AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hey there, I'm Meet-the-Mercs, I run a tumblr blog of the same name filled with TF2 related material. I write stories and little tidbits of headcanon I have for the Mercs, but since I wanted this to be a multi-chapter story, I figured would be a solid place to post this little number.
I retconned the story, sorry for anyone who actually liked it already. Big changes. Very Fast. Hope you all like it now.
Chapter: 1 - RED Gravel Co. Supervisors
It was 9:00 on a Friday night; the Mercs had spent the entire week fighting off BLU's from their Teufort facility. After they drunk all of their month's alcohol rations that Ms. Pauling had sent, they figured they would get together and drown themselves in booze at the local watering-hole. This was the first time they came to town not to celebrate, and everyone in the bar knew it.
Usually the Nine "strangers", as the townsfolk called them, came to town to have something of a celebration. Nobody really understood what they were celebrating, but the way the "strangers" acted always seemed to say they were celeberating something grand and exciting.
What usually would be observed is that the Nine would walk into the Teufort bar, to the chagrin of Jimmy the bartender, and get a large order of assorted drinks. The lanky one in the ski-mask would normally have bourbon while the others would usually settle with beer. Over the course of the night, up until 12:00 in the morning, the celebration would devolve into what could only be referred to as the Munich Oktoberfest in New Mexico. There would be singing, shouting, dancing, and eventually a bar-fight. The songs would be lead by the one in the old combat helmet and the rest would just sing when they felt like it. The Mercs favorite song seemed to be "Gory, Gory, what a helluva a way to die," an American war-tune from World War 2.
However, that night was different. The Nine seemed to be exhausted, tired, and clearly wanted to just drink like every other bar-patron.
After they took their usual spot, a large booth in the back corner, the Mercs ordered their drinks from their familiar faced waitress, a young woman who nobody knew her name but she always seemed to be their server. The booth was illuminated by a single lamp that gave it an atmosphere of a noir mystery. They sat silently and waited for their drinks, the sound of smooth jazz playing from the jukebox on the far side of the bar.
When the waitress finally returned with their drinks it came as a relief. They thanked her and began drowning their sorrows in what was equivalent to aged cactus water mixed with spit and urine, except for Marcel, The Spy, who ordered his glass of bourbon.
Time passed and as the Mercs were finishing their first round of drinks, a conversation was started between the nine of them about their losses. A few insults were shot at one another in regards to blame, but as he took another sip of bourbon, Marcel suddenly came to the realization of what was actually causing him and his colleagues such a string of losses. It hadn't occurred to them before simply because it didn't make any sense, but there was only one possible reason for why they failed to make a proper counter-offensive.
"There's a mole amongst us." The Spy uttered darkly, getting everyone's immediate attention, "Two months gentlemen. Two months of fighting and now we're in this backwater town defending it from hundreds of BLU Agents." The tired Frenchman leaned back in his seat and sighed. "There must be someone feeding the BLU's our plans, it is the only way."
The other Mercs nodded in agreement; there was no other possible way the BLU's were able to counter-act every single attack the RED's tried. Someone either had to have infiltrated their base, or someone had to have been working for the BLU's this entire time.
The youngest member of the team, Deluca the Scout, spoke up with his harsh Bostonian accent. "Well what're we supposed to do? The mole sure as hell ain't one of us, Doc made sure of it." He slammed his beer on the table. He focused his gaze on The Medic who had been pinching the bridge of his nose to prevent another stinging migraine, "Dr. Psychopath over there does full checks on all nine of us every freakin' month. They'd have to get past HIM, and he's got eyes like a freakin' hawk." The Medic took the praise politely but continued to pinch his nose as Scout had managed to bring back his migraine by smacking him on the back.
A loud creek could be heard from the center section of the booth. Misha, the Heavy Weapons Guy, had leaned forward and coughed to grab everyone's attention, "Perhaps it was inferior RED Mercenaries?" He suggested, eyeing the Scout. His arms were crossed.
"You think our loyal Mercenary brethren would betray us?" Doe, the Soldier, announced. He stood up and slammed his fist on the table, "Impossible! They were screened for their likelihood of stabbing us in the back and all of them came out of screening with 0% backstabbery!"
The nine men were somewhat confused by Soldier's mad babble and just accepted it as his insanity. He always seemed to have a penchant for losing track of the conversation.
Scout shot out of his seat and looked Soldier in the eye, "Alright, first of all Soldier no they weren't, second of all they're literally low-grade mercenaries, they were hired from the cheapest Private Security company in the U.S. they're basically washed up old losers who couldn't even flip freakin burgers." He said, "Of course they probably stabbed us in the back; God knows how much they get paid." Scout's voice pierced through everyone's eardrums. The Spy slapped him on the back of the head nearly causing the younger man's beret to fall on the table.
"Deluca shut your damn mouth before we get thrown out. Ms. Pauling had to pay the bartender to let us keep going here, I'd rather not deal with the administrator's wraith if we get arrested again." Spy forced Scout down into his seat. He lit a cigarette and took a long drag, "Gentlemen we must find a way to turn this fight around before we're pushed up against a damn corner and forced to survive on our own feces and recycled bullets."
The Mercs sat there in silent contemplation, they may have been the best of the best, but they weren't all trained to be masters of tactical planning or logistics.
"Hey there boys, how're ya'll doin?" The familiar young waitress asked. The men simply answered with various grunts and affirming gestures, "Alright, well I suppose you'd like another round, you boys look like you might need another drink."
"Oh God yes." Scout thanked the woman as she walked back to the bar to retrieve their respective drinks. " Yo guys, who is she?" Scout asked as he finished his beer.
