Archive of Our Own ^beta

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.

Chapter Text

Twilight felt a chill come over him, and he sat up straighter in his seat. 

He had been looking over patient’s files in his office, with the noise and bustle of the psychiatric hospital beyond his closed door. He also had his window slightly open, as he liked the gentle noise of activity as people went out and about their day in the world around him. It reminded him that he was working to make sure that their lives stayed peaceful, and give him the hope that people could live their normal lives every day. 

He took another sip of coffee as he skipped through another patient’s file. His eyes snagged over a familiar name, and he put the mug down. 

Erik Zacharis…

Now there was an old man that Twilight never thought he would actually face in person. After stealing the Zacharis Document on a mission ten years ago, Twilight assumed that would be the end of it. Since then, he had done a bit more research on what Erik Zacharis had accomplished in his life, and although he did do a lot to end the war between the East and the West, clearly it had taken a toll on him if he was being referred to psychiatry. How ironic now that it would be Twilight having him in his own office, and listening to his innermost thoughts. 

Twilight pursed his lips in thought - an old habit that hadn't quite left him since he had disguised as a man who had a penchant for smoking cigars. 

He had been doing this mission for over twelve years, and at the same time, he had been masquerading as a psychiatrist. At this point, the amount of information that he had absorbed may well have been the same volume as an actual qualified psychiatrist. At the beginning of Operation Strix, he had devoured textbooks and journal articles relating to his field of work, and hoped that it would be enough for him to pass successfully.

He always did though. He succeeded in all of his missions.

So why is this one taking so long?

It was the longest mission he had ever been recruited for, but he was warned about that before he took it on. He even recalled Sylvia’s sly smile as she mentioned that he might be masquerading as Loid Forger for a very long time: “...so take your time, Twilight. Enjoy being a family man, while it lasts.”

He didn't realise that it would be for quite this long. 

He stared at the name again, and flipped open their file. Completely unbidden, he recalled the memory of Anya facing down the security guard with a gun. Twilight was so impressed at the time - her form was perfect, as was her negotiation methods. 

He would have at least liked to ask Anya where she learned to hold a gun. And, a small, hopeful part of his imagination pictured Anya by his side as he went on a mission. He could see it clearly in his mind’s eye: both dressed in black, leaping across rooftops with her as his shadow. 

If only he had followed up with her about what happened, but it had already been too long since the incident. He felt like too much time had passed for him to be able to talk about it with her. Damian’s kidnapping, and their attempt at his rescue, felt like the elephant in the room at home. When Yor was in the house, Loid and Anya had very carefully steered around the topic together. 

Twilight furrowed his brows. Come to think of it, Anya hadn’t brought it up with him, either… 

Someone knocked at the door. “Come in!” called Twilight, and covered the files with a piece of scrap paper. Then, when he spotted who was at the door, he felt his body relax. “Ah, Fiona,” he called to her. “It’s good to see you.”

Nightfall dutifully entered the room with her head bowed, and closed the door carefully behind her. “I saw the client you’ve got now. I thought you might want to have a brief about him.”

Twilight raised his eyebrows. “You assume I don't know about this man already?”

Nightfall cocked her head. “You’ve stolen the Zacharis Document, and you had the information that WISE wanted to give you at the time, but it’s been a few years since then. Mr Zacharis has retired, but his file indicates that he had been plagued by nightmares of the war and what he was forced to witness, including human experimentation.” 

Nightfall held out a piece of paper - it was a mission brief, but it looked like she had already decoded it.

Twilight scanned it carefully. So Sylvia wanted him to gain information about what Mr Zacharis had seen during the war?

“Does she also want me to follow up on any of this?” Twilight said carefully. “If we find any information about the human experiments, they could pose a risk to the peace between the East and West.”

Nightfall gently shook her head. “The brief says to just get the information. If there is any action required, I’m sure they will let us know.”

Twilight nodded, and put the brief in a secure place in his desk drawers. “Thank you, Fiona,” he said with finality. 

She took the hint and walked out of the office, but turned her head just as she was in the entryway. “Let me know how the consultation goes,” she added. “His age may be a complicating factor in his recovery.”

Twilight rubbed his face when she walked away. Nightfall was relentless at obtaining information and piecing them together, but she really lacked the interpersonal skills necessary to integrate them in a way that acknowledged that the target was actually a human person and not a mission object.

He glanced at the file again. Anyone who had been forced to witness human experimentation would likely be a complicated patient, and possibly present with some complex needs. Twilight started listing some of the possible symptoms and disorders in his head. Nightmares, flashbacks, guilt, shame, complex trauma, depression. This case was going to be a hard one to approach, but if he was going to make sure that Mr Zacahris trusted him completely to give him the information he needed, then he would need the right tools for the job.

Twilight put the files down, and took out his textbooks once again. Time to do some research. 

It had been about a month since the kidnapping incident - and a few days since Damian thought of his new theory. 

He could not afford to voice this theory out loud. He knew that he would sound like an idiot to everyone within earshot. Even Emile and Ewen, who worshipped the ground that Damian walked on and were on his side for everything, would think he was absolutely insane. 

“Is everything alright, Boss? You haven’t even touched your breakfast,” said Ewen with concern in his voice.

Damian hadn’t noticed that he had been pushing around his scrambled eggs with his fork. “I’m fine,” he said, a little too quickly. 

Ewen and Emile shared a look.

“I mean, I’m just tired. But I’m okay. Thanks,” and he managed a wan smile. As if trying to make a point, he brought some of the egg to his mouth, and he swallowed it. He could barely taste it.

“Boss, we know you’ve had a lot on your mind, and… uh,” Ewen stumbled on his words.

Emile reached out a reassuring hand on Ewen’s shoulder. “What we’re trying to say is that we’re here if you need anything.”

Damian stared at them, stunned. They had never acted like this with him before, and if he was being completely honest, he just had no idea how he was going to take it. He appreciated it more than they could ever know, and he felt the emotion rise in him.

He couldn't speak for the feeling of gratitude that welled up within him, but he nodded to the two boys, subtly letting them know that he got the message.

“Oh hey Boss, it's coming up to eight. Aren’t you going to wait for Anya at the bus stop?”

Damian spluttered on a sip of coffee. “I have no idea what you’re talking about!”

Plus, I can't see her right now.

The boys ignored his awkward outburst. “You’d better hurry, the bus is never usually late so you might just miss her.”

Damian sighed. “It’s okay, I'm not going.”

“What? Why?”

“Because-”

Because I think she might be a spy.

Damian closed his mouth. “Because.” He said simply and rose from the table. “I'm going to class.”

“But it's still too early-”

Damian felt their stares on his back as he walked away, but there was just no way he could explain it to them. They weren't there . They hadn't seen what happened, what she did, all the things she could do. He couldn't even say it out loud because of exactly how crazy it sounded. 

He heard the approaching rumble of the school bus, and his gut twisted with guilt. 

Anya stepped off the school bus, expecting to see Damian there waiting for her, but her stomach sank when all she saw was empty space. Anya waited with her hands crossed in front of her, while the bus rolled away behind her. Maybe he was just late? She had been planning all morning how she would greet him today, 

She rocked on her heels and whistled a little. She hoped he was feeling okay. Damian had waited for her at the bus stop ever since their conversation in the nurse's office - the day that Damian was kidnapped. She had really hoped that it represented a turning point in their relationship. 

(Because of Operation Strix? Because of something else? She didn’t know anymore. But she was actually starting to enjoy his company, which had to count for something.)

She heard running footsteps, and someone stood panting in front of her.

“Sorry I’m late,” Damian gasped. 

“Morning, Sy-on,” Anya smiled at him, and without waiting for him to lead the way she took his elbow first.

She pretended not to hear him gasp in response, but she smiled all the same. She saw in Becky’s show Berlint in Love that couples walked with the woman’s arm looped through the man’s elbow, and she wanted to try to see how it felt to hold on to him like that.

Damian fell into step beside her and shoved his hands in his pockets. A stubborn blush spread across his face and he turned away quickly so that Anya wouldn’t see his face.

“You okay?” said Anya. “You’re quieter than usual.” She wondered if maybe she had taken a step too far, and cautiously loosened her grip on his arm. 

“Oh, er,” said Damian. Stupid! Stupid! Don't say anything that would give you away!

Anya cocked her head. What would give him away? Was he hiding something from her?

Damian forced out a heavy breath and his eyes darkened. “I just haven't slept well.”

Anya felt her face soften in concern. Of course . She should have known that he was still having trouble sleeping after what happened. 

“My Papa says that people who have been through something tough sometimes need to talk about it to get better.” She eyed him quietly out of the side of her eye. “What do you think?”

Damian groaned. “I’m fine! I don't need to talk about it!”

“Okay,” said Anya quietly, and kept her other thoughts to herself. They walked quietly towards the classroom together, but the weight of tension still loomed heavy.

When they got to the classroom, there was something different. A shift in the atmosphere.

Another boy sat in Damian’s usual seat.

Anya felt Damian prickle with irritation.

He was new. Anya could recognise that nervous look anywhere, but it was unusual that he was sitting in their class. (It was rare for students to get admitted that late into their school career.)

The boy was a little on the shorter side, and was academically thin, with rule-breakingly long blond hair. A little of his hair flopped over his brown eyes, but it didn’t look lazy or natural. Anya knew that look - it was the appearance of someone who was trying to conceal his own face. 

He made a point of staring out of the window, and not even acknowledging their presence. In a way, Anya thought, he looked like a prince out of a fairytale.

Damian wordlessly extricated himself from Anya’s grasp and marched straight up to the new boy with a glower on his face. 

“You’re sitting in my seat,” he said through gritted teeth. 

The new boy jolted, as if a spike of electricity had shot up his spine, and he turned woodenly towards Damian. He looked like a deer caught in headlights as his thin eyebrows disappeared into his fringe.

“Oh,” said the boy, and that one syllable punctuated the air so perfectly it was like the air had been made of crystal.  In evident confusion, he looked round the back of the chair, and then stared back at Damian. “I can’t see a name on this chair. Who are you?”

Anya felt the rage that washed over Damian, and saw him freeze with shock. Who am I? Who am I? Who are you , you arrogant little bastard??

The boy’s glance flitted from Damian to Anya, and when he locked eyes with her, she froze. A cold wind blew over her, and the boy's eyes widened with what looked like recognition.

She couldn't understand it - how was it that he looked like he recognised her (of all people), and not Damian Desmond, son of the National Unity Party Chairman? 

She didn’t dare move as the boy looked her up and down, and then rose from Damian’s seat, and extended his hand out towards her. 

“Get away from her!” Damian shouted from his side of the classroom.

Anya felt the invisible layer of ice covering her body break, and shatter around her in pieces. She tried to look at the eyes of the boy in front of her with a clear view.

He was handsome, in a haunting way, but that wasn’t what kept her gaze on him. Normally, she could get a read of someone, through their thoughts, or a general sense of what they felt - but from this boy, she felt nothing.

One of the most important spy skills that Loid had implicitly impressed on Anya was the ability to read people’s microexpressions. She was far too reliant on her own telepathy to be as good as her father at interpreting faces, but she didn’t need to read this boy’s mind to see what he was feeling. 

It was written all over his face. His sunken eyes hinted at a life of harrowing loss and sadness, and his thin frame indicated a life of staying indoors. 

But why? She couldn’t tell. 

When she said nothing, the boy stuck out his hand awkwardly to her. “My name is Adrian Kuning! That’s my name!” 

Despite his apparent air of sorrow, he said it excitedly, like he hadn’t had the chance to meet many people before. 

Anya stared at his hand, and forced herself to move her own. “A-Anya F-Forger.”

Her hand met his icy touch and she shivered involuntarily.

Chapter Text

Anya didn’t know what to think when Adrian didn't turn up in their next class. They had Physical Education with the boys, and even though he looked far too thin to join them in athletics, something about it felt off to her.

Adrian was an enigma. His eyes and posture was hauntingly sad, but his touch was repelling, and cold, and even worse, his presence completely aggravated Damian, putting him on edge and making him more irritable and annoying to talk to. 

Anya shimmied into her gym shorts and tied her hair back into a high ponytail, enjoying the way that the curls of her hair bounced around her shoulders. 

Beside her, Becky pouted as she finished clipping back her own hair in the mirror. “Aw Anya! You said you’d let me braid your hair today!”

Resisting the urge to roll her eyes, Anya huffed. “It's not just practical .” She just wanted to exercise as soon as possible and sweat away the cold feeling she had around Adrian. 

Becky cracked an eyebrow at Anya, and turned to face her with a mischievous grin. “Not even to impress your prince?”

Anya laughed. “Damian doesn't care if my hair is in a braid!” Besides, she was pretty sure that he liked her hair loose, so that the curls shone in the sunlight. She had caught him staring more than a few times. 

Becky rolled her eyes. “I wasn't talking about Damian ,” she said like it was obvious, then she leaned forward with her hand cupped to whisper: “I was talking about Adrian!”

Anya’s brain halted to a stop, before she physically recoiled. “Adrian??”

“Don't pretend that you haven't noticed him staring at you in class! He’s clearly got a huge crush on you!” Becky briefly extended her arms to make her point, before returning to fixing her hair once more. Using the reflection of the mirror, she locked eyes with Anya and smirked. “One might say he’s head over heels!”

Anya gaped at Becky, and tried to work out something to say, but only succeeded in opening and closing her mouth several times before spluttering: “I don't like him! So I'm not braiding my hair! So there!” 

Anya ignored Becky’s teasing smile, and stomped off in a hurry to get to the sports field. 

She had been used to Becky’s teasing, sure. But it was always about Damian, and for some reason that Anya couldn’t quite parse, she didn’t… hate it? Thinking about Damian made her feel warm, but Becky had never before insinuated that kind of tension with anyone else, and it left a bad taste in her mouth. 

When Anya exited the changing room, her heart nearly leapt out of her body to see the boys already there doing their warm up exercises. Damian had been stretching his arms, and Anya’s gaze followed to his exposed navel, where she could see the lines of his abs. 

She nearly stopped in her tracks. Whoa . Since when has Damian been working out?

She shook her head and clapped her palms over her cheeks, trying to slap some sense into herself. Focus, Anya! 

She could think about Damian later. But there was something seriously up with the Adrian kid that she could not wrap her head around. Why was it that she couldn't hear his thoughts? She had never experienced this before, except during the new moon, which was only two weeks away…

Damian paused mid stretch, and waved shyly at Anya, before blushing and recoiling at some comment that Ewen or Emile made. 

Anya wished that she could read their minds from that distance, and figure out what they had said, but for that moment, she left them to their privacy. She looked around the sports field, seeing the obstacles that had been placed in front of each other. They blocked her path to the river, which bordered the Berlint forest. 

They hadn't done an obstacle course in ages, and part of her was yearning to get on it and challenge herself with the new rounds. She had started doing physical training with her mother some years ago, so Anya knew that some of her reflexes had improved, and so did her strength and agility, but it would be great to finally get a chance to test that out and see just what she was capable of.

Although the kidnapping a month ago was difficult for both her and Damian, Anya wanted that feeling back - of the adrenaline in her bones. What a rush she felt when she held the gun, when she ran in to save Damian, when she was strategising with Twilight about how to get in and out, and making the peanut bomb to aid in the rescue!

A chill went down her spine, and Anya smiled at the memory. She needed to feel active like that again, needed to feel the challenge of her body and see how she could adapt to the situation. 

The obstacle course in front of her looked fairly simple, although the equipment was a state of the art donation from Bill's dad (who she had heard was unhappy with the previous equipment).

There were bars, ladders, things to leap across, things to crawl across and run up and slide down, all concentrated at the river’s border, and she just couldn't wait. Anya's eyes flitted between each of the obstacles, planning in her mind's eye how she would be able to accomplish any of it. 

“Miss Forger! We’re all waiting for you!” 

Anya broke out of her thoughts with a start, and trotted over to where the rest of the class was milled around the teacher.

“Alright kids,” said Coach Bobby. “We’re going to be attempting this obstacle course today. So any of you who perform particularly well may be enrolled in the national obstacle course run. If you enrol on this and you get a good score, then you may be in for a chance of getting a Stella.”

Anya’s heart thudded in anticipation. If she could get another Stella like this, there may be a hope for Operation Strix after all, without having to rope Damian into Plan B.

“Who wants to go first?”

Although Anya's muscles ached to run, to move and flex and swing on the course, she held back from the initial round of attempts, so that she could get a better read of the other students who were attempting the course. She hoped to get much better than any of them, so if she wanted to do that, she would have to analyse their successes as well as their failures. She could afford to take a step fack for observation in the first instance.

She watched the first few students go on the obstacle course. She saw where they fell, where they were most likely to trip or slip or fall to the ground. Alice Paulette, while putting up an athletic front, unfortunately fell on the first beam when she misplaced her foot, and fell with an ear splitting scream.

“Out of the way!” boomed Coach Bobby as he ran towards Alice and picked her up in one fell swoop. “I am taking Alice to the nurse’s office, meanwhile nobody move or touch anything! I will be back in a few minutes.” He sprinted away with Alice still crying in his arms.

Anya and Damian’s eyes found each other, but they looked away quickly. 

The thought on the mind of every student was: What do we do now?

“Ugh, boring,” said Becky immediately. “Who knows how long they're gonna take! We should just go and get a coffee or something, even going back to the dorms is better than just waiting around.”

“I dunno,” said George, as he fingered his football jersey. “Coach Bobby is always so fast, I don't know how he does it but I’m pretty sure he’ll be back after he takes Alice to the nurse.” Some others who also were on the football team nodded. 

“The nurse is barely around these days,” said Damian without thinking. He blushed once he had realised what he had said. “I mean, when I had to go and get checkups for my injuries, it took ages for her to ever come out and see me.”

“So we could be waiting for a while then,” Anya mused. She eyed the obstacle course longingly, and in her mind's eye pictured herself leaping over it and taking the challenge on. She wanted to beat the record, but how was she going to do that if the coach was away?

She wanted that Stella, that chance to succeed in Operation Strix without having to involve Damian…

Just then, there was a shout, and a bang , and the class was shocked to see a fox leap out from the fields and run under the course. 

“What’s happening?” cried Anya. The fear from the fox was so intense, that she could feel it trickle into her. 

“Don’t”, said Damian, as he reached out a hand to stop her from moving any further. Anya hadn't even realised that she had stepped out of the school grounds line. “They’re on a hunt, if you get in the way you’ll just get shot.”

Anya’s eyes teared up as she looked at the fox again, which was trembling with fear. She could feel it from all the way over on the school field.

“It’s not right!” she cried. “What has that fox ever done? If they're trying to hunt it they should be ashamed of themselves!”

“Desmond’s right, Anya,” said Becky gently, and Anya turned to glare at her. “It's just their hobby, they’ve got specially trained dogs and everything.”

“Since when are you on Sy-on boy’s side?” Anya spat. “You have to know this is wrong! Don't you feel the same?”

Becky looked away, embarrassed. “It's a normal hobby, Anya, loads of rich people go fox hunting. It’s practically a rite of passage.”

Sometimes, Anya forgot that her friends had completely different life experiences and upbringings to her. Tears pricked at her eyes. It wasn’t a ‘normal’ hobby at all, but in the world of the elite, she was still just a commoner. Her heart twisted at the expressions of embarrassment on both of their faces.

“No!” she exclaimed again. “It's not right!” 

But deep in her heart, she knew they were right - if rich people thought this was a normal activity, then it was normal, even if Anya thought it was morally wrong. that's how the status quo worked. They were both right, in their own ways, and there was nothing she could do as she looked on at the fox. In the distance, she could hear the dogs sniff the air and start barking.

“Look,” said Becky evenly, clearly trying to calm Anya down. “I know you want to help but I'm begging you, please dont go over there. The hunters aren't allowed on the school grounds so you're safe as long as you stay over this side of the line!”

Another bang sounded, and the fox took off over the river, hopping on stones until it reached the other side, and disappeared into the forest. 

Just then, Anya noticed a shadow moving in the trees. “Hey, do you guys see that?”

The shadow stilled, then started to run in the direction of the fox with a clanging metal sound. 

“Hey!” Anya shouted, and sprinted towards the forest, and the cries of her classmates disappeared behind her.

Anya what are you doing!

Get back here!

Are you trying to get yourself killed, you idiot?!

Anya pretended not to hear them as she sprinted through the obstacle course: she leaped through the jacobs ladder, quickly arriving at the bars that overlaid the river in between the school and the forest. She grabbed at the first bar and swung , and launched herself to the other side of the river, skidding over the mud and grass. Anya righted herself quickly, before making a run for it directly through the trees, towards the shadow, and out of sight of her classmates.

The collective voices of the class faded into the distance as she suddenly found herself in the shade of the mighty oak trees that lined the forest beyond the school grounds. Anya steadied her breathing and went in.

She had underestimated the shade of the forest, as she plunged herself into its darkness. She tried to listen out for the shadow, and for the fox.

There was something about it that was familiar to her…

She heard a shallow whining sound, and Anya carefully tiptoed to where it emanated from. She saw the fox, whining, still trembling, and with blood on its leg. The fox stopped licking itself and growled at her once she came near.

“Shh…” She cooed, trying to soothe it, but she had never actually interacted with a fox before. Would it even know what she was trying to do? “I'm not going to hurt you, I promise…” 

Anya tried to reach out a hand, but jerked back when the fox snarled at her, showing a perfect line of sharp teeth.

Anya got a mental image of the fox ripping into the flesh of her arm and stepped back.

“I'm here to help,” she tried to tell the fox. It was so afraid, she could feel it. It only bared its teeth at her because it thought she was one of the hunters. She smelled too human to be anything else.

Anya cast a look around, still trying to see if the shadow from before was nearby, and started to crawl closer to the fox. “I'm not going to hurt you.” she said again, in a low voice. “You can trust me. I’ll get you out of here and get you somewhere safe.”

The fox whined, and dipped its head. Not enemy , she heard it think. 

Tears sprang to her eyes as she gingerly reached out and scooped it up, nestling it into the crook of her arms. The fox whined and nuzzled into her. 

“You're hurt, I know,” she whispered, again trying to keep the soothing tone of her voice. “I’ll take you somewhere safe and we’ll get you cleaned up, okay?”

A twig snapped behind her, and she jumped in surprise.

Adrian emerged from the trees, cool as a cat, but his face creased with worry and guilt. Anya took an involuntary step back.

“Trust me, you don't want to do that,” he said quietly, although Anya could hear the subtle undertone in his voice that told her that she wouldn’t be able to convince him to stay away. But she knew she would have to try anyway.

“Why not?” Anya responded with her gaze level. “It’s not right. I'm going to keep her safe.”

“That fox is supposed to be bait for the dogs, and for the hunters to hone their skills. If you get in the way, you might get in the line of crossfire.”

“Excuse me?” Anya gasped. “It's wrong . It’s an animal life, and why do you even care? What are you doing here?”

Adrian bit his lip as he stared at his feet, and lifted the metal kettlebell in his hands. “It’s my part-time job. I work with the hunter groups, and I lead them to the animals. To their prey.”

Anya thought she was going to be sick. “Is this a joke?”

Adrian tipped his head to the side with a sad frown. “Why would I joke?'' Then, he turned back to her. “But the hunters are after her, so I'm going to have to ask you to hand her over.”

Anya clutched the fox tighter to her chest, and the fox squeaked in protest.

“Sorry, sorry,” Anya gently apologised to the fox. Then she regarded Adrian with steel in her gaze. “If you want her. You'll have to get through me.”

He sighed. “I was hoping you wouldn’t say that.” Then he brought out a whistle from his shirt, and glanced at Anya remorsefully. “I’m really sorry about this.”

He put the whistle to his lips and released a sound so shrill, Anya winced with pain. “Ouch! What was that for?”

Adrian sighed again, and tucked the whistle back beneath his shirt. “I called the hunters over, so they know the fox is here. If you leave now, you won’t get hurt.”

“You’ve got to be kidding-”

The sound of dogs barking got closer.

“You have to run,” Adrian begged her. “Please don’t make this harder.”

Anya didn’t have a choice - she turned and ran.

Chapter Text

Shots rang out in the distance, and Becky was close to tears. 

“We have to find her!” cried Becky. “They don't know she's in there! We have to find her!”

Becky moved towards the forest, but a hand caught her arm.

“Wait!” shouted Damian. “Anya is-”

“No I won't wait!” Becky jerked her arm away from Damian’s and rounded on him with her full force. “That's my best friend in there! She has always been there for me and I’m not about to let her die but it's fine, Desmond! You must not even see her as a real person if you don't even want to save her, I thought she was your one and only true love?!”

“What?!” Damian gasped, and involuntarily stepped away from Becky’s rage. “I never said-”

“Oh save it!” She spat venomously. “We all know what you think of her! Now I'm going to run after my best friend and you're going to let me and there's nothing you can do about it!” Tears streamed down her face as she shouted at Damian.

“No wait, Becky -” Damian valiantly tried again to get Becky’s attention. “I can see Anya! She’s right over there!”

Becky gasped at Damian’s words, and turned to see Anya emerge from the forest at a full sprint, with something in her arms - 

“Is that the fucking fox??” She screeched. “That idiot!””

Then, they heard the barking, and the cluster of hooves thundering behind them. 

“Oh my god,” Becky said as she felt a chill run down her spine. “The hunters are getting closer, she's going to get shot, she’s going to get shot and die-”

“Not if she's near the school,” said Damian. “FORGER! OVER HERE!” And even though he already felt like an idiot, he waved to her with both arms.

It felt like a spell had broken over the rest of the class, and suddenly a waterfall of sound rushed towards Anya:

“You can do it!” shouted George.

“Come on! Come on Anya!” roared Ewen.

“You can make it! Hurry!” yelled Emile.

It looked as though she did hear it, because her legs pumped faster than Damian had ever seen her run before. Anya sped up, even with both hands clutching the fox to her white shirt. 

Damian held his breath as Anya adjusted her hold on the fox. With one hand outstretched she leapt to the bars, and used her built-up momentum to propel herself forward over the river with all the might in her body. She leapt over the ladder, and the tires, and skated round the outskirts of the muddy patch with the netting, not letting it catch her out. 

In under a minute, Anya screeched to a halt as she finally made it over the boundary of the school, sliding over the grass on her back. Anya panted as she held the fox to her belly, and lay on her back. Then with a shaky breath, she grinned, and let her head drop back onto the grass with a deep sigh.

“Holy shit,” breathed Becky. “That was amazing! ”

The class erupted in cheers around her. 

For some reason, George was the most shocked of all. He stared incredulously at his classmates with his mouth wide open. “Since when could Forger do things like that? What happened to the girl who killed volleyball?!”

“Hey, I can hear you down here you know!” Anya laughed breathlessly, still trying to catch her breath from the run. “Also, does anyone know a good vet?”

On instinct, Damian leaned down to help Anya up, but stopped when the fox growled at him. “Hey uh-”

“Shh, he's okay,” Anya cooed to the fox, and to Damian’s utter amazement, the fox quietened instantly, and nuzzled into Anya’s arms even further. 

Becky elbowed Damian out of the way, and he stumbled to the side. “My dog Weiner has an excellent vet Anya, I’ll call him just now to get him to take this poor thing in,” Becky whipped her phone from her pocket.

“Hey!” said Emile. “We aren’t allowed phones in class! And what are you doing with it in P.E.?”

“What? I carry my phone everywhere!” Becky laughed, and flipped it open, before she walked away. “Hello? Yes, it’s me, no Wiesel’s fine… But get your staff to come to Eden College as soon as possible, I have a job for you-”

“I'm sorry,” cried George, with both hands almost tearing at his hair. “Are we just gonna completely ignore that Anya absolutely smashed that obstacle course without even trying? What the heck was that? And she now has the hunters’ fox? Won’t she get in trouble?”

“As long as the fox is on school grounds, it can't get hurt,” said a voice beyond the crowd. The class parted as Coach Bobby made his way through the crowd. “And if Anya is here, then the hunters have no grounds to pursue her.”

Damian gulped at seeing the coach come back, and was about to make an excuse for Anya when-

“And that was an excellent feat of athleticism, Miss Forger. I look forward to seeing you at the obstacle course practice rounds.” 

Anya grinned up at the coach. “Thank you!” She couldn't wait to get back on the course, and to compete for the school. She let Coach Bobby guide her back to standing, while shifting the fox in her grip so she was able to support it with just one arm. The fox yelped and rested its head on Anya’s shoulder, so that she was carrying it almost like a cat. 

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the figure of a student move again in the forest. As she looked a little closer, Adrian faded into the shadows. 

“Man, Forger, you are crazy , I never would have done that!” the voice of Penny, slammed her palm on Anya’s other shoulder, and she jolted back into reality.

“You've got some insane skills, Forger, just wait till you see the size of the course at the tournament…”

Damian smiled tightly as he watched everything unfold in front of him, but as Anya walked away with the fox, chatting animatedly to Penny, Ewen, and Emile, he felt the smile slide from his face like oil on water.

It was impressive what she did there. His classmates were right to be surprised; what happened to the clumsy, talentless Anya? The one who hurt herself, and sometimes others in the process? The one constantly covered in bruises, and who couldn't get a shot of a basketball, or serve a volleyball to save her life?

How could she go from that - to an “excellent athlete”, in the words of Coach Bobby? 

George was right. It could be so easy to gloss over that, but Damian couldn't forget, not after everything he had seen. Anya had improved, and she was good at sports now.

Too good.

It wasn’t like her newfound physical abilities could translate into team sports, though. She didn't care about rules, just like what she demonstrated about the rules of fox hunting. She had values and she cared about the lives of humans and animals and it was so admirable and he could feel himself becoming more impressed with her - 

- but he didn’t deny what he had seen with his own eyes.

Anya had said before that her mother was training her, but surely Mrs Forger wasn’t that good… He wouldn’t be able to tell until he had at least met her, and seen what she was capable of.

But what if that was another cover story? 

Maybe Anya is in serious training, and I think I have a pretty good idea of what she is in training for…

Anya felt something tingle in the back of her head, and glanced quickly back towards Damian. Her laugh faded as she saw him standing in deep thought, while one thought stood out from his head.

Maybe Anya is in serious training, and I think I have a pretty good idea of what she is in training for…

She nearly choked on her breath. 

Was he… suspicious of her? 

That was one of the last things she expected, if she was being honest. Anya had always been able to rely on Damian for thinking the best of her, for believing her and wanting to be on her side. She knew that it was a bad idea to tell him her secrets, and show him parts of herself that she had never shown anyone else.

She should have listened to her Papa. A good spy never reveals their secrets, and she didn’t fucking listen. What would happen if he decided to turn on her, just because she couldn’t keep her stupid mouth shut?

