#banbli

It’s been a few days since they’ve last spoken, and Blitz is feeling oddly apprehensive about it now. He hasn’t really got a reason to – he knows Bandit and he knows himself and he knows that there’s something more than friendship between them, but a few too many unsubtle remarks from Jäger and Smoke about getting down to business have made things horrifically awkward. He’s fairly sure that Bandit has been avoiding him because of it, which is understandable, because he’s been avoiding Bandit too.

But that’s gone on long enough, now, and he misses Bandit’s company, be it platonic or not, so he sits himself down on the bench by the wall to wait for Bandit to finish, his heart in his throat and eyes taking in Bandit’s shooting form. It’s as good as always, despite the knee injury he’d received in Belarus two weeks ago, and the slick ease with which he fires makes something warm curl in Blitz’s gut.

He watches Bandit unload another two clips, the familiar purr of the SMG doing more to soothe his nerves than the terrible pep-talk IQ and Jäger had tried to give him back in the common room, and forces himself to his feet when Bandit starts his usual finishing ritual of flicking on the safety and peering down the sights to check the target.

He moves forwards when Bandit’s helmet’s off, making his footsteps louder as he approaches – he’s not sure if Bandit heard him come in or not, and he’d rather not startle him when he’s got a gun in his hand, even though the safety’s on.

Bandit glances up when he gets close and nods minutely in greeting. His hair is sticking up where he’s dragged a hand through it and there’s a grease mark on his cheek, and it’s so endearingly Bandit that it makes Blitz’s chest ache a little.

“How long have you been there?” Bandit asks awkwardly, not quite meeting Blitz’s eyes, and Blitz internally curses Jäger and his big mouth for making things weird between them.

Blitz shrugs a shoulder. “Not long. Your knee looks better.”

There’s silence for a moment, and if Blitz were a lesser person he’d run away until the air between them is clearer and his heart doesn’t feel like it’s going to jump out of his chest. It helps a little that Bandit looks as uncomfortable as he feels, and it’s that that makes him square his shoulders and push on.

“Look, I'm sorry about what they said. They had no right to get involved –”

Bandit crosses his arms and leans against the partition, an unreadable look on his face. “It’s fine, whatever. What do you want?”

Blitz freezes and pushes his hands into the pockets of his hoodie to disguise the fact that they're trembling. “It’s Valentine’s day tomorrow,” he says, staring down the lane so that he doesn’t have to look at Bandit, and hoping that he sounds less nervous than he feels.

He sees Bandit stiffen out of the corner of his eye. “It is,” Bandit says, voice completely void of emotion.

Blitz digs his fingernails into the palms of his hands and screws up his courage. “Would you like to go somewhere? Just the two of us?”

He glances across at Bandit, who’s chewing on his lip and still looking entirely unreadable. It makes him feel a little bit sick, if he’s honest – what if he’s been reading this wrong the whole time, and Bandit isn't interested? – but as he opens his mouth to maybe apologise and run and never come back, Bandit speaks up.

“Like a date?” he asks, and at Blitz’s stilted nod, he softens.

“Yeah,” Blitz says quietly, and turns to face Bandit properly. “Like a date. Like normal people do.”

The corner of Bandit’s mouth quirks up slightly, and Blitz is hit with a wave of relief that makes his head spin.

“What do you mean, like normal people do?” Bandit asks, teasing gently as though testing the waters, and if Blitz weren’t so strung out he’d reach over and hug him gratefully.

He cautiously grins back instead and says, “Y’know, going for dinner and a movie, maybe have a picnic in the park, go ice skating –”

Bandit snorts and rolls his eyes. “I’ve never done any of those things in my life,” he says, and Blitz doesn’t think he imagines the hint of longing in his voice. It makes his chest tighten a little – Bandit deserves to go on a date, damn it, and he’s suddenly all the more determined to take him on one.

“I’ll take you out,” he says firmly, trying to contain his joy, and Bandit’s eyes gleam. “I’ll even hold the doors open for you and pay the bill.”

