Some of you may know me some of you may not. This is my first fic for R6, but far from my first time writing lol usually I stick to CoD. But, a friend or two of mine dragged me down this rabbit hole and there's so little content that I just had to add yet another AU to my muse's list of AUs. So… here we are…. For those of you who don't know me, I do reviewer shoutouts at the beginning of every chapter to say thank you! No Lion hate pls he's trying ;-; I'm trying to make this a one-shot, but that has never worked out in the past, so we'll see what happens.
Thanks for Reading, Fly High Aim Higher
~Spitfire out
When Jay had been told he'd be working alongside some of the brightest minds in medicine the world had to offer, he'd expected… well, not this. He'd expected scientists and doctors way out of his league, he questioned why he was being approached to join said doctors, only to find out that they were part of a larger combat team called Rainbow, it was a counter-terrorism unit. He had expected technology and innovative medicines and treatment techniques. He did not expect… whatever it was the two Frenchmen were yelling at each other. He'd learned, in his short time with Rainbow, that Lion and Doc did not exactly see eye to eye. They argued often and as little French as Jay knew, he could still catch insults being thrown under their breaths.
Lion was with the CBRN threat unit, meaning Jay worked with him, but distantly for the most part, especially compared to Doc, who was the only other actual medic on Rainbow.
He looked to the others in the room for help, another Frenchman, looking annoyed between the two, they'd called him Rook. Rook was apparently a big advocate for team-building and general trust between teammates. Jay liked him, he was a good guy, if a little naive.
A German, 'Blitz', sighed from next to him, "They're arguing about the 2015 Ebola crisis… again…."
"What happened?" Jay asked curiously, he'd heard rumor about it, but nothing solid.
Blitz shrugged, "Only Doc and Lion know."
Montagne, another man from the GIGN, seemed annoyed as Doc and Lion finally stopped arguing and left in separate directions, "Lion made mistakes, there was an accident and people died, it wasn't directly his fault he was trying to keep people safe. He and Doc were the only survivors. They were off site when it happened. Doc lost friends in the accident and blames Lion for it."
"Oh so am I the only one who didn't already know that?" Blitz questioned.
Montagne shrugged, "You could probably figure it out if you were more fluent in French."
Blitz threw his hands up in frustration, leaving others in the room chuckling. Blitz, apparently was known to exaggerate reactions and stories for the sake of humor. From the stories he'd heard, Blitz also threw around awful jokes in the middle of missions, but was a good man, much like Rook.
The talk moved from Lion and Doc's argument to general banter and the 'getting to know you' game since Jay was still new to the team.
"So," Rook started, "Where are you from, Jay? FBI, SWAT?"
"Delta, actually," Jay answered.
"And how long have you been a field doc?" the French woman, 'Twitch', asked.
"Five years in the field, studied for three before enlisting."
"That's not very long," Blitz remarked, "Doc has at least twenty years of experience under his belt."
"I never claimed to be the best or most experienced," Jay responded with a small shrug, "I try to stay on top of new developments, but really I'm nothing special."
"Well there's gotta be something you got no one else does," an American, Thermite, commented, "Six has an eye for talent. We'll see soon enough I suppose."
Jay had been warned that Thermite was notoriously… difficult. He was a pyromaniac at best and absolutely refused proper personal safety equipment while handling his explosives. Jay could see the evidence of this in many, many burn scars on the man's hands and forearms.
It was a couple weeks of settling in and meeting the team before Jay was sent out with a team. There was a hostage situation and Rainbow was being called to resolve it.
He was sent with Lion, Montagne, IQ, and Ash. They waited on the perimeter while Lion guided his drone, the EE-One-D, into place above the building. Montagne had happily told Jay that the drone's engineer, the GIGN's own Twitch, had nicknamed the drone 'Résonner', which was apparently French for Echo. Jay could almost hear Lion roll his eyes at the name. It's callsign was 'Big Brother', Lion insisted.
"Two guarding the main entrance. Lots of activity, second floor, center room," Lion said bruskly, "One freezing by the window upstairs. The drone is not picking up any other movement." Jay didn't fail to notice Lion pointedly avoiding using the drone's nickname.