Anya had been on her own for fifteen years, and that taught her a lesson that no teacher ever could. Only she could keep herself safe. 

Anya turned her attention to Becky, who was cooing over the fox. She smiled and nodded, and pretended that she had been listening to her the whole time. If Damian was more observant than she originally thought, she would have to keep a closer eye on his mind.

She had already told him enough, but she could not risk him finding out anything else.

Chapter Text

It was a dance between them. Damian tried to keep his distance so that he didn’t act suspicious while he tried to put the clues together, while Anya tried to get closer so that she could figure out what he knew, and what he was thinking.

Immediately after they had gotten changed back into their uniforms, Anya rushed to catch him out after class, maybe to thank him for his support, or for cheering her on, but as she neared closer to him, Damian panicked and turned away from her, instead leaning into a conversation with George Glooman that she could tell he wasn’t really interested in.

It hurt more than she thought it would, but no matter. She would just try again.

At lunch, Anya made her way over to sit with him and the other boys, when Damian stood up suddenly and announced he would eat in the library. Anya stared after Damian’s hunched figure while Emile and Ewen tried to apologise on his behalf. 

At the end of the day, Anya tried to get his attention again, but Damian had ignored her once more and headed straight towards the Cecile Hall boys’ dormitory, ensuring that she couldn't follow him.

“Did you and your boyfriend break up?” said a thin voice behind her.

Anya growled at Adrian. “He’s not my boyfriend, and I’ll have you know that we are fine .”

She expected Adrian to back away - he seemed like the meek type after all, but he frowned in a way that showed that he was genuinely confused. “But you… you showed all the social cues…” 

He spoke softly, as if he was only thinking aloud, but then he looked up at her so quickly she thought he had snapped his neck. She took an involuntary step back. 

“So what does it mean if a boy lets you hold his hand, studies with you, walks with you, and stares at you in class?”

Anya stared at him incredulously, and it took a full minute before her brain function returned to normal. “We’re… we’re friends!” 

In quick succession, she recalled the times that she and Damian had acted like a couple, whether she realised it or not. The cinema. Meeting her at the bus stop. Walking her home.Their almost-kiss that felt like an age ago.

“No, that can’t be right,” Adrian continued, and Anya had never before wanted to run away from a conversation so much in her life. 

He stepped closer to her, invading her personal space. She didn’t even notice that he was shorter than her, and she gulped when he tilted his chin upwards to meet her eyes more forcefully. 

“But you hold his arm like couples do, and you sit together, and you listen to each other with mutual respect. And you went on a date .”

“How did you-” Anya steeled herself. “It wasn’t a date! We’re just friends! And it’s none of your business!”

Anya grumbled to herself as he walked away, and hoped that he didn't hear any of her mutterings. She still didn't know what to make of him. He had very little social awareness, and, apparently very little thoughts if his empty mind was anything to go by.

But she didn't know what to do about that. It wasn’t like she could tell anyone else, or confide in someone just to ask for their advice.

She was on her own.

You’re a freak . Said a voice in the dark.

You’ve always been a freak. I never loved you, said Loid to Anya.

Anya cried, alone in the orphanage. I’m sorry papa! I’ll be better, I swear!

You’re not even worth loving, said Damian as he looked her up and down. Look at you. Think you can read my mind, huh? You’re a monster. What kind of person thinks that’s okay?

It’s not my fault! It just happens -

We’re better off without you , said Yor. I never agreed to be the mother of a witch.

Mama! Please! Don’t go - I love you, please -

Her classmates stood around her, their arms outstretched and all pointing at her. Witch! Witch! Witch! They chanted. 

Becky stepped out form the rest of the crowd and towered over Anya. I thought we were friends.

We are friends, I swear! I would never-

You lied to me this whole time. You’re a freak, and a liar! I never want to see you again!

No, no, Becky, please -

Anya gasped awake as the alarm blared beside her, and she gently raised a hand to her cheek. Her entire face was sticky with sweat and tear tracks. She dragged the covers over head, and tried to hide from the world a little bit longer. 

Just then, Bond nuzzled her door open, and came to rest his head on her chest. He borfed quietly at her, and huffed a warm breath towards her.

Anya sniffed. “Thanks for getting me up, Bond, you’re such a good boy.” Anya raised the covers from her face and gave him a scratch under his ear. 

She sullenly dressed herself, and then headed to the table for breakfast, where Yor was preparing the plates. “I’ll just have toast today Mama,” said Anya. “I’m not that hungry.”

“Oh, but isn’t your vaccination today, dear? You should have something good to eat, to strengthen your immune system.” Yor smiled as she presented Anya with what looked like a lovely omelette, almost as pretty as Papa’s. “Go on, at least have some of the omelette with your toast. The protein will help you feel better!” 

Anya eyed the omelette suspiciously, but it did smell good, so she gave in. “Okay, “ she sighed and added it to her plate. “Thanks Mama.” 

Her mother’s cooking had come on leaps and bounds in the last decade, and coupled with Yor’s “fitness” training, Anya felt as though she was definitely getting the appropriate training regimen for an aspiring spy. 

She ate quickly, then left for school. 

Something pricked at her in the back of her mind…

What was vaccination day?

Her heart soared when she saw a familiar face at the bus stop. 

Anya swung her back over her shoulder as she got up from her seat, and even though a part of her was still mad at Damian for ignoring her, she couldn’t help but smile to see him there. 

She met him with a raised eyebrow. “What happened to you not talking to me anymore?”

Damian reddened, and tried to hide his embarrassment behind an air of bravado. “I guess I couldn’t stay away from you for long.”

Her heart leaped without her permission and heat spread through her cheeks. 

After a second, Damian processed what he had just said, and he cleared his throat in an effort to break the silence, before he might say something even more stupid. “Well, I mean I remembered that ignoring people is juvenile and immature, so…”

The spell broke, and Anya let herself laugh. “I forgot I did that! Wow, I can’t believe we’re only a few months into the school year…”

The two walked together, reminiscing about the time when Anya tried to ignore Damian, and it seemed to be the catalyst for them getting closer. She almost couldn’t believe that so much had changed in that time. 

Damian no longer stuttered around her, and he had carefully refrained from calling her ‘stupid’, ‘shrimp’, ‘stubby legs’ and ‘dummy’ for almost more than a month. He knew some things about her that she never thought she would tell anybody, and even though it stressed her out, and she questioned herself constantly, Anya wasn’t entirely sure if she regretted it - although only time would tell. 

When Anya and Damian got to the school gates, the class was abuzz with excitement.

“What’s going on?” said Anya, letting go of Damian’s arm.

Damian sighed and shoved his hands in his pockets. “You were sick on the last vaccination day, but people love it because it gets them out of class. Our class is going first, so we’re missing History.” Again . His thoughts resonated with disappointment. 

Anya smiled sadly. “But you love History!”

“ Pff , it’s fine,” said Damian with a wave of his hand, as though he was batting away the worries. “I’ll catch up later.” The way she said that was too cute, I can’t let her distract me!

Anya smiled to herself - as if he had never been distracted by her! 

The teens of Cecile Hall were grouped together by the teacher, and taken to the nurse's room to line up.

“It’s weird that we’re getting these through the school now,” said George. “My parents said it's because of the new law that says that kids have to go to the school for their first contact with this kind of thing.”

Damian shrugged. “Policies in countries change all the time. We should know that better than anyone.”

“You’d know that because your Dad’s a politician!” George added. “Are you going to be a politician as well?”

Damian grimaced, but tried to smooth his facial expression over, and look a bit more neutral. “I haven’t decided yet,” was all that he said.

George clearly heard the disinterest in Damian’s voice, or maybe he got bored, because then he turned and decided to have a conversation with someone else. 

Anya eyed Damian with a level of concern. “You won’t follow your father’s footsteps?”

Damian shrugged and avoided her eye contact. “I’ve thought about it but… I dunno. I think I still need a bit more time to decide. How do I know that it’s what I want to do, and not just what my father wants me to do?”

Anya looked down and thought of her own Papa. She hadn’t given any thought to being anything other than a spy, simply because that's what his job was, so it made sense for her to follow in his footsteps. But why did she want to follow that lifestyle? Did Damian have a point?

“I guess it’s hard when you want to make your own difference in the world,” said Anya thoughtfully. “But you’ve still got loads of time to decide!” She was reassuring herself as well as him, but there still hung a tension in the atmosphere that she couldn't quite parse.

She was about to change the subject when an announcement came through the speakers: “Cecile Hall, please line up outside of the nurses office for your vaccinations.”

The students did as they were told and lined up in a semi-neat line - more like pairs so they could still talk to each other while they waited, although the line seemed to be moving faster than either Anya or Damian had anticipated, and they were jostled to the front in record time.

“Ugh,” said Becky. “I hate getting my vaccinations. I’m not scared of needles anymore like I was when I was a kid, but, like, it’s still my least favourite thing to do.”

“Wait,” said Anya. “Needles?”

She was at the front of the queue. Anya paled and turned to Damian. “Actually, can you go first? I just remembered, I need the bathroom…”

“Nice try,” said Damian, and rolled his eyes. “If you try to skip it, they will just make another appointment for you to get it. Trust me, it's better to get it over and done with.”

“Yeah,” said George, behind them. “I skipped them in second year, and they would not stop sending letters home to my dad! He nearly grounded me for the amount of letters they wasted on me.”

“Oh,” said Anya, and thought of what would happen if a letter was sent home to her Papa. She couldn't face the disappointment on his face, or even worse, the nagging. Maybe it was better to get it over and done with….

The nurse poked her head out of the infirmary and smiled at Anya. “Come on dear, it’s your turn next.”

Anya gulped.

Damian took one glance at Anya’s sickly pale face, and stepped forward. “Actually, I’ll go first.” Then, he turned to Anya. “Come in with me, it’s not that bad.” 

Anya followed Damian to the nurses station, and Anya saw laid out on the table a collection of needles, swaps, plasters, and cotton buds. She sat in a chair next to Damian’s while the nurse got everything ready. 

“Okay,” said the nurse. “I’m just going to swab your arm first, then give you the vaccination, and it should be fine. We ask that everyone remain seated for 15 minutes afterwards to keep yourselves safe. Are you allergic to plasters?”

Damian shook his head.

Anya watched in distant horror as the nurse said: “Sharp scratch,” and the needle went into his skin, and Damian winced. 

As she watched the nurse wipe away a bead of blood, and stick a plaster onto his arm, Anya felt something pricking at her in her mind. She had seen this before. Why did something about this feel so familiar?

“Alright, dear?” said the nurse kindly as she moved closer to Anya. “We’re just going to do the same thing here, and it will only take a second, promise. If it’s easier for you, I’m sure your boyfriend here wouldn't mind holding your hand?”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” said Anya, at the same time that Damian flushed and said “She’s not my girlfriend!”

Both teens looked at each other, and looked away with a blush on their faces. 

The nurse looked between the two, with a small smile frozen on her face. “Right…” she said, and cleared her throat. “I’m just going to get started, let me know if you need a little minute, okay?”

Anya watched the nurse swab her arm with a cold wipe, then draw the fluid from the vial, flick it, bringing the bubbles to the point of the needle. 

Ice flooded her entire body as her vision hyper focused on the needle, centering her entire perspective on it

A man who called himself a doctor, looked down on Anya as he pulled another vial from the cupboard, and sucked the fluid inside into a needle that was the size of her own arm. “This won’t hurt,” he said. “Much.”

She struggled against the binds that held her to the chair, and the wires rattled around her head. “No, please!” she cried out. “Nooooo!!”

He slammed his hand on her forearm. “Stop your wriggling,” he growled at her, but Anya’s protests didn’t subside. The needle pierced her skin, and she screamed. 

Fire roared through her blood, burning its way through her, and burned straight into her brain. White light blinded her vision. 

“Make it stop, please , please I’ll do anything, please make it stop, I can’t -”

She couldn’t see, but she felt the tears running wet tracks down her cheeks. 

“No, no, no no no no!”

She felt the horrific needle finally being pulled from her, but the fire in her blood and in her mind remained. Anya cried when she felt them tapping on the metal helmet that encircled her head, and held the wires in place, but every tap felt like a hammer through her skull. 

“Now, for the next stage of the process-”

A distance scratching sound of pen on paper as the assistant took notes. It was the last thing Anya heard before pain blinded her once more. Stalactites of ice forced themselves into her mind, and she screamed again. 

“Please , please stop! Please don't hurt me! Help! Somebody help!”

A hand grabbed her shoulder.

“Please, no, no, no, no -” Anya sobbed.

“It’s okay! No-one’s gonna hurt you, it’s okay!”

“No! Stop! Please,” Anya couldn’t see through her tears. “Get away from me!”  She pushed the figure away from her. 

The straps of her chair faded away, and Anya suddenly felt the freedom in her ankles and wrists, and she bolted out of the door. 

She didn’t get far before another wave of pain flooded her, and Anya fell to her knees. 

“No, no,” she cried, as her chest heaved with sobs. “I can’t… Not again…”

She heard footsteps behind her, and covered her ears with her hands as she rocked herself on the ground. “Just leave me alone…”

“I’m not leaving you,” said a voice that Anya knew she recognised. “I know what it’s like to feel scared, and out of control. So I’m gonna stay here with you until you feel better.”

She felt the presence sit in front of her, and slowly, Anya allowed herself to open her eyes. Slowly, her mind pieced together the real world. She stared at the hem of Damian’s Imperial Scholar’s cloak. 

“You shouldn't sit on the ground, it’s gonna get dirty,” she hiccuped as more tears flowed down her face. “Just leave me alone.”

Out of the corner of her eye Anya saw Damian flinch, and then she felt a hand on her wrist. “Just keep taking deep breaths,” he said gently. “Remember? You said it helps?”

Anya nodded, and sucked in a gasp of air. And let it out. And one by one, each breath slowly brought her back to herself. She flicked away the last of her tears with her finger. 

The entire time, Damian sat with her and held her hand, waiting for her to come back to herself.

“I’m sorry,” she croaked, and she was sur;prised by how sore her throat had become. “I don't know what happened. I just…”

And the things she had seen… What was that? The man who looked like a doctor, she felt she had seen him before, but she tried to remember what she had seen, and felt the memories slip away from her water. Suddenly his face in her mind was like a reflection on water - distorted, with ripples blurring it. 

“Shh, it’s okay,” Damian whispered, and his thumb moved in gentle circles on her wrist. “Just take your time.”

“Thank you for coming after me,” Anya whispered. She wanted to tell him about the flashback, about what she had seen, but it felt locked inside her. 

She had never told anyone about her past. Not even her Papa knew. At this point, she was so practised at lying, at believing that Papa had been her father for her whole life, that it felt like a secret she couldn’t tell anyone . 

This secret was like a boulder at the bottom of the ocean. Large and immovable, and yet dwarfed by everything around it. Looking for it was like swimming in a vast unknown, surrounded by sea monsters. It was something best left alone. 

She felt her thoughts skirt that part of her past like a current in the ocean, leaving it untouched. And yet, at the same time, her past affected her present, in the same way that the boulder affected the current of the ocean in its own tiny way. It was so deep inside her, that dredging it up would be the hardest thing she would ever do. If she went to find it herself, she would surely drown.

So she didn't. Couldn’t. Even though there were aspects of her past that haunted her dreams, she couldn’t afford to linger on it. She knew in her bones that if people ever found out about her past, they would abandon her in a second.

If Yor ever found out, she would accuse Loid of lying. If Loid ever found out, he would take her back to the orphanage. She could just picture his excuse: You deserve a better life . But this was her better life - she was thrown away by four others, and the best thing she could do to preserve her good life was to keep her secret locked away forever. 

If Becky or Damian ever found out that she had been a lab experiment, Anya had no idea how they would react, or how she would cope with that. Maybe she would be forced to run away from the shame of it, and run away from Berlint forever. Or maybe she would throw away her life, in an effort to run away from the pain, and the knowledge that someone else knew about her terrible secret. 

It wasn't even a choice. She had to keep it a secret, if she wanted to continue her life as it was.

She felt Damian squeeze her hand, and suddenly Anya crashed back into Eden, back into her own body. Anya could hear the concern in Damian’s heart as he watched her come back to herself. 

She looked so scared, I just hope she's okay…

Anya returned his squeeze with a shuddering sigh. This boy. He really cared about her. 

Once she had adjusted to her surroundings, Anya realised that they were in a different area of the school, quite far away from the nurses office. 

“Hey,” she said, looking around her. “Where are we? What happened? How did we get here?”

“Uh, well, you-”

“There you are!” came Becky’s voice from the side, and both Anya and Damian turned to see Becky rounding the corner of the building. “Anya - are you okay? I’ve been looking for you absolutely everywhere! Please tell me Damian isn’t bumming you out or being mean to you?”

“Oi!” Damian snapped. “I’ll have you know I actually am trying to comfort her!”

“Oh well done lover boy,” Becky drawled with a smirk. “But now it’s time for the best friend! Move aside!”

Damian flushed at the ‘lover boy’ comment, but he did let go of Anya’s hand, and he shuffled over to make some room for Becky to sit with them. Becky lowered herself to the ground, not quite sitting, next to Anya, and hesitated when she noticed Anya’s red and swollen eyes. 

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Becky breathed after a while. “But the class is really worried about you, you just bolted out of the infirmary and ran away, and then we all saw Damian chasing after you! It makes a girl wonder what on earth happened!”

“Nothing happened, Blackbell, you little-”

“Oh lighten up Desmond, I was only trying to make a joke! Anyway, there’s a whole bunch of people back there who want to know if Anya’s okay. What do you think?” Becky rattled off her words and turned to Anya. “Are you ready to walk back?” 

“Uh,” Anya played with her fingers. “I’m not sure.”

Which was the truth. She felt a little shaken, and a little weak, as if all the energy had leaked from her body. Becky gave Anya a once-over and seemed to agree with a nod. 

“Let's take a walk in the gardens then, it’s a beautiful sunny day and we can have a look at all the flowers until you feel better!”

Anya brightened momentarily, then shrank back as another thought came to her. “Is that allowed? Can we do that?”

“Who cares,” Becky shrugged. “I bet if Henderson sees us walking about, he probably wouldn't stop us,” and she winked. 

“Well,” said Damian as he got up from the ground. “Let's go then.” He brushed off the dirt from his clothes, and then he held his hand out to Anya to help her up.

“Aw but you’ve had Anya to yourself this whole time!” Becky pouted. “I want a turn!”

Anya looked between the two feuding friends, sensing that she would have to step in otherwise there wouldn't be any resolution. “It’d be nice for us to go together,” said Anya quietly.

“What a great idea!” exclaimed Becky without missing a beat, and shot up to her feet. “Let’s all go as a three then!”

Damian felt like he had whiplash. “But you just said-”

“Shh! New idea! Let’s all go for a walk, just the three of us!” Becky exclaimed brightly. 

Damian rolled his eyes, and Anya giggled. There was something about the two of them interacting in this way that made her feel like things were normal. They had bickered ever since they were kids, and something about that made Anya feel like everything was as it should be. 

They descended down the stone stairs of the school, and stepped out onto the grass, still glistening with morning dew. 

Becky inhaled a deep breath, and gasped aloud. “Wow! Can you smell that! What a fresh and beautiful day! Here, Anya come and have a look at this -” and Becky grabbed Anya's hand, dragging her into the garden behind her.

Damian sighed. Becky’s exuberance exhausted him, but it was nice to see Becky making an effort to cheer Anya up. He felt a pang of jealousy, as he thought about what he and Anya had been talking about. He wanted to comfort her, but so far, he hadn't quite yet learned how to cheer Anya up the way that Becky could.

And then Damian felt a snap in his brain, like an elastic band pinging back on itself. 

What was he doing? Wasn’t he trying to get a bit of distance from Anya while he tried to figure things out? Like why she knew how to use a gun? 

He hadn't forgotten his theory that she was a spy, but as Damian watched Anya smell flowers with Becky and smiling, he started to wonder if he was wrong after all. 

There was no way that a spy would react like that in a school, and run away, and act as vulnerable as she did. Anya was fearless, but if something like that was enough to make her panic, then it was enough to make him question everything. 

And, if he was being completely honest with himself (which was a rare occurence), he didn't want her to be a spy. It was just another barrier between him and happiness. It complicated things too much, and things with Anya were complicated enough as it was. Maybe it was time to let go of his suspicion, and let himself enjoy her company, and maybe even let himself enjoy actually being friends with her. 

Maybe she’s not a spy after all then…

Anya’s head snapped up with surprise. 

Damian jumped, and looked behind him. Did she hear something, or what? 

Anya tried not to panic. It was such a lovely thing for Becky to suggest that they go for a walk together in the gardens, and it was so nice to have Damian tag along for a little bit, but what was with his last thought?

Maybe she's not a spy after all…

That meant that there was a point that he did think she was a spy. He suspected her . Anya felt like the blood in her veins had frozen, and she struggled to listen to Becky as she chattered on, still full steam ahead on her mission to try to cheer Anya up.

He suspected her of being a spy .

Anya gulped, and plastered a fake smile on her face. She had to pretend that she didn't hear that. She had to make sure that things continued as usual, with or without his suspicion. If he knew that she knew that he suspected that she was a spy, she couldn't be sure how he would react to that, and that could threaten her entire career as an aspiring spy without ever having gone on a real mission.

It could threaten Operation Strix. It could threaten her Papa’s ability to complete his mission, and if he couldn’t do that, then their entire family could fall apart.

If Damian knew, it would threaten everything .

Anya forced a breath into her lungs as she realised she had completely stilled. She forced her limbs to move, like breaking out of a layer of ice. 

“Becky, Damian, I’m ready to go back inside,” she said weakly.

“Are you sure?!” said Becky with concern in her eyes. “We've still got loads of time. The class hasn’t even finished up yet-”

“I’m sure,” said Anya, with finality in her voice that it made Becky and Damian glance at each other warily. “Let's go back.”

“O-okay,” Becky stammered, but just as soon as the word was out, she smiled again. “Glad you're feeling better, Anya-chan! Let's go and show Henderson you're okay, and then you can-”

“I am not going to get my vaccination,” said Anya firmly. 

It stopped Becky and Damian in their tracks. “But it's part of the school program!” Damian started to protest. “Besides they’ll just send a letter to your parents-”

“I can't do it,” Anya said tightly. “I know it's important, and believe me I want to get it like everyone else, but I just can't .” Her voice broke on the last word, and it made Damian’s heart hurt for her. 

What he had just witnessed was no joke. He had never seen Anya act like that, ever. He knew that she was so fearless when it came to other things - like when she had rescued him, without a trace of fear in her voice - but perhaps it was overdue for something like this to be hard for her. 

Damian nodded, cutting off Becky’s protests. “I’m sure you can work it out,” he said gently. Then, to Becky, he added: “Let’s go. We can study while we wait for the next period.”

“R-right,” Becky stammered, and then shook off her lingering doubt. “To the library!” 

While they were talking in the courtyard, Anya couldn't help but feel like she was being watched. Ice prickled against the back of her neck, and although she had tried to turn and see if anyone was there, there wasn't a shadow or a figure to be found. 

She turned back into the school with Damian and Becky. 

Chapter Text

The radio crackled to life: “Target is moving back inside the school with her friends. Looks like she’s recovered, over.”

The Handler toggled the switch of her own radio handset. “Thanks, Agent Dusk. You can return to base now, out.”

She put the handset to the side, and leaned across her desk, with her fingers intertwined in front of her. Papers and photographs lay scattered in front of her in an arc that Sylvia Sherwood had been analysing for the past four weeks. The school records had been extremely difficult to obtain, but with Agent Dusk on the job, it took a huge weight off of Sylvia’s shoulders. 

Twilight was right. Anya Forger’s early school records were abysmal, and if not for his occasional intervention (especially with the multiple threats of Tonitrus Bolts), she might have actually been expelled before she had even reached eight years old. However, her grades had been picking up since she was about fourteen, and she was now above the class average in most of her subjects. 

Not quite enough to get any Stella Star’s for her academics, but it turned out that most of Anya’s Stella Star’s came from acts of community service, good citizenship and outstanding heroism.

If Sylvia knew that it would take this long for Anya to get only five Stella Stars, she would have tried harder to find some other way of gaining an audience with Donovan Desmond. 

She eyed the notes further - all the observations from Agent Dusk, plus Franky’s notes from his initial investigation about Anya from when Twilight first adopted her, and transcriptions of her conversations with Twilight, her teachers, and even some of the other WISE agents who were disguised at the time. The photographs were stills from the recording Sylvia took from the kidnapping site, but there were also some screenshots of CCTV footage that were extremely difficult to track down. 

And yet - and yet - even with the investigation pile in front of her, Sylvia Sherwood still had a lot of questions about Anya Forger. 

The girl wasn’t yet eighteen, but she showed promise. It was obvious that Anya had a strong sense of justice, a talent for independent investigation, and she had some clever instincts for combat skills. (Her rescue of the Desmond boy proved that, along with the mounting evidence of Anya’s budding athleticism.)

In addition, Sylvia hadn’t forgotten how horrified the lab analysts were when they tested out the substances left from Anya’s “peanut bomb”. After a lengthy silence, and a lot of muttering shaking of heads, one of them handed Sylvia the deduced recipe on a piece of scrap paper.

At first, she thought it was a joke. “These are kitchen ingredients,” she barked at them. “You mean to tell me that this - this child , created a finely tuned-down smoke bomb on the fly , with nothing but materials from the kitchen of an abandoned factory?”

They stared at each other, and the lead investigator gulped. “Y-yes. Exactly.”

It was a tense afternoon.

Sylvia put her head in her hands, and her sudden movement accidentally scattered some of the photographs in front of her. 

Her missing past was a complication. Sylvia had exactly zero clue where Anya had come from before her time in the orphanage, or if she had any remaining family anywhere in Ostania. Even if Sylvia did end up recruiting her, there was no telling who would be able to recognise her from her past life. 

And Anya’s behaviour at the vaccination drive… That was a concern, but overall, Sylvia wasn’t convinced that it correlated with weakness on Anya’s part. If that was the first time that she had shown such a strong reaction to a trigger, then it was more than likely that Anya was more resilient than Sylvia gave her credit for. Still, Sylvia needed to know what kind of cards she was dealing with. 

She recalled when she had assigned Agent Dusk the task of investigating Anya Forger, and getting as much information about her as possible. 

Agent Dusk was, understandably, reluctant. “Isn’t she… Twilight’s adoptive daughter? Why don’t you just ask him?”

The Handler gave him a sharp look. “Are you questioning me?”

“N-no Ma’am! I just, er…” He stuttered to a stop.

She sighed, and took pity on him. Twilight was renowned for his sharp skills, and she imagined that if he realised that she had sent a WISE agent on his own daughter, then he might react poorly.

“We’ll tell Twilight eventually, but there is something that I need to clear up about her first. Just keep an eye on her, but stay at a distance. Do not disclose this operation to anyone , even other WISE agents or informants. We don’t know what she’s capable of, so I need you to exercise extreme caution at all times. I want a full investigative report on her abilities, her routine, her friends, everything . Is that clear?”

Agent Dusk nodded, then frowned. “But… but she’s a child .”

The Handler drew herself up to her full height, and took a single step forward with a sonorous click of her high-heeled boots. With a glare from under the wide brim of her hat, the Handler very succinctly reminded Agent Dusk who exactly he was speaking to.

“She is steel, ready to be forged into a weapon. And that’s where we come in.” 

And so began Operation Bellator.

Chapter Text

The fact that Damian was putting some pieces together was a problem. Anya chewed her lip, and tapped her pen against the desk in her room.

The day had dragged on, and Anya had done her best to try to recover from what had happened earlier in the day, but she couldn't shake the feeling that it was the start of something that she had very little control over. 

Who was that doctor with the needle? Would she ever gain those memories back, or even find out what had really happened? 

Her memories of her time in the lab were so vague, that even as a teenager it felt like blurred pictures in her mind. She knew the memories existed (somewhere), but it was hard to fully parse the images in her mind, and understand what her gut was trying to tell her. 

And as for Damian, clearly he had started to piece together something that was a little too close to the truth. Too close for Anya’s comfort anyway. 

Sure, there were some things she said that she had wanted to tell him, but Anya still didn't know for sure what she was ready to share, and what she needed to take to the grave. But one thing was certain - she wouldn't let Damian get any closer to the truth than he already was. It would jeopardise everything she had worked towards so far.

It could destroy Operation Strix. What if he decided to report her? What if he never wanted to see her again?

It would destroy their friendship. He would realise that everything she had ever said was a lie. Nothing would ever be the same again. 

Anya wanted to try to pretend that everything was normal, but she couldn't shake his comment (even though he hadn't said it out loud), and when she saw him in class the next day, Anya strained to be normal. 

“Sy-on boy!” she squeaked. “Good to see you,” she said awkwardly when he picked her up again at the bus stop. 

“Hey,” said Damian coolly, and offered her his elbow without even a second thought. 

As she placed her hand on his elbow, Anya distantly realised that they had come a long way together. Here they were, touching casually, when only a few months ago, something like this would have sent sparks of electricity through her skin. It seemed like being around Damian was just a bit more normal than it had been before, and Anya wondered if he felt the same way. She wondered if he still got flustered around her like he used to, or if he had learned to settle around her the same way that she could feel comfortable around him.

“Everything alright?” asked Damian after a particularly big sigh on her part. 

“Oh, uh, yeah,” stammered Anya. “It’s just, I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

He nodded in understanding, and then after a short pause he blurted: “Well, uh, if you want to talk about it, I would be fine with that, I guess.”

She giggled in response. He could be really cute when he acted awkward.

Anya’s mind snagged on that last thought and she caught herself mid-smile.

She thought he was cute? But what did that mean? Why did she think that way about him? Not like a dog was cute, but just in a human way. A human-that-she-liked kind of way.

Anya felt her mind spiral into Becky territory, so she decided to abandon that line of thought. Thinking about Damian as ‘cute’ was too much for her to handle. 

In any case, Anya still didn't really know what her feelings even were , and a part of her wondered if she would still want to hang out with him outside of Operation Strix. What would happen once it was over, and Damian's father was taken down? What then? Would she still be able to look him in the eyes knowing that she had destroyed his family and everything he cared about? 

A good spy didn't make emotional connections with their targets, but something in Anya just knew this was different. These were her friends . In many ways they had grown up together, and experienced so many things together. 

But, she still had a job to do, and a mission to complete. She couldn't afford to get caught by him. As for Damian…

She would have to think about it later.

Ice pricked on her skin, right at the back of her neck, and she felt like she was being watched again. Why was this feeling coming back? She glanced up to the top balconies of the academy where she saw a small figure standing up straight, eyes on her. 

