Chapter Text
The doctor was right. It didn't take long for Damian’s eyes to return to their normal state, although the bruising definitely looked nastier than it was.
Ewen and Emile were concerned for Damian of course, and the rest of the class was shocked to see his bruised face (as Loid had predicted).
Becky wouldn't shut up for the entire two weeks about Anya’s heroics, now having been convinced that Anya was telling the truth the entire time. “Can you believe it?” She cooed. “Our Anya, a hero!!”
Nobody mentioned it, but they were sure that Damian was the anonymous student who had been kidnapped that Anya had chased to rescue. They all remembered the day that neither had turned up to class - although they had thought that perhaps the two lovers finally realised their true feelings and had run away together. The true story was far more exciting in its own way, but an entire class of students lost out on the payoff of their favourite ship. Becky, most of all, who was bitterly disappointed that this love story had not had an ending yet.
Damian smiled through the pain, but Anya saw when he took painkillers in between classes. She saw him struggling to breathe as they walked through the corridors to their next classes. And she saw his grimace when Emile had forgotten about the bruised ribs, and accidentally elbowed Damian in his side. Damian wheezed but as usual, smiled through it.
But she heard his thoughts. And when he ran out of painkillers, she had hers ready in her hands to give to him.
She knew that it was still all her fault. If he hadn't waited for her at the bus that day, if she hadn't told him her secret the night before…
Well, she had learned her lesson, and she wasn't going to make that mistake again.
But Damian still waited for her by the bus stop each morning, and they walked in together to class.
The first time it happened, they managed to slip in unnoticed into the classroom, but their luck didn't hold the second day, when Becky saw them arrive at the same time and squealed something to the effect of: “Oh my god is it happening?””
Damian and Anya sprang apart, faces aflame. “No!” both shouted at the same time.
“You don't know what youre talking about, Blackbell!”
“Oh?” Becky teased. “And you mean to say you weren’t holding hands on the way here?”
Both teens blushed so hard Becky thought they might pass out.
When Damian finally was able to take the bandage off his nose, there was a slight bump in it. He rubbed at the bump in the mirror with a frown, suddenly conscious of the shape of his own nose. It had changed. Along with him. It was a mark and a reminder of what happened, and the pain he went through at the hands of strangers.
He never wanted to feel that vulnerable again.
Anya thought that his nose bump made him look distinguished, and kinda cool. She knew that he suffered, but he didn't say anything to her about it. She sensed that he still wanted to remain strong in front of her, but she could also see the images of the nightmares that replayed in his head during the day.
Of the beatings, of the fear of being tied up, and the fear of not being able to see anything around him, and the fear of being unable to fight back. Above all, she saw the questions that kept coming back to haunt him. Of her.
She didn't know how much of it was a construction of the nightmare, and how much of it was a memory, but the fear was real, she knew.
And she had her own nightmares to contend with.
She dreamed of a chair. And a needle. She dreamed that her secret was revealed to everyone, and that she could hear all their thoughts directed at her.
Freak.
Loser.
Psycho.
She's that weirdo that can read minds
Ew gross? Is she reading ours? I’ll kill her for that!
Freaks like her shouldn't exist!
She doesn't deserve love.
She doesn't deserve to be happy.
It was her fault that Damian got hurt.
And Anya felt this all hit her because it was all true. She was a freak. It was her fault.
She reached out to her parents for comfort, but they turned away with cold eyes, hard as flint. You've been lying to us this whole time?
You’re not my daughter anymore.
Anya woke with a cold sweat.
Damian poked at his nose in the mirror again, conscious that someone could walk in any minute. He stood in the boys bathroom of Cecile Hall, on his way back to the dorm. He turned his head in the mirror, trying to get a glimpse of the bump from all sides, but Damian was discovering just how difficult it was to get a look at his own nose.
He hated how it looked. Broken. Like him.
Damian splashed his face with cold water to try and rejuvenate himself. He had to stop letting it get him down.
He wiped at his face with his handkerchief, and was about to put it back in his pocket when the embroidered golden ‘A’ glinted at him.
Anya still hadn't given him answers about that day. Not the answer he needed, at least. She had said that there was a lot that she couldn't tell him, that there were some things that she wasn't ready to say just yet, but just how many more secrets was she keeping?
He pocketed the handkerchief and tried to put her out of his mind.
Damian made his way to the boys’ dorm, where he saw some of the boys crowded around the TV in the common room. A familiar theme tune played out, and Damian drew closer to the television.
It was a new episode of Spy Wars. Damian smiled, remembering how much Anya loved that show, and how much fun she had when they went to go and see the movie together. She had always been obsessed with the show, and had even dressed as Bondman for several Halloween’s in a row when they were kids.