Engineer grabbed Scout's hand and forced the boy to look at him, "Boy she's been servin' us every single damned time we come here. And as a bit of advice, I wouldn't try with her, she's too old for you." The Scout simply flashed the Texan a look of disinterest then looked at his own empty beer bottle.
"What the hell do you mean Hard Hat, she's just as old as me."
"I meant mentally boy, you've got the emotional intelligence of some kind jackrabbit."
Scout attempted to defend his point against the Engineer for some time. The argument escalated until Spy calmly placed his hand on Engineer's back which suggested to him to sit down and control himself from punching Deluca in the mouth. As the table returned to silence the waitress returned with their drinks.
"Here ya go boys, 1 glass of bourbon, 8 RED beers," The waitress returned and placed them in front of each of the mercenaries, "enjoy."
"Wait!" Scout reached out his arm to hopefully garner her attention, the rest of the group simply rolled their eyes, "w- what's your name?"
The waitress was immediately off put by the young man's question, "umm my name's Delilah," his insistent stare moved her to ask a reciprocating question, "What's yours?"
When the Mercs heard her retort they began to motions to Deluca to try and make something up. Scout simply stammered out what he could, "J- John Di – DiMuccio."
"John DiMuccio huh, well it's a pleasure, hope all ya'll enjoy your beers, I'll come back when ya'll want your check." With that she left. The others let out a long sigh.
But in a moment of realization Scout reached out again and stopped the girl once more, "Miss, wait, we were wondering if you were perhaps interested in sharing a beer with us. You were our waitress for a while, so we thought perhaps you'd like to join us for a- a- a cold one." Scout mentally slapped himself for saying it.
Unsure of what to do Delilah looked over to the bartender, "let me ask my boss first." She walked over to the man behind the counter who seemed to be conversing with a customer. She could hear the conversation as she got closer.
"Yeah, they're a bunch of freaks. They keep comin' here; some bitch had to pay me not to call the cops. So, I mean, if the money keeps comin' I ain't gonna call the cops." He chuckled with the man.
Delilah interrupted the two by simply tapping on the counter-top, "Hey Jimmy, they're asking me to join them for a beer. Do you mind?"
Jimmy just gave an affirming grunt and went back to talking to his friend. Delilah rolled her eyes and walked back towards the Mercs. She pulled up a chair and grabbed a beer that Soldier handed to her. The others sat there silently not seeming to actually want to speak.
Delilah took the initiative and started it off, "So, um, what'd you guys do?"
The personal question immediately set them off and they all simultaneously shot a menacing look at the innocent woman. When she flinched they realized who they were looking at and relaxed. Soldier leaned over to Spy and whispered quietly, "What do we say?"
Spy kept his gaze trained on the woman. She was awkwardly looking away from the Scout who was staring deeply at her. "Simple, let me handle this." he cleared his throat, "we're Supervisors who work for RED Gravel Company."
Delilah accepted it, but she just wasn't totally sure about one thing. "But why do you have a ski-mask?" She questioned.
Engineer quickly answered, "He was badly scarred, really bad gravel related incident." He said, "I myself work with the rest of the crew blasting and grinding up the gravel."
Engineer continued his conversation with Delilah, seeming to keep her attention. Soldier leaned over to Spy once again, "care to inform the rest of us of your magnificent plan, crouton?"
Spy furrowed his brow but explained his simple plan "keep the girl distracted, make us out to be simple working folk, then we leave. Hans seems to be a bit beside himself, let him rest; I'll take it from here, if Scout speaks, strike him across the face." Soldier saluted the Spy and the two continued listening in on Engineer and Delilah's conversation.
"And that's the reason why Gravel can't actually be viable form of energy."
"That's… really interesting Mister?"
"Paulson, Rick Paulson." The Engineer tipped his Kepi cap and took a long gulp of beer.
Delilah gave the kind man a smile, "Right, so ummm, what else, do you guys, do? I'm sure the big fellow has something interesting to say." Delilah pointed to the Heavy who kept his stoic position, trying to rest his eyes.
However, like a hibernating bear awoken from his sleep, he opened his eyes and shot a cold dark gaze at the young woman. "I kill people with Sasha, my gun. She weighs 150 Kilograms and fires 200$ custom-tooled cartridges at 10,000 rounds per minute. A man will have lost more body mass within the span of a minute and die from that faster than trauma or blood-loss."
It hit him harder than a pile of bricks; it hit him like a massive Pittsburgh sized pile of bricks. Spy looked at the Heavy with intense anger. "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!"
Heavy gave an unamused look, "I do not lie. I speak truth. Tiny woman want answers, I speak answers." Heavy then lurched forward once more and looked Delilah in the eyes. "I am Heavy Weapons Guy."
The group sat there slack jawed at his blunt honesty, they quickly turned to the woman and saw that she was physically distraught. Suddenly, the backroom-doors swung open. The group turned towards the bar to see what the commotion was about.
A BLU Agent ripped out a knife from Jimmy's back and scanned the terrified room. The Agent looked over to the RED Mercenaries.
The front doors were forced open and the windows were shattered. More BLU Agents poured into the small bar.
Scout quickly grabbed Delilah and held her behind him, taking his seat. "Stay here."
Taking the opportunity to do so, Demoman stood up on the table, with a broken bottle in hand and in the midst of screaming he shouted. "HAVE AT'EM LADS!"
The Mercs quickly grabbed what they could to use as weapons.
"RUN COWARDS!" Heavy threw the table on its side to be used as a shield and the Mercs got to work.
"ATTACK!"