Adrian , Anya realised immediately. The boy who eluded her and her mind reading skills. She still had no answers about him, and was no closer than the week before in figuring out what his whole deal was. 

As if sensing her own gaze on him, Adrian turned away from her and walked back into the school behind him. 

“Did I miss something?” said Damian questioningly, and nodded his head to where Adrian had just been standing. “You two seemed to share a moment.”

Anya shrugged off the tingle in her skin and turned to Damian. “No need to be jealous,” she joked, and Damian turned scarlet. 

“Oh, so you are jealous!” Anya smirked.

“I just don't know what you see in him, that's all,” said Damian with a pout. 

He sounded so ridiculous that Anya laughed. “Trust me, it's not like that. He just...” she gazed towards the balconies with a twist of thoughtfulness in her voice. “He gives me a weird feeling.”

Damian's nerves shot upwards. “What kind of feeling?”

She rolled her eyes playfully. “Not what you’re thinking, I can tell you that much.”

“And how do you know what I’m thinking?” Damian meant it as a joke, to tease her, but he didn't miss her eyes widen in what looked like alarm, but it was gone in less than a second.

“Uhh, I don't! Obviously!” she stammered, and Anya cursed herself for sounding so high-pitched and on-edge. 

Damian raised a solitary eyebrow as he stared at her, with a tense smile frozen on his face. “I know, duh. It was just a joke.”

Anya exhaled with a forced laugh. “Yes. Yes, of course. A joke.” If she laughed then, it would definitely sound forced, so she decided to quickly change tracks. “He just gives me the creeps!”

Damian’s shoulders sagged with relief, and Anya realised just how much tension he was holding. “The creeps! Yes, that is a weird feeling. I mean, that would certainly be weird.”

Then it was Anya’s own turn to look at him questioningly. “Are you okay Damian? You sound a bit on edge.”

“Well, so do you,” Damian huffed. “So is there something you're not telling me? Some other secret maybe, that's weighing you down?”

Go on, give me something to tell me that it’s all in my head. Tell me you’re not a spy.

Anya gulped. She knew she was in dangerous territory with Damian, but staying away from him was not an option. Not for Operation Strix, and not for her. 

But she had to say something to Damian. She needed to keep up the facade, and if she could draw his attention to something else, then maybe he could forget all about the spy thing. 

Anya tried to calculate a response in her head that would distract Damian from his question.

“He’s just…” She bit her lip. “Doesn't he give you a weird feeling? Like something bad could happen?”

Damian shrugged. “Just seems like your everyday arrogant rich kid to be honest.”

Anya raised her eyebrow with a smirk. “And you would know because…?”

“Fine,” Damian sighed, but Anya caught a hint of a smile pulling at the corners of his lips. “I happen to know another arrogant rich kid very well.”

“Oh yeah?” Anya teased and sidled in closer to his side. “And does his name begin with a D?”

“Actually it does,” said Damian brightening up. “Demetrius, my older brother, very arrogant-”

“You hypocrite!” she nudged him with her elbow. 

“Hey!” exclaimed Damian, laughing. “I know, I know. I’m still a bit arrogant.”

Anya tried to hide her laugh behind her other hand, but failed, and laughed even louder. “More like a lot .”

“Hey!” Damian responded, and he opened his mouth to say something else when the bell went, signalling the start of class.

“Oh shit, we’re already late!” he exclaimed. “Let’s go!”

They ran to the class together, and arrived at the doors at the same time, panting heavily just as the professor reached Damian's name on the roll call.

“Here!” he wheezed, and Anya followed him to their seats.

“That was a close one,” whispered Anya. She knew the general rule for being late was that if they got there in time for their names being called, then they wouldn't get a Tonitrus Bolt. She was already so close to getting expelled. The final Tonitrus Bolt would be the nail in the coffin for her. 

Anya slid into her seat next to Becky, who eyed the two with interest. “Oh? And what were you doing with Damian so late into the morning?”

“Becky! It's not like that,” Anya hissed under her breath, and instinctively added: “We’re just friends.”

“Oh shut up!” Becky whispered forcefully as she slammed her books on her desk. “When are you going to admit you have feelings for each other? I can't take this suspense any more!”

“Silence please!” called Professor Henderson, and the girls straightened up in their chairs. “Today we’re going to start a new project, and you will be working in assigned pairs. When I call your names, please move to sit with your new partner.”

Under the desk, Anya crossed her fingers, and hoped that she would stay with one of her friends. 

“Emile Egeburg and Ewen Egeburg,” he called, and the two hi-fived each other.

“Becky Blackbell and Damian Desmond.”

“What!” cried Becky at the same time that Damian shouted. “Hell no!”

“You will sit in your pairs as stated! Now settle down while I continue,” Professor Henderson said sharply, and then took a moment to adjust his monocle. 

Anya gulped. If all her friends were suddenly taken, who would she be put with?

“Anya Forger and Adrian Kuning,” called Professor Henderson, and Anya’s stomach dropped. She turned around to see him jolt at her sudden movement, and he waved shyly at her, then quickly dropped his hand and pretended to read his own notes.

Anya’s skin prickled when she went to sit down next to him. Together they looked over their project briefs that Professor Henderson handed out, and Anya felt the nausea rise in her stomach.

They were supposed to work on a political brief - something about writing a draft policy? Anya’s eyebrows knitted together as she looked over the brief. This looked like something that politicians did, not something that a normal high school student would have to do.

Anya looked around the class carefully. 

But then again, none of them were normal high school students. They were children of the most powerful elite in Berlint, perhaps in all of Ostania. She was looking at future politicians, leaders and CEOs.

So they really are trained through school, then? Anya thought sadly, and realised with a pang that this really did set them apart from the other students in Ostania (perhaps globally). The school expected them to do well, so it set them tasks that aligned with their potential future goals, and gave them a taste of the work of a successful adult before they even graduated, so they could enter the workforce more prepared than any other student their age.

The political brief looked boring to Anya, but she could see several other kids in the class whose eyes lit up when they read over it.

“My father has told me all about this,” drawled Damian. “He let me look through their policy briefs that they drafted for the prime minister to set out new laws. This will be easy.”

Anya glanced again at her own sheet. She wasn't so sure that it would really be that easy. She looked sidelong at her own project partner Adrian, who avoided eye contact with her, instead staring resolutely out of the window, even though there was nothing there. Her eyes scanned his posture; completely rigid and upright, it was as if he was trying so hard to look relaxed that it actually had the opposite effect. 

If she was going to get a good grade with Adrian as her partner, then she would really have to pull her weight and take on the majority of the planning. She didn't trust that he would do very well with his part of the assignment at all. 

And she definitely couldn't afford another Tonitrus Bolt…

Anya brought out her pens and set them in front of Adrian. “Let’s brainstorm some ideas together, and then we can decide what area we want to make a policy brief in and draft up a plan.”

Adrian didn’t move, and kept his head turned completely away from her. 

Anya resisted the urge to roll her eyes, but started talking anyway, and noted down her ideas as she brainstormed out loud. It would be better just to get it over and done with.

“We can start with something that matters to everybody, like education, or parenting. I think education would be better since it’s got a potentially wider impact, so if we  have a look at how the average kid experiences education, we can start to draft up policies on how to make it more equal to the richer kids. Or something like that. I haven't looked at policies before so we would have to do a lot of research…”

Anya continued talking to the sullen Adrian until the bell signalled the end of class. He got up and left without a word, while she packed the papers away in her bag.

“Oh my god! He just infuriates me,” said Becky, coming to link her arms with Anya. “I swear Anya, I don't know how you put up with him.” 

“Damian’s not that bad,” said Anya quickly. “You just need to get to know him and-”

“Oh no, I meant Adrian!” Becky exclaimed with an embarrassed smile. “You were so patient with him the whole day, I honestly don't know how you do it. I have so much admiration for you! Who knew my best friend could actually be so patient with a sad little boy!”

Anya forced out a laugh, but suddenly speaking about Adrian made her feel entirely uncomfortable. “Thanks Becky, it’s hard to get a conversation going with him, and I still don't know-”

She cut herself off with a start, releasing with horror that she was about to say something to the effect of “I still don't know why I can't read his mind like everyone else”. Anya quickly changed tracks, when she saw Becky’s look of confusion.

“I still don't know why he even bothers,” she settled on saying, which sounded closer to the lines of something she had heard in Berlint in Love . 

Becky laughed. “Damn right! Come on, let's go and sit with the boys in the library.”

As Becky and Anya walked to the library, arms linked, they passed Bill Watkins standing by the lockers. 

“Oh hey Bill!” said Anya, and gave him a little smile. “It's been a while! How ya doing?”

Bill’s eyes flickered warily to Becky, who gave an almost imperceptible nod. 

He pulled at his collar. “It has been a while, Forger. I hope you are doing well.”

Anya frowned, then looked between him and Becky. “Why are you speaking so formally? That's really weird for you.”

“I always speak like this,” Bill rumbled.

“Anya,” Becky interjected. “Remember when a lady declines the date of a man, he has to redeem himself for her.”

“Huh?” Anya blinked. She stared up at Bill, who towered over her. “That makes no sense. And I’m friends with Bill, so he doesn't have to do that.”

Bill sweated nervously. “Well, A-Anya, it’s good to know that we’re still friends. I’ll leave you both to it then…”

He walked away, and his Imperial Scholar cape swung tightly behind him. Anya turned to Becky, about to mention the strangeness of Bill’s behaviour, when she caught a glance in Becky’s eyes. Something warm, and sparkly and…

Was Becky smiling after Bill? 

She had that same look on her face as when she used to look at Loid…

“Becky!” gasped Anya, as it clicked into place. “You have a crush on Bill??”

“What?” Becky whipped round to Anya with her eyes wide with alarm. “No I don't! Don't say crazy things!”

“Ah! You do!” Anya squealed. For once, she didn’t have to read her best friend's thoughts to read her true feelings - it was all over her bright red face. “You have a crush on Bill Watkins!”

“Ssh! Don't say that so loud!” Becky put her hands over Anya’s mouth, and looked around surreptitiously. “Don't let anyone hear you say that!”

“Why not?” said Anya, which under Becky’s hand sounded a bit muffled and more like: “Wob wob?”

Becky removed her hand from Anya’s mouth and threw them up in the air. “Because! It’s not good for my reputation, so don't even start!”

“But Bill is really nice! And he looks older, and he’s a son of someone important. So he’s probably your type!”

“That’s not-” Becky started, and then she huffed with resignation. “It's not like that.”

Anya folded her arms in front of her and raised her eyebrows. “You're my best friend. I can tell when you like someone, so what's really going on?”

Becky sighed, and pulled Anya around the corner into a small, empty classroom, then shut the door behind her. 

“Okay, I’ll tell you, but you have to keep it a secret! Do you promise?” And just to show how serious she was, Becky held out her pinky.

Anya hesitated. When they were kids a pinky promise meant something sacred, but now that they were in their last year at Eden, it was something that fell away with their childhood. For Becky to bring it back at that point meant something really serious.

And was Anya really ready to hold another secret within her? 

…But it was for her best friend, and sometimes best friends had duties that they had to keep.

Anya took Becky’s pinky in her own and gave it a squeeze. “Promise.”

Becky breathed a real sigh of relief. “Okay. So. You’re right. I do really like Bill, and we’re currently dating!” At her confession, Becky did allow herself to smile tentatively.

“Ah! I knew it! I'm so happy for you!” Anya jumped up and down, genuinely excited for her best friend. 

“But!!” Becky took both of Anya’s hands in hers and squeezed them together in a desperate plea. “We can not go public! So you have to keep it a secret!”

“I still don't understand,” said Anya cautiously. “Why not?”

“No offence Anya,” Becky sighed, “but there are some things that you just don't understand even after I explain it. I can try, but even if you don't agree, you have to keep it a secret for me.”

Anya nodded sagely, not taking offence, and Becky breathed in deeply before continuing. “I’m the Blackbell heir, so who I choose as my partner really matters. It even matters at school, because a lot of high school sweethearts get together as adults!”

Anya privately thought that might just be something that happened on Berlint in Love , but she didn't say it out loud. 

“And while Bill isn't necessarily in the same position as me, his father is also a really important figure in the military, so he has to consider his future wife really carefully as well. Something as simple as a high school relationship isn't as simple for us. If this kind of thing became public, or if other people started to figure it out, our parents would find out, and then they'd force us to be apart, and then everything goes downhill from there and I will never be happy again! Understood?”

Anya nodded mutely, still not understanding. “Understood.”

Becky sighed. “You are such a bad liar Anya.” But she gave a wan smile all the same. “Just please don't tell. Not even Desmond, okay?”

“Okay,” said Anya. “I promise.” 

They embraced in a hug to seal the secret.

Chapter Text

Anya woke during the night in the middle of another bad dream, but the nightmare slipped from her memory soon upon waking. 

She groaned and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. She felt strange, like something was missing. 

As the blur disappeared from her vision, Anya distantly realised that her room was still pitch dark. When she glanced at her bedside table, the red light of the alarm clock read 04:57 .

Great - just what she needed. No sleep. Anya tried to close her eyes and get back to sleep, but after ten minutes or so, she became so frustrated of tossing and turning, and feeling so physically uncomfortable, that she threw off her covers and stood by the window. 

And suddenly, she knew why she felt like something was missing. 

There was no moon.

Nerves pricked at her, and she tried not to panic. 

Anya hated the new moon. It was bad enough that she had to contend with her womanhood every month - why did periods have to follow the cycle of the moon? - but having her mind reading powers deactivated for that one full day put her in misery every time, and made her feel so vulnerable. 

She tried to go back to sleep, but Anya lay awake until six thirty, when Loid knocked on her door to get her up for school. 

“Coming,” she said groggily. 

It could not be underestimated how much she relied on her powers throughout the course of a normal day. She needed to know people's moods, to know what to say and how to act, and the answers to tests, and to peoples questions. Without it, she felt like she was a failure as a student, as a person, and even as a spy. How could she get the information she needed without her mind reading? 

Anya dressed slowly for school, and tickled Bond’s ears on the way to the table for breakfast, knowing that it was his favourite spot. 

Just as Anya sat down at the table, Bond perked up from his spot on the floor, with a fearful look in his eyes. He jumped on Anya, putting his huge paws on her lap, and barked sharply in her face.

“Borf! Borf borf borf!”

“Bond, down!” said Loid sharply, and looked at Anya apologetically. “Anya, you can just tell him to get down, he’s going to ruin your uniform before you even get to school!”

Anya didn't say anything in response, but looked back at Bond, who hadn't lost the alarmed look on his face.

She knew that look well. He had just had a vision, and from the looks of it, it was a pretty important one, but it was the one day of the month that she had no idea what he was trying to tell her. She shook her head gently at an increasingly frustrated Bond. When Loid went to the kitchen to refill on coffee, Anya leaned down to Bond.

“I can’t see anything right now,” she whispered gently. “I’ll be able to read your mind again tomorrow.”

Bond “borfed” in response. Which, to Anya, could have meant anything. 

She got to school at the usual time, and as usual, Damian waited for her at the bus stop. Anya smiled to herself as the bus pulled up to the pavement, and she got out with her usual level of enthusiasm. 

So far, it was starting like every other day, but Anya tried to pretend that yes it was completely normal to not hear anyone else's thoughts and she in fact had gone her whole life without relying on listening into peoples minds all the time.

Suffice to say, that by the time lunch came around, she was absolutely exhausted. How did other people get by with trying to interpret tonal inflections, body language, facial expressions, as well as actual words being said aloud? Anya knew better than anybody that storms could wear a calm face, and anger usually held a layer of sadness, but without knowing people’s true thoughts, Anya had no idea how to respond to them half of the time.

They sat with the boys, as usual. Anya and Damian sat together on one side of the table, with Ewen, Emile and Becky on the other. 

“Hey, I heard that the Imperial Ball this year is going to be held at the palace!” exclaimed Emile excitedly, and he stabbed his fork emphatically into a potato.

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Becky wondered. “The school doesn't have any connections to the royal family.”

“Yet, ” said Emile, with a dramatic wave of his fork. “There will be a snotty heir that will turn up in the halls, just you wait and see.”

Becky rolled her eyes. “I really doubt it, but I have heard that there are going to be fireworks,” she glanced at Damian meaningfully, before pretending to be interested in her own lunch. 

“Don’t they have fireworks every year?” Damian mumbled through a mouthful of food.

“You tell us, oh wise one ,” said Becky. “You're the only one of us that is actually an Imperial Scholar. What were the other balls like in previous years?”

“I - uh,” Damian stammered, and he glanced quickly at Anya, who picked at her omurice, oblivious to the conversation next to her. “I wasn’t paying attention. I didn’t have a lot of fun there.”

“That’s a shame,” pouted Anya. “Did they not even have good food? Or fun dancing?”

“Well, uh,” Damian stammered, and a blush started to creep up his neck. “I don't really like dancing-”

“Yeah,” giggled Ewen. “Damian-sama is really picky with who he wants to dance with.”

“Shut up!” Damian hissed, and attempted to jab Ewen with his fork.

Ewen whipped his hand away quickly with another laugh, and added to Damian’s apparent embarrassment: “Everyone knows Damian only has eyes for one girl!”

“I swear to God, I will murder you if you say another word-” Damian said with a glare at Ewen.

Anya rolled her eyes. The boys banter usually confused her, but at least on a normal day she could rely on her powers to give her the subtext. Without that, she might as well be listening to animals making noises at each other. 

“But I don't think I’ll go this year,” Damian added, bringing Anya’s focus back into the conversation.

“What? Why not?” Anya said impulsively in a panic. If Damian doesn’t go, then that means his father won’t be there, and Operation Strix will be doomed!

Damian’s blush deepened as he looked at Anya, much to the mirth of the other three teens at the table. “It’s just not… that … fun...” he mumbled, and his speech trailed off into the background.

“Hm,” said Anya, tapping her spoon against her chin. “What would make it fun, do you think?”

Damian looked like steam was about to come out of his ears, while Ewen and Emile couldn’t contain their laughter as they chuckled mercilessly behind their hands.

“I don't want to talk about it,” Damian said firmly, and turned his attention back to his burger meat lunch. 

Anya shrugged. She wanted to ask more, but without knowing what Damian was really thinking (and he never said his true thoughts out loud), she found herself at a loss of what follow-up questions she could ask. After a few minutes, it felt too awkward for her, so she packed up her lunch and stood up.

“Hey, where are you going?” said Becky. “You haven't even finished your lunch yet!”

“I'm just not hungry anymore,” said Anya innocently, unaware of the muscles tightening in Damian’s jaw. “I’ve got to get my books out from my locker, so I’ll see you guys in class.”

She didn't wait for them before she walked out of the cafeteria.

Damian stared after Anya as she walked away. He couldn't help but notice how her skirt swished against the back of her legs as she walked. 

“Nice one,” said Ewen, nodded towards Anya’s receding figure. “You could have gone after her at least.”

Damian hmphed in his seat. “Clearly she was just trying to get away from you lot being absolute idiots in front of her.”

“Doubt it,” said Becky calmly. “Your red face just gave you away.” She delicately placed a cut vegetable in her mouth and chewed slowly, while she pointedly avoided making further eye contact with Damian. 

Damian’s ears burned, and he looked away, saying nothing. He knew they were right, and that he should have gone after her, but Anya had been acting strange all day. She seemed a bit more distant than usual, a bit more reserved. She hadn’t seemed excited at the prospect of the Imperial Ball like the others were - even though none of the others in the group were Imperial Scholars, it was usually a popular topic all throughout the school.

Damian sighed, and decided that he would talk to her after class. If they were ‘friends’ now, then it was time for him to do what friends did, and make sure that she was okay.

Anya drifted towards her locker, lost in the quietude of her own mind. Without everyone’s thoughts buzzing around her, she was so much more conscious of how loud her own mind was. It felt so empty, and so lonely. So wrong . 

She couldn't wait for the day to be over. Absent-mindedly, Anya picked up some more papers from her locker, and turned them over. 

Her eyes drifted towards the corner of the paper, and she realised that she had accidentally swiped Adrain’s notebook along with her own notes. She groaned. Of course she would be forced to talk to him by fate, and that was the last thing she needed that day, when she already felt bad about her ability to pass as a normal student. 

Anya chewed her lip and stuffed the papers into her bags, vowing that she would hand them over to Adrian when she next saw him. 

As she slung her bag over her shoulder, she got her wish straight away. Adrian lurked in the corner of the corridor, on the border between the school foyer and the entry hall.

“Hey, Adrian,” she called out to him. “I’ve got your project notes!” She waved the policy brief in the air.

It didn't look as though Adrian had heard her. He turned his head, and disappeared through the stone entryway.

Anya groaned again, then made her way after him. “Hey! Did you hear me? I said-”

But when she turned the corner, Adrian was nowhere to be found. 

“Strange,” Anya said out loud, and stepped out into the road. She walked a few minutes, all the while looking around for Adrian, or anything that could give her a clue as to where he went. 

She walked all the way to the school gates, and looked down the road on either side. There was still no movement, and she was beginning to wonder if she had imagined his presence after all. 

Anya was about to turn and head back, when she heard a noise coming from her right on the road: an animal whining.

Normally, Anya would have listened out for the thoughts of the animals, to at least pinpoint where they might have been, but without her mind reading ability, she followed the whining noise of the animal. She found a bush where she heard the noise coming out of, but there was no movement, no shadows -

Anya’s eyes were drawn to a dark box on the ground. 

Speakers?

The animal sounds came out of the speaker, which meant -

It’s a recording! Anya realised, just as she turned around to face what was behind her.

Two men with needles pounced on her, and before she could even fight back, they injected something into her arms. 

Images of a doctor in a white room flashed in her mind, but she could not afford to be pulled back into that memory, so Anya bit down on her lip, and focused as hard as she could on the feeling of pain blooming along the edge of her mouth. Anything to keep her from being pulled into another flashback. 

She opened her mouth to scream, but her movements suddenly became so sluggish, only a weak strangled sound came out of her mouth.

She couldn't see the faces of the men behind their masks, but they wore what could only be described as medical-grade hazmat suits. Behind them, a small figure stood timidly holding a remote control.

Adrian , she realised. She tried to call out to him, but her mouth could barely move. She slumped to the ground, vaguely aware of the men who had taken her wrists in handcuffs.

“We have Subject 007 in custody,” one of the men spoke into a radio. “Ready to transfer, over.”

The rumbling of transport approached.

Anya’s vision blurred, but she tried to plead to Adrian with her eyes, and only one word came to her: Why?

She didn't know if she said it out loud, but he quickly looked away, and he let the remote control fall to his side. “I told you,” Adrian croaked, his head hanging in shame. “I lead animals to the hunters.”

One single tear escaped from her as the drug took full effect, and Anya’s vision faded to black. 

Chapter Text

Damian, Emile, and Ewen walked side by side back towards the classroom, when Becky ran up behind them.

“Have you guys seen Anya?? I can't find her anywhere!”

“Hey, watch where you’re-” Damian tried to say, but it was too late. Becky grabbed the front of his uniform with both of her fists. 

“I seriously can't find her! And I tried calling her, but she's not picking up!”

“Calm down Blackbell, I’m sure she’s just in the bathroom or something,” said Ewen effortlessly, and gave her a gentle nudge to detach her from Damian’s shirt. Thankfully, she didn’t fight back, and she stepped away from Damian, although she held her fists stiffly by her side. 

“Or maybe she's in the library?” said Emile, trying to be helpful.

“I checked the bathroom, and the library!” Becky’s voice trembled, while she was on the brink of tears.

“Okay, well, she knows that class is about to start, right?” said Damian. “We’ll just wait for her there.”

“Desmond is correct,” boomed a voice behind them, and Damian could recognise that deep sonic signature anywhere. “Anya knows the class schedule. She’ll be fine.”

“Oh Bill!” Becky sobbed, and crushed his arm to her in a hug. “Thank goodness you're here! I need the reassurance!”

Damian stepped back in surprise, and shared a glance with Ewen and Emile. Since when did Becky call him ‘Bill’ rather than ‘Watkins’? And was it just him, or did they seem to look really close?

As if sensing their thoughts, Becky and Bill sprang apart. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “I got carried away, I’m just so worried that there’s something wrong…”

Becky’s face darkened with a look. “What if she got her last Tonitrus Bolt and she’s finally been expelled and we didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye?”

“Like that would happen,” Damian said, and his voice boomed with confidence. “She’s not even on her seventh Bolt yet!”

Becky turned to Damian so glacially slowly, that a pit started to form in his stomach.

“R-Right?” he stammered, and when he saw the gaunt look on Becky’s face, his stomach clenched even more. “She didn’t have that many Bolts yet, right?”

Becky stared Damian down with a grimace. “She got her seventh Bolt defending you after the party. Didn’t she tell you?”

Damian’s stomach dropped. “I was there but I didn’t know, I didn’t realise… you mean that was her seventh?”

Becky nodded sagely, and the boys sagged as one.

It could have happened. Anya could have been expelled. And Damian couldn't help but feel like it was his fault somehow. 

“Well,” he said, trying to pick them all back up again. “We don't yet know what really happened, so all we can do is wait to find out. If she wasnt expelled, then she’ll join us back in class.”

The students nodded together, relieved that Damian thought it through logically, and Bill added: “I also want to hear if she is alright, please let me know when you find out.”

“I’ll text you,” said Becky casually, then flinched at the boys’ surprised stares. “What? I’ve got the numbers of everyone at school. It’s not suspicious!”

“Sure,” Damian said as he rolled his eyes. Whatever was going on between Becky and Bill was none of his business, but he wasn't about to make it weird for them. 

Even though he had just put on a show of bravado to reassure the others, Damian couldn’t help but worry about Anya. It was entirely possible that something happened during lunch that she was immediately expelled for, but it wouldn’t help to get dramatic about it now. He knew how important it was to wait things out, instead of leaping to conclusions.

They went to class and waited. 

They sat during the roll call, and waited.

While the rest of the class got to work, they still waited.

When Anya still didn't show by the end of the school day, the knot in Damian’s stomach twisted even more. 

Finally, it was time for Becky to take her chauffeur back to her mansion and go home. She waited until most of the class had gone to their dorms before she approached the boys. 

“We’ll keep each other updated, yeah?”

They nodded in agreement, and Damian stood with Emile and Ewen while they watched Becky’s chauffeur drive her away.

“What do you think, bossman?” said Emile tentatively. “Do you really think Anya is expelled?”

“I don't know,” said Damian, and he meant it. 

The boys retreated to their dorms for the evening and tried to distract Damian with some gossip or games, but it was difficult to escape the sullen and dejected atmosphere. They still hadn’t heard anything from Becky, so there was every chance that she hadn't heard from Anya, either.

It wasn’t until it was almost bedtime, and the boys got changed into their pyjamas, that the boys’ dorm of Cecile Hall heard an almighty ruckus from the front of the school. They poked their heads out collectively of their rooms, and peered down the corridor. When Damian, Emile, and Ewen saw the source of the noise, they stilled.

“What are Anya’s parents doing at the school?” Ewen whispered, but they shared an unspoken worry that whatever the reason was, it had something to do with Anya’s sudden disappearance at lunchtime. The three boys shared a worried look, before the sound of raised voices snatched their attention away.

“What do you mean she didn’t turn up for classes?” Loid said icily, and the chill in his voice put fear into Damian’s veins. 

“And what do you mean she wasn’t accounted for on the bus home?” Yor fretted. “We’ve been waiting all night and she hasn’t even called! If she wasn’t at school, then where the hell is she?”

Damian leaned forward. If Anya’s parents hadn't seen her either, then something really bad was really going on. 

The housemaster of Cecile Hall, Professor Henderson, regarded the Forger’s calmly with his palms held outwards towards them in a defensive stance. “Mr and Mrs Forger, I am sure we will manage to find Anya. It’s not unusual for her to get up to some adventures during the day, but she does usually return by the right time-”

Yor flared up. “ Usually? Well it’s past the right time!” She took a menacing step forward. “It's bedtime! Anya should have been home hours ago! If she isn't at home, and she isn't here, it’s because you failed your duty as a housemaster and a guardian, and she is lost because you haven't been keeping an eye on her!”

“Yor!” Loid tried to reassure his wife. “That’s enough! We can't expect Professor Henderson to have a close eye on everyone at the school!” 

Yor ignored him and barrelled ahead. “My precious Anya is somewhere, maybe all alone, and scared because this school failed to protect her!” 

And then Yor growled with such ferocity that Damian felt a primal instinct in his body tell him to run . 

Her eyes were as dark as a storm, piercing the room with a crackling intensity that Damian trembled under, and he consciously told himself to stay where he was . He had seen Anya’s mother at some parent-teacher events, but he had never met her properly, had never spoken to her, and he hadn’t learned that much about her from Anya apart from the fact that she was physically strong. 

He had no idea that she was this terrifying . 

A small voice in his head reminded Damian that this was the woman who had supposedly been training Anya in combat and physical athleticism, and his throat tightened in fear. 

Fire blazed from Yor’s fierce glare. 

“I swear on my life, if anyone hurts my child,” declared Yor in a chilling whisper. “It’s your head.”

Damian froze. 

That voice. That voice commanded millions of years of evolution in his body and told him to run away and hide like he had never run before. 

He had only ever heard of bears in books, movies, and stories, but now Damian felt that if he ever saw a real bear, they would be only a fraction as dangerous as Yor Forger.

“Yor, darling,” said Loid calmly, and suddenly Damian could see why Anya admired him so much. “That’s no way to speak to Anya’s professors.”

Yor blinked, and seemed to come to the present as she realised what she had just said. “Oh my! I am so sorry!” She punctuated every word with a sincere bow. “Please forgive me!”

“My, er,” Professor Henderson took a fearful step back at the sudden change in this woman's demeanour and presentation. “There's no need to be so apologetic, I assure you that it is natural for any mother to be worried about their child-”

“But that still leaves us with the question,” Loid interrupted, and Damian got the distinct impression that Loid was trying to move away from Yor’s threatening behaviour. “Of what we do now. If our daughter is not at home, and is not at school, and none of her friends have heard from her, then that means that she's officially missing.”

“Well,” said Professor Henderson gravely. “That would mean that the next step is to call the authorities…”

Damian stepped away from the door.

“Bossman?” said Emile, tentatively. 

“What are we going to do?” said Ewen. He looked between the two of them, and Damian just knew that they were waiting for him to make a decision.

He was their leader. Their boss man. He always made the decisions, always told them what to do and led their group to their goals. 