Damian couldn't help but smile at the memory of Anya dressed up in her faux-spy gear, with Bondman’s signature mask. He could have stared at those singular green eyes for centuries.
In the common room, Damian watched with the other boys as Bondman went through his most recent adventure - rescuing a world leader from another nameless villain. He had been on a lot of rescue missions, and Damian knew for a fact that it was one of Anya’s favourite tropes in the series. She always paid so much attention to his tactics, he remembered when Anya talked through an analysis with Damian about how he had managed to infiltrate one of the world's most secret organisations. Damian laughed at the time and joked how she took it all so seriously, like she was studying it.
Damian froze.
Like she was studying it.
Damian clenched his fists when he remembered something else:
We applaud you for the success in your mission , and wish you every success as you make your way forward through Eden College…
It might have been a coincidence, or a slip of the tongue, but suddenly Damian wondered if there really was some big secret that Anya was hiding, that couldn't ever tell him, because….
Because she is a spy!
Damian couldn't move as he watched Bondman infiltrate the base with an unknown gas, and use its cover to knock out several bad guys, before revealing himself at the end.
He knew that she loved Bondman and Spy Wars, but what if it was just a cover?
If that was the case, it would have been a very good cover. Damian thought more about the stories that she told throughout their time at school:
I stopped a robbery on the weekend.
I saved the prime minister from a secret attack!
I took down the communications of an enemy base…
I found this old lady's purse.
…Okay, maybe not that last one.
Damian shot to his feet (receiving some strange looks from the other boys, but they soon turned back to the TV), and ran to his room, shutting the door behind him tightly.
He sat at his desk, pen in his hand, staring at the blank notebook in front of it. His hand shook as the pen nib approached the paper, and very slowly, very deliberately, Damian wrote the header across the page:
Reasons why Anya Forger could be a Spy
He tapped the pen against his chin. This was crazy. This had to be crazy, right?
But maybe the only way to know for sure was to find out. He kept writing as more and more thoughts came to him.
1. Knows how to make ‘peanut bombs’ ???
(For real, how the hell did she ever learn how to do that?)
2. Can take out three bad guys in like under sixty seconds: strength??
Damian thought back to that moment in time. The fear in the voices of the men, and the randomly timed sounds of their bodies hitting the floor. Damian's throat suddenly went dry. If she could do that, what else could she do?
3. Seems to have a lot of secrets
4. Knows how to infiltrate bad guys’ lairs
5. Seems to be in on the action all the time?
Damian thought back to the crazy stories she used to tell the class. He had always assumed, like everyone else, that she had been making it up the whole time - but what if she wasn’t? What if the stories were actually true?
6. Goes on about world peace a bit a lot more than the average student
7. Same characteristics as Bondman: impulsive in action, inquisitive, strong, knows how to kick bad guy butt
Damian’s handwriting shook as he scrawled the last couple of sentences across the page:
8. Inexplicably knows secret things about other people
9. Knows how to use a gun
Damian dropped the pen. This was insane. This couldn’t be true.
It couldn’t be.
Damian ripped the paper in half, and then half again, and then shredded it until it was in tiny pieces so small that there was no hope of ever putting it back together again. He let out a shaky breath and ran his hand through his hair.
Anya, a spy? It was ridiculous. Completely ridiculous. It would be better if he just threw the idea completely away. If she actually was a spy, then that would have meant that she had been trained since birth, or something, and how could a psychiatrist and an office clerk have a spy for a daughter? It didn’t make any sense.
Damian's eyes strayed once more to the pile of reduced paper in his bin.
And yet…
Sylvia swept across the factory floors, clearing away any evidence of the scuffle Twilight had reported. The men had been taken away in an unmarked van, and she wasn't concerned with their fate. Perhaps they were brought to the police station, or to a hospital, or perhaps the higher ups at WISE had something in mind for them. She was sure they would find some use for extra humans, they always did.
Sylvia eyed the recording equipment set up in the middle of the first floor. In particular, the camera. She got closer to it.
A red light blinked from its head, and Sylvia frowned. Looks like Twilight forgot something... he's getting sloppy.
She picked up the camera and flicked open the screen, and pressed ‘play’.
At first, she was amused, and let herself chuckle a little bit. Those men really were amateurs. But as she kept watching, the smile slid from her face, replaced by an inquisitive frown. The video ran until the end of its recording, and the light clicked off.
“Well,” was all she said, after a while. Looks like Twilight was hiding something, after all.
Normally she would have taken a photo and stored it for herself for later, but she didn’t need a photo to remember the face on the screen.
“Anya Forger, huh,” she mused to herself. The girl was just full of surprises.