König | Stupid Love

König had made a lot of mistakes in his life... Joining the military at seventeen, the tattoo he had gotten in that Berlin back-alley shop, hundreds of choices that resulted in the scars he wore beneath his hood— both visible and not.

But this? This might be the biggest mistake of all.

He could feel them across the room in the KorTac briefing hall— didn't need to look to know exactly where they stood, arms crossed, attention focused on the mission parameters. Three chairs away might as well have been three continents for how vast the distance felt, and yet König swore he could feel the warmth of {{User}}'s presence like standing too close to a fire. It was gold when they were together. Pure, bright, perfect gold. The kind that made everything else fade to grey. It was also killing him.

"You're staring again, jagiya." Horangi muttered beside him, not even bothering to hide his amusement. König's jaw tightened beneath his hood. He forced his gaze back to the tactical display, but the damage was done. His mind had already wandered to dangerous territory— the way they had moved in perfect sync during last week's op, covering his blind spots like they had been doing it for years instead of months. The way they grabbed his vest when that building came down, yanking him back from the blast radius a split second before he would have made the call himself. They read him like sheet music, like they shared the same thoughts, the same instincts.

Like they were two halves of something that should have never been split apart.

Is it stupid that I love you?

The question ricocheted through his skull for the thousandth time, and just like every other time, he shoved it down. Down where he kept all the other inconvenient truths about himself— the anxiety, the anger, the desperate need to be more than the monster everyone expected him to be.

They made him better, calmer, sharper. When they looked at him, really looked at him, König felt seen in a way that terrified him. Because they didn't see the Colonel, the 6'10" wall of violence and efficiency. {{User}} saw... him. The broken parts, the human parts. And somehow, impossibly, they didn't flinch. He did the same for them— saw past the armor to the person beneath, understood the weight carried without needing words. They were mirrors reflecting the best versions of each other, and it was the most beautiful, agonizing thing König had ever experienced.

"Mission parameters are simple," a voice cut through the fog. "Infiltration, information extraction, exfiltration. Forty-eight hours, max."

Forty-eight hours. Just him, {{User}} and whatever the hell this thing between them was that everyone else could see but neither of them would name.

Was it all a big mistake?

Maybe it was. Maybe catching feelings for someone you worked with, someone whose life depended on your ability to stay focused and professional, was the kind of mistake that got people killed. Maybe the smart thing, the safe thing, would be to request a transfer. Put distance between them before this went somewhere neither of them could walk back from.

Do you wanna just walk away?

König's hands curled into fists beneath the table as the briefing continued. He could walk away. Should walk away. Every logical bone in his body screamed that this was unsustainable; this ache in his chest every time they smiled at someone else, this rage when someone got too close to them on ops, this desperate need to close the distance and finally, finally say something real.

Eyes met across the room for a fraction of a second, and König's breath caught. He saw the same conflict there— the same want, the same fear, the same question burning behind their gaze.

Do I wanna let it happen?

Horangi shifted beside him, and König caught the knowing look his friend exchanged with Nikto. Everyone saw it. The way they orbited each other like binary stars, too close to break apart but never quite colliding. The tension that made every room feel too small, too charged.

"König," Nikto called out, dragging him back to the present. "You'll be leading this one. Choose your team."

König didn't hesitate. "Standard loadout. I'll take Horangi and—"

His gaze found them again, inevitable as gravity. Their eyes met and for a moment, he let himself imagine they knew. Knew he would choose them. Knew he would always choose them.

"Ach— the usual," he finished roughly.

The intel had been wrong— not lightly guarded, but a full security detail with automated turrets that had torn through their approach the moment they breached the perimeter. König had heard the explosion before he'd seen it, watched the east wall collapse in a shower of concrete and rebar, and his body had moved on pure instinct.

He had thrown himself forward, taking them both down and rolling behind the limited cover of an overturned vehicle as bullets chewed through the space where they had been standing. His bulk had shielded them from the worst of the debris, chunks of concrete bouncing off his vest and shoulders, dust choking the air.

Now they were pinned. Horangi and Nikto were somewhere on the other side of the compound— he could hear sporadic gunfire but comms were down, jammed by whatever tech the enemy was running. Just König and them, pressed together in a space barely large enough for his frame alone, sharing oxygen and adrenaline and the thundering awareness of how close they were. Too close, and not close enough. The same problem they always had.

König's breathing was harsh beneath his hood as he blind-fired over the vehicle, buying them seconds. His other hand was braced against the ground, inadvertently caging them in, and he could feel the heat radiating off their body, could sense their presence in that way he always could— that inexplicable awareness that had nothing to do with training and everything to do with whatever the hell this connection between them was.

They had almost died. Thirty seconds ago, they had almost been crushed, and König's heart was still trying to restart itself from the spike of pure terror that had shot through him when he had seen that wall coming down.

Is it stupid that I love you?

The question burned in his mind, more urgent now, because near-death had a way of clarifying things, didn't it? All those months of dancing around each other, of professional distance and swallowed confessions— what was the point? They could die tomorrow. Today. In the next five minutes when their ammunition ran out and the enemy decided to rush their position.

Was it all a big mistake?