But this time, Damian found himself at a complete and utter loss. Anya was officially missing? This meant that whatever happened next, he had zero control over, zero idea of what to do, and how to help.

Damian chewed his lip. What to do, indeed? The adults were going to call the police - the same adult that rescued Damian from attempted kidnappers. If Mr Forger didn't have the skills to find Anya like he found Damian, then what hope did they really have?

Damian looked down at himself and his black school uniform pyjamas. What could he, a normal school student, do?

His brain turned over several impossible ideas, before he was forced to admit that his brain came up embarrassingly blank. 

“I’m going to my room,” Damian mumbled, and walked away. It was a few minutes before he noticed that he was being followed. 

“Emile, Ewen, you don't have to-” and he stopped.

It wasn't Emile or Ewen.

Damian didn’t have to try too hard to remember the boys’ name in his mind. He reached for it with the tip of his tongue. “Adrian,” Damian said cautiously. “Do you know something?”

Adrian looked quickly away. “I wasn’t following you or anything.”

Damian raised an eyebrow. “Sure you weren’t,” and he closed the door of his room behind him. 

He shivered. Something about that boy always made him feel like the temperature had dropped. He walked over to his phone, and opened up the text message chain to the one person in the world he loved more than anything.

Hey! I’m waiting for you. I got peanuts.

Peanuts?? Omg you’re the best! Thank you! You always know how to make me smile ^.^ 

What can I say? I’ve been paying attention :) 

Damian smiled as he looked through the texts they had been exchanging for the past few months. The others didn't know of course that they had been keeping in touch like this - it was just their secret. And it made Damian feel like there was a part of Anya that he could have all to himself. 

I forgot to do the homework!! Can I copy yours?

Absolutely not, shrimp. Gotta earn those Stellas :P 

Not fair!! I’ll get you a juice at lunch?

You think a juice will cover you when you get found out for cheating?

Okay fine. Last minute study session? 

Can do. Meet me in the library at lunch :)

Damian scrolled through the messages, smiling at all of their exchanges. But as he reached the end of the text chain, his smile fell from his face. His thumb hovered over the keyboard, and he typed out a quick message. 

Hey. We’re all pretty worried about you. You ok?

Damian stared at the screen for a bit, then clicked it off and put the phone under his pillow. If it rang, he would definitely hear it. 

Chapter Text

Damian dreamed that he was in college, and a small picture of Anya hung up on his wall, next to the recent pictures of his other friends at university. A feminine giggle tore him from his thoughts.

“Who’s that girl?” 

“Oh she’s - she’s a special friend of mine.”

The woman frowned. “She's prettier than me. Are you sure you still don't have feelings for her?”

Damian hesitated, and gingerly touched the edge of the photo. “It’s not like that. She went missing a few years ago, and I keep this nearby to remember her.”

The woman pouted. “Why keep it around if it makes you sad?” and with movement as quick as a whip, she reached out and tore the photo. “Don't hang on to your past. She’s not around any more.”

Damian awoke with a start, his whole body cold with sweat. His hand shook as he touched his face, tracing the tear tracks left on his skin from during the night before. He grabbed the phone from under the pillow and checked the home screen.

1 New Message

Damian’s mouth went dry when he saw the notification, and he had never clicked on a message so fast in his life, but his heart dropped when he saw who it was from. 

Still nothing. U? Becky x

Only Becky , thought Damian bitterly. Why was it never easy?

He got dressed slowly, only half-sure that it was real life, and not that he was still in his nightmare somehow. Damian moved on automatic, as he tried to reconcile in his mind what the truth of the situation was. 

Anya Forger was missing . 

His chest tightened, and his feet moved automatically towards the breakfast hall. He didn’t even notice when Emile and Ewen followed in step behind him, as they always did.

As they always did…

It was so unfair that the world just continued spinning, and he felt like his world had stopped. Time had completely frozen, and yet there they were, going for breakfast like it was a normal day after all. 

Damian didn't speak a word as he got his breakfast tray, and Emile and Ewen didn't dare break the silence. 

“What do we do?” Ewen whispered to Emile, hoping he was out of earshot. “Bossman’s never acted like this before…”

Emile exhaled sharply. “I dont fucking know. I don't know what we can do - I mean, if this happened to you, how would you act?”

They watched Damian carefully when he went to sit at an empty table, and they joined him without a moment’s hesitation, not wanting to leave their best friend alone for even a second.

Damian stared into his breakfast while he felt the weight of their stares on him. From the general chatter circulating around the hall, Damian guessed that the news of Anya’s disappearance had not yet made its way around the school. He tried to block out the noise around him, and focus on his breakfast, but he couldn’t even muster up an appetite. 

Another tray joined him on the table, and Damian looked up to see the stern face of Bill Watkins.

Bill didn’t say a word as he sat next to Damian, and stared at his croissant.

“So you can't eat either,” Damian noted dully. 

Bill nodded. “Same as you.”

Damian hmphed . He wasn't so sure that he and Bill were the same, but he appreciated the gesture. Having one more person on this table made them look less pathetic.

Another tray clunked down on the other side of Bill. “Well I guess I’ll join you guys too,” said a haughty voice that Damian immediately recognised as Becky Blackbell. 

His eyes stung with the effort of holding tears back. It was silly of him really, to want to cry when his friends were only doing what friends do. He probably would have done the same for them if there was a similar situation. 

“Did you get my text?” Becky ventured warily, and swirled her tea in her cup before taking a sip.

Damian nodded mutely, before realising that she had actually expected him to say something. “Y-Yeah,” he croaked. He tried to take a sip of his coffee, but it burned on his tongue. “Nothing for me either.”

Becky held her face in her hands. “My poor Anya! I just hope she’s safe, wherever she is,”

Domain could feel the anger rising in him, but he was powerless to stop it, and it came out of him: “But she isn't safe, is she? Otherwise she’d be here with us!” His voice cracked. “She’d be here.”

She’s supposed to be here , Damian groaned to himself. The school felt incomplete without her next to him. Without her beside him - where she’s supposed to be, he found himself thinking. 

It was too much. With horror, Damian realised that his vision blurred without his permission, and he got up from the table in one swift movement, leaving his breakfast tray behind. “Don’t follow me,” he barked sharply as he left, and he hoped that no one would follow behind him. He had had enough of looking weak, of feeling vulnerable around others. 

The gaze of everyone in the breakfast hall pierced his back as he walked through the door. He didn't think about where his feet took him - he just walked.

He could not let himself cry, otherwise, he was afraid that he would never stop.

One foot in front of the other. Each step took him away from the pitiful gaze of hundreds of students. It was a mechanical movement. 

He only stopped when he reached a familiar pavement, and when Damian looked up, his breath caught in his throat.

He had walked to the bus stop.

Shit shit shit! He sucked in his teeth and shoved his hands in his pockets. How did he just get to the bus stop without realising? It was as if his body had been so used to the routine, it just carried him there without his permission. Damian looked around the familiar scene. It would be so natural for the bus to turn the corner, and for Anya to step out like she usually did, and grab his elbow. 

Damian’s stomach tingled when he thought of when she first took his elbow, and they had walked together like that to class. He didn't even care if it caused whispers. He just wanted to hold her again and again and again and never let go.

When the bus turned the corner, Damian’s heart stopped, and he held his breath. The yellow school bus lined up with the pavement, and released the students in a rush. They passed him in a blur, until Damian stood alone, staring at the empty bus. 

“Oh sorry man,” said the bus driver once he had noticed Damian standing there. “She’s not in today. Must be sick or something.”

The doors closed, and the bus rolled away.

Hot tears slid down Damian’s face.

It’s real then. It’s all real. 

It was so embarrassing, crying on the street in his uniform. Damian hastily snatched his handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his eyes with it, but then when he pulled it away, the embroidered ‘A’ glinted at him under the sunlight, taunting him. 

“Fuck this!” he shouted and shoved the handkerchief back into his pocket. “Fuck all of this! Shit! Shit shit shit! Bastards!” 

He swore at the sky, and the walls, and the grass, and the birds, and anything he could think of until he ran out of breath. Finally, he wiped his eyes one last time and blew his nose. 

A final “Shit!” burst out of him before he turned back, and made the long walk back into the school. 

Damian ground his teeth in deep thought as he walked. 

So, he was now eighty six per cent sure that Anya wasn’t a spy, which meant that there was a chance that she was just a normal student after all. But why would she be kidnapped? Her parents weren’t even important (by Eden’s standards). The only person that she regularly associated with that had a reputation beyond the school was him , and Becky. 

Was she kidnapped because she had been spotted hanging around ‘the’ Damian Desmond?

At the thought that she might have been kidnapped because of him , Damian wanted to be sick, but he forced himself to breathe through the discomfort and try to think things through. He and Anya had been on-and-off friends for years - if she was really kidnapped because of him, why now? Why not earlier, when they were still children, and no doubt much easier to kidnap?

And if she was kidnapped because of her ties with Damian, wouldn’t they have contacted him by now to pay her ransom?

Damian halted in the path as he tried to make sense of it in his mind. 

Was it the same guys who had kidnapped him before? Did they want revenge and try to track her down? 

But didn’t Mr Forger eventually try to call the police…?

He threw his head in his hands. The truth was right there , he could sense it! How could he be so close, and yet so stupidly incompetent at the same time? 

An ice cold wind blew, which made him shudder, and suddenly Damian found his gaze being pulled to a lonely silhouette atop a balcony. The figure regarded Damian with a cold gaze, and turned away.

Something pricked in Damian’s brain, and set his teeth on edge. He couldn’t explain how, but something in his heart told him that figure knew something. 

When Damian marched back into the breakfast hall with his head held high, Becky’s jaw dropped. He looked so intimidating, so fearsome, that she wondered if he had always looked like that.

Damn, Anya, she thought with a touch of admiration. Is this what you see in him?

Horrified that she could actually think that Damian might look attractive, she shook the thought immediately out of her head. Besides , she thought, glancing at Bill sitting next to her. There’s no need for me to think that about Damian when I have the most intimidating man in all of Berlint sitting right next me! 

Becky brightened, and Bill glanced at her warily. “Darling,” he whispered under his ear. “Try not to look too obvious.”

That wiped the smile from her face.

He nudged her foot tenderly with his. “That’s better.”

She jolted when Damian slammed his hands on the table. 

“We can’t leave things like this!” he announced to the table, all the while mindful to keep his voice low so that eavesdroppers wouldn't hear.

Becky clicked her teeth. “And what do you suggest?”

“I’m a fucking Desmond. You’re a fucking Blackbell, and you’re,” he nodded to Bill, “you’re a fucking Watkins. Are we just going to sit here and wait for the police to fuck up their jobs? Or are we going to pool our resources and save our friend?”

The passion in Damian’s voice knocked the breath from Becky’s lungs. “Right!” she agreed, and stood up with Damian. “We’re not just students at Eden College! We’re part of the most influential families in Ostania - and if we can’t save our friend then what’s the point of being rich??”

“Not quite the message Blackbell, but I’ll take it,” Damian laughed wearily. “Meet me in the library in ten minutes.”

“But don't we have-”

Becky nudged Bill’s foot with hers, and he immediately shut up. Becky smiled. She wasn’t about to correct Damian that they had class starting in ten minutes. 

This was far too important. 

All five of them sat around a table, hunched together with the shoulders meeting for fear of being overheard by the librarian, or by other students. They could not afford to be interrupted, not when Anya’s life could be on the line. 

“So,” Damian started. “Before we start, there’s something I need to tell all of you.”

Becky spoke up. “You’re in love with Anya and want to marry her?”

Damian’s face flushed. “That’s not-”

“You stole her from me earlier this year and took her on a date to see Spy Wars?” said Bill, joining in with Becky’s cheeky energy.

“It wasn’t a-”

Ewen spoke up. “You’re getting me a new bike from when she stole mine?”

Damian sighed. “She didn't-”

Emile couldn't help it, he wanted to join in too. “Anya rescued you from kidnappers?”

Nobody dared to breathe as Damian just stared and stared at Emile. Then, he released his breath in a forced whoosh . 

“Alright,” he pointed at Becky. “We are not talking about that.”

He turned to Bill. “I didn’t steal her! She wasn’t yours to begin with, and it wasn’t a date!”

He rounded on Ewen. “She gave you your bike back, so don't even think about it.”

And then, finally, he turned to Emile with a strain in his voice. “How did you know about that??”

Emile shrank under Damian’s glare. “C’mon boss! Everybody knows!”

“What?? Since when??”

And to Damian’s surprise, it was Bill that spoke up next: “It was pretty obvious after they gave the Stella to Anya, and the award for bravery. Anya is brave, but it’s not often she would put her own life on the line to help someone. Also, you had two black eyes and a broken nose, and a bruised rib cage. You couldn’t exactly hide that, and you were out of Physical Education for weeks.”

Damian sighed, annoyed. Only Bill would actually call it “Physical Education”.

“Anya told me straight away,” said Becky, matter-of-fact as ever. “But honestly, I didn’t believe her until the award ceremony. I’m still not sure I believe it, to be honest.”

“Yeah,” said Ewen. “She used to tell so many whacky stories that we just stopped believing them, but this is a new level.” He looked at Damian curiously. “Just how much of it was true though?”

“Uh,” Damian looked between the stares of his friends, and sighed in resignation. This was not how he had planned the conversation to go, but whatever. “It’s all true.”

The others contemplated this for a moment, before Bill spoke up. “Did she do it all by herself?”

Damian shook his head. “I’ll tell all of you what happened, I was planning to anyway, because I think it might help us find her. But - and I am not kidding about this - I don't want this to get out, so can we agree to keep everything we speak about here a secret?”

All the students nodded at the table, and a small weight from Damin lifted.  

“Now that we’ve got that out of the way,” he started. “I’ll tell you what I think is relevant, and if you have any questions I may consider answering them.” 

He took another deep breath. “So we know she stole Ewen’s bike - and returned it! Don’t give me that look - to follow whoever took me in the van, and she managed to track it down to where I was being held. Then the kidnappers tried to film me reading out a ransom note, but that was so amateurishly bad I’m not even going to repeat the experience here. I think I was only there for about an hour or two before I saw Anya. She set off some kind of smoke bomb, and untied me, and when the smoke disappeared, there were three men unconscious on the ground. 

“We tried to escape then, but another guard got in the way and stopped us, but I think Anya knew him? She said his name, and that she knew where his family lived, and he let us go.” Damian briefly wondered if he should mention the gun. 

“Her father met us outside, and then Mr Forger drove me to the hospital, and that’s what happened,” Damian ended up saying instead. 

Becky gasped. “You got to meet my precious Loid-san?”

“I am going to ignore that,” said Damian firmly. He hadn’t forgotten Becky’s mild obsession over Anya’s father - if he could call it that. The thought of her papier-mache “Loid-san” from their ‘animals’ project twelve years ago still made him gag. 

Bill brought a hand up to his chin in a thoughtful stance. “Why are you telling us all this, Desmond? How do you think this will help us find her?”

Damian steadied himself with a deep breath. He wanted to try to avoid telling them his theory as much as possible, but if there was a way to hint at it, then that might be the better track.

“Basically, what I’m trying to say is that Anya is far more capable than we think she is. I saw her take out three fully grown men in less than a minute under the cover of smoke. I know that she tracked me to that factory by herself, and she called her father for backup. She’s resourceful, and tenacious, and if there’s anyone who is fighting their kidnappers back at this very second, it’s her.”

Bill raised his eyebrows. “Do you think she was specifically targeted?”

“Yes, I do.” Damian returned Bill’s serious gaze with an equal level of significance in his own. 

Bill lowered his gaze in thought. “I see.”

Becky had hung on to their every word, but at this point she couldn’t contain herself: “What do you mean? How does that help us?”

“It means that if she was targeted then it was planned. And if it was planned, then they would have left tracks,” said Bill slowly, and Damian nodded. 

“Plus,” added Damian. “There would have been scouts doing reconnaissance, possibly trying to find out Anya’s schedule, or who her teachers are, or even getting information on their classmates.”

Silence fell around the table as they tried to process that meant that the scouts might have information on them .

“How do you know this, Damian-sama?” said Ewen. “I mean no offence, but we’re going on very little information here. You can’t just expect us to start looking for her with no idea where we’re going next.”

Damian wasn’t about to tell them that what he knew of reconnaissance was what he had gleaned from Spy Wars. “I know,” he said heavily, trying to imbue his voice with some gravity. “But you just have to trust me on this. I know that Anya has some level of background that she hasn't shared publicly, and I believe that means that someone is trying to go after her specifically.”

Becky raised her eyebrows sceptically. “Background information, like what? What do you know about Anya that I - her best friend - don't?”

Damian pulled the collar at his neck. Was he sweating?

Maybe now he had some inkling about how Anya had been feeling all these years. Keeping parts hidden, letting other parts come to light, and maintaining a delicate balance between them all. He didn't want to betray Anya’s trust, but he had to give them something to let them know that they could trust him, and believe that he did have some clue on what he was talking about.

“Uh,” said Damian nervously. “You guys remember the spin the bottle, truth or dare game? When Grace dared her to tell someone a secret?”

Becky rolled her eyes. “Yeah, she picked you over me! How could I forget?”

“Okay, well,” said Damian, deciding to ignore Becky’s faux distress. “Anya told me something that could actually get her targeted if something did ever come to light. She said it to me in absolute confidence, so I’m absolutely not breaking my promise here today with all of you, but I need you to trust me on this.”

She could be targeted for absolutely anything, Damian knew. It could be because she was a friend of Damian’s, or because she was a spy (still unproven), but she had a sketchy background before she was adopted by the Forgers. She didn't tell him about it, but Damian imagined that whatever happened in that time must have been the reason that she was being targeted now.

“We still don't have evidence that it was a kidnap, what if she just ran away?” said Emile.

“Anya wouldn't do that,” said Damian confidently. “She loves school, and she loves her family more than anything. There's no chance in hell that she would be putting them through this just for fun and games. She's been taken somewhere, just like I was, only I think that these guys are professionals. My kidnappers were amateurs, which was how she was able to get to me so fast, but the people who took Anya know what they're doing. They planned it, and probably have been planning it for quite some time. And Bill is right - If they've been planning it then they have definitely left some tracks behind. All we have to do is find them.”

“And then what?”

“We’ve got a Desmond, a Blackbell, and a Watkins around this table. There is nothing that we can’t do. We have influence, even if we arent head of our respective families just yet.”

“That's true,” murmured Becky. “If I ask my Papa, I can get him to do almost anything!”

“See!” said Damian, and he felt hope rising in his chest. “We have resources at the tips of our fingers! So let's use them to find our friend!”

“And your future girlfriend,” said Becky with a cheeky smile. 

Damian flushed. “Don't you dare tell her you said that!”

“I’m not hearing a no ,” Becky giggled. “But fine. Let's go save our friend!”

Chapter Text

The group split up for the moment, agreeing to text each other if they found anything that could be useful. Damian knew that he had Economics class, but there was no way that he would be able to concentrate on the class. Out of sight of the teacher (he hoped), he started to make a mind map on his notepad.

Reconnaissance  - suspects?

Need to see if there were any new staff

Maybe people who were masked as delivery drivers of something? 

Could have been people going as parents

Damian chewed on the ends of his pencil. There was something missing, he could feel it. But the only thing he could do was try to focus on the problem in front of him

Lots of people walked about Eden College every day. They had thousands of students, dozens of teachers, and hundreds of staff members. Teachers, cleaners, cooks, administration, dorm staff… How was he going to be able to go through them all and narrow them down? 

Damian nibbled on his pencil a bit more, then wrote down:

Someone who would have been able to get into contact with Anya

Cooks - don’t get close enough

Cleaners? Freedom of movement, can blend into the background

Teacher? 

He crossed that last one out. They didn't have any new teachers, and the staff that they were in contact with had been in tenure already for decades. It would be very unlikely if it was one of them. Unless they had been bribed, but the penalty for bribery was so strong that Damian doubted it. 

Parents?

Damian peered at the word a little more. Was he getting closer? He wasn't sure. If there were any parents that were on the lookout, they would have had to have sent in a child roughly around the same time that she enrolled at six years old. Damian thought that this was highly unlikely too - why wait twelve years to abduct someone when it would have been easier to do it when the target was a child? 

They would have had to send in a new student when they were six years old - 

Damian froze.

A new student.

Eden College famously did not accept any new students beyond the age of six years old, but it did sometimes have transfer or exchange students. And there was only one he could think of that had come into contact recently. Had even started part way through the term. 

Something about starting part way through the term was extremely suspicious, he knew. 

Adrian Kuning. Damian wrote on his paper, circled the name, and tucked the notepad away.

Damian waited until the teacher's back was turned before he brought out his phone, but his thumb hesitated over the keypad.

What if he was wrong? He didn't want to make a fuss over nothing, or give his friends false information. He wanted to be sure he was right before he told them anything, or gave them any sort of lead. He knew how aggressive Becky could be if there was an outlet for her anger and frustration.

Damian carefully put the phone back in his bag, and did his best to concentrate on class while he waited for the bell, but his mind was a storm of thoughts and possibilities. Eventually, Damian realised that he couldn’t even pretend to care about class anymore, and he raised his hand. 

“Can I be excused?” he called. “I just remembered there was a meeting I have to go to, uh, Imperial Scholar business…”

Damian leapt from his seat the moment that they waved him away.

The halls outside were far too quiet, and Damian’s shoes squeaked loudly on the floor as he hurried to the next cluster of school buildings, and it was a full five minutes before he arrived at the other part of the campus, sweating and panting. He threw the door open.

“Excuse me!” Damian exclaimed and the teacher visibly jumped back in surprise. “Is Becky Blackbell in here?”

“Yes, Mister Desmond, but it is very uncouth of you to interrupt my class-”

“I’m very sorry, we just - er - need her on urgent business, to help with the, er, Imperial Ball planning-”

Becky jumped in her seat. “Right!” and she turned to the teacher. “I said to Desmond I can help with some of the aspects, may I please be excused?”

She packed up her things as the teacher sighed exasperatedly. “Well on this one occasion, but next time-”

“I know! It won’t happen again! Thank you, Professor!” Becky called and she was out the door to join Damian in the hallway.

“What is it?” Becky said as she swung her bag over her shoulder and rushed beside Damian. “I assume you found something, some sort of lead?”

Damian shrugged, but led her away from the cluster of classrooms. “I have a suspicion, but we need to get some evidence. While everyone’s in class right now, we need to get into the school files.”

Becky stopped in her tracks. “You want to do what?”

“Look,” Damian whispered, cautious that being in the middle of the hallway gave them no protection from being overheard. “I don’t have a lot of time to explain, we have half an hour before the bell goes for the next class and the hallways fill with students and teachers again, but I have a hunch that we need to get into the office. Are you with me, or not?”

Becky hesitated, worry clearly etched on her face. “But what if we get caught?”

Damian bit his lip. He was aware that his hastily-thought out plan was severely flawed, but they definitely could not afford to waste any more time. 

“We’ll figure it out,” he said eventually to Becky. “But I have an idea, and I need your help to do it. Can I trust you?” 

Becky glanced back at the empty hallway, and then sighed and shook her head, as if she couldn’t believe what she was about to say. “You’d better not be wrong, Desmond. I’d risk getting a Bolt for Anya, but not for you!”

Damian’s shoulder sagged with relief. “That’s good enough,” he chuckled, and started to head towards the school office, when Becky stopped him. 

“Hold on a second,” she said sternly and brought out her phone. “We’d better call in reinforcements.”

Becky flipped her phone open and quickly typed up a text. Then, before Damian could question her or peek at what she had typed up, she put her phone back in her pocket with a satisfied smile. “Okay, I got us another Imperial Scholar who can get out of class and meet us.”

“Er-” started Damian, but he stopped himself short. Maybe reinforcements would be needed after all. 

When they arrived at the school office, Damian was somehow not surprised to see the statuesque figure of Bill Watkins. He gestured for them both to stay where they were, and he put his finger to his lips. 

Then, Bill threw open the door to the office, while Damian and Becky ducked behind the corner. From there, Damian heard Bill’s rumbling voice as clear as day.

“EXCUSE ME,” Bill bellowed, “BUT I REQUIRE YOUR IMMEDIATE AND URGENT ASSISTANCE.”

Damian slammed his hand over his mouth to keep from laughing. What was Bill doing? Did he think it was actually going to work? 

Damian and Becky held in their mirth as they heard the office clerk startle, stumble back and fluster over their words. “Young man, it is most improper to barge in without knocking-”

“PLEASE COME WITH ME, MY FATHER ALWAYS SAYS NEVER TO DISCUSS PRIVATE MATTERS WHERE ONE MIGHT BE OVERHEARD.”

“Excuse me?” Spluttered the clerk. “This is my private office-”

“-WHICH MAY BE BUGGED WITH LISTENING DEVICES. NOW, FOLLOW ME.”

Damian couldn’t believe it when he heard the clerk actually shuffling out of the office in a hurry after Bill. He turned to Becky with his mouth hung wide open.

Becky saw the obvious question in Damian’s eyes and she giggled. “It’s his impression of Alexander from Berlint in Love . Isn’t he hilarious?”

Then in one swift movement, she pulled him out from behind the corner and together they slipped into the office. Damian could even hear Bill’s voice retreating down the corridor, but he could not afford to get distracted by whatever story he had come up with.

Damian shook his head. Unbelievably, Bill’s distraction worked, and now they needed to make the most of it. Around him, miles of cabinets contained stacks of papers and files, and to Damian’s relief, the clerk certainly did seem to be efficient. Every cabinet was clearly labeled and in alphabetical order. That would make their job a lot easier. 

“Blackbell, you have a look through the finance sheet, see if there is any suspicious or unusual activity. Maybe large donations. I’m going to go through the student files.”

Damian expected Becky to argue back, maybe ask more questions or protest, but to his relief she just nodded and turned towards the ‘F’ cabinets. Perhaps because she knew that the clerk could come back at any time, and time was of the essence. 

He strode to the cabinet that was clearly labeled ‘Students’, and he nearly whooped in delight when saw that the files were not only organised by hall, but by year group as well. It did not take him long at all to find the file for Adrian Kuning. He flipped it open immediately and scanned through the pages. 

At the surface, everything seemed normal. There was a photo of Adrian attached to the file - probably the same photo that was on Adrian’s school ID - but there was remarkably little contained in the manila file. Under the section for ‘Mother/Father’, both parts of the document had been left carefully blank. 

Stranger still, there was a list of schools under “Academic History”, but when Damian noted the dates of these, it was clear that Adrian had only been enrolled in his first school two years prior, and in that time, he had been enrolled in no less than twelve schools.

Is he some kind of delinquent? Who goes to twelve schools in two years? 

Even worse, there was not even a record of Adrian’s previous grades. Damian furrowed his brows: how the hell did Adrian get into Eden College with no parents, no grades, and an abysmal school record?

“Check this out,” whispered Becky. “All students pay fees annually, isn’t it weird that this kid only pays weekly?”

“Huh?” Damian snapped out of his thoughts, and snatched the document away from Becky. “Let me see that.”

Becky was right. There was one person on the enrollment list that had a weekly payment plan - almost as if they were expecting to change schools at any minute. 

The name on the list was exactly the same as the file in his hand. 

Voices filtered through to them from the hallway: “- THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIMELY ASSISTANCE, IT WAS VERY INSIGHTFUL TO GET YOUR PERSPECTIVE.”

Damian and Becky made worried eye contact, and in that split second they both realised the same thing: they were trapped. The only way out was through the main door, which lead to the exact corridor that Bill and the office clerk stood in. 

Becky grabbed Damian’s sleeve and dragged him to the other side of the door just as the clerk opened it from the other side. Damian didn’t dare breathe knowing that the clerk was only on the other side of the wooden panel. His gaze fixed on the clerk’s shadow, framed by the light streaming in through the door. 

“Like I said, er,” stammered the clerk. “If you want advice on your bowel issues , I am really not the correct person to-”

“IT REALLY IS LIKE A CANNON, I DON’T KNOW HOW TO STOP IT.”

This was the excuse Bill ued to distract the clerk? Laughter bubbled in Damian’s chest and his eyes bulged with the effort of keeping silent. He dared not make eye contact with Becky, or he feared he might actually burst.

“You should really see a doctor-! ”

Too late, Damian clapped his hand over his mouth to keep from laughing, but a strained wheeze escaped into the air. 

The clerk babbled incredulously. “Was that… is there a student in-”

Tension hung in the air for a fraction of a second, before the clerk’s shadow disappeared, along with all the light in the doorway, and Damian realised that Bill’s figure filled the entire doorway. 

“IT WAS WIND,” boomed Bill once again. “I DID SAY I WAS HAVING DIGESTIVE PROBLEMS.”

Damian’s chest hurt with the effort of keeping his laugh in, but at the same, he knew they were trapped, and didn’t have a clue what to do next. Maybe they could jump our the window, or hide under the desk, or-

The air knocked from his lungs when, once again, Becky grabbed his wrist and lead him around the door, to stand directly behind Bill. She must have seen the outrage on his face at being dragged around again, as she raised a finger to her lips, and glanced meaningfully towards Bill, before pointing to his legs. 

Damian knew that Bill’s size was impressive, but when he looked down, he couldn't help but notice that Bill’s legs were as thick as tree trunks. 

What was Becky trying to say?

“I really must insist that you take up your issue elsewhere, I have very important business to-”

“YES I UNDERSTAND,” said Bill somberly, and took a couple of steps forward.

To Damian’s amazement, Becky shuffled forward, directly behind Bill’s leg, and suddenly Damian understood.

She’s using his massive body to hide us!!

Once Damian caught up with Becky to stand behind Bill, Becky lightly tapped Bill’s lower back. 

“THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP.”

And this time, Bill turned from the office ever so slowly, while Damian and Becky carefully shuffled behind him, all the while keeping them blocked from the clerk’s view. 

“I AM LEAVING NOW.”

As if Damian had enough antics for the day, he was suddenly taken by surprise as Bill started shuffling backwards, and Damian quickly jumped back before he could be flattened by his living-steamroller classmate. 

They shuffled together as an awkward three - backwards?? - until Becky tapped Bill once again, prompting him to turn the corner. 

All three students stood frozen, not daring to move until they heard the click of the office door closing. 

Damian sagged to the floor, and finally allowed all the air to rush back into his lungs. 

“Oh my god,” he gasped, his mirth giving way to pure shock after the adrenaline subsided. “Fuck, that was so close.”

After a few seconds, his raised his head to meet Becky’s gaze, and the question he had been holding in burst out.

“How the hell did you guys do that?”

Becky grinned. “Season six, episode seven. Alexander and Rose!”