Bandit’s smile is brighter than Blitz has ever seen. “I’d like that,” he says warmly, and Blitz has to keep control of himself so that he doesn’t say something stupid, like ‘I really want to kiss you,’ or ‘I’m really kind of in love with you.’.

They look at each other for a minute, the silence no longer awkward and Blitz feeling lighter than he has in days. Bandit chews the inside of his cheek and tilts his head as though preparing to say something, but the door to the range swings open and the loud laughter of Smoke and Mute fills the room, and the moment is broken.

Bandit snaps back into action and turns to his gun, but the soft expression doesn’t go, and Blitz finds himself committing it to memory before going to fetch the broom to sweep up the bullet casings that are still scattered across the floor.

(They go out to eat at a restaurant that sells far too little food for far too high a price, but it’s well worth it for the look on Bandit’s face and the talk that they finally manage to have, now that there’s nobody around to interrupt.)

(Blitz can’t help but kiss him outside the base, short and sweet and eagerly returned, and decides that it’s the happiest he’s felt in a long, long time.)

Blitz pretends to bow victoriously, much to the joy of the crowd, and Bandit watches as Valkyrie pushes her way forwards to take the seat opposite them.

Just as she sits down, Thermite hollers for karaoke and successfully diverts most of the crowd over to the other side of the room where the machine patiently awaits. Valkyrie looks torn for a brief second – she normally performs at least one song, picked out by Blackbeard and almost always something dirty – before Blitz waves at her and says, “I’ll still be here later, go and sing!”

She grins at him, holds her hand out for a fist bump, and leaves just as quickly as she’d arrived, leaving Blitz leaning into Bandit’s side and grinning merrily. His cheeks are flushed from the alcohol and his eyes are dancing, and Bandit would lean over to kiss him if they weren’t sat in the middle of a crowded pub. Whilst the base knows that the pair of them are officially a thing (and have been for months), it's apparently still new enough that every little gesture makes them coo - or, in the case of Smoke, toss a handful of condoms at them at every given opportunity. It’s a bit like being back in high school, really - especially since four of the younger operators are now doing a staggeringly accurate rendition of Britney Spear's Toxic.  

“What do I know?” Blitz grins, interrupting Bandit’s train of thought and gently kicking him in the calf. He's got a tiny bit of foam stuck to the top of his lip, which is endearing and gross and makes him look ridiculous. Bandit takes pity on him and wipes it away with a fond roll of his eyes.

“This is, by far, the stupidest thing you've ever done,” he says mildly, because it truly is. Fuze had been the last in a line of four to be defeated by Blitz’s lack of a gag reflex and subsequent ability to drink down anything far quicker than a normal human should probably be able to. It’s both impressive and gross, and he’s a little more than relieved that it only happens on a rare occasion, like before a rare day off, because it usually ends up with Blitz being drunk and needing to be carried home, which isn't exactly the easiest job in the world.

Blitz throws his head back and laughs, audible even over Rook’s singing. “I've made 20 euros, this is the best idea!” he replies, voice almost a shout and drawing a few looks back their way.

“You definitely haven't,” Bandit tells him, plucking the money from Blitz’s hands and putting it in his wallet with the rest of Blitz’s winnings. “And I'm pretty sure you've had enough, now, if you've seriously forgotten the currency.”

“I was joking!” Blitz quickly says, in a way that makes Bandit believe that he was not joking at all. “And it's not that late!”

He points towards the clock on the wall, which currently reads 21:43, and means that he’s been in the pub for going on three hours. Bandit had arrived an hour later – there had been an unfortunate situation involving a forklift, an ammo crate, and a fire axe back on base – so he’s not exactly sure when Blitz started, but he’s fairly sure that Blitz has had plenty all the same.

Blitz pouts sadly, which is ridiculously effective, because Bandit has never been able to deny Blitz anything at the best of times, let alone when he looks so sad. It’s something he only ever does when he’s in the stage between ‘drunk’ and ‘sloshed’, at least, which is a small bit of comfort when Bandit gives in.

