medic would adjust her glasses to get a better look. Scout would stare at Medic’s hands curled around the frame, and the blood streaks along her cheekbones.
They would be close enough that Scout could lean over and brush their shoulders if she had that death wish, and she would get distracted with ogling, the only thing that could get her to focus again was Medic snapping ‘Pay attention!’ when Scout ended up cutting her own hand with the bonesaw.
So, lessons could’ve been more productive.
And look, there was another thing, but it was ridiculous.
Like seriously, unbelievably ridiculous.
Even more ridiculous than being jealous of Heavy.
She was jealous of the glasses.
It made no sense considering they were completely inanimate objects, but Scout noticed it. She noticed it while she read and while she looked closely at a body. Medic’s hands were always touching those glasses. What they should have been touching was Scout.
So, she hid them.
“This is unbelievable!” Medic cried as she paced around the room. “I had a wonderful lesson planned for today. I was going to show you how to dissect an entire nervous system, but I seem to have misplaced my glasses.”
“Gee, that just ain’t like you, doc,” Scout says, rocking back and forth on her feet. She flicks her ponytail. “I’m sure we could come up with something else.”
“No! No,” Medic continues to pace, muttering to herself. “I could show you anyway, but nerves are rather fragile, it would be a huge mess, a complete waste of a body!” She sighs, rubbing her temples. “Maybe the fungus also eats metal…?”
This was getting out of hand way too quickly.
Scout couldn’t believe it, was it that hard for her to take a hint? Most dudes couldn’t wait to get their hands on a hot chick like Scout, let alone spend hours of time with her alone without so much as picking up on her flirting. It’s like when you would tell your Ma you’re going to a guy's house to study but you just ended up suckin’ eachothers faces for hours! Except this time, the guy ain’t even a guy and she was dense as bricks. Medic’s an older lady- like, at least a 20 years older- So her methods could be outdated, but that doesn’t change the fact that a fine girl like Scout is alone with her and she won’t look!
So no glasses meant no progression in Scout’s Get-Medic-To-Touch-Her plan. No big deal, she can come up with a new plan!
“Hey, hey… How about I help ya look?”
Medic looks at her, face stony and lips pursed in a thin line. Scout thinks she’ll say no, she’s doing that thing where she raises her chin high, like she’s too prideful to accept help for such a silly mistake. Scout almost feels bad for setting this whole thing up.
“Very well.”
“Great!” Scout says, a little too excited. “We’ll get to your, er, lesson in no time.”
Now it was time to pull out the charm.
Scout walks over to the desk and places her hands down on it. She leans forward, making sure to pop her hip out as she skims the surface. No glasses, just the parasitic fungus that had grown concerningly large at this point.
“Sooo, where did you last see them?”
When Scout looks back up, Medic’s leaning against the nearest wall with her arms crossed, not bothering to look for the glasses at all. “Unfortunately, I can’t see much of anything.”
“Ha ha, veeery funny,” Scout sticks her tongue out and goes to ‘look’ in the next spot.
She drops on all fours and starts to check under the surgical table. She didn’t need to be on the floor for this, one quick glance proved the glasses obviously weren’t there, but that wasn’t the point. She tries arching her back like those hot ladies in her magazines did.
She looks over her shoulder and finds Medic is staring directly at her. Scout blushes a little and looks away before they make eye contact. Was she actually…?
Scout was so used to Medic ignoring her that having her full attention was a lot more intense than she expected. But it wasn’t like she could see very well, right? She should’ve thought this through a little more. Scout might just be a big blob to her right now, she couldn’t be staring at her ass.
“Find them yet?” Medic asks when Scout keeps starting at the empty floor.
“Nope, not under here,” She says as she stands back up, confidence wavering in her voice.
She walks over to the shelf cart by the operating table. Between the surgical tools and the textbooks were the glasses, folded neatly just where she had left them.
“Shit, looks like they were here the whole time!” Scout chuckles, rubbing the back of her neck.
“Oh! Funny how these things happen, hm?” Medic says with a slight smile, pushing herself off the wall. “Look at me, just a crazy old woman losing her things.”
“Don’t sweat it, it’s why you’ve got me,” Scout winks at her.
Medic’s smile gets tight like she’s trying not to laugh. “Yes, of course. Now if you’d just-“
“Ah, ah!” Scout tuts, pulling her hands back as Medic reaches for them. “Your hands are all covered in blood, let me put these on you.”
Medic says nothing and Scout’s heart starts to race. In an instant she’s gone cold and incalculable and it infuriates Scout how easily she could block off her emotions like that.