Damian shook his head with disbelief, before he leaned back and rested it against the cool stone wall. “You have got to be kidding me,” he sighed, but a smile tugged at his lips. Berlint in Love? Seriously?

“Did it work?” said Bill, and Damian noticed that he had returned to a normal voice again. Did Bill only use the loud voice so they could hear him coming back...?

The smile tugging at Damian’s lips finally widened, and he breathed out: “It worked.” 

Bill wordlessly held out his fist to Becky, and she bumped against it with her own tiny fist. Damian thought their sizes resembled a boulder and a pebble.

Damian clutched the manila files tighter to his chest. “We got everything we needed.”

*Bonus: An Unwritten Scene*

Emile: Boss, you’ll never guess what we heard Bill say outside of class!

Damian: I don’t want to know

Emile: Is that why they call him Bazooka Bill??

Damian: Omg just shut up 

Chapter Text

Twilight really, really wanted to be anywhere except in his office at that moment in time. He wanted to be out jumping over rooftops, looking for Anya. She could be absolutely anywhere, and he knew he could do something to help, but instead, WISE had ordered him to stay where he was and continue with his work. It would look bad if he disappeared along with his daughter too, but they had tried to reassure him that they were on the case to look for Anya. 

Besides, they needed information from Zacharis that only Twilight could collect. 

Twilight glanced between the files in his hand, and the man sitting in front of him. 

Erik Zacharis. Now coming close to ninety years of age, his wife had died some years previously, and both of his children were now adults in their forties, with children of their own. He had grown his family since the war, and by playing a part in ending it, he had made sure that everyone else got to keep their own families. 

Twilight owed this man a lot for ending the war. 

“It’s nice to meet you, Mr Zacharis,” said Loid formally. “I’m Dr Forger, the consultant psychiatrist at this hospital. Thank you for coming in today.”

Mr Zacharis had a long face, with a stern chin and round glasses which did a lot to obscure his facial expression, but with Twilight’s years of intelligence training, he was able to pick up on the subtleties of the Colonel’s facial muscles quite easily. Mr Zacharis sat in his seat with his hands clasped, but his twitching leg gave away his nervousness. 

“Thank you for seeing me,” he rasped, and Twilight winced. His voice had taken a huge hit from a decades-long cigar habit. Twilight would have guessed about twenty a day.

“I’ve taken a look at some of the information you’ve provided at your assessment, and it says on your notes that you have some traumatic memories of what you witnessed during your part in the war. Can you tell me a bit more about that?”

Erik sucked in his teeth. “I don’t really want to talk about it.”

“Of course,” said Twilight smoothly. “Some people find that talking about things does help, but it can take some time for people to notice the difference in their own lives, but if it’s more comfortable for you, we can start with something else. Can you tell me what a typical day is like for you?”

Erik hunched further in his chair. “I don’t know. I can’t sleep anymore, so I could wake up at any time in the morning. I don’t eat much either. And then when my housekeeper makes me dinner, I can barely eat it. I don't want to insult her, so I just throw it in the bin when she isn’t looking, and then I watch TV and go to bed.”

Twilight made sure to ask all the necessary follow-up questions he needed: he found that if he asked patients about a typical day for them, this gave him a good insight into how things had been affecting them, and how it affected their functioning in their day to day life. Most patients reported struggling with sleep, which tended to have a knock on effect on the rest of their day. The fact that Erik Zacharis had no daily structure was concerning, as was the implication that he barely had any social support apart from his housekeeper. 

Twilight made sure to keep notes of all of this. “Are there any things in your life at the moment which are helpful for you?”

Erik shrugged. “I would say my kids, but I don't see them much anymore.”

Twilight nodded. It was a shame. Mr Zacharis had given so much to both the people of Ostania and Westalis, and his own family still weren’t able to make the time to go and see him every week. He was rotting away in a huge house, with a housekeeper, and nothing else to live for. 

“Okay,” said Twilight. “I’m beginning to see how things are for you just now, and that is extremely helpful in terms of knowing what we can do to help you, and how that extra support will fit into your life. I’m hearing that you’d like to build a bit more of a supportive relationship with your children, and that you’d like some help with your sleep, as well as your depressive episodes, and perhaps later on we can discuss your traumatic memories if that’s something you’re up to doing. How does that sound?”

Mr Zacharis shrugged lethargically. “More or less,” he nodded, and then he hung his head. “But I'm almost at the end of my life, I can feel it. Can I really get better?”

“Of course,” said Twilight without missing a beat.It was a question he often got asked. “Recovery is possible for everyone.”

Mr Zacharis nodded. “Maybe there’s some hope for me then, but my children mean everything to me. If I could fix things with them, then I could die happy.” 

Mechanically, Twilight responded: “Our children do have the potential to bring us so much joy.”

Zacharis laughed mirthlessly. “And the potential to bring us despair, too.”

Twilight attempted to smile at Mr Zacharis’ attempt at humour, but the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes.

Just then, Erik’s eyes flickered to the photograph on the desk of Loid posing with his family. His eyes snagged over the girl in the photo with pink hair. 

The Colonel froze. “That girl - is she yours?” asked Mr Zacharis. 

“Yes,” said Twilight automatically. He found that it helped to have a photo on his desk which presented him as a family man - it meant it would be quicker to earn people's trust, and make him look like a good person to tell their innermost thoughts to. “My little girl Anya, although she isn't so little anymore.”

Was it Twilight’s imagination, or did Erik Zacharis look like he had seen a ghost?

Erik swallowed thickly. “Is she… Is she thriving? Is she doing well?” 

Twilight hesitated. As a psychiatrist, it was against protocol for him to self-disclose anything to patients. “We’ve seen better days,” he said after a while, but didn’t add anything else to the sentence. 

What was there to say?

Twilight tried to use the rest of the session positively with Mr Zacharis, and set up a plan for their next few sessions, and get a better idea of what kind of help Mr Zacharis was looking for: Medication only? Therapeutic intervention? 

After over a decade of posing as a psychiatrist, Twilight felt that he could go through these motions in his sleep, so when he opened the door of his office to say goodbye to Mr Zacharis, he jumped when he saw Fiona Frost standing beyond the doorway to his office.

“Fiona!” he said, startled. “I was just showing Mr Zacharis out, could you lead the way to the hospital exit? This is his first time here, and it’s a bit of a maze out there.”

“Of course,” said Fiona effortlessly, and indicated Mr Zacharis. “Right this way, sir.” And then to Twilight, she asked: “Any news about Anya?”

Twilight shook his head. “No,” he croaked. “Not yet.”

And before she could ask him any more, he retreated behind the door of his office.

Erik Zacharis couldn’t even look Dr Forger in the eyes when he closed the door of his office, and he fell into step beside Fiona Frost. After about a minute of silence he spoke up: “Excuse me, miss, but what happened to Dr Forger’s daughter?”

Fiona twisted her head to look at him in sharp surprise. “Why do you ask?”

“Uh,” said Erik, and he felt his temples prickling with sweat. “It’s just, I’ve seen her somewhere before. She was such a nice girl. It would be a shame if something had happened to her.”

Fiona turned her gaze away. “She has been abducted.”

Erik stopped in his tracks. “She… What?”

Fiona gave him a cold glare. “Don’t tell him I told you.”

“R-right,” said Erik, and he nodded. “Got it.” He didn’t need Fiona to tell him twice - the look in her eyes had chilled him to the bone. 

Once Fiona led him to the door of the hospital and they parted ways, Erik made his way to his car. The chauffeur had parked just outside the hospital, and he ducked into the backseat. On the drive back to his own house, Erik finally let the mask slip. He hung his head in his hands.

“No…” he whispered weakly. “It can’t be… She can’t have…”

The screen had been elevated between him and his chauffeur, and he let a tear fall down his face before wiping it away.

“Not 007…”

Chapter Text

Damian did not know much about Adrian Kuning, but what he did know was this: he was a new student, he wasn't very friendly at the best of times (mostly being awkward and withdrawn), and he had taken an immediate interest in Anya, only to be quickly rebuffed. Since then, he had barely interacted with the rest of the class at all. 

He also happened to know that Adrian did not live in the dorms with them, and commuted from somewhere every morning by private chauffeur. Now that Damian had the file containing Adrian’s address, he felt that he could actually start making progress on finding Anya.

History was his favourite subject, but it was also his last class of the day - which, crucially, he did not share with Adrian. If he was too slow in finding Adrian after class, then the opportunity to question him might disappear too quickly.

Being an Imperial Scholar came with some special privileges, including being able to attend the Imperial Scholar meetings that sometimes happened during the school day. Thankfully, the teachers had to give him leniency to attend these, so it was not entirely unusual to miss a few classes here and there. 

This time for the first time in his life, Damian skipped class on purpose, and lurked by the school foyer, waiting for the last bell of the day to ring so that he could go and corner Adrian. In the meantime, he called for a taxi, and instructed them to wait by the school gates.

When the bell went, Damian zipped across campus to the school gates, where he could at least wait without looking too suspicious. He watched the students file out of the building and into their respective rides; buses, taxis and private black cars. Damian jumped into one of the taxis, and pulled the manila files from his jacket pocket. He unfolded Adrian’s file and read the address to the driver. 

Rush hour forced the taxi to slow down throughout the drive, but Damian couldn’t hide his impatience. His leg jiggled nervously throughout the entire journey. He almost tried to get the driver to hurry up a few times, but Damian held himself back. It wasn’t their fault that the roads were busy. 

To his surprise, the taxi stopped in an area which he knew he had seen before. Imposing grey buildings and classic architecture surrounded him, and a hazy, sparkling memory resurfaced in his mind, where Anya had slipped on the pavement and he had caught her. 

And their faces were so close.

All this time, and Adrian lived in the same neighbourhood as Anya?

Damian paid the driver and got out of the taxi before looking around. It would be hard to hide out in the open street to scout for Adrian, but he managed to find a tree to hide behind.

He stayed there for a few minutes, but his body was already aching. Damian was forced to admit that stake-outs looked way cooler in Spy Wars than they were in real life.

A breath tickled his neck.

“What are we looking at?”

“Arrrghh!!” Damian screamed and jumped a meter away from the voice.

He landed painfully on his backside, and Damian yelped again with surprise. After a split second in the dirt on the hard pavement, he raised his gaze to see what had startled him.

Yor Forger smiled at him while holding shopping bags full of groceries. She was the picture of the innocent housewife.

“N-nothing!” Damian stammered.He stood and brushed the dirt off his once-pristine uniform.

“Oh,” said Yor, then narrowed her eyes at him menacingly. “You’re not peeping, are you?”

Damian was sure he had never been redder. “N-no! Of course not! How dare you!”

And once his racing heart had calmed a fraction, he resigned himself to the terrifying woman in front of him, deciding that it was actually less embarrassing for her to know the truth.

“I’m looking for classmate.” 

Something in Damian recoiled as he remembered her predatory and aggressive behaviour from the other night, and a lightbulb went off in his mind.

Damian couldn’t believe what he was doing, but he pushed aside his embarrassment. “Actually, I… Think he might have something to do with Anya’s abduction, but I don’t know how to get to him.”

He raised his gaze to Yor imploringly. “Could you interrogate him with me?”

Yor didn’t exactly know what Damian’s whole thought process was, but she nodded enthusiastically all the same. Anything to get her daughter back - even if she had to intimidate a... child? Is that what Damian wanted?

“I'm sorry for dragging you into this,” he said to Yor. “But if there's any chance that this is something worth following up on, it would be great to have some help.”

“Of course!” said Yor energetically. “Even if we are just eliminating a suspect, it will still help.”

(Of course, Yor’s definition of ‘eliminating’ was entirely different to Damian’s, but neither of them knew that.)

“Right,” nodded Damian, and he walked closer to the building, stopped, then turned round with a grimace. “One problem, uh, how do we know which one he lives in?”

Yor regarded the building with a calculating look, noting every crevice, cornice, and ledge. “What does he look like?”

“Uh, long blond hair, pointy chin, annoying face, probably still wearing the Eden uniform-”

Yor put down her groceries, and took off her heels, handing them to Damian. “Hold this, I’ll just be a minute,” she said confidently, and jumped. 

“What the actual fuck-” she heard Damian gasp behind her, but she moved far enough away in a short enough space of time that she didnt hear the rest of the sentence. 

Yor grasped the first ledge she could reach and nimbly lifted herself to the top of it. She peered through the first window. A man in his underwear sat facing the wall, watching TV. She rolled her eyes and jumped to the next one: a woman and a man, kissing passionately.

Yor flushed bright red (even twelve years later, she was ever the modest person), turned away, and jumped to the next ledge.

And the next.

And the next.

And the next. 

Yor stared into an empty living room, and was about to jump away when she saw a flutter of movement in the corner. Her assassin's instincts kicked in, and she pressed herself against the wall while still trying to peek inside.

A boy with long hair and a stony face walked in with a bag slung round his shoulders, wearing what was unmistakably an Eden uniform. 

Yor turned away from the wall, and let herself fall to the pavement, and landed so gracefully, even a cat could not compare. 

Damian took a shaking, tentative step back from Yor, who didn't notice Damian’s retreat. 

“I found a student from Eden,” said Yor with the utmost seriousness. “I don’t think he noticed me, but it looked like there was no-one else around. If we get to him now, we can interrogate him before we get interrupted.”

Damian just nodded mutely, while he stared at the most fearsome woman he had ever met in his life. She indicated for him to follow her, and managed to open the security door without too much trouble.

(Really the lock was already broken in, so all she had to do was give it a push.)

The entryway was dark and gloomy, which made Yor feel right at ease. It felt exactly like she was on another mission from the Garden. Only this time, she had to be even more careful of the young man with her, who was also a friend of her daughter’s. Of course she wanted to find Anya, but she had to make sure that Damian was also protected at all costs. 

They snuck their way to the top floor, where she had seen the student, and Yor crouched in front of the door with a finger to her lips, and indicated that Damian come closer.

She whispered in his ear: “I’ll do the intimidation, you stand back and get ready to clear the area if we need to, okay?”

“Uh-” Damian didn't get a chance to clarify what she meant, before Yor kicked the door down.

“Adrian Kuning!” she declared. “Show yourself at once!”

Not a sound.

Yor closed her eyes, and listened. The ears of an assassin were second to none, and she would be able to track and kill any prey with the blink of an eye.

Her eyes snapped open and she darted to the living room: “There!” And to Damian’s astonishment, she pulled a shaking boy from behind the sofa, and plopped him down on the cushions in front of her.

She felt Damian hesitate behind her, before he took another step closer. “That’s him.”

It was all the permission she needed.

She seized his collar with one hand, and held her other back in a claw shape, as if she would strike at any moment with her manicured talons. “What did you do to Anya-san?”

“N-nothing!” shrieked Adrian “I swear-”

“Where did you take her?” roared Yor. “Answer me!”

“It wasn’t me! I didn’t take her anywhere!”

Yor narrowed her eyes at the boy. Something didn’t feel right.

If she was on a killing mission that happened to involve interrogation, the responses from her victims were something along the lines of: “Arrrrgh what's going on! I demand to know this instant! I don't know anything! Please don't kill me!”

But looking at this boy in front of her, Yor could sense that his reaction was not typical. It was almost like he was expecting them. He had already hidden himself by the time they had entered the apartment, and Yor was one hundred percent sure that he hadn't spotted her at the window ledge.

Her skills as an assassin were second-to-none.

Calm down Yor! You’ve killed hundreds of people in your lifetime. Interrogating one boy is not going to defeat you.  

She levelled him with another dangerous glare.

I will find out what happened to Anya, even if I have to torture it out of him.

To her complete and utter amazement, Adrian suddenly burst into tears, and held a trembling hand in front of his face. “P-please don’t torture me!”

“Who said anything about torturing-” Damian started to say, but Yor silenced him with a murderous look. 

She gripped Adrian’s collar tighter in her hand, and lifted him up from the ground.

This child knows what happened to Anya, I know it. 

“Why do you care so much about Anya?” Adrian gasped, as she lifted him high into the air. “She’s supposed to be a commoner! Worthless!”

Yor bared her teeth and growled. “Anya is my daughter, and I would die for her.” And I would kill for her.

Adrian’s eyes widened, and he gripped her forearm to keep from suffocating. “You’re… her mother?”

Yor’s hand did not move from its clawed position, ready to strike. “I will not back down until you tell me what you know.”

Adrian’s fearful eyes darted between the frightened Damian, and the frightening Mrs Forger. Even an idiot could calculate the chances of survival in the face of her rage. “Okay, okay,” he wheezed. “I do know something! Please let me down!”

Slowly, Yor lowered him to the ground so that at least his feet could touch the floor, but she did not loosen her grip on his collar. She cast him a venomous glare. “Speak.”

Adrian coughed, possibly in an effort to get his voice back. To the surprise of both Damian and Yor, he directed gaze towards Damian. “You have to be sure you want to hear this. Once you know, there’s no going back.”

But to Adrian’s (and Yor’s) amazement, Damian stood his ground, holding Adrian’s eye contact for some time before he spoke.

“Anya is my closest friend, so I am staying to hear what you have to say.” She’s the most important person in the world to me.

Adrian once more cast a look at Yor’s hand around his collar. “Can you let go of me? I can’t fight back, and I won’t run away.”

Yor loosened her grip, but didnt let go. “I can compromise,” she said, while she cocked her head. “You have sixty seconds to speak before I consider violence.”

Adrian baulked, while Damian took a fearful step back. 

I swear this woman is terrifying , he thought with a gulp.

All waited for what seemed like an eternity before Adrian spoke.

“Okay. Okay okay. I’ll tell you.”

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, as if bracing for impact.

“My real name is Subject 009.”

Clearly Adrian expected something more than just silence, as he cautiously opened one eye, trying to gauge the reactions of the other two. When he was met with two dumbfounded looks, and not the shock and surprise he expected, he sighed in resignation.

“I’m from a place that… raises very special children all in one building. The experimenters - well, they don’t like it when we call them that - the care managers are trying to make our powers grow so that we can help the world, but a long time ago one of the other children ran away. I was sent to recover one of the subjects, and bring her back to the lab.”

“Her…?” Damian squeaked.

“Subjects?” Yor breathed. 

Although many people might have thought differently, Yor was not an idiot. There were times that she was naive, and when she couldn’t quite tell what was normal, but even Yor Forger knew that raising children in a lab with ‘experimenters’ was not a normal thing. 

With one hand cupping her chin, Yor tried to process the information that Adrian had told them, and one clear thing that Yor could deduce was that if the subjects were children, then this was a case of human experimentation.

“Adrian,” said Yor gently. “The experimenters, or care managers, what is it that they are trying to accomplish, exactly?”

“Uh,” said Adrian, clearly uncomfortable. In an effort to avoid Yor’s blood coloured eyes, he accidentally made eye contact with (a very pale and horrified) Damian, so he quickly looked away. 

Yor waited in silence for Adrian to speak, but she kept one hand placed on his collar. It was a miracle what people revealed when they tried to fill the silence. 

And Adrian clearly could not take the silence anymore. “I’m part of a program that is trying to create telepathic soldiers. Anya ran away before she could get her soldier training, but since we’re government property, they told me I had to, um, retrieve her.”

Adrian finished his sentence uncomfrotably, but Yor had frozen in place, while she still had a hold of his shirt collar.

The words “human experimentation,” “telepathic”, and “subject” spiralled in her mind. 

She let go of Adrian, and took a step back with her hands over her mouth.

“Anya was…?”

Meanwhile, Damian shook in the background. “You’re lying!” he burst out eventually. “If you're going to make up a story, at least make it believable! Even Anya has come up with better lies than this!”

Adrian trembled under the gaze of his two interrogators. “It is true,” he said softly.

“But… but…” Damian stammered, and then he blanched, and turned on his heel.

Yor did not turn, but she listened to him leave the apartment. She sensed that he had just stepped outside for some space, given the lack of echoing footsteps in the stairwell. 

Meanwhile, Yor tried to move her own body piece by piece, out of her frozen state.

She sat on the chair in front of Adrian, and gestured for him to do the same, which he did.

“Adrian, right?” She said in the most friendly manner that she could muster at that moment, which was impressive given that only a minute beforehand, she was seconds away from killing a teenager.

“Tell me everything.”

Chapter Text

Subject 009 had a good life, although most of it was within four clinically white walls. People wearing lab coats and smiles brought him food and games, and he got to play sometimes when he wasn't busy working.

His work was very important, they said. He was Subject 009, which meant that he was among the first to be doing this kind of work. He could be well on the way to changing the world for the better, that was what they said to him, that was what they filled his mind with. They told him that he was very special, and that he would save the world someday.

Subject 009 had never seen the world, but he loved the idea that he would be so important to it.

Sometimes he was taken out to the courtyard, where the other subjects played, each with their primary care manager. None of the subjects were allowed to interact with each other.

They were so little, but he remembered Subject 007 like it was yesterday. He was utterly entranced by her pink hair, and he thought that she looked like a sunset. He longed to stroke her pink hair, to feel its softness running through his fingers. Subject 009 had touched his own hair, and it felt brittle and straw-like. 

Sometimes, they got to play games with their primary care manager, but a lot of the time they had to work. 

Subject 009 didn't like working. Often it was extremely painful, and often he threw up afterwards. They put sticks in his skin filled with fluid, they put stickers on his head that zapped, they put him in pods of darkness and water and looked at pictures of his brain on a colourful screen. 

Subject 009 didn't know what any of it meant of course, he was just doing what he was told. It was the only life he had ever known.

He still remembered the day that Subject 007 went missing. The white walls turned red, and the alarms blared for days and days. He didn't get any sleep.

But he was still only a few years old, so he adapted, and he tried not to think about that day when nothing was the same, not even the routine that they had been stuck in since birth. Subject 009 sometimes wondered if the girl with pink hair would ever come back. He wondered what happened to her. He thought about it for years until he had the courage to ask his current primary care manager. 

“Mama,” he called her, as he was instructed to do. “What happened to the girl with pink hair?”

They told him that he wasn't allowed to remember her, and that he should never ask about her again.

So he didn't.

But it wasn't until many years later, when he started to notice changes in his body, and changes in the bodies of the other older Subjects, that they were taken into another white room with more people in white lab coats. And they were told the truth.

“Many of you will remember Subject 007,” they said, and they showed a picture of her. Some of the children in the room nodded.

The Director of Project Apple stepped forward, and the children shrank back.

“You are all finally old enough to know the truth. She was kidnapped and taken by some evil people, and right now she is out there somewhere in the world, but she needs your help. We will send you to go and find her so that you can bring her back, where she can be safe and sound and we can protect her from the outside world.” 

Subject 009 and the other children sat straighter in their seats and clasped their hands together, demonstrating their attention. They all wanted a chance to help their fellow Subject!

The Director smiled when they saw the children respond with such obvious enthusiasm. 

“Here’s what you all will do…”

And they were given the plan in excruciating detail.

All the children would be stationed at schools across the country, and they would be told to look out for a girl that matched the description of Subject 007. 

Subject 009 was given the alias “Adrian Kuning ''. 

When Adrian received his name, he couldn't stop saying it out loud to himself. “Adrian, Adrian, Adrian, Adrian Kuning. That’s me!” He was so excited to tell his primary care manager. “I’m Adrian Kuning! That's my name!”

“Yes, Adrian,” crooned his primary care manager. “Now, let’s get you to the Everyday Skills class. I’m sure you’re going to find it very useful.”

Adrian and the other children gathered in the specially designed classroom and shared their aliases with each other in collective excitement. 

“I’m Adrian Kuning!”

“My name is Cindy Lewesburger!”

“Oh me too! I have a name! I’m Matthew Sianburg!”

And once they shared their names, they sat down for their first ever class of Everyday Skills. They wondered at first what it would mean. Would they go through more pain endurance classes? What kind of work would they be given to do this time?

None of the children were prepared for what they would learn.

They were shown videos of the outside world, of cars and public transport and animals and farms, and news reports, and debates of politicians, and even some popular films at the time, which was the talk of the lab for at least a month. 

They learned about cutlery and serviettes, and dancing, and what a government was, and why they had to abide by the rules of the government. They learned about their primary care managers, and were instructed now to call their managers either “mama” or “papa” according to their gender. They learned what gender was, and why society rewarded people when they acted in accordance with their assigned gender at birth. 

They learned about the tradition of gift giving, and handshakes, and social signals like eye contact, and sarcasm, and boasting (and to stay away from this). They learned about phones, and television, and trams, and trains, and pets. 

Subject 009 - sorry, Adrian - enjoyed his lessons of Everyday Skills, but he did wonder why they all had to learn about this now and why they couldn't learn about it earlier. He also questioned the things he saw on the screen and the blackboard in front of him, and after a long time of thinking over the questions privately in his head, he brought it to class to ask the Director.

“The outside world doesn't sound so dangerous”, he said when he had his hand up. “Why don't we learn about these things in person?”

It was the wrong thing to say.

The children all sucked in a breath at once, and they turned as one back to the Director, thirsty for answers.

The Director's face screwed up in a ball, and they spat at Adrian: “The outside world wants war. If any of you run away from this home without permission, you will be trapped by the war, and you will be killed. Do you want to be killed?”

Adrian shook his head. “No, Director.”

He didn't question them again.

The war was a prominent topic for the next year in Everyday Skills. They learned about reconnaissance, and what intel was, and what codes people used to send and decode information. They learned about weapons, their different designs, how to use them, and how to conceal them. 

Then, one day, Adrian turned up to a classroom where it was only him and the Director.

“Because you are going to infiltrate the upper class schools,” they started, “I will be giving you additional lessons about what to expect from them, and how to blend in.”

Adrian didn't question it as they gave him extra lessons about social etiquette, what fork to use, how to fold your napkin on your lap, how to give a firm handshake, and most importantly how to talk on the same level as many of the students and teachers at the school.

“You will be expected to have read the Classics at an early age,” they instructed, and to help familiarise him, they brought the tallest stack of books that he had ever seen in his life. Homer, the Odyssey, Hercules - that was just the start. Then there was Shakespeare, Hardy, and Bronte. Dozens more that he was forced to name and learn off the top of his head. 

Adrian enjoyed it mostly, even though it was “work”, because it was work that wasn't painful. There weren't any electric currents, or forced suffocation, or injections, or incisions, or sensory deprivation, or isolation, or cauterizations, or surgeries, or anything else that involved something sharp and painful - usually in contact with his own skin. 

The new “work” days were pleasant, and Adrian loved the stories that he was given to read. He loved the problems that he was asked to do, and he loved writing essays and learning languages. Ostanian was his favourite subject, as was Etalian, and Vrench. 

And after a few years, the children were told that they were ready.

Several men in dark suits and sunglasses accompanied Adrian on his first ride in a car, which was to his first accommodation. The same men accompanied him each time that he had to change schools. 

It was hard. Adrian mostly ate alone in the boarding school refectories, and he struggled to understand the other children around him. He learned that in the ‘upper class schools’ rank was of the utmost importance, and that there was an invisible divide between the ‘aristocratic’ wealth, and people who came from ‘new money’.

And an even worse class than both of those: ‘commoners’. 

Nobody cared about commoners. In many cases, they were hated, and despised, and Adrian learned very early on not to associate with any of them. 

But he kept up his guard, kept up his mission, and kept dutifully reporting to the Director every month. After two years of turning up empty-handed, the Director moved him to his last assignment: Eden College.

“And if you don't find Subject 007 by then,” he was told, “you won’t be given another assignment.”

They gave him the key, and a bank card. And then they left.

And Adrian was on his own. 

The first few weeks were freeing.

And terrifying.

He used everything he could remember in Everyday Skills. He practised for months with feeling comfortable on a bus, and looked at how to use the bus timetables. He went to the bank a few times to ask questions about how to use money, and they showed him something called a “savings account”, helped him find a part-time job, and even signed him up for a budgeting class. In the class, they told people how to shop cheaply at supermarkets, and how to make meals without spending too much money. Adrian tried cooking at home a few times, but it wasn’t as good as the food he had in the lab. 

Going to Eden was a godsend. By the time he figured out what to do and how to enrol in the school and what textbooks he needed, he was already a couple of months into the new school year, but he was so thankful for the food in the cafeteria. It beat anything that he had ever tried to make, and it beat the food from the lab by miles and miles and miles.

He walked around the school a few times, enamoured by its beautiful architecture and vast campus, until he was told off for not being in class.

He didn't expect to find Subject 007 so quickly. 

On the first day that Adrian figured out what his class timetable was supposed to be, she had come to him. He recognised her straight away - how could he not? Her beautiful, signature pink hair stood out, and Adrian nearly laughed when he realised that she still wore her hair in those ridiculous side buns. She had even covered them in little black cones, which he thought looked like horns on her head.

And then she had the gall to not even remember him.

Even worse, she didn't look like she needed his help at all. She smiled freely and often, which Adrian remembered from his social cues classes meant that a person was genuinely happy. 

Adrian didn't know what to do. Did Subject 007 still need saving? 

He resolved that she must have been brainwashed by her captors, and they probably hypnotised her into being happy, when actually it was all fake. She wouldn't be happy until she came back home - with him , and not that damn Damian Desmond. 

So he made the call - to contact the Director, and let them know what he had found.

“Thank you, Subject 009. You have saved a life today - you know that, right?”

Adrian opened his mouth, about to correct the Director that his name was Adrian, but something held him back. He couldnt put a finger on it at that moment in time.

“Yes,” was all he was able to say.

For the next week, they sent messages back and forth, trying to plan out how to best retrieve Subject 007. 

Adrian’s first suggestion was actually to ask her directly. “Maybe something like: I’m from your old home! Please come back, we’ll keep you safe.”

The Director laughed at his suggestion.

“Subject 007 will have forgotten all about us. We need to make her remember, so that we can bring her home.”

Adrian wasn’t sure what to make of that. If Anya had forgotten all about the lab, then why would she want to come back? Of course he wanted her back, but it was no longer because he believed that she was in danger from the outside world.

It was because she awakened something in him that he never knew existed, and he wanted to find out more.

Why was it that when she walked into a room, the world seemed like a brighter place?

Why did his body react to her being near him? How could he let her go, after finding her all these years later? 

It wasn’t going to happen.

Adrian thought that it was all going to plan, until the day actually came. When he saw the look in her eyes - the look that said why? - he felt a pull in his chest that made it hurt to breathe. It knocked the air out of his lungs. 

If Anya was coming home, shouldn't she be happy?

If she was coming back to safety, why did she look so hurt?

He thought it would be easy - or at least easier than this, but suddenly Adrian was wracked with a feeling that he didn't know how to describe.

Yor had been silent this whole time, but she took a moment to gently interrupt at this point. “That’s what we call guilt,” she said.