Ash crossed her arms and nodded, thinking, "The way I see it we have two options, grapple up to the roof and breach, come in from above and take them off guard, or go in hard and fast through the garage."
"Keep in mind, my drone can only detect people who are moving," Lion reminded, dropping his arm, and the wrist mounted device, back to his side, "There could be many more hiding, the EE-One-D's pulse is not exactly… quiet."
Ash nodded at Lion, "IQ, can you scan the garage for explosives from here?"
IQ turned and seemed to judge the distance for a moment before shaking her head, "Nein, I need to be closer to be sure." She answered.
Ash nodded, "We can't risk giving them the warning, we'll go through the roof. Everyone on me, let's go."
They moved quickly, avoiding windows so they wouldn't be seen coming. Once they reached the side of the house they each tossed their grapples to the roof and tested the hold. Before long the were on the roof, kneeling in a circle as Lion scanned with his drone again.
"Attendez," Lion held up a hand to stop Ash as she moved to place one of Thermite's breaching charges, "They're moving the hostage…" he paused, watching his feed, then pointed at a different section of the roof, "She's there. No other movement detected."
The pulsing from Lion's drone, Jay pointedly called it Résonner in his head, stopped and Lion dropped his hand back to his weapon.
"Alright." Ash set the charge carefully on the flat surface, "IQ scan for traps. Monty and I will go down first. The three of you follow when I give the clear."
IQ flipped open the screen on her wrist and scanned the room below them, "One explosive on the door…. wired to two, make that three, other explosives packages."
"Copy, take 'em out."
IQ raised her pistol, steadying it on her arm with the screen and lined up a shot through the roof. Two bullets later there was an explosion, "Room clear."
Ash triggered the breaching charge and Montagne dropped first, shield up the moment he hit the floor, pistol drawn to shoot around it. Ash dropped behind him, covering his back with her weapon raised. The dust settled in the room to reveal the destruction from the traps IQ had dealt with.
"Room clear!" Ash called as she and Montagne moved towards the hall.
IQ jumped down and Lion and Jay followed quickly. There had been two men wearing white masks in the room. They had very clearly died when IQ triggered the traps. They filed into the hall behind Montagne with Lion watching their backs.
Jay preferred not to remember the lives that had to be taken in order to save others. His job was saving lives, not taking them, so he let his mind wander. He stared ahead at Montagne's back.
The French operators had been the most welcoming among Rainbow, Rook especially, as he instantly wormed his way into Jay's routine and kept him company when he had nothing else to do. He'd been ushered straight to their 'side' of the barracks, to the bunk above Montange, who snored a little, but Jay didn't mind, his nightmares had been easy on him the past week and he could only blame the noise.
A pat on the shoulder brought him back to the scene, Lion gave him a knowing look and nodded at him. Jay shrugged back and got ready to breach the room the hostage was in.
Ash loaded one of her breaching rounds into its launcher.
They stacked up behind Montagne in the hall in front of a solid wall. Ash shot the breaching round into the wall and it was only a moment before the wall exploded and the team moved forward. There were five quick bursts of fire and then silence.
"Room clear!" Ash called, checking that they'd taken down the Masks in the room.
Jay moved to the woman on her knees in the center and knelt next to her, "Are you injured?" He asked, looking her over quickly. She looked okay aside from dirt and tears staining her face. She shook her head to confirm and Jay nodded, "You're safe now, stay behind me," he instructed, helping her up with a hand on her arm.
"Jay, Lion, get her out of here, IQ, Montagne, on me," Ash ordered, moving back towards the hole they'd blown in the wall, "We'll clear you a path to the front door."
Lion took a moment to scan with his drone again, "At least four in the foyer, more in the garage and dining room."
The pulse stopped and the team moved forward, Jay making sure to keep the hostage safely behind him. Once he found his pace he again retreated into his head, focusing only on keeping the woman safe.
He and Lion made it out the front door with her and they quickly guided her back away from any stray bullets as the rest of the team cleared the house.