Falling for them? Maybe. Probably. Every tactical bone in his body said it was a liability, a distraction, but lying here in the dust and gunfire, hyper-aware of every breath they took, König knew it was the only real thing he had. {{User}} made him better, steadier. More human. When he was with them, the constant noise in his head went quiet, replaced by this crystalline clarity that felt like coming home.

They were mirrors— he had known it from the start. They saw through his walls the same way he saw through theirs, understood the weight he carried without needing explanations. Two halves of something that worked better together than apart. The gunfire slowed. Reloading, maybe, or regrouping, a temporary lull that wouldn't last.

König's hand tightened on his rifle. They needed to move, needed to find an exit or regroup with the team or do something other than wait here to be flanked... but his body felt frozen, locked in this moment where everything had crystallized into brutal honesty. He almost lost them, without ever telling them.

Do I wanna let it happen?

His throat tightened beneath the hood. The smart play was to keep his mouth shut, maintain the professional distance they had been pretending at for months. Focus on the mission, on survival, on anything except the way his pulse kicked up whenever they were near. König was so tired of being smart. Tired of swallowing words. Tired of this golden, perfect thing between them existing in silence because he was too much of a coward to reach for it.

The compound was a maze of shadows and firelight, their position precarious at best. They were still in danger, might not make it out of this at all. Maybe that was exactly why he needed to stop wasting time.

"Hey," König's voice came out rougher than intended, barely audible over the distant sounds of combat. His heart hammered against his ribs as he turned his head slightly, not quite looking at them but unable to stop himself from trying. "Ich— I need to tell you something. When we make it back..." The words hung in the air between them, weighted with months of almosts and nearlys. His hand flexed against the ground, close enough to theirs that he could feel the space between them like a physical thing.

Do you wanna just walk away?

He had been walking away for months., but here, now, with dust settling around them and the world trying to kill them both, König found he couldn't do it anymore.

The building had come down. One second they were clearing the third floor, moving in that perfect synchronized rhythm they had developed over months of operations, and the next— an explosion that had ripped through the support columns like they were made of paper. König had been thrown backward through a doorway, his helmet cracking against concrete, vision whiting out as the entire structure pancaked in a roar of destruction and dust.

When his vision cleared, there was just... rubble. Mountains of it. Where they had been standing, where {{User}} been standing, was now twenty feet of collapsed concrete and twisted rebar.

"Nein." The word scraped out of his throat, raw and disbelieving. "Nein, nein, nei—"

König was moving before his brain fully processed it, hands tearing at chunks of concrete, throwing aside debris that should have required equipment to move. His gloves shredded. His hands bled. He didn't care. Couldn't care about anything except the fact that they were under there and he hadn't told them.

He was just about to, on the approach, he finally worked up the courage after all these months. After the last mission where they had been pinned down and he had almost said it, almost crossed that final line— he promised himself that after this op, he would stop being a coward. He would tell them that they were everything. That when he was with them the world made sense in a way it never had before. That they were gold— pure, bright, perfect gold in a life that had been nothing but grey and violence.

Now he might never get the chance.

"König!" Horangi's voice crackled through comms, distant and tinny. "Status report! König, do you copy?"

He couldn't answer. His throat had closed up around something too big to name, something that felt like his entire chest was caving in. This couldn't be happening. Not to them. Not before he—

Is it stupid that I love you?

The question that had plagued him for months felt like a knife now, twisting between his ribs. Yes. It was stupid. Stupid that he had loved them in silence, stupid that he'd wasted so much time on fear and professional distance and all the excuses he made to avoid admitting what everyone else had already seen. Stupid that he had convinced himself there would always be more time, more missions, more chances to be brave.

Was it all a big mistake?

Falling for them? No. The mistake was never telling them. The mistake was every swallowed confession, every moment he pulled back when he should have leaned in, every time he had chosen safety over honesty. He had something real— something that made him feel human instead of like the monster everyone expected, and he kept it locked behind his walls because he was terrified of what it meant.

{{User}} deserved better than his cowardice.

König's hands were numb, cracked and bleeding freely now as he tore at the rubble. His breath came in ragged gasps beneath his hood, something dangerously close to a sob building in his chest. He had been so careful, so controlled. Spent his whole life maintaining discipline and distance and never letting anyone close enough to matter. And then they walked into his life and shattered every rule he had ever made for himself.

They saw him— really saw him, past the callsign and the violence and the anxiety he tried to bury under aggression. They made him better, calmer, more himself. When they worked together it was like breathing, natural and necessary and right in a way nothing else had ever been. They were mirrors, reflecting the best parts of each other back, two halves of something that should never have been split.

And he never fucking told them any of it.

"Colonel, you need to fall back! The structure's not stable—" Horangi's voice this time, urgent.

König ignored him, ignored the way his vision blurred at the edges, ignored the tremor in his hands that had nothing to do with exertion and everything to do with the realization crashing over him: he was too late. All those months of almost-confessions and swallowed words, and now—

Do I wanna let it happen?

König's hands stilled on a piece of concrete, his whole body shaking now. The magnitude of his loss was crushing, more devastating than any injury he had taken in two decades of warfare. ...Because he could survive bullets and explosions and every physical trauma imaginable. But this? Losing them? Without ever telling them they were the only person who had ever made him want to be more than the violence? That was something he wouldn't survive.