Adrian looked down at the floor and clutched his chest. “Guilt,” he said, playing with the word on his tongue. “I don't like it. It feels painful.”

Yor sighed. “It’s the feeling we get that tells us we have done something bad, and that we need to fix it.”

Adrian’s head snapped up. “But I didn't do anything wrong! I was only doing what I was told! I was given orders!”

“I know, and I understand,” said Yor. “I’ve been asked to do some horrible things too, but it doesn’t make my actions any less unforgivable.”

“So why do you do it?” Adrian burst out. “Why do you kill?”

Yor glanced towards the door, where she was sure Damian still stood against the wall. He might have been listening to the whole conversation. 

He cannot know what my real job is , said Yor in her mind while she held eye contact with Adrian. Just so you know, my employers have given me orders to kill anyone who finds out.

Adrian’s face went ashen. 

Yor continued: But I know you can’t help knowing. You must know so many things about people. I imagine it’s hard to carry that all by yourself.

He stared at his shoes as the pit in his stomach deepened. 

Aloud, she said: “Humans kill for a lot of horrible reasons, but humans will do anything if their reason is motivating enough. I am Anya’s mother, and I will find her. I don’t care what I have to do to get to her.”

Yor watched Adrian carefully as he took in her words, and he seemed to come to a conclusion.

“Then I will help you find her.”

Damian stared at his trembling hands while he waited outside the door. His legs ached to run, and he wanted to get as far away from that loathsome slug as he could possibly get. Everything about Adrian set him off. Every alarm bell in his body rang when he was close, and now that he knew that Adrian was actually involved with abducting Anya, Damian didn't know what to do with himself. 

His suspicion was confirmed, but it didn't bring him any joy to know that he was right. It left him with a sour taste in his mouth. When Adrian mentioned Anya’s true past, it was beyond his limits. 

Damian’s head spun as he tried to process what Adrian had just revealed. Anya was a… telepath? From being in a lab for human experimentation?

It turned his stomach all over again, and Damian held a hand to his mouth to keep from being sick. 

What the fuck was he supposed to do with that?

If Anya was really a telepath... If she could really read people’s minds… Then she must already know everything about him. His worst secrets. His deepest desires. 

He couldn't cope with the idea that she might know everything.

But… he couldn't cope with the thought that she could be lost forever, because some evil organisation decided to take her back by force. Damian clenched his fists in the effort not to punch something. 

Anya was the main priority right now. Afterwards they would talk, and they would talk about the truth, he was sure of it, but to be able to do that, he had to find her first. 

With renewed resolve, Damian marched into the living room, where Adrian had finished telling his story, and he and Yor seemed to be having some kind of silent conversation.

He didn't care if he was interrupting. “So how do we get her back?” Damian started.

“It’s simple,” said Yor, rising to her feet. “Brute force!” She slammed her fist into the palm of her hand. “We’ll break down the front door and kill them all!”

Damian pinched his lips in an effort to hold himself back. Eventually, after his internal battle showed visibly on his face, he said: “That won't work.” Then, he faced Adrian, surprising even himself. “What do you suggest?”

Yor deflated, as Adrian sat up with a quizzical look in his eyes. “I thought you hated me.”

Damian knew he wouldn't be able to hide it. He shoved his hands in his pockets and avoided eye contact with them both. “Yes. But I love Anya more.” 

Both Yor and Adrian held their breath.

“Damian!” breathed Yor. “Why didn’t you say so sooner? I’m sure Anya would-”

“Don’t,” he cut in. He already wanted to disappear into the ground. “Don’t tell her, please. I’ll tell her in my own time - but we have to find her first.”

Yor nodded in understanding. “Of course.” 

When there was another lull in the room, Adrian cut in once again. “I think your best bet is to take them by surprise, but it’s hard to tell if you would be able to pull it off. It’s only been a few days so their security is probably on high alert. I can give you as much information as I can, but I don’t know if it will be enough.”

Damian raised his gaze towards Adrian. “We’ll take anything you have to offer.”

Chapter Text

Anya woke up in a room that was strange, and at the same time, all too familiar to her. It had exceptionally white walls that she could have considered the nurse’s office, but the feeling of it was vastly different. The smell of bleach and ammonia burned her nostrils, and she realised that she had been there before, in an era long past. Anya groaned as the painkillers wore off, leaving her with quite a dizzy head. She felt the heavy weight of metal chains holding her wrists down. 

Anya gave the chains an experimental rattle, but realised with dismay that it was no use. They were stuck on tight, and fastened to secure her wrists in such a way that she wouldn't be able to slide her thin wrists out of them. She took another cursory look around the ward to try to place where she was.

The bright white light nearly blinded her. She wanted to raise her hands, to shield her eyes from that horrible harsh light, but the cuffs on her wrists limited her movement and held her down.

Instead she decided to look away from the walls, and the bright light that reflected from them, and tried to assess her surroundings. She was on some kind of cot, like the beds in hospitals with thin, cardboard-like mattresses, and the room around her was bare and clinical.

She looked down at herself. She had been changed into something like white pyjamas, which she hated to admit were actually not too uncomfortable. There was no blanket in the room, but it was warm enough that she didn't need one. 

Her head hurt, though, and she guessed that it wasn't just because of the light. She closed her eyes and groaned, and tried to remember how she got there.

She sat bolt upright. Adrian!

He had led her here somehow. He was a part of the organisation that had experimented on her when she was a child, and for some reason he had helped them to get her back. But why would he do something like that? Surely he knew how evil and soulless the organisation was?

And she thought he had looked so sad. She had always had strange feeling about him, but nothing could have ever prepared her for what he was truly capable of. Anya wanted to ask him more questions, wanted to find out why he would do something like this, and more than anything she wanted to know what he was.

Was he an experiment too? Was he a telepath like her? Is that why she wasn't able to read his mind?

Just then, Anya noticed a blinking red light in the corner of the ceiling. So, she was being watched and recorded.

Anya tried to swallow, but her throat was so dry, all she could do was choke on her own breath. How long would they leave her there without any food or water? 

Then she heard a crackling from something that might have been a speaker in the room. “Subject 007,” said a monotonous voice. 

Anya didn't want to respond to that name. It wasn't her name.  So she sat there and didn't make a move, but her eyes betrayed her and flicked again to the CCTV camera.

“Your examination will commence shortly. Please prepare to welcome the Director. ”

She heard the click of a door, and everything in Anya’s body came to a standstill.

A woman entered through the door. Someone who Anya had seen before. She thought she had forgotten that sullen face, the hollowed eyes. 

The woman had black hair tied back in an elegant bun, and wore a white lab coat over what looked to be quite an expensive knee length dress. She wore pearls around her neck, and a diamond bracelet dangled from her wrist. 

Anya couldn't tear her eyes away from the bracelet that jingled as the woman started writing on her clipboard. The shine of the diamonds dazzled her in the white clinical light, and it was then that Anya realised that she couldn't read the woman’s mind. 

“Director,” rasped Anya. She never knew what the Director’s name was, and she didn't wear a name badge so it would not be easy for her to find out. 

The Director regarded Anya with a stern look, and then brought out her radio. “Can Dr Atkinson and Dr Parker come to room 605. Thank you.”

To Anya, she said: “Since you’re conscious and appear to be capable of speech, I’m going to take that to mean that you’re also ready to get started.”

Anya was taken aback. “Get…started?” Her mouth was still too dry for her to form words comfortably, but she had too much pride to ask for a glass of water. 

The Director flipped through her clipboard, and looked at the other papers in turn. “From your information here, it looks like your last test was quite a number of years ago, so you're overdue.”

At that moment, there was a rap at the door. “Come in,” said the Director.

Two men entered through the door, that Anya was quite certain she had never seen before. Maybe they were new, or had started working there since she ran away. One of them had a bald head, and a protruding nose, that Anya thought made him look a bit like an eagle , while the other man had a shock of white hair that looked like hadn’t been brushed in a while, with large round glasses that gave him quite an owlish look.  

It took Anya a moment to realise that she couldn't hear anything from their minds. Why was her power not working? Was it because she was still recovering from the sedation? Did she not have any energy left to be able to use her power?

She tried to concentrate on the mind of the man with white hair, but she heard only static and a sharp pain filled her brain. She felt something trickle out of her nose, and she wiped her hand across it. When she took her hand away, she realised that she was bleeding.

The Director smiled. “So you've noticed you can't read our minds then. I'm afraid we have to take some precautions while we’re in this base, as we dont want you knowing your location. We are transmitting a low level sound frequency across the whole facility that will prevent your brain from operating at the wavelength required for your telepathy.”

This stunned Anya. Her power could be stopped with a certain frequency of sound wave? She strained her ears to listen out for it, but she heard nothing. It must have been very low level indeed. 

“Dr Atkinson, can you please prepare Subject 007 for test 318-B. There should be enough materials for you provided in the cabinets.”

The owl man dipped his head in a nod. “Yes, Director.”

“And Dr Parker,” continued the Director. “We need to get a baseline examination with Subject 007. Please start straight away.”

“Yes, Director,” said the bald-headed man, and Anya recoiled. 

Baseline examination? Tests? 

She had barely any memory of what the tests had been in her early years, but if it was anything like her flashback from before, then she felt the panic rising in her. 

She tugged the chains once more but they rattled uselessly against the metal railings of her cot. Rage and humiliation built in Anya’s chest, and in that instant she vowed that she would resist being trapped with every fiber of her body, every molecule of her soul.  

How dare they take her against her will? 

How dare they force her into this room, and experiment on her?

How dare they take her away from her home, her friends, her family?

How dare they!!

She kicked against the wall, and the cot shot forward, and the metal bars slammed the Director in the legs. She stumbled back in a gasp, and glared at Anya.

“Let me out!” Anya bellowed.  

Dr Atkinson automatically reached out a hand to the Director to help pull her up, but she slapped his hand away and got to her feet, and dusted off her dress and lab coat. 

Anya continued to pull on the chains. “I want to go home! I don't want to be here anymore!”

The Director tsked and looked Anya up and down. “She still has the same fire from years ago. Well not to worry, we’ll have that extinguished in no time. You’ll be happy to be here. You'll see.”

Anya saw Dr Atkinson turn to face her with a series of needles laid on a metal tray and she recoiled, trying to move as far away as possible from thim.

“No! You can't do this to me! My Papa is going to come after me - you'll see! He's going to find me and come after you and then... And then he's going to bring me back home!”

“Oh darling,” said the Director with a chilling smile. “You are home.” 

The Director stood back and let Dr Atkinson approach with a tray of needles.

Chapter Text

After the first injection, the memories of what happened were a bit of a blur to Anya. She imagined that it was something that they used to sedate her, so that she wouldn't be able to move while they gave her the rest of the batch.

She saw the needles come and go in flashes, felt the sensation of fire burning through her veins, and after what felt like hours, she woke up groggily, with her head hanging over her bed. The room spinned around her as she tried to sit up, but as soon as she started moving, Anya’s stomach lurched and she vomited over the side of the bed. 

She heaved until everything that was in her stomach had been emptied all over the tiled floor, and Anya wiped the side of her mouth with disgust. She spat a few times on the floor trying to get the sour taste out of her mouth.

Something stirred in the corner of the room, and Anya bolted upright, only to groan and hold her head in her hands a moment later from the sudden movement.

“You may be experiencing some nausea right now,” said the doctor with the owl eyes and shock of white hair. “Not to worry, that is an expected side effect. We’ll have that cleaned up in no time.” He cocked his head at her and gripped his clipboard and pen tighter. “Can you describe to me in your own words how you are feeling after the test serums?”

Anya groaned and fell backwards once again. She turned away from the owl doctor and buried her face in the pillow in an attempt to drown out the light around her. Did they never turn it off?

She heard the distance scritching as Dr Atkinson wrote something down. She groaned again. Couldn't he just leave her alone? How long was he going to sit there and watch her for? 

She really needed to go to the toilet. And eat something. But the thought of asking any of these monsters for something made her want to puke (even though she had nothing left to throw up). She really did feel dizzy. Stars spun in her head, but she didn't try to fight it. 

Then Anya realised something else: they had taken the chains off her. 

She clenched her fists experimentally, out of view of the doctor. Her wrists felt strained, and clearly there were some scratches where the chains chafed against her skin. Possibly when she was unconscious. Another wave of nausea rolled through her and she bit the inside fo her cheek to keep from groaning again.

She lay like that for a while, resisting the urge to drift off to sleep. Maybe if she let them think that she was asleep… she could…

What?

She could bust herself out of here, with no knowledge of where she was, or how she could get home? Could she leave the facility without the alarms, without any of the staff members realising that she had escaped?

A small memory resurfaced in her mind, and Anya realised. She had forgotten.

She had escaped from here before.

If she had done it before, then she could do it again. 

Above her, the CCTV camera blinked a relentless red. Even if she did attack Dr Atkinson, and then left the room, they would know instantly. They would see everything, come and catch her, and sedate her again. Maybe even refasten the chains on.

Think, Anya scolded herself. What would Twilight do? 

From reading Twilight’s mind constantly, she knew how much he valued information. That’s what he had Franky for. He needed intel to be able to carry out any mission successfully. 

Anya desperately wanted to go back to her family, to go back home. But she also wanted to stay there, and never be found by this organisation again. She had escaped once before, but look at what happened! They found her. They abducted her in broad daylight outside of her school, because they had gathered enough information that they knew they could get away with it. 

She couldn't let them get her again. If she was to escape from here this time, it would have to be permanently. 

“Let's get you moving,” Dr Atkinson decided suddenly. “Maybe it will help your nausea to move around for a bit.” 

Anya didn't fight. She let him take her arm and help her up - mainly to stop her from vomiting again. She did still feel dangerously sick and didn't really fancy throwing up her guts again.

Dr Atkinson helped her to navigate her way around the puddle of vomit that was on the tiled floor, and used a keycard to unlock the door and let her out into the corridors.  Anya hated herself for it, but she needed to cling on to Dr Atkinson to be able to keep herself upright. She still couldn't remember the last time that she had eaten.

As if on cue, her stomach gurgled loudly, almost reverberating around the white walls. 

Dr Atkinson stopped, and Anya had no choice but to stop with him. 

“This way,” he said, and changed directions, and Anya felt herself being pulled along. “We can head into the kitchens, get you something to eat.”

Anya was desperate for answers, she was so full of questions, but she felt too resentful to ask any of them. How long had she been here? Where were the other children, if there were even any left? How many staff were there, and where even where they were anyway?

She knew without a doubt that even if she did try to ask those things, that she wouldn't get the answers she wanted. She would just have to get the intel herself, like she always did. 

Even in her half-starved and nauseous state, Anya put every effort into trying to keep track of where they were going. How many steps until the next left turn, and the right, and which doors they eventually passed through, and how many of them needed electronic keycards to get past them.

Anya hung her head low as they walked, trying to pretend that she wasn't interested in their surroundings, but if she kept her hair over her face then her eyes wouldn't show on the various CCTV cameras. She was sure of it. 

It wasn't until they arrived at the kitchen that Anya cursed herself for missing one crucial detail - how many cameras were there, and where were they stationed?

No matter, she would pay attention on the way back, and make sure to keep count this time. 

The texture of the tiling changed underneath her feet and Anya realised that she had stepped foot in the kitchen. She lifted her nose to sniff the air.

It smelled of… stew? 

Her stomach gurgled again as Dr Atkinson called out. “Luke, are you in here? We’ve got a hungry one.”

There was a clattering from the far side of the kitchen, and a man with a shaved face and a hairnet over blond hair poked his head out from another door. “Dinner’s been served! I ain’t got time for whining kids when I’m nearly off the clock!”

Anya jolted at the sight of the man named Luke. He looked as though he might have been in his late-thirties, or early-forties, but Anya couldn’t shake the feeling that she had seen him before. 

She had barely remembered anything else about her time in the lab, so why did his face look so familiar…?

“Won't you make an exception?” said Dr Atkinson smoothly. “Young Subject 007 hasn’t eaten in a long time. I’m sure she would appreciate what you have to offer.”

At the mention of Anya’s former name, Luke stiffened. “007?” he said weakly, but quickly shook himself out of his surprise. “The kids are still in the mess hall, she can go in there. There’s probably something left.”

Anya swallowed dryly. So there were other children here, after all? 

Dr Atkinson gently pushed her to the side, and she followed, knowing that the promise of food was near. And she was hungry, hungrier than she had been in a very long time.

Before she quite realised it, Dr Atkinson had pushed open the double doors, and led her into what was known as the mess hall. 

She heard the boisterous laughter and conversation of children, along with the scrape of cutlery and the general murmur of a dinner time atmosphere.

God, it reminded her of Eden College. 

Tears sprung to her eyes as she remembered her school, her friends. Were they even worried about her? Did anyone notice that she went missing? 

“Have something to eat,” said Dr Atkinson gently. “Gain your energy.”

She couldn't hear his thoughts at that moment in time, but she hoped they were good ones, and not something like ‘gain your energy so we can experiment on you properly’.

Anya tentatively stepped forward, and instantly she heard silence overcome the room. Around her, children stilled as they eyed this newcomer with complete and utter bewilderment. Anya felt like she was the new kid at school all over again, suddenly the centre of attention and the object of scrutiny all at the same time.

From a quick head count, it looked like there were about twenty-odd children, all wearing the same white pyjamas as her, and all of them were younger than her by quite a wide margin. Anya guessed that the oldest one in the crowd must have been about ten years old, but it was hard not to notice that there were some much younger children in the group. 

Anya’s gaze snagged on a tiny figure, a miniature girl with eyes as wide as saucers. She couldn't have been more than three years old. 

Emotion caught in Anya’s throat. She was three years old when she escaped. When she found freedom. 

Did the Director’s cruelty never end? All this time, Anya had been living a life free from pain and experimentation, and yet the experiments never stopped? They recruited more and more children, and replaced Anya by an even greater degree than she had ever imagined, and more than she had ever feared. 

“Everyone,” called Dr Atkinson. “This is Subject 007. She hasn’t eaten in a while so be gentle with her. No crowding!”

But it seemed that Dr Atkinson’s words had very little effect, as suddenly there was a scrape of chairs and a cluster of voices ran to her. 

“007!” Said some of the children, very excitedly. “Welcome back!”

“You’re home!”

“Yay, you’ve been rescued! We were so worried about you!”

Anya eyed the crowd with a mix of fear, confusion, and utter revulsion. What in the fresh hell was happening? Disgust swirled in her stomach, and she thought that she might actually be sick again.

The children clawed at her pyjamas and grabbed at her clothes, far too excited to care about such trivial things as personal space. 

“S-stop,” Anya said with a weak voice. “P-please, s-stop it…”

The children clamoured for her still. “No fair! I want to be the first to hug 007!”

“No she’s mine! I called dibs!”

“Dibs aren't real! Stop trying to make dibs happen!”

“Let me go! I wanna see her!”

“Hey, are you going to live here with us forever now?”

And that, more than anything, was enough to tip Anya over the edge.

“Get away from me!” she screeched, and pulled on the children’s tiny hands, pulling them away from her clothes. “Get away!”

At once, their huge eyes rounded at her with uncertainty, and then when the first child started crying, more started to join in, until there was so much noise that Anya wanted to put her hands over her ears just to make it all stop.

“I did say to be gentle with her,” sighed Dr Atkinson, and he rubbed at the back of his neck in frustration. “Just leave them, 007. You can all catch up later.”

Then, he shoved a bowl of food at Anya, and she grabbed it before it could fall to the floor. It was hot in her hands. She carefully made her way around the screaming, crying, throng of children, and sat herself at the table furthest from the tiny crowd. 

She picked at the stew slowly, and tried to avoid eye contact with the other children. She already felt so guilty for her outburst, but she didn't have the energy to go and apologise to them all. Part of Anya hoped that she wouldn't be here long enough for any of them to even remember her. 

If only she remembered how she had escaped before…

Distantly, Anya was conscious of the other children being ushered out of the room, so that she could be left alone in the mess hall. There were some protests from the other children, especially the younger ones who didn't understand that she needed some time to adjust to the new environment, that she wasn't in the mood to play nice with other children.

The other Subjects. 

Her fork clattered to the empty bowl as tears filled her eyes, but she didn't let them fall. 

A quick glance at the security cameras, and her resolve only hardened. She wouldn't let them see her cry. Never again. 

Hastily, Anya wiped her eyes on her sleeves and set her bowl down at the porter’s window, and started to walk towards the exit. Dr Atkinson had said that he would wait behind the doors to escort her back to her room when she was finished. 

Just as Anya’s hand had brushed the doorknob, another clatter of pans sounded to her side, and Anya spun around.

The kitchen was partially connected to the mess hall, just like a school canteen, and a figure hunched over the pile of pans that had just been dropped.

The cook… Was his name Luke?

Anya walked away from the exit, and headed to the kitchen portal. “Are you… alright?” she called hesitantly. 

Luke’s head popped up again from the floor, and he frowned at her. “Fine,” he grumbled and stood up quickly. 

Anya eyed the pile of things that had fallen on the floor. “Do you need some help?”

Luke started to shake his head, but his eyes widened in fear at something behind Anya. “I wasn’t - I wasn’t talking to her! I swear!”

“Come with me, 007,” Dr Atkinson’s voice floated from behind her, and Anya’s blood ran cold. She hadn't even heard the door opening, how did he get behind her so fast without even making a noise?

Anya nodded mutely and followed Dr Atkinson out of the hall, but before the door closed again, Anya glanced back quickly one more time. 

Luke stood with both fists clenched, and his head bowed. 

But she couldn’t miss the look of pain etched into his face. 

As if sensing her gaze on him, Luke’s head snapped up, and their eyes met with quiet desperation.

The door closed, separating them. 

Anya didn’t see the Director again for the next two days, which, as far as she was concerned, was a huge relief. Even the other staff seemed to relax when the Director wasn’t physically in the room with them. 

Thankfully, she didn't throw up again either. Whatever they had given her on that first day was stronger than anyone had expected, and they appeared to have adjusted the dosage for Anya in the days since her arrival. 

Still, she didn’t speak. She didn't want to give anyone a clue of what was really going on in her head - or just how many cogs were turning in the formation of her escape plan.

When Anya left her room, it was only to go to the mess hall for food, or to be escorted to the bathroom when she needed to. So far, she didn't have much chance to get an internal map of the place, although she did manage to make some mental notes on the distribution of CCTV cameras, and how long it took to get between each place. 

She wanted to speak to Luke, alone, and ask why he wasn’t allowed to speak to her, but more importantly, why that caused him pain. Anya watched everything carefully, and noticed that Luke had very limited interaction with the other children, beyond the occasional greeting. At first, she thought that he was being standoffish and cold - until she saw the sly glares of some of the other staff members. 

All directed at Luke. 

In her dreams, her Papa came to rescue her, and then she returned to Eden happy and could finally be with her friends again. But when Anya woke up, and was reminded of her new prison, the hope inside her dwindled.

Nobody knew what she was, so she couldn’t expect them to find her.

She was on her own.

Her Papa had never known, never even suspected, and even with her Mama’s formidable training, Anya knew that brute force alone wouldn't be enough in this situation. She had to be smart, analytical, fierce, and strong. She had to be better than Twilight, and more vicious than the Thorn Princess. She had to be both, she had to be more . 

Anya remembered a long-distant dream of hers, when she was a child, and played make-believe missions with Bond and Franky, and Anya knew exactly what she had to be.

She had to be Starlight Anya. 

Anya couldn’t afford to let them know that she was planning to escape, so she left no paper trail. All the notes that she took stayed in her mind, and she lay awake in her cot each night going over all the information she had gathered. She could feel that she was running out of time - the doctors had already said that she was nearly back to full health after her initial injections, and she would be back to being recruited in the real experiments very soon.

She guessed that only gave her a few days at most . So, she had to work quicker than this if she wanted to have any chance at escaping. 

It was so stupid… Anya even thought of the homework that she was missing at Eden College. Did the obstacle course tournament happen already? Did she fail the group project with Adrian? Was he even continuing to go to school? And why wasn’t he back at the lab yet, if he really was one of the Subjects?

Anya wondered if Becky and Bill were okay together. She almost laughed, thinking about how they had managed to get together and Anya had not even noticed until recently. Becky must think that she was a bad friend, since she didn’t get the clues… and now, she might never get another chance to gossip with Becky about their love lives again.

Suddenly, Damian’s face crossed her mind. 

Anya furrowed her brows. How did she get from thinking about Becky’s love life to thinking about Damian? 

She didn’t have much time to ponder this much more as she fell into a dreamless sleep.

When Anya awoke, she realised that she wasn’t alone. 

The Director stood over her, clipboard in hand, with a thin smile. “Good morning, Subject 007.”

Her voice made all the hairs on Anya’s arms and neck rise. Anya bolted upright in her bed, and on instinct, backed up against the wall. 

The Director didn’t react, but only glanced at the notes in her papers. “Good news, you’ve reached excellent levels of health for baseline testing, so you will come through for your work today.” 

Then, she turned to speak to someone standing outside the door: “Secure Subject 007, and bring her in for testing. We’ll start with 713-X.”

Anya’s wary eyes didn’t leave the Director’s hands as she brought her keycard to the door, unlocked it, pushed down on the door handle - 

Time slowed.

Anya pushed against the walls, and launched herself from the cot to intercept the Director. She burst from the room, but bumped into the person standing on the other side of the door. She quickly registered their bald head in her mind, and Anya used every ounce of strength she had in her to push him to the side.

Yor’s training had its use after all.

As Dr Parker fell to the ground, Anya quickly swiped the ID badge from his coat before he had even hit the ground. 

She knew it was coming, but the red lights and the blaring alarms still took her by surprise. Not bothering to cover her ears, Anya ran in the direction of the kitchen.

When Anya was ten years old, they started a new subject at school. Home Economics. 

Most of the children turned up their nose in disgust at being forced to learn how to cook and sew, but Professor Henderson had insisted. “It is expected of you to learn rudimentary life skills, so that you will have a greater appreciation of the help that is around you.”

Anya hadn’t been trusted to cook in her own home, so she was quite excited to learn how to use knives and start helping her Papa in the kitchen. Becky, on the other hand, groaned in frustration.

“I’m never gonna need to cook for myself! Why should I learn now?”

“Yeah!” Emile joined in. “We don’t need to know this!”

George Glooman stayed mysteriously quiet. Even though he was a first born son as well, he still remembered with shame and embarrassment when he had thought that his own family had run into bankruptcy. It had scared him, and the fear that he could lose everything never quite left him after that. 

Damian had tsked and shook his head along with the otehrs, but overall he seemed more enthusiastic to learn than the others. At the time, Anya couldn’t put her finger on why.

Professor Henderson regarded the class sternly. “You may be connected to powerful families in this country and in the borders beyond, but no-one truly knows what the future holds. You may need these skills yourself one day, and at the very least, you will learn to appreciate the finer things in life through this.”

The students didn’t quite stop grumbling throughout the school year, but the people around Anya complained less overall. They saw how hard she worked to try to learn the skills, and her tenacity rubbed off on them. 

Or maybe they pitied her because she was a commoner, and they knew that she didn’t have servants to cook for her. 

They used the kitchens in the Cecile Hall dormitory, where the kitchen and common room were the centre point that divided the building into the girl’s side and boys’ side, but what caught Anya’s eye was that there was a door leading directly from the kitchen to the outside.

“Hey,” said Anya. “How come they get their own door?”

Professor Henderson thought nothing of this innocent-sounding question, and answered for her:

“The kitchens will usually get direct deliveries of fresh produce, so that they can go straight into storage,either into the freezer, pantry, or fridge. It is extremely important that all food and produce is stored as soon as possible, so that it can stay fresh for as long as possible. Most large-scale kitchens like this will have direct routes to the outdoors for exactly this reason. It is also a handy fire escape, as there can be many fire hazards when working in a kitchen like this.”

Anya blinked. “Fire hazards?”

She stored this information in the part of her brain that she secretly labelled “if I ever need to know”. 

Anya bolted to where she knew the kitchen was, and used Dr Parker’s ID to scan herself in. The alarms were louder here, and she winced at the ever increasing noise. She couldn’t even hear herself think, how would she ever be able to hear the charging footsteps behind her, or if someone was-

Luke stood, stunned, in the middle of the floor. He saw her eyes dart to where the outside door was-

It’s not here, Anya realised with a pit in her stomach. It was all for nothing.

Anya put her arms up in a combat stance, but Luke didn’t move an inch. He glanced meaningfully at the fridge door behind him, then back at her. 

She had never before wished so hard that she could read people’s minds.

His eyes locked on hers with that same desperate look as before. He indicated with his head towards the door again, ever so slightly.

Something in Anya thought that she could trust him, but she kept her arms up in a protective stance as she made her way cautiously round the middle of the floor, and darted behind him to the fridge.

She slid the huge lock through, and opened it to see-

The blast of air that hit her was beyond frigid, but Anya didn’t have any more time to think about what clothes she should have brought to keep herself warm. Between her and a hundred shelves of food was another door.

She burst forward without another look behind her, and heard the heavy click of a door shutting behind her. 

Anya stopped dead in her tracks.

Was it all a trick? Did Luke give her a false sense of trust?

Only one way to find out…

She left the alarms behind and ran to the other side, only just then realising that she was also barefoot. Drops of ice glittered on the fridge floor, and Anya willed herself not to slip over them as they left tiny pinprick indentations on the soles of her feet. 

She put all her weight against the huge, frozen, metal door in front of her, and pushed .

Relief flooded Anya’s body as the weight of the door gave way beneath her. She blinked against the light, and used her arm to shield herself from the sunlight. It was colder than it used to be.

Anya made to sprint but as soon as she took one step on to the dirt track, bare foot meeting dust, Anya’s ears pricked at the unmistakable sound of several guns being cocked. 

Along with the unmistakable feel of people’s thoughts washing over her. 

Instantly Anya realised two things: first, the telepathy-suppression sound was only transmitted inside the building. 

Second: they had outdoor security, and all of them knew she was there. 

Anya skidded to a stop outside, spraying pebbles and silt in every direction. 

Shit, she screamed in her head. Shit shit shit!

Ahead of her, the dirt track changed to grass, and trees, and there was a road beyond, but armed guards were stationed at every crevice and corner that she could see. All wore black riot gear with shiny helmets, and powerful looking guns - all aimed at the door she had just exited from.

Her stomach dropped. 

Even Yor’s training hadn’t prepared her for this kind of combat. Even if she tried to make a run for it towards the road, there were enough of them that the likelihood of being shot was extremely high, and probably likely. 

Anya almost didn’t hear the door click open behind her, and the Director’s high heels snapped on to the ground.