He sighs, cursing his soft heart, and gives Blitz a fiver back - which should be able to buy him a single beer and not much more. He receives a quick, “I love you, you're the best!” and a firm kiss on the cheek in kind before Blitz is gone in a flurry of surprisingly coordinated movement, presumably in search of Valkyrie, who’s perched on the arm of a chair and looking rather out of breath. Someone whistles from across the room: he's almost 100% sure it was IQ, so he doesn’t bother responding, and instead turns his attention to the tiny stage where a frazzled looking Thatcher is now arguing with the karaoke machine.

Montagne comes to keep him company for a while – mostly to moan about their dumb, idiot teammates and their seemingly endless trend of getting into trouble, which means he’s had at least two glasses of brandy. Bandit lets him waffle on, half listening to the older man’s rambling thoughts and half keeping an eye on Blitz, who is at the bar with Smoke and Mute and likely to end up in trouble at some point in the near future if he’s not careful.

He makes his return four songs later, which is rather a bit earlier than Bandit was expecting. His £5 has become £35, which is unsurprising, and his legs are working just well enough to get him to their table without falling over.

He staggers to a halt, face flushed and wobbling on his feet, and Bandit just barely manages to sling an arm out around his waist to catch him before he tumbles into the wall.

“I'm back!” he shouts, voice slurred and happy, and Bandit is almost annoyed by how ridiculously fond he is of the idiot.

Montagne jumps up with surprising coordination to help steer Blitz into a seat, which is a relief, because Bandit’s arm isn't strong enough to hold up the entirety of Blitz’s weight by far, despite Blitz’s best efforts to make him do so.

“You're back,” Bandit replies dryly, accepting the wet kiss Blitz plants on his forehead.

“I'll leave you to it,” Montagne says with an exaggerated wink, and laughs as Bandit flips him off.

Blitz smiles warmly at him until the music starts back up, the speakers blaring the bass with far too much force. It’s enough to make Bandit wince, so he can only imagine how loud it is to Blitz, who drops his head to rest against the sticky surface of the table.

“Can we go?” Blitz asks, hands pressing against his temples. “It’s a bit loud, my brain hurts.”

“You’re an idiot,” Bandit tells him, gently patting him on the head and earning a whine for his trouble. “Have you had any water?”

Blitz groans, which Bandit takes as a no, so he pushes his half full glass of lemonade across the table to him, because any drink is better than no drink, and texts IQ to say that they’re leaving.

She sends him a myriad of emojis in return in place of anything remotely useful, so he texts Ash instead. He gets a thumbs up from her, which is better than nothing, so he gently prods Blitz until he sits up and drinks the lemonade.

“Come on, I’ll take you home,” he says, waving at IQ across the room before standing up and nudging at Blitz’s shoulders in an attempt to make him move.

“My face hurts,” Blitz replies, ever so eloquently, and lets Bandit heave him upright.

“I told you that you’d had enough,” Bandit huffs, wrapping an arm firmly around his waist and beginning the slow walk towards the door. It’s a bit of a task, really – the tables are close together and still mostly occupied, and Blitz is made almost entirely of solid, compact muscle, which makes him far heavier than he looks. It’s one of Bandit’s favourite things about him apart from at times like this, when it’s far more of a hinderance than a help. “For someone so smart, you’re incredibly stupid, sometimes.”

Blitz blushes and flops his head to rest on Bandit’s shoulder. He mumbles something that Bandit doesn’t quite hear – probably a denial, because Blitz is terrible at taking any sort of compliment – before gently squeezing on Bandit’s wrist.

“’Love you,” he says, voice slurred but undeniably affectionate, and it makes Bandit’s heart jump in his chest in the exact same way it did six months ago, when Blitz had first blurted it out.

“Yeah, I know,” he replies, gently pressing his mouth to Blitz’s temple. He smells like beer and sweat and it’s not particularly pleasant at all, but it’s Blitz, so he can’t bring himself to care. “I love you too.”