It isn’t a yes but it isn't a no either , so she takes a cautious step forward.
This was a risky move. She feels like she’s cornering an unpredictable wild animal. Medic’s eyes flicker from her to her hands, the whites of her eyes visible and her face twisted into confusion.
Scout pushes past that feeling that makes her want to run and never look back. Scout hates doctors, she shouldn’t be walking closer and closer, hands clammy and lower lip between her teeth.
Scout takes a last step forward, the tip of her sneaker bumping into Medic’s boot. She has to tilt her head up to look her in the eyes. She’s looking directly back.
Very slowly, Scout places the glasses on her head, fingertips brushing the short hairs around her ears.
“Thank you,” Medic says, her expression still.
Scout’s hands hover around the sides of her head. If she looks hard enough, she can swear there’s a tint of red in Medic’s cheeks that wasn’t from dried blood.
“Right! Sure, yeah. Of course,” Scout coughs and shoves her hands into her pockets, stepping back. “I guess we can get to work now, huh?”
“Yes, we should,” Medic smiles wide enough to show all her teeth. “Oh, and Scout?”
“Yeah, doc?” She holds her breath, hopeful.
“They’re reading glasses.”
-
Scout puzzles over that for the next few days.
‘They’re reading glasses’. Well, duh, weren’t all glasses for reading? Reading, and seeing, and whatever else you used your eyes for. That was the whole point of glasses, why would she need to specify?
“Hey, are your glasses readin’ glasses?” Scout asks one afternoon while she’s in Sniper's camper. She’s sitting at her table, flipping through comic book pages but not actually looking at any of the words. Sniper sits across from her, making her own arrows.
“What?” Sniper raises an eyebrow at her. “No? They’re just regular sun-glasses.”
“So you don’t need them to see or anything, right?”
“Erm, I guess not. But reading glasses aren’t really for that, either.”
Scout drops her comic. “Huh?”
“Reading glasses are just for little details, yaknow. They aren’t prescription or anything. I reckon people can see just fine without them.”
“Oh.” Shit. “Okay.” Goddammit. “Cool.”
“…Alright, fess up.”
“What?” Scout squeaks.
“Why are you asking me about reading glasses all of the sudden? Why are you acting weird about it?” Sniper drops her elbows on the table and cranes her neck forward, narrowing her eyes suspiciously.
“No reason! What, I can’t ask a simple question anymore? Maybe I wanted to get you some new shades for your birthday!”
Sniper frowns. “You don’t know my birthday.”
“And who’s fault is that ?”
Sniper scrunches her nose and sits back down in her seat. She resumes her arrow-making, only the quiet shk-shk-shk of carved wood filling the silence. Scout lets out a relieved sigh, thinking that Sniper dropped the subject.
“Say, Scout, when I think about it…” She says suddenly, which makes Scout flinch. “The only other person on the team that wears any sort of glasses is the Medic.”
“Okaythanksbye!” Scout screams as she goes running out of the camper.
-
Scout started avoiding Medic.
She stops visiting the infirmary and does something she’s never, ever done before: strategize.
Avoid any routes that Medic- and by extension, Heavy- would be. Front lines, choke points- From this point on, Scout would only be flanking, and when she hears the familiar rat-rat-rat of a mini gun, or high pitched maniacal laughter, she’ll high tail it.
The next morning Scout barely had the courage to show her face in the respawn room, and every day after that, she would get guilty and quiet and avoid everyone. She just couldn’t believe it. Medic was onto her the whole time and Scout hadn’t the slightest idea. Her vision wasn’t even that bad without the glasses, so Medic saw her clear as day. Sure, she didn’t take her to dinner or slow dance with her, but she thought she was being pretty smooth nonetheless. Turns out she was the knucklehead.
And here’s the kicker: Medic said nothing! She didn’t give Scout any weird glances, none of the other merc’s started teasin’ her, and Spy wasn’t letting her know how much of a failure she was anytime they crossed paths, which meant she didn’t go gossiping either. It was like they’d never had that little interaction in the first place, and Scout was happy to keep it that way.
It works for about 3 days before Medic approaches her.
Scout is wrapping her knuckles just before a mission when she appears behind her, muttering close to her ear.
“I want you in my infirmary after this.”
Scout flinches so hard she almost falls off the bench. “Holy- Say what?!”
Medic is real close and her glasses are pushed as far as they’ll go on her nose and she has to look away before she starts blushing.
“I don’t recall us ever agreeing that you would stop coming for your lessons.”