“Oh, darling,” she sneered. “You didn’t really think that would work - did you?” That will teach that little runt a lesson never to run away from here again. 

Anya gritted her teeth. She couldn't bear to turn around and face that woman. 

A snap of fingers. “Secure Subject 007.”

Anya didn’t move a single muscle as several of the armed guards detached from the formation and made their way cautiously over to her. She held herself back from rolling her eyes.

Rough hands grabbed her and forced her onto her knees, and yanked her arms behind her. Cold metal grazed her wrists as a pair of handcuffs snapped into place. She watched the details of the dirt ground blur in front of her, and she watched, detached, as drops of water appeared on the ground below her.

She was so close. 

Everything rose in her, then. The rage, frustration, despair, hopelessness. 

I can’t let it end like this. 

She was backed into a corner, and there was nothing left for her to lose. 

Anya jumped back up to her feet, elbowed the guard in the face and roared. 

“Don’t let her run again!” Anya distantly heard the Director's order. 

Her Mama had always told her to be wary of animals that had been backed into a corner - and Anya had been backed up against the wall, kicked to the ground, and shaken to her fucking core. They should be afraid of her . 

“Fuck you!!” Anya screamed, and with both hands secured behind her back, Anya elbowed another guard in the ribs, head butted another, and when arms appeared to secure around her shoulders, Anya leaned down and bit them hard , but still they didn’t let go. She thrashed in their arms, but they held fast to her, and threw her onto her side, knocking the wind out of her lungs, and all she could do was groan in pain when she felt more weight landing on each of her limbs.

It took eight of them to hold her down. 

Anya screamed with her face on the ground. Sharp stones dug into her cheek, and with each kick that she tried to send with her feet, she could feel that more scratches had appeared on her face.

Her voice was hoarse, but still she screamed as more guards wrestled with her. And then she felt the prick of something in her thigh, and everything started to fade around her. 

The last thing she heard was the cold and sterile voice of the Director: “Bring her through to the Experimentation Room.”

Chapter Text

The world blurred around her, and she opened her eyes to a host of bright white lights, staring directly at her and all positioned above her. Anya tried to quit, tried to move her head away, but she was strapped tightly to a table. It was impossible for her to move.

She started to panic, and her heart started to race. How was she going to get out of this?

High heels clacked on the tiled floor beneath her, and instantly Anya knew who was approaching. Her eyes strained to see the figure moving so much closer to her, but at the same time, she didn't want to look at her. The woman made her feel too sick to even keep her eyes open.

“We’re awake now, are we?” said the woman smoothly. “Dr Parker, set the machine up, please. I want Subject 007 in it within the hour.”

A scuffle of footsteps behind her, followed by the sound of electricity starting up.

Something flashed in Anya’s memory, and she felt the bile rising in her throat. Something about the sound of that electricity set her teeth on edge and made her hair stand on end. She tried to wriggle in her ties, but they wouldn't budge, and the hard metal edges chafed on her skin. Anya bit her lip hard enough to draw blood.

“You’ve regained your strength over the last few days, so to pay for the little outburst you had, it's time for you to earn your place here, Subject 007.” Even with the Director’s silhouette against the glare of the lights, Anya could tell through their barely-restrained antagonistic mirth that the Director was smiling . 

Then, a rattling of metal as someone pulled out a tray.

“Get her ready,” The Director said in a sharp voice, and Anya stilled.

She saw the point of the needle, and she wanted to scream, but her mouth couldn't even open. 

“Mmmf!” Anya tried to shout, but at that second she realised that she had a gag put over her mouth.

She felt the pricks in her skin, and Anya tried to kick them, bite them, move away anything, but the only thing she could do was turn her head and squeeze her eyes shut. Not more injections…

As before, fire raced through her veins, burning every inch of her limbs and attacking her organs. Her brain felt like it was on fire. 

The tears starting to roll down her cheeks. 

No no no no no!  She screamed in her head. Please not this! Please don't do this!

She distantly felt herself rolling, and Anya realised that they must be moving the metal table that she was strapped to, and rolling it closer to the machine behind her. Anya felt the crackling pull of the electricity, and the hair on her arms stood on end.

Static, she realised. 

They had rolled her into the mouth of the machine, and Anya felt herself being swallowed up by more bright white light.

It surrounded her. Drowned her. More tears streamed down her face when even closing her eyes didn't keep the glare out. 

The voices of the doctors faded away as lights started to spin around her, and Anya heard the loudest thumping noise all around her, like a giant stomping down on her brain. It was the scariest thing she had ever heard. 

She couldn't move. Couldn't close her eyes, and close her ears to the sounds of the thumping all around her, and the lights spun and spun and spun until she felt dizzy. She didn't know how long she was in there for, but it felt like an age before the lights started to slow down, and she felt herself being released out of the mouth of the machine. 

Anya lay helpless there, almost brain dead from being subjected to so much overstimulation in such a short amount of time. The voices of the staff had been reduced to low mumbling after her deafening experince, and she felt them wheel her away on the metal table to another place.

They strapped some kind of mask over her nose and mouth, and then the table started to tip forwards, and Anya slid from the table into a tank of water.

The temperature change hit her like a shock, and Anya’s eyes jerked open in reaction, she took a huge gulp of air through the mask, and tried to swim upwards, but her limbs hung uselessly by her sides. She was too drained to move.

Something closed above her.

No no no no! She screamed in her head, and she felt herself becoming breathless as she struggled to stay afloat. Her clinic pyjamas were completely saturated with water, and made her heavier in the tank. Now that she was submerged in the water itself, the initial shock of the cold wore off and it started to warm up to her. 

Anya quickly realised that she could still see, and that she was not alone. She watched as blobs of colour and light shifted around her, and she could just picture the scientists orbiting in their various lab coats and clipboards, all writing notes about her.

She floated the short distance to the edge of the tank and pressed her hands up against the glass. It was so hard to see through it, especially since her mask was only covering her nose and mouth. If only it covered her eyes as well, so that she might be able to see under the water.

Anya soon tired, and she felt herself sinking slightly further into the tank, until she was suspended just in the middle of it. She felt her arms and legs relax and float beside her, and she slowly started to close her eyes.

She was so tired…

All she had to do was to concentrate on her breathing. Breathing in and out. The mask felt so uncomfortable on her face, the outline of it pressed so hard against her skin, but she didn't dare loosen it. 

She couldn't die in here.

She had no idea what they were going to do to her, and part of her didn't want to know, but she knew that she needed to get out. If she was suspended in a tank of water, then they had her imprisoned. She would never be able to escape.

Then suddenly, a sharp pain went through her entire body, and Anya clenched her teeth to brace herself against it. It felt as though she was being stabbed by needles all over her body all at the same time. 

The wave of pain quickly passed, with a lingering feeling of numbness in her toes. She nearly fell to the bottom of the tank, as her entire body lost all tension, even the tension that had kept her afloat

Then the wave of blinding pain came again.

And again.

With sudden clarity, Anya knew: they were passing electricity through the tank, and she was caught in the middle of it.

Her breath fogged up her mask every time she screamed, but she knew that no one would be able to hear her. Not beyond the wall of water she was encased in. 

Another round of electricity passed through the tank, and Anya went rigid with the pain that lanced through her. 

She could feel her eyes closing, could feel herself passing out, but she held fast onto her consciousness. There was no telling what they were going to do to her once she lost herself into her nightmares.

But the pain kept her grounded into wakefulness, and she forced herself not to faint, even when the voltage got inexplicably higher. 

They must have given her some kind of muscle relaxant because didn't shake through the electric waves as much as she expected to. She hung limp, lifeless, and endured each wave of pain like it was her last. 

And then, after an unfathomable length of time, the pain stopped. Anya sagged into the darkness, and let her limbs fall. 

The water was warm. It felt like she was on a cloud, floating. Nothing around her. No sound. No sensation. Not even a thought that she could hear to keep her going. 

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Anya knew that she needed to maintain her sanity somehow. She needed to stay focused, and keep all of her senses working.

Anya focused as hard as she could on the moving coloured blobs in front of her, what she assumed to be the scientists in the lab. They clustered together, and broke apart, into patterns of individual movement. She couldn't feel pain anymore, or anything at all, but if she could focus on one sense, maybe that would keep her grounded enough for her to keep her sanity. 

Then, the lights started to dim.

Shit. Anya’s heart raced as she realised what was happening. They’re turning off the lights! Are they just going to leave me here?

Her hair floated around her, in waves, and Anya felt it tickle her face. 

A memory came to her. 

She was ten years old, and one of the boys had just pushed her over into the mud in P.E. She was about to win the race, and they wanted to overtake her.

Anya had done her best not to cry, but her best wasn’t enough. Hot tears tracked down her face, mixing with the mud from the ground. 

She almost didn't see the hand that reached out towards her. His face was tomato red, and he could barely look her in the eyes, but he didn’t laugh at her, and he didn't look disgusted at the fact that she was covered head to toe in dirt.

“Don't make me stand here forever,” he muttered. “Take my hand and get up, dummy.”

Anya stared at him dumbstruck, then took his hand and let him pull her up. 

“You’re bleeding,” he mumbled to her. “Your knee. You should… go to the nurse… or something.” His voice trailed off as his blush deepened.

Anya nodded numbly, but startled when there was a jeer of laughter behind her.

“Desmond has a CRUSH!” jeered one of the boys. Anya couldn't be bothered to remember his name at the best of times. 

“I DO NOT!” Damian shouted back and again tried to avoid eye contact with Anya. “I’m just being a gentleman, unlike you idiots! When did your fathers tell you to treat ladies so disrespectfully?!” He yelled and shook his fist at them.

“That's Damian-sama for you!” shouted Ewen from the benches. His bandage-encased leg rested in front of him. “He’s morally above other people!”

However well-intended Ewen meant to be, it only made Damian more embarrassed. “Come on,” he muttered to Anya, and indicated to the nurses office at the side of the building. “You should get that seen to, before you get an infection or something.”

“Okay,” Anya said breathlessly. 

At this point in time, Anya and Damian had an unspoken truce. She knew that every time she was close to him, it seemed to set him off somehow, and nothing she could do would make it better. And yet, this one time, he was speaking to her of his own volition. Anya had to try not to mess things up.

It was a short walk to the nurses office, but it was a quiet one. He didn't speak a single word, and yet at the same time, his mind raced a million miles an hour. 

Stay cool Desmond, Stay cool! Don't embarrass yourself! She's just right next to you!

Anya was as clueless as ever. Even more so, because she was secretly eight years old, and two years behind Damian in terms of understanding social situations. She fingered the ends of her hair nervously. At Yor’s insistence, she had kept it shoulder length, so that it wouldn't get in the way of her other activities.

But when she reached up to twirl her hair around her fingers, that seemed to catch Damian’s attention.

Her hair… it shines in the sunlight…

Anya felt herself blush a little at that.

“Uh, Sy-on boy,” she said shyly. “Do you like my hair?”

Damian stilled, and shivered, like a bolt of electricity had raced up his spine. A breath of air rushed out of him and he blurted: “No!! Why would I?? It's silly and short??”

Shit! I can't tell her that I love her hair! It looks so soft and I want to touch it!!

Anya smiled a little at his thoughts, and tried to put two and two together. “So you'd like it more if it was longer?” This was the best her eight year old brain could do. 

Damian startled, looked horrified for a second, and then actually pictured Anya with longer hair. He blushed even harder.

Anya was intrigued. The new version of her in his head had longer hair, and for some reason this made her appear glowy and a little glamorous.

“Okay,” she said, resolute. “I’ll grow it.”

“Y-you don't have to…” Damian started, but his words faded away as he realised that Anya had stopped listening.

When they were both fifteen (and well, she was actually thirteen), she had finally managed to get her hair to the perfect length. It reached past her back, and she spent ages brushing it every night to get it as soft as possible. All the other teenagers around her had started to care viciously about their appearances, and she still felt that she was lagging them behind somewhat in that regard.

Becky started wearing makeup to school, but Anya still didn't really see the point, but she saw how it affected the others. She saw what the power of makeup did to Becky’s confidence, and to the stares of the boys that followed after her in the corridors. 

Anya wasn't interested in the stares of boys, and she had plenty of confidence, but she knew for a fact by reading everyone's thoughts that her real feature was her hair, and there was a certain someone who loved her hair more than anyone else.

He sat behind her in class, fantasising about stroking it with his hands. Anya had wondered how long it would take him to ask her, but he never did. Damian proved to have an iron will, and steel-like discipline when it came to asking for things that he really wanted. 

She felt her hair spreading around in the tank, and Anya wondered how long it would take for it to get all tangled up around her. It would take ages to brush out all the knots and the tangles. It was already bad enough after she had been swimming, or after she had been in the bath for a while. But she liked to feel it waving around her. 

It reminded her of him.

It made her think of something that was outside of this godforsaken place that wasn't anything to do with experiments, or scientists, or being trapped.

Yes, she had trouble understanding Damian at the best of times, but she always knew that underneath his thorny exterior, he thought about her as much as Becky did, and a little bit more than her parents did. In short, she knew by reading his mind that he was someone in her close circle of family and friends that completely cared about her. 

Again, she didn't understand a lot of why he liked to spend time with her, but that wasn't a huge concern to Anya. She knew she was cool, otherwise Becky wouldn't be friends with her, and she was happy with her school life as it was.

Every time she thought about Damian at school, she felt a warm bubbling feeling fizz up inside of her. And everytime she thought about Damian outside of school, she felt tingles of electricity shoot through her fingers and toes, spreading across her whole body. 

They had managed to get through so much, and she still had a way to go before she could actually say that she was Damian’s best friend. 

(Why she wanted to be Damian’s best friend wasn’t available in her thoughts at that point in time.)

Anya felt her eyes close in the dim darkness of the lab, and in the saline suspension of the tank. 

To sleep, perchance. To dream.

When Anya awoke, disappointment set in her as she realised she was still encased in water.

She tried to shift her head to the side, feeling the new sensation of stiffness that accompanied her movements, and her heart sagged. It wasn't just the oxygen mask that was attached to her.

They had done something while she was asleep.

More tubes covered her body, and it felt like she was in the middle of a spider’s web. They shifted stiffly around her, and when she twisted and turned they kept her trapped.

Trapped like prey. 

Panic bubbled in her chest, and she let out a gasp that fogged up her mask once more.

The only thing that she was grateful for was that she was still clothed, but even that had drastically changed. She was in a tank top and shorts, presumably so that there would be more skin accessible for them to stick tubes in.

Anya didn't even know what half the tubes were doing (or what any of them were doing, except for the oxygen mask), but she had the sense that if she tried to pull some of them out, then she would harm herself in the process. Many of the tubes were placed on her in such a way that she knew it was connected directly to her skin, and any sharp movements would cut her, or worse, damage some part of her body.

How long would they keep her like this?

How long until she could get out?

Thankfully, the lights had been turned on, and Anya blinked against the harshness of them. As her eyes adjusted to the light, she could make out some of the blobs starting to move around her.

But as they say, every cloud…

The pain overcame her before she could take her next breath.

Chapter Text

When Adrian dropped the bombshell about Anya’s background, Yor felt every muscle in her body go slack, and she had to focus hard just to keep her breathing even. 

The information had left her stunned, but Yor was also a world-class assassin. She had been trained from a very early age to control her emotions in the face of danger, and knew exactly how to deal with stress.

But Damian?

She couldn’t understand how, after his initial distress, he seemed to keep himself together fairly well. He even listened to Adrian’s information with an even head and seemed to take it all in.

Still, Yor’s instincts as a mother told her that not all was as it seemed. 

Unfortunately, Adrian didn’t quite know the location of the facility, but he told them what he could about the security and layout of the building. Then, when it looked like things were coming to a close, Yor insisted that Damian come round to the Forger’s house for dinner.

Her excuse was that it was close by anyway, but she also thought it would be good to keep an eye on him while she could. 

Yor was glad that she trusted her instincts, because as soon as Damian seated himself at the Forger dining table, he held his hands and sighed wearily. It looked like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders.

Suddenly, he felt at least thirty years older than he was. 

“What do we do now?” he muttered. He didn’t expect Mrs Forger to suggest anything yet, but she pinched her lips in silence. 

They still had not heard any updates from the police, who should have been prioritising Anya’s search and rescue, but so far nothing had moved forward. It had already been three days - how much longer did they need to go and find her?

In those few days since Anya’s disappearance, he had still gone to school, but could not pay attention to any of the classes. He was so sure that his grades had already started to slip. He couldn’t even face seeing any of his classmates, and the news of Anya’s disappearance hadn't yet been announced, so his other classmates (who didn't quite know him as well) were a little confused by Becky and Damian’s seemingly erratic behaviour.

He didn’t care if they thought he was overreacting to Anya being ill or having a sick day, but if she was going to be away for much longer, then the announcement would have to be made to the whole school, and Damian just didn’t know if he was emotionally prepared for that.

It was bad enough when he was kidnapped, and he had returned to school the next day after some time in hospital with a broken nose, two black eyes, and a ribcage so bruised he was out of P.E. for over a month. Kids stared at him in the corridors almost constantly, and every time someone whispered around him, or even looked in his direction, he was struck with paranoia at the idea that they were talking about him behind his back.

Well, they were. His mysterious disappearance - followed by mysterious reappearance, and Anya’s award for bravery - got everyone talking. If Anya went missing, the whispers and the stares wouldn't just get worse. They would become unbearable.

But it still wouldn’t be as unbearable as the thought that he might never see her again. Might never be able to ask her to the Imperial Ball, might never sit behind her in class again, or stare at her hair, or text her, or pass notes, or get excited whenever she got close to him. The whispers and the stares wouldn't even be as unbearable as never meeting her at the bus stop again, or feeling her hand in the crook of his elbow, or pretending not to notice whenever she rested her head on his shoulders. 

He felt so dejected. Only a couple of days ago he had tried so hard to motivate his friends and lift their spirits, tried to encourage them into realising that they had more power than they thought, tried to convince them all that they could do something for Anya if they put their heads together. But it was all a lie.

His little speech had got them all believing in some fantasy that maybe if they tried hard enough, and believed in the power their parents had, then they could actually make a difference. But Becky wasn't her father. Bill wasn't Major Watkins. Damian wasn't the leader of the National Unity Party.

So what could he actually do?

The only adults he had seen who actually seemed to know what they were doing in a fight were Anya’s own parents. 

Mr Forger had joined Anya on the mission to rescue him from the attempted kidnappers, and even though Mr Forger usually kept his suit jacket buttoned up and secure, Damian had seen the extremely faint outline of a gun at Mr Forger’s side.

He didn’t dare bring it up though, obviously. He wasn’t about to let a man with a weapon know that he knew his secret. 

As for Mrs Forger, he had directly witnessed her physical prowess as she jumped up buildings and kicked doors down, and held an eighteen year old boy in the air by his collar. If that wasn’t terrifying enough, he had seen the glint of murder in her eyes, and something told him that when it came to Anya, she would absolutely be capable of total destruction. 

He had seen a different side to them both that made him realise that if they were going to get Anya back, they may have to do it themselves.  

But there was still one significant issue: they had zero information on the facility’s location. Adrian had apparently been shielded from that information, too. 

How could he ask for help storming the place down without knowing where to go?

Just then, the front door opened, and Damian and Yor jumped back at the same time. 

“Damian Desmond?” Loid wondered aloud. “What are you doing here?”

Silence hung in the air for a few seconds, before Yor decided to break the tension. “Oh we were just… Damian’s been having a rough time at school and he said he wanted someone to talk to…”

Damian picked up the storyline immediately. “Yeah, uh, I just.. This has all been really hard and I don't know how to deal with it.”

Loid nodded in understanding. “This is a difficult situation, absolutely, but I hope you know Damian, that the police and the search teams are doing their best. They are professionals, and they will be able to find Anya in no time.”

What Loid didn't say out loud, was that he had been deploying spies and informants and agents as if they were disposable. He hadn’t been sleeping, instead scouring every network of information that he could to try and find anything on her. He even had Franky make use of every network he had ever made in his life just to try and find a scrap of information. But Loid was losing hope, and he wondered what the hell WISE and the authorities were doing.

Damian furrowed his brows as he remembered something, too. “I thought you don’t trust the police?”

Loid stilled. How did he know that?

He regarded Damian carefully. He was a close friend of Anya’s so it made sense that he would be upset, and that he would possibly seek solace in the Forger residence. Maybe he felt that being here would mean that he would feel closer to Anya during her disappearance. 

Damian hung his head. “Sorry, maybe I wasn't supposed to know that. Anya told me.”

Loid nodded slowly in understanding. So they really were close friends.

He sighed. He would have to handle this carefully. “I understand, Dmaian. We are... Having trouble with the idea of putting our trust in people that have not exactly been a help to us in the past, but we can only do so much as ordinary citizens.”

Damian puffed his chest. “I am a Desmond . There’s no such thing as ‘ordinary citizen’ when it comes to my family. There are things that I can do,” and he glanced at Loid with a pleading look. “But I can’t do anything alone. If we team up, there might be a chance that we can get Anya back.”

“Yes!” Yor jumped up enthusiastically. “We can work as a team to get Anya back!” 

Loid’s eyes flicked between the two. 

Their enthusiasm was contagious, and a part of him did want to join in and do something that they could all be proud of, but he also couldn’t forget that he was a spy... They could plan all they liked, but if Twilight slipped up and revealed his identity, then it would all be over. Operation Strix would fail, and he would lose Anya and Yor forever. 

Rescuing Damian with Anya was one thing: she had been the driver on that mission, and he didn’t have any WISE agents involved. But with what Damian was suggesting, they would have to organise a more well-planned operation than ‘Loid Forger’ would have ever been involved in.

It would have to be as well planned as any of Twilight’s missions - and he could not afford to mix Twilight with ‘Loid’. Any mistake would spell absolute disaster for his entire family, and his way of life. 

Damian’s expression was so impassioned, but Loid could see the line of explosives clearly waiting ahead of him. He couldn’t spring that trap.

“I’m sorry,” Loid said eventually. “I appreciate your enthusiasm Damian, I really do. You have no idea how much of a comfort it is to have you so determined to save our daughter, but there’s more that we have to consider. You have school, and you have obligations of your own that you must fulfil. Leave us to do what we can, and we will update you as soon as we hear anything about Anya. I promise.”

Damian deflated. “But – I can help! We can do something - together!”

Loid sighed, genuinely sorry. “I know, and we really do appreciate it. I understand that you and Anya were very close, so if we can be of any comfort to you, you are more than welcome to come and visit whenever you like, but we need to be realistic about this.”

To Loid’s surprise, Yor stepped closer and put her hand on Damian’s shoulder. “He’s right, Damian. I’m sorry for bringing up your expectations.”

Damian shook himself out of Yor’s touch, and his head hung, while tears stung his eyes. “Can I at least… I have something to give to Anya when she comes back.” He placed a hand over his bag. “Can I leave it in her room?”

Loid’s eyes softened. “Of course.”

He led Damian to Anya’s room, and stayed outside while Damian went in. 

The smell of strawberry hit him like a wall, and Damian tightened his fists on his bag as he shook with the effort of holding back tears. Everything in here was hers… he should have known that he wasn’t ready to see her room without her to be there with him. 

Damian carefully unzipped his school bag, and brought out a small soft toy of a gryphon. He didn’t plan on giving it to Anya, but it was something he had in his room at home for a long time, and he thought it was about time that he gave her something like this that she could keep for herself. 

Damian shuffled over to the bed, and placed the toy in between Anya’s collection: the chimaera, the penguin, and a few others she had collected over the years. It was so cute that Anya still kept her soft toys, and even slept with them.

He swallowed thickly. He wondered if Anya missed them right now, because she had nothing to hold before she was going to sleep. 

Before even realising it, Damian sat on her bed and held his face in his hands. 

Gods, he missed her so much. How could his life ever be so empty without her? How had he not noticed that she took up so much space in his life, and that with her missing, it was like his entire heart had been ripped away from him?

His heart still beat, but it was somewhere else, he could feel it. That had to mean that she was still alive, somewhere, and that had to mean that she was going to come back. She had to.

They had to find her. 

Something glinted in the corner of his vision, and Damian slowly lifted his head to see what it was.

If it weren’t for the reflection of the sunlight streaming through the window, he might have never seen it, but just in the space between the writing desk and the back of the door, there it was.

Why does Anya have a gun in her room?

As he held the gun in his hands, Damian marvelled at the weight of it. He didn’t even remember walking over to it, and he definitely didn’t remember picking it up, but something about it felt like it  was calling to him.

In perfect clarity, he suddenly remembered the vision of Anya standing tall and confident, holding the gun to the guard’s face. 

She had used it to protect him. 

This tiny thing that shone silver, had saved his own life. How was she able to hide it from both him and Mr Forger?

Damian jumped as he heard a knock at the door, and hurriedly held the gun behind his back as Loid leaned his head into the room. “Are you okay in there, Damian?”

“Yep!” Damian squeaked. He thought his heart must have been loud enough for Mr Forger himself to hear it. 

Loid gave him a brief once over, and nodded warily. “Right, well, I can give you a lift home if you like…”

“No!” Damian shouted, and then cleared his throat. “I’ll, er, walk back. Clear my head. But thanks for the offer,” he added hurriedly. 

Loud looked Damian up and down, before he sighed. “Sure.”

Damian remained tense as Loid started to close the door slowly, and then stepped back into the room once more. 

“You should come by again tomorrow,” said Loid. “I understand you live far from your home, so you are still welcome to stay with us whenever you need.”

Damian nodded hurriedly, then breathed a sigh of relief when Loid left Anya’s room, and he was alone once again. Quickly, he retrieved his backpack and made his way out, thanking the Forger’s and promising to come by again the next day, before he closed the door behind him.

Walking back to Eden College had never been such a scary feat before. Damian could feel the sweat patches on his back and armpits getting bigger, even though his back pack wasn’t that much heavier. The fear of being watched was coming in full force. 

Even as he entered the Cecile Hall boys’ dorms, he looked around each corner before turning them, making sure not to bump into anyone who knew him. He didn’t know if he would be able to hold himself together for much longer. 

When he made it back to his room, Damian quickly locked the door behind him, and in an effort to alleviate his own anxiety, he pulled up a chair under the doorknob. Then, he went over to his window and closed the curtains. He needed to be secure for what he was about to do, and he could not afford to be interrupted. 

Damian slowly unzipped his backpack and gulped. The gun glinted slyly back at him.

Shaking, Damian reached out his hand and carefully picked it up, almost afraid that it would go off at any second. It still weighed heavy in his hands, but Damian knew that he had to be extremely careful with it. 

A part of him knew that he should have told Loid, should have let him keep it, but Damian couldn’t even justify to himself why he took it. His arm moved on its own to stash away as he was fuelled by the thought that this was the gun that once saved him, and he had stuffed it in his bag before Loid could come back.

Damian nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard a knock at the door, followed by a shout: “Damian-sama! Are you in?”

“Y-yeah!” Damian called back, and he cursed at how unnaturally high his voice sounded. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Just coming!”

Damian put the gun back in his bag, then stuffed it under his bed, before going to join his friends.

Chapter Text

Twilight paced up and down the length of his office, muttering to himself. 

What the fuck were the police doing? What the fuck were the WISE agents doing? Why hadn’t he had any updates on Anya and where she was? 

Sylvia Sherwood had explained to him in no uncertain terms that he was not to go looking for her by himself, and he had done everything in his power to remain in Berlint like she had ordered, but his patience was wearing extremely thin. 

A knock at the door startled Twilight out of his thoughts, and he shook off his thoughts, and painted a pleasant and neutral expression on his face. 

He expected to open the door to see Fiona, since she normally would have handed him some documents at this time of day, but he could not contain his surprise when he saw who it was.

“Erik Zacharis?” he said, stunned. “We aren’t due for our next appointment for another week. Is everything alright?”

Erik Zacharis stood at his door, and Twilight didn’t miss that Zacharis was absolutely shaking in his shoes. “Uhm,” he said, and swallowed. “I have, uh, I’m ready to talk about…”

Twilight’s eyes widened a fraction, and then with the precision of a spy, he smoothed his features over immediately. “Why don’t you come in?” he said gently and gestured for Erik to come into the office. “I don’t have a client meeting for another thirty minutes. I can tell you’ve come a long way here and you have something important to say.”

Erik Zacharis leaned on his walking stick heavily as he sat himself in the chair in front of Loid’s desk, and put his walking stick down on the ground next to his feet.

Twilight’s eyes flicked from the cane to Erik Zacharis’ face. “Did you bring that last time?”

Erik shook his head. “I don’t like using it normally, but I felt I needed the support today.”

Twilight nodded. “Right,” and he cleared his throat. “Well, Mr Zacharis, what can I do for you today? I’m getting the sense that something significant happened for you to come all the way here today. Could it not wait for our next appointment?”

“No,” said Erik hoarsely. “I… I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright. We still have some time today.” Twilight didn’t know why, but he got the sense that Erik Zacharis wasn’t just apologising for turning up unannounced.

Loid noticed that Erik held tightly to a tiny piece of paper in his hand. Something about the way that Erik Zacharis was presenting today was putting something on edge, but until Zacharis actually started talking, there wasn’t much that he could do. 

“I…” Zacharis coughed. “I’m sorry, this is so difficult for me to say, I don’t know if I’ll...”

“Just take your time,” Twilight said reassuringly. “Try to breathe through it.”

This seemed to reassure Erik somewhat, as he started taking several deep breaths, and then held out the piece of paper to Twilight with a shaking hand. 

Twilight reached across the desk and gently took the piece of paper from Erik’s wizened fingers. He glanced at it quickly before looking back at Zacharis. “It’s an address,” he said simply, dumbfounded.

What did it mean?

“It’s… the location of one of the human experimentation laboratories.”

Twilight felt his blood run cold. It was only his second meeting with Erik Zacharis - why did he give this to him? How did he release this much information so early, without Twilight having to wheedle it out of him?

“Why are you giving this to me?” said Loid breathlessly, almost excitedly, but he did everything he could to school his own expression into something that appeared neutral.

But he could never have expected the next words that came out of Zacharis’ mouth to contain something that would devastate him so completely.

“That’s… Where your daughter is.”

Twilight felt the air vanish from his lungs. He paled. “What?” The paper shook in his hands as he thought that he might be sick. 

And then, after more than a decade of nightmares, guilt, sleeplessness, and regret, Colonel Erik Zacharis broke his silence.

Damian paced up and down the length of his room, before hurrying back to his bed and yanking his bag out from under it. 

The gun was still there. Like it was five minutes ago, when he last checked.

“I can’t take this anymore!” Damian said out loud. He swiped his books into his satchel, and slung it over his shoulder, before making his way down to the mess hall for breakfast. He couldn’t back out of it now.

