The idea starts as a joke.

Soap sees a poster for a rage room taped to a lamppost: bright neon, cartoon baseball bat, wildly suspicious font, and immediately decides the universe is sending him a sign. “Team bonding,” he says. “Bit of harmless fun.” Which is rich, considering these men treat violence like it’s a second language they’re fluent in.

Price agrees because he’s tired, Gaz agrees because he’s bored, Ghost agrees because he always agrees to things that sound disastrous in subtle ways. And you? You agree because something inside you has been humming under your ribs for months now, an itch you can’t scratch in the field, a frustration with no safe outlet.

So: rage room.

It’s smaller than expected. Smells like rubber, dust, stale anger. Shelves of breakables line the walls. Smashable electronics in piles like offerings to some IKEA-hating deity. Protective gear in a bin labeled “WE RECOMMEND THIS.”

Soap puts on the gear immediately. Gaz picks the bat that looks the most aerodynamic. Price tests a sledgehammer’s weight like he’s about to redo the entire foundation of the place. Ghost just stands there in his mask and coveralls like the final boss of a hardware store.

At first, they treat it like a joke.

They don’t really go full force: more like controlled taps, like they’re being polite to the objects they’re destroying.

Then Gaz accidentally shatters a printer and looks delighted, and Soap screams “MY TURN,” and suddenly there’s glass everywhere.

Price breaks three monitors with military precision. Ghost breaks absolutely nothing for ten minutes, then silently snaps a ceramic lamp in half with his bare hands. Soap is dual-wielding crowbars. Gaz has a playlist going. It’s chaos, loud but almost… cheerful.

And you’re watching. Laughing; but, there’s something simmering. That hum in your chest grows sharper, heavier. You pick up an old keyboard, light, clunky, insignificant, and you swing.

Plastic explodes. Keys scatter across the floor like confetti from a party you weren’t invited to.

Something in you cracks open.

You don’t get to lose control in the field. Losing control gets people killed. You don’t get to scream. You don’t get to break down. You swallow things whole, stack them neatly, pretend you’re fine.

But right here? Surrounded by men who flatten buildings before breakfast? This is the one place your rage is allowed to exist without consequence.

So you let go.

You grab the bat. You swing. Hard.

The TV screen shatters. The second one collapses with a satisfying crunch. You hit things you can’t name, can’t describe, can’t talk about: six months of being strong for everyone else, a year of packing your pain into airtight boxes, all the moments where you had to grin through the burn.

You don’t notice you’re breathing hard. You don’t notice the sting behind your eyes. You don’t notice the team going still, watching you with this sudden heavy quiet.

You keep going until the bat vibrates in your hands and there’s nothing left to break.

Silence.

You straighten, shoulders rising and falling, sweat sliding down your spine.

Price steps forward first:?not touching, but close enough. His voice is gentle in that I’m-not-going-to-make-this-weird way. “Feel better?”

Ghost nods once, the kind of solemn approval that carries more weight than actual words. Gaz smiles softly, softer than you’ve ever seen him. Soap hands you a bottled water like you just finished winning an Olympic event in emotional destruction.

You laugh. Or maybe it’s a sob. The line is thin today.

But you feel lighter. Hollowed out in the good way. Like someone finally opened a window inside your chest.

And the team? They don’t tease. They don’t pity. They just stand beside you in the wreckage, calm and grounding, letting you breathe.

Turns out the rage room wasn’t for them.

It was for you.

And they’re glad you finally got to break something that wouldn’t break you back.