“Aw, come on. Don’t take it personally, you know how it is. I’ve just been busy,” Scout laughs nervously. The excuse sounds bad even to her own ears.
“Don’t make me look for you,” Medic says very seriously before walking off.
Scout watches her coat flap behind her until the Administrator’s voice comes booming through the intercoms.
That was non negotiable. When Medic decided she wanted somethin’, you can believe she’ll get it by any means possible. Scout can’t stop thinking about it the entire mission. She’s sloppy, distracted, and by the 5th Spy backstab she’s starting to get seriously pissed off.
She shows up to Medic’s infirmary battered, bruised, and with a deep scowl on her face.
The hallway is dark. Bright lights pour in from the crack in the door and Scout pokes her head through.
Medic is sitting on the edge of her empty surgical table. She isn’t wearing her coat or gloves, just a button up with her suspenders dangling by her waist.
“Uhm,” Scout says.
“Ah, Scout! You came!” Medic says, but she doesn’t stand. Scout’s a little distracted, because her sleeves are rolled up so she can see her toned forearms- Shit, did Medic make her a prude?!
“I’m very glad that you did so willingly. These things are always so much harder when you aren’t cooperative”
“Hah. Sure. Look, I’m real sorry that I’ve skipped out on you these last few days-“
“None of that,” Medic interrupts her. “What matters is that you’re here now. Come!”
Scout shuffles forward, feet dragging on the ground. Medic rises from the surgical table and turns on the medi gun, which starts emitting a soft glow.
“This will be your final lesson.”
Scout blinks in confusion and looks around the room. There was a beating heart on the nearby cart with a mechanical attachment similar to the one Medic implanted in her months ago, and very sharp surgical tools laid out next to it.
“Are you, uh… preparin’ for surgery?” Scout asks, fidgeting.
“Not just me,” She says.
Okay, so Scout just wanted her to do some more dissections or whatever. That was easy.
“You aren’t gonna do surgery on me or anything, right?”
Medic laughs loudly and doesn’t answer.
Her hands go to the collar of her shirt and Scout watches her undo the first button. Slowly, they move their way down, exposing neck, then collarbone.
“Whoa!” Scout says, covering her eyes with a hand before she can see anything else. “The hell are you doing?!”
She can hear the smile in Medics voice as she says, “Don’t be such a baby, you’ve seen much worse than this.”
She was right, Scout could handle seein’ some tits. She just… didn’t get it. Was Medic coming onto her? Because this was the least sexy way she could do it. Or was it in a completely professional sense? Medic probably sees naked people in surgery all the time, why would she care?
Yeah, totally professional. Scout can be cool and professional.
“That still doesn’t explain any of this.” She slowly opens her eyes.
Medic stretches herself across the surgical table and gestures for Scout to step closer. Her shirt was completely unbuttoned in the front now. She reaches for one of the tools from the cart and, when Scout comes close enough, she places a scalpel in her palm.
“You are going to give me an Überheart transplant.”
Wait, what?
“What?!” Scout recoils like she’s been burned. “No! No way. No, I am not doing that.”
“This is everything we’ve been working towards!” Medic says, and boy is it weird arguing with someone when they’re just in their bra.
“Since when?!”
“I said it myself that I was going to teach you patience. This is the ultimate test of them all,” Medic says like it’s the most rational thing in the world.
“News flash, doc: I’m no surgeon! I could barely handle a cut on my leg a few weeks ago and now you want me to do this?!”
“Make an incision here,” Medic ignores Scout’s freak out, running a finger down the center of her chest.
“You’re nuts, you’re crazy, I should’ve listened to the others,” Scout rambles, speaking over Medic.
“Split open my breast bone. You know these steps, I’ll be here to guide you the whole time!” Her voice raises, and by now their voices are rushed and overlapping.
“I let this get outta hand. I’m sorry, but I gotta draw the line somewhere, and this-?”
“Scout!” Medic shouts, and Scout snaps her jaw shut.
She sighs sharply and thinks carefully about her words. This is probably the first time she’s had to convince someone instead of using brute violence to force them.
“We have been through this… many times.”
“Yeah, but you didn’t mention I’d be doin’ it!” Scout hisses.
“What’s the worst that could happen? You kill me? Ha!” Medic throws her head back and cackles. “My technology is too good, it’s impossible.”
Scout folds her arms close to her body. “I ain’t doubtin’ your fancy tech.”
“Then what is it?”
She says nothing.