Jay made quick, though careful, work of the woman's restraints and she latched on to him, thanking him and Lion repeatedly for saving her, crying through it all.
Jay simply patted her back and assured her that it was over and she was safe.
The others returned before long and Jay took his time fussing over the fact that Montagne had somehow managed to twist his ankle and dislocate his shoulder. He ignored the chuckles and murmurs of 'mother hen' he would do his job and do it well dammit.
His nightmares continued to go easy on him through the days he was with Rainbow, letting him get a good night's rest, the dark circles under his eyes finally starting to fade.
It was only after a mission gone sideways, well after a hundred days with the team (he'd stopped counting at that point), that they came back full force. Jäger took the brunt of it and was resting in the infirmary under Doc's eye. Jay and Doc took shifts through the night, ensuring the infirmary always had one of them at the ready, and making sure each other got enough sleep at the same time. It was a delicate balance they held, but they managed and Montagne, who had known Doc the longest, often remarked about how much stress Jay had taken off of his overworked friend.
Now, at three in the morning, Jay shot up from his bed with a frightened gasp. He stayed there for a moment, sweating and trying to catch his breath, visibly shaken by the nightmare.
"You okay?" A voice asked quietly from across the way.
Jay looked over at Rook, also sitting up in his bunk. He slept above Doc, or would if Doc were in bed, "Yeah…. I'm fine, sorry to wake you, go back to sleep."
Rook shrugged, "I was already awake, mon ami." With that he jumped down, landing silently on the balls of his feet, and gestured for Jay to join him.
The left the barracks and headed towards the rec room, "No offense," Rook started as they walked, "But you're a terrible liar."
Jay just hummed in reply, he knew that already, "Why were you awake?"
Rook shrugged, "Nightmares. Same as you. We all get them." The plopped down on the couch in the rec room and turned the tv on for white noise, "Doc is haunted by the people he was too late to save, Monty about when Le Roc might fail, Twitch and IQ about failing, Bandit doesn't really talk about his, others dream about the lives they've taken, the lives they've failed to save. What about you?"
Jay sighed and stood, he made his way slowly to the coffee pot and started making himself a cup, "A lot of things I guess…" he admitted quietly, "The life I didn't save, the love I lost, what might have been or what might be."
Rook nodded in thanks as Jay passed him a mug and sat back down, "It can be pretty overwhelming… I can tell when Doc's had a bad nightmare like that, leaves him shaken for days, he thinks he hides it, but there's no missing the haunted look in his eyes."
They talked for a while and Jay learned that Rook was an exceptionally light sleeper and that Doc had tried to give him sleeping medicine to help, but it had never worked, so Rook woke up sometimes, and if an operator woke up from a nightmare, he'd keep them company. They talked about less serious things, like how Doc had the thickest accent of all of the GIGN operators, and Jay learned that Parisians were just "Like That", according to Rook. He was apparently teaching Blitz French, Blitz was apparently determined to learn and master the native languages of every Rainbow operator. Rook offered to teach Jay a little French. Lion joined them before long and they nodded polite greetings to the man as he made himself tea. Jay checked his watch, four-thirty, his shift was in half an hour.
And then Rook asked him about the love he'd lost.
"I…" Jay trailed off, bit his lower lip and lifted a hand to rub at the chain of the dog tags around his neck.
Lion cuffed Rook over the head, "Ignore him," he addressed Jay, "he's too nosy for his own good."
"Ah, sorry," Rook rubbed the back of his head, "I like to help, y'know? You definitely don't have to talk about it, but if you ever want to, I'd be happy to lend an ear."
Jay nodded at him, "I appreciate the offer… And the company." They sat in comfortable silence as Jay finished his coffee and checked the time, "Well, I better go give Doc a break… see you guys around." With that Jay left to take over his shift in the infirmary.
Whelp. As I expected, this is not going to be a oneshot I seem incapable of writing those ( oneshot writers: how you do the thing?). So. We've established the setting and Jay's place, more or less. We still have a bit to learn about him though, as far as his capabilities and everything. So… I guess I'll see you in the next chapter?
Thanks for Reading, Fly High Aim Higher
~Spitfire out