Scout is torn between watching and looking away as Medic straightens up, shaking her shirt off her shoulders.
“Is it the fact that I’ve revealed myself to you?”
Scout scoffs, feeling the heat rise to her cheeks. “What are you-“
She undoes her bra clasp from the back and lets the clothes drop to the floor. She was completely bare from the waist up now. “Is it that I’m giving you full permission to touch me?”
Scout’s mouth goes dry.
That was it, wasn’t it? Medic figured it out. She knew what all those ‘lesson’ excuses were about, why Scout hid her glasses, all of it.
She felt like a complete idiot.
Who did she think she was, getting a crush on the Medic of all people? No, who did she think she was actually trying to pursue it?
She stares, feeling shame burn throughout her body. Medic stares back, with her perfect hair and satisfied smile and she isn’t sure if this is rejection or an invitation because her boobs are out-
Whatever. Fuck it.
“Fine. I’ll do your damn surgery,” Scout says resolutely.
She steels herself, wrestling her expression into neutrality, placing a hand on Medic’s sternum and readjusting her grip on the scalpel with the other.
A trail of salt and pepper hair ran up from her stomach to her chest, coarse under Scout’s hand. She was scattered with birthmarks and wrinkles and she was so bulky- No wonder she could carry all that shit around with her on the battlefield. Her boobs were way bigger than Scouts, and really nice. Whatever Medic said that one time about none of that textbook shit beating ‘the real thing’ was totally right, because this was way better than that dirty calendar she’s got hung up in her room.
No, this was serious. She’s gotta take this seriously. And stop staring.
Scout squeezes her eyes shut, breathes in, and presses the scalpel in.
The skin breaks easily. She drags the blade down and it goes against any instinct she’s ever known. Red was bad , but hell- She works for them anyway, right? Still, no one was supposed to be cut into like this. This felt more dangerous than any war zone she’s ever charged headfirst into- She wants to cry and vomit all at the same time. Her hand keeps dragging down. Medic’s flesh is a vibrant red but the blood doesn’t spill, whatever the medi gun was doing kept her body functioning as it normally would, in a limbo of broken and healed.
“Doesn’t it hurt?” Scout says, voice weak in her own ears.
“That’s half the fun,” Medic whispered back.
And so it goes like that. ‘Yes, perfect! Now, I will hold my rib cage open…’ Medic says, among other reassuring things, telling Scout what to do and how to do it. Scout won’t back out now. If she focuses on the sound of Medic’s voice, she can almost ignore the feeling of moving muscle under her fingertips.
Scout was sweating. It wasn’t because she was worried about messing up the surgery. Medic couldn’t die, but that wasn’t reassurance enough for the emotional aspect of things. She’s so close to her body, literally inside of her guts, and Medic is carefully scrutinizing her every step of the way. This couldn’t be professional, right? This had to be at least somewhat romantic, or even sexual. Medic knows she’s got the hots for her, so was this a punishment?
Scout is terrified out of her mind, but she’s also kinda thrilled.
Her hands are covered in blood halfway up her forearm once she reaches the center of her chest. When Scout reaches in and takes hold of her heart, the scalpel blade presses against the artery but she doesn’t make the final cut. Scout stares at the pumping veins and feels every beat of the heart in her palm.
Medic reaches up and tangles her fingers in her dog tags. She tugs slightly, urging Scout to look up.
“Do it,” Medic tells her, and pulls her in.
Scout gasps, but the sound is muffled by Medics mouth over hers. She’s smiling and their teeth clash as Scout instantly throws herself into it without thought. She’s leaning over Medic’s body, pushing their chests together, and it’s getting blood all over her shirt but she doesn’t care. Scout’s trembling hands squeeze tighter around her heart which she can feel beat faster and faster and Medic’s hands grab at her shoulders, her neck, her ponytail, pulling her in like she was trying to merge their bodies. Scout can’t imagine why she was getting all insecure earlier- not when Medic is kissin’ her like this, and her head is swimming with all the fear and adrenaline and it’s the best she’s ever felt in her fuckin’ life.
She pulls back to take a breath, eyes wide and mouth hanging open. Medic looks up at her, glasses askew and hair out of place, that singular curl over her forehead. She’s smiling, and her lips are wet with spit and she shushes Scout just before she speaks. “You can’t hurt me,” Medic says, and it sounds a little threatening, and this time she doesn’t have to pull Scout for her to lean in.
Scout opens her mouth a little wider and Medic presses her tongue against hers and Scout drives the scalpel forward, cutting the heart from out of her chest.
-