When Emile and Ewen saw him, they raised their eyebrows at each other, and then at him. “Why do you have your bag? Why isn’t it in your locker?”

“Don’t feel like it,” mumbled Damian.

When Ewen held out his hand for it, as he had done so many times before, Damian clung to the satchel strap and turned away. “No!” 

“Damian-sama, don’t you want me to carry your bags?” Emile looked like he was going to cry.

Damian cursed himself. He should have known that something would go wrong.

“No, it’s okay. I’ll - carry it myself. Thanks,” he said awkwardly, and moved away. 

Hours later, Loid stared at the piece of paper in his hand. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't move. He stared wide-eyed at Eric Zacharis, who wrung his hands nervously in his lap..

“I...” Loid started to say, but he felt his throat starting to choke up dangerously. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

Erik hung his head low. “Just find her, and make sure she’s okay.”

Chapter Text

Twilight made his excuses to the director of the hospital, and he raced to his car. He hadn't even taken off his lab coat when he turned the ignition and sped off in the direction of his home. 

He would have gone straight there, but Twilight realised very quickly that he had kept his mission pack in his room at the Forger residence, even the disguises and the spare ammunition.

Shit! He thumped the steering wheel in frustration. The one time he hadn’t yet refilled his mission pack, and this is when he gets the information on Anya? 

His route home was so familiar that when he parked in his usual spot, his senses came back to him, and he realised that he had no memory of the drive home. 

He raced up the stairs, threw open the door to the house, and nearly jumped when he saw Yor standing at the door holding a frying pan like a weapon.

“Loid!” she breathed, and lowered the frying pan. “I thought you were an intruder!”

Twilight looked at his wife in disbelief. She could hear him from all the way inside and got her weapon ready in time? He shook off the surprise, and closed the door behind him.

“I just received word from the police,” he felt the words smoothly flow out of him. “They might have a location.”

Yor gasped, and Loid quickly added: “But that’s all we know, so they’ve said we just have to wait here until they-”

“Wait here?” Yor interrupted. “Then where are you going?”

“I’m, er,” Loid stammered, “heading out.” 

Yor carefully watched Loid as he rushed to his room, and she heard the rustling sound of him very quickly packing a bag. She bit her lip, and set down the frying pan in the kitchen. Then, she sneaked closer to his door, and pressed her ear against the thick wood.

An assassin’s hearing was second-to-none.

“No - Franky, I’ve found it. I’ve found it for real. So I’ve already told the Handler-”

A pause.

“You think I’m just going to sit back and wait for the police to fail? Obviously I’m going to go after her!” 

Another pause, and Yor concentrated further as she heard the rattling of various equipment.

“I’m packing the usual kit. No, I am not bringing Yor! I am not putting her in danger, too.”

Some murmuring on the other end, and a few protests. 

“Just get the other agents ready, I’ve got the location. I’ll need backup.”

Yor stepped away from the door hurriedly before it opened, and Loid stood there staring at her.

His eyes narrowed on her. “What are you doing?”

“Uh,” said Yor, and scrambled quickly for an excuse in her brain. “I was just going to ask what you want for dinner!” 

“I’m sorry, Yor,” said Loid, and he seemed genuinely apologetic. “I have to go back to the hospital, er, for a night shift. You know how it is.”

Yor nodded, a smile frozen on her face. “Of course.”

She stood in the kitchen as she watched him leave with his briefcase, and his suit jacket swinging over his shoulders.

Yor kept the smile on her face until the last second, and then let it fall. Her eyes immediately darkened, even without the shadows cutting her face in half.

There was no way in hell that Yor - the Thorn Princess - was just going to sit back and play housewife while her husband went and rescued their daughter without her.

She gritted her teeth. If he planned to go and get her by himself, he was an idiot. 

She rushed into her own room to grab her bag, and some spare clothes. She needed to wear something black.

As Damian walked up to the Forger’s house from his private car, he stopped in his tracks when he saw Loid run out in a hurry towards the row of parked cars on the street. Damian shook away his curiosity and raised his fist to knock on the door.

Damian didn't even get a chance to knock before the door flew open and Yor’s serious face greeted him, then immediately transformed into one of surprise.

“Damian!” She gasped, shock evident in her face. “What are you doing here?

“I -” Damian started, and gulped. She had clearly forgotten that they’d invited him over. Was this a bad time? Was he interrupting something private?

Her gaze landed on the chauffeur car behind him, and her eyes lit up immediately. “Perfect! Damian, quickly, we have to follow Loid!”

“Huh?” said Damian. He wasn’t sure what was going on. “Why? Where are we going?”

Yor grabbed his arm and dragged him before her. “There’s no time, Damian! We have to get to Anya! Quickly!”

Yor’s hand slipped from Damian’s shoulder and she accidentally grabbed the leather strap of his satchel. Yor hesitated briefly while she weighed it in her hands. “Do you have a weapon in this?”

“Er-” said Damian, who couldn’t believe he had just been caught red-handed.

“Bring it,” said Yor, and tossed it back to him. “We’re going to need it to get Anya back.”

Damian felt his heart begin to race. “Has she been found? Are we going to go and get her?”

As an answer, she dragged him into the car.

Yor slammed the car door behind her and said to the driver: “Quickly, but not too closely! Otherwise he'll realise that we're following him!” 

She hadn’t missed when he said ‘bring the other agents’, but she didn’t have time to unpack that. Only to know that her husband was far more capable than she thought, and try to keep out of his range of detection. 

They drove for a while through Berlint, until it was only trees and all the buildings disappeared. Damian looked in awe as the landscape quickly changed. 

Finally, less than a week after her disappearance and abduction, they were on their way to get Anya. 

At the thought of being trapped in a car with the most terrifying woman in the world, Damian’s mouth had gone completely dry. Suddenly, he understood how Anya had become so strong with this woman’s training.

He also remembered when she specifically said that she didn't want to call her mama to come and rescue him from the kidnapper because she would “just beat everyone up”. Even before then, Damian had found himself wondering what kind of person Mrs Forger was if she had made such a violent impression on both her husband and daughter. 

Damian swallowed, and he realised that he was trapped in very close quarters with a living weapon.

Weapons! Damian realised. If there was any chance that they could get some additional backup, then he had to call Becky. 

No sooner than Damian flipped open his phone, fully intending to call Becky, did Yor’s manicured hand snap it shut. 

“What do you think you’re doing?” Damian said authoritatively, before he belatedly realised who he was talking to. The ‘Desmond’ personality could be too prominent sometimes. He tried again. “We need the Blackbells if we’re going to-”

“No.”

Mrs Forger said it so emphatically that it gave him pause. “Excuse me?”

She released his grip with an apologetic grimace. “You can’t call your friends for help. Think about it. We're heading to a lab for human experimentation. Do you really want them knowing that about Anya?”

Her face softened a fraction. “Trust me on this. Once you let a secret out, you can never take it back.” 

Damian stared at her, stunned. He got the distinct sense from Mrs Forger that she meant business, and had some idea of what they were up against. As much as he was thrilled at the thought of rescuing Anya, he also hadn’t forgotten about the promise he had made with his friends. He had only come so far with their help - but, seeing her serious expression gave him pause. 

And, worst of all, she was right . He knew she was right. 

What was he thinking - trying to drag Becky and the rest of their friends into this? There was no telling how any of them would react, or how it would affect Anya for the rest of her life. 

Damian leaned down to put his phone away, and the gun slipped out from the bag. Damian froze in horror as he tried to see how Mrs Forger would react to this new complication. She looked impassive, with a stony expression.

“That's a good make,” she said eventually. “They have decent accuracy. Do you know how to use it?” 

Damian, gulped and shook his head. That was her response? Who was this woman?

Yor’s face softened. From her perspective, she had brought her knives, it was only fair that Damian had something to defend himself with, too. “Here, let me show you…”

She showed Damian how to cock the gun and hold it, and gave him a few extra tips while she was at it. “If you're standing, you need to keep your feet shoulders width apart, and if you're kneeling, it will help you to keep the stability. Don't forget to be mindful of the recoil.”

“Recoil?” Damian wondered aloud.

“When you push the trigger, you have to hold it very steady so that it doesn’t blow back and bludgeon you. We wouldn’t want you to have your nose broken for a second time, would we?” Yor exhaled in a hollow laugh.

Damian vaguely hoped that wasn't a threat.

Twilight killed the engine, and then made some way on the foot to the facility. He used his binoculars to check ahead and see what he was dealing with.

The facility looked modest, but Twilight silently thought to himself that he wouldn't be surprised if there were some secret underground parts that made up the facility as a whole. He also noticed several groups of highly armed guards in riot gear patrolling the grounds.

He thought back to his chat with Erik Zacharis. 

Zacharis seemed hesitant to tell him what the human experiments were for, but he gave Twilight a vague idea of what he was up against.

“Your daughter, Anya, was it? I knew her as Subject 007.”

Twilight sat up in his chair. “What are you saying?”

“She was very young at the time, she may not remember me but it was my job to infiltrate the place, find out their purpose of human experimentation, and give it to the government and the intelligence agencies so that we could shut it down. I was only meant to be in and out and not actually engage in any combat or anything of the sort, but I realised that many of the human experiments were actually children, so I secretly worked on an escape plan for them.

“I befriended a few of the children there, and with the help of some of the more sympathetic staff I helped them to escape. I had hoped that they were out into the world, leading lovely and fulfilling lives, making new connections, and building their families. I was very saddened to hear from your colleague last week that your daughter had been abducted, and I believe that the same organisation may have tried to retrieve her.”

In Twilight’s stunned silence, Zacharis had continued: “They will very likely see her as government property, so if she has been taken, it's probably because they were finally able to. She was so young when she managed to escape, so I would guess that she really had no idea that they would be out there looking for her.

“We need to… no, I'm too old now to be involved in the action, but you need to make sure that this gets passed to the police so that they can find her.”

Twilight nodded, and privately knew that there was no way he would pass it onto the police. This case needed to be handled delicately, skilfully, and personally.

Twilight took the piece of paper from Zacharis. “How did you know that it was my daughter? How do you know that it was Anya?”

Zacharis’ knuckles went white from clutching his walking stick. “007 is a very singular person, she is a lovely bright spark, and I would recognise her hair and her face anywhere. Rescuing her was one of the things that I was the most proud of in my life. There were some other children there, and I had hoped that we would be able to get them out as well, but we never knew what happened to them.”

Twilight looked down sullenly. He could guess.

It was lucky that Anya got out when she did, then.

Twilight nodded to himself resolutely. “I'm going to need some more information about the facility.”

Twilight stared at the wall of the facility and tried to piece together what Zacharis had told him. Sure enough, the walls were of an odd symmetrical design, that Zacharis had mentioned was meant to trick people thinking that the building was smaller than it was, but in fact the entire inside of the laboratory was like a maze.

“She'll be in the special projects unit,” said Zacharis, and didn't elaborate.

A sinking feeling started to form in Twilight’s stomach. Whatever Anya had been involved in before he found and adopted her - it had come back to haunt her in full force, and stole her from him. Twilight got the same prickling feeling that he had when a bomb was about to fall.

Something in his life was about to explode.

And he needed it to not be his family. 

Twilight checked the binoculars, and carefully made his way to the East side of the building. Zacharis had mentioned that there was a secondary entrance that he may be able to hack into, since their main entrance was likely heavily guarded. 

He cocked his gun and ran over to the entrance, thinking the whole time that he needed to hide himself and make sure that no one could see him 

From the intel that Zacharis gave him, he needed to get in with a code. Of course, Zacharis had been there decades ago, so anything could have happened in the time in-between. Maybe they didn't even use codes anymore. If it was biometrics then he was absolutely fucked.

Twilight grunted to himself. It would be just like Fate to deal him a shit card. 

Twilight hid behind a parked car as he saw another car pull up to the main driveway, and a person wearing a lab coat behind the wheel. He made his way over behind the cars, careful to keep himself out of sight.

When they stepped out, Twilight was ready. He tapped them on the shoulder. 

“Excuse me,” said Twilight casually, and he injected them with a small tranquiliser. It knocked them out instantly. He analysed their face quickly and was able to programme a silicone mask to look exactly like the mysterious doctor: He had a shock of white hair, and a small crooked nose, and it looked like he wore glasses as well.

He looked at the man's ID badge. Dr Allen Atkinson, Human Abilities Specialist.

Twilight sucked in his teeth. Anything with the word ‘human’ would probably get him on the right track to finding Anya. He tied up the real Dr Allen Atkinson, and left him in the trunk of his own car. Hopefully Dr Atkinson would not wake up until Twilight had finished the mission.

Anyone who saw him would have assumed that he was the Dr Atkinson, although he hoped that nobody would ask him too many questions. He couldn’t afford to get found out before he had even reached Anya…

Then, Twilight (now disguised as Dr Atkinson), walked up to the building and looked at the security system there.

He breathed out a sigh of relief. No biometric systems were installed, but he immediately identified the lock as a 1966 model that used a four digit code. Twilight could feel his smile turning up. How ancient could these guys be?

Twilight dusted the keypad, and analysed the powder fragments further on the keypad, noting not only which keys were pressed the most, but also the direction of the grease that showed up from the powder. When he traced the direction of movement with his own fingers, he figured out the final code easily. 

The light on the keypad flashed green when he entered the code, and Twilight let the satisfaction show on his face. 

“Back from your break so soon, Dr Atkinson?” drawled a voice behind him, and Twilight spun to see another man there. He wore light slacks and a shirt covered by a white lab coat, and had an exceedingly bald head with a sharp nose. It reminded Twilight vaguely of an eagle. 

“Er, haha,” Twilight laughed nervously, and inwardly cursed when he saw the keypad light switch back from green to red. He quickly thought back to the faint smell of cigarette smoke on Dr Atkinson’s clothes. “I thought I’d better skip the smoke today, trying to improve my health and all that…” He glanced at the man's ID badge.

Dr Jeremy Parker…

Dr Parker walked up to the keypad, and swiped his own ID card first then quickly typed the code. Twilight frowned at the thought that he would have to act like Dr Atkinson with zero intel.

Twilight followed Dr Parker into the facility.

“So that 007,” Dr Parker chuckled.  “What a handful.”

Twilight’s attention piqued immediately. Were they talking about Anya? As he recalled, that was how Mr Zacharis had referred to her as well. 

“Yeah,” he agreed. “She is.”

Dr Parker knitted his brows together. “What's up with you? You're awfully quiet today.”

Twilight pressed his lips together. Shit . This was exactly why he hated rushing a mission. “Just didn't sleep very well. What's the detail for today?”

Dr Parker shrugged his shoulders noncommittally. “The usual. More tests. See how much she can take.” 

Twilight’s blood started to boil, but he tried not to show any of it on his face. He had to rely on his training as a spy more than ever to keep his emotions hidden.

I’m coming for you, Anya.

Outside the facility, Damian and Yor emerged from the car. 

She quickly scanned the premises. “Okay,” she said to Damian. “I think I can get to the roof. I can see a few vents, so if we get to them we might be able to get inside and see if we can reach Anya, and maybe see where Loid went.”

Damian peered head. “There's two scientists there. We can follow them in.”

Yor looked ahead of him, and nodded. “Hm. You're right. And there doesn’t seem to be any CCTV or guards at this particular entrance.”

He followed Yor as she moved ahead. He held the gun in his hands, while she brought out a series of stiletto knives. Damian eyed them suspiciously. “What are those for?”

She shrugged. “I did say we might need weapons. These are some lovely knives Loid got for me for Christmas.”

“Right,” said Damian, not convinced. First of all, the knife that she carried looked nothing like the normal knives that would be in the kitchen. They were… pointier, for sure.

Ahead of them, two scientists entered the building, and the door secured behind them.

Yor scanned the area ahead, before running up to the door. “I know this lock!” she exclaimed with stars in her eyes. “It’s a 1966 model, fairly reliable tech-wise, but structurally it is very easy to disable.” And she smashed it with her elbow.

The light faded from the keypad, and the door creaked open on its own hinges.

“Perfect,” smiled Yor, and Damian gaped after her.

How the hell did she do that? What the fuck is this woman?

He followed Yor into the facility, but both started to hear the sound of footsteps coming from around the corner.

“Quickly,” whispered Yor. “Through here!”

She dragged him into an open office, and locked the door behind her. 

Damian took a moment to glance around the room. Papers were strewn across the desk, and every inch of the walls were hidden behind bookshelves laden with stacks of videotapes. A golden plate labelled ‘The Director’ sat facing the door, and Damian quietly wondered what kind of person would call themselves such a hubristic name as ‘The Director’. 

Damian peered quizzically at the labelled videotapes. They seemed to be in some order of progressing numbers. His gaze caught on a series of videotapes labelled ‘007’, and he held his breath. 

Didn’t he hear Adrian call her ‘007’?

Yor swiped at some of the papers on the desk. “I wonder what some of these mean,” she said. 

“We don't have time to find out,” Damian said with his eye pressed against the peephole. “I think there's something going on outside. There seem to be people running in the corridors.”

“In that case,” said Yor, and she pocketed the papers. “We’ll make our way through the vents, so we’ll avoid any confrontation,” She offered her palms for him to step into, and she lifted him into the vents. 

She boosted Damian into the ceiling, and he only had time to shuffle forward a few steps before Yor leaped into the vents after him, which groaned dangerously under the density of Yor’s athletic body.

He was almost surprised at her swift agility, before he reminded himself that he had literally seen her scale the sides of a building. Was this normal for her?

He shook it off. “Lets try going this way,” he whispered, and they both made their way through.

Damian’s heart beat loud in his ears as they shuffled forward as quickly as they could, but every hideous groan of the vent made his heart leap into his mouth. With each tentative step, the metal shuddered hazardously beneath him, and he worried that they would fall through before they would even be able to find her.  

I’m on my way, Anya. 

We’re coming to get you. 

Twilight tried not to say anything more as he followed Dr Parker through the facility, and he could see the ground plan of it all in his mind's eyes. It was a little bigger than he suspected from the outside, but overall the twists and turns were quite easy to navigate. Dr Parker buzzed them both into a huge room, and Twilight looked around it in awe.

There were computer monitors everywhere, and giant machines that beeped and displayed heaps of graphs and scanning patterns. There were brain scans, wave forms (likely from the brain waves linking up to something), and various other health monitors that he had seen and recognised from working in a hospital. There was oxygen saturation of the blood, breathing rate, heart rate, and even blood glucose levels. 

Then, a giant picture on a board of a spinning brain, with areas of it lighting up in various colours. Twilight couldn't even begin to interpret some of them, but he could guess by looking at the cerebrum on the board that they were trying to analyse patterns of brain activity in response to certain stimuli. To his trained eye, most of the light seemed to concentrate in the medial-temporal cortex.

He brought his gaze down, noting all the various scientists that were at their stations, and probably some nurses as well, but his breath caught when he saw what was in the middle of the room.

A gigantic tank of water.

And in the middle of it, his daughter. Anya floated peacefully, connected to a huge web of tubes and wires.

Her loose pink hair swirled around her like reeds in the wind. It looked ethereal, and in some way it almost looked beautiful, but never in his life had Twilight felt more sick to his stomach than he did at that moment in time.

She had her eyes closed, and Twilight wondered what they had drugged her with. Would she be able to hear them at all?

“It’s only been a few hours since the last serum has been sent into her bloodstream,” said Dr Parker casually, jolting Twilight out of his thoughts. “We have baseline scans from the EEG the other day, but the gamma and theta wave readings we have been getting since then are completely off the charts. She's been reacting strongly to the serums, so ahead of the third phase tomorrow, we need to make sure that we create a record of their effects, and to see what else we can do to strengthen her powers.”

Her powers? Twilight wanted to say, but he knew that if he said it out loud then that might give him away as not the real Dr Atkinson. 

He followed Dr Parker down to the tank, and flinched as the doctor rapped his knuckles sharply against the glass. “She's out cold,” he said.

“I can see that,” said Twilight through gritted teeth, and his heart dropped. It looked like trying to get Anya out might be harder than he originally thought. Not only that, but it was clear that he didn’t have time to wait for WISE to get there - he had to get her out now , before they killed her with whatever vile things they were putting into her bloodstream.

Twilight looked up at Anya once again. She looked so peaceful, but that was no doubt due to the cocktail of drugs that coursed through her body.

He had a million questions. Why her? Why Anya? What was so special about her that they needed to re-abduct her as a teenager and conduct these kinds of tests on her? In all his years as a spy, he had never seen anything like it.

He became a spy so that children wouldn't have to suffer anymore, and even though Anya was a teenager, she was his child. She needed the adults in the world to protect her, and instead they had her trapped and sedated.

He gritted his teeth. How useless was he as a father, that she had ended up here under his watch?

Twilight also wanted to ask why it was just Anya that they had suspended in a tub of water, but once again, Twilight had the sense that the real Dr Atkinson knew this. If Twilight dared to ask any of the questions on his mind, he could blow his cover.

“Can I check over that?” said Twilight coolly, pointing at Dr Parker’s clipboard. When he handed it over, Twilight tried to scan it quickly.

Twilight felt his throat tighten up.

They had filled her with sedatives, including fentanyl. It was a type of opiate that produced extremely strong sedative effects, but it worried him to see that they had also given her a whole host of other drugs as well. Tramadol, an intermediate painkiller, and diazepam, for a start, which was a type of mood stabiliser. They had their other uses of course, but in the psychiatric hospital back in Berlint, only patients who were in extreme distress were given medications with that level of severity.

Then there was a whole host of other substances that he had no idea what they meant, but they had a series of numbers and letters after them, which told Twilight that they were formulated on the premises. They must be the experimental serums that Dr Parker had mentioned.

Twilight made a mental note to get her tolerance for these checked once they got out of there, but he would find out what they were later. At that moment, his priority was to rescue his daughter.

He rested a hand on the cold glass.

I’m here, Anya. I’m getting you out.

Your Papa is getting you out of here.

Chapter Text

Damian crawled through the vent, with Yor right behind him. He tried not to think about how they were basically going in blind to a laboratory where they experimented on humans. What if they got caught, and the scientists experimented on them too? What if they got stuck in the vents? What if they got trapped here forever and then she could never go back to Eden College and he never saw Anya again for real?

Damian shook his head in an effort to clear away the thoughts. No, he had to focus. 

Behind him, Yor dragged herself slowly through the vent. “You doing okay?” she whispered to him.

Damian nodded before realising that she couldn't see him. “Mm hmm,” he intoned, and continued further.

Voices floated through a particularly bright vent just ahead of him. They sounded important.

Just ahead of him there was a clear crossroads in the vents, so he used them to twist directions and shuffle back round to Yor, and come face to face with her.

Yor seemed to understand what Damian was hinting at, as she stopped by the delicate slats as well, and allowed Damian to get a bit closer. 

They both peered in, trying to see what they were looking at.

Mumbling voices drifted up through the slats, and the shuffling feet of hurried scientists, and Damian could see the top of what looked like a gigantic vat full of water. Dozens of tubes filtered in through the top of the vat, and spread out on a metal platform around it.

If Damian squinted, he could see something pink.

“Mrs Forger,” he whispered warily. “I think that's her.”

Yor caught her breath and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “It might be,” she said. “We need to figure out how to get down there.” Her voice turned into a hoarse whisper. “We’re coming for you, Anya.”

They quietened as they heard voices coming from the entrance of the room.

“Orders from the Director!” they called. “We’re to move on to Phase Three of the experimentation process ahead of schedule. Prepare to seal the capsule!”

There was a flurry of movement, and something twisted in Damian’s gut. ‘Sealing the capsule’ did not sound good. 

There was a space as the original speaker consulted their notes. “We have to take measurements of her current state, before we continue the phasing.”

“But this is 007 we’re working with!” The bald-headed doctor continued: “She has so much value for us to learn something new, something different! Why are we conducting standard tests on her when we could be pushing the limits of superhuman abilities??”

“For God's sake Dr Parker, 007 isn't your personal project!” Spat the other man. “She belongs to the government and the Director, so you have to make sure that she doesn't get hurt in the process. Once we get those tests out of the way, you can do whatever you like with her - but not until the Director gives her direct say so.”

Damian and Yor made desperate eye contact. “Did he just say 007?” They both said at the same time, and glanced down again at the blurry figure in the tank.

Pink hair.

It was her.

Damian started to sweat. If he didn’t get her out immediately, they were going to seal the tank and experiment on her!!

“You stay here Damian,” said Yor gently. “I'm going to go down and get her, and then we'll make our way out of here.”

“But there's so many of them!” he hissed, panic building in his veins. “How are you going to go up against so many of them all at the same time?”

At her tight smile, Damian sucked in a breath, as he suddenly remembered her capacity for violence, and the fact that she carried knives, knew about locks, and taught him how to use a gun in five minutes. 

The vision of Mrs Forger holding Adrian by the throat crossed his mind.  “Actually, nevermind.”

The vents groaned hazardously beneath them, and Damian gasped.

“Mrs Forger, we have to move -”

There was a shudder, and a crack.

And the ceiling broke beneath them.

“You handle the sedatives and anxiolytics,” ordered Dr Parker. “I can deal with the serums today. We’ll even get it done before dinner. You were given the schedule by the Director, correct?” 

Loid was beginning to think that he needed to find out who this ‘Director’ was, and possibly murder them. Violently.

“Uh-” he said, when a huge groan came from above. It sounded like a cruise ship turning.

Dr Parker’s head snapped up. “What the heck is-”

A huge weight bulged in the ceiling, and a burst of debris spilt into the air, producing a gigantic cloud of dust.

As other scientists raced for cover, coughed up dirt and attempted to close their eyes and mouth, Twilight used the cover to its full potential. He raced up the fragile stairs to the top of the platform. Several huge pieces of debris, and a couple of bodies, blocked his path.

Twilight considered leaping over it all, but then both of the bodies sat up coughing.

“Damian! Are you okay?”

Even with all the smoke and piles of debris around them, Twilight sucked in a breath in surprise, and then immediately regretted it as he started coughing. 

“Who’s there?” Yor sharpened her attention at Twilight’s silhouette in the cloud of dust, and whipped out her knives. 

“I'm here to help,” Twilight coughed. “We need to set her free-”

A groan from the side, and Yor snapped her head to the side. “Damian? Damian is that you?”

Another figure sat up in the cloud of dust, and wheezed a little. “Bruised,” he said eventually. “But I’m alive.”

“This way,” said Twilight, cursing internally. What he initially mistook for a welcome distraction was actually two human sized problems. 

He only had a small window of time to rescue Anya, and now he had both Damian and his wife to worry about. If anything happened to that boy, Loid would never hear the end of it.

Twilight found Yor and Damian in the dust and helped them both up. “Quickly, up the stairs. We need to remove the tubes, and pull her out.”

In the epicentre of the dust cloud, they could see each other a bit more clearly, and Twilight was astonished by Yor’s appearance. She had been dressed entirely in black, with a cluster of golden stiletto knives gathered at her hips.

Twilight paused. Since when does Yor carry weapons? 

Twilight’s hand curled into a fist as he resisted asking her outright, then he glanced over at Damian. He was looking a little worse for wear, and still in his fucking Eden Academy uniform!

Twilight groaned inwardly. What bad luck that these two would show up and make his job a lot harder. 

Twilight calculated that it had been ten seconds since the dust cloud had formed, and they were quickly gaining visibility. There was no time to waste.

“You two focus on pulling Anya from the tank and making sure she’s safe, I’ll try to hold them off.” 

Yor grabbed his shoulder. “Not so fast! Why are you helping us? Don't you work here?”

“Do you really have time to be asking me questions like that?” Twilight snapped. “We’re out of time!”

“No, you’re right,” and her eyes narrowed into slits. “You and Damain here pull her out. I can handle the rest of them.”

Twilight would have argued with her, but after twelve years of marriage, he knew that look, and he knew that there was no point in trying to win an argument with her. He rushed over to Damian.

“Over there,” Twilight directed Damian round the side of the tank.

It was so much worse than he thought. A huge collection of tubes and wires sprawled at his feet, and Loid couldn't tell which ones were vital and which were not. How does anyone not label anything in this damn place?

“We’re going to have to pull her up,” Twilight said, but then he looked at the tubes and tried to gather them, but they were too big, and too many of them. They fell helplessly through his hands.

“Is that really safe?” worried Damian.

Twilight gritted his teeth and looked at the water. He couldn’t go into the water without taking off his disguise and revealing himself. 

But he didn’t have to.

Damian pushed forwards, and threw his Eden Academy jacket at the stunned figure of Dr Atkinson, and kicked off his shoes. “Here, hold this,” he said, and jumped into the water.

All Twilight could do was stare after Damian in amazement. No hesitation!

But as Damian pushed himself off the platform and into the water, something heavy skidded towards him. Twilight picked up the gun that had landed at his feet. 

Where did Damian get a gun from?

Then he heard the sounds of screaming, and he jerked his head up quickly. The cloud of dust had long dissipated, and he was looking at a warzone.

Yor held her stiletto knives at people’s throats, and the scientists trembled in a huddle before her. She had everyone backed up against the wall, and she brandished her stiletto knives generously. 

“Nobody move!” she roared. “If you move, I will cut you . We are going to take my daughter, and bring her back home and you are going to let us - do you understand?”

As one, everybody in the room gulped, including Twilight.

He knew his wife could be scary, but this was on another level.

In the silence, a woman’s voice screeched over the intercom: “Seal the capsule now!!”

Damian didn’t even feel the chill of the water as he dived in. He was so close to saving Anya, and being able to bring her back home.

She looked so ethereal, suspended in the water like this. He wanted to reach out and stroke her pink hair that radiated from her like a halo of roses. He wanted to caress her face, tell her that it was okay, tell her that they were going home.

The salt in the water stung Damian’s eyes, but he kept them open and he tried to trace along the tubes and the wires that had been placed in there along with her. How was he supposed to lift her out if she was connected to all of that?

His hands grazed her face, and he felt the oxygen mask over her nose and mouth.

Under the water, Anya’s eyes drifted open. 

Anya didn't have any dreams. She had been in a drug induced sleep for who knows how long, and she hadn’t used her senses for such a long time, she almost felt like she didn't exist anymore. She drifted into an endless and euphoric slumber, where the only thing that had kept her connected to the world was the series of lights and colours surrounding her, although it was hard to see any details through the tank. 

Other people’s thoughts flashed and fizzled in her mind like lights, but only a few stood out to her. She recognised their voices, their love for her, and they told her that they were coming for her. They told her they would get her out. That they were going home.

The disturbance in the water rippled over her skin. Her elevated sense of touch picked up the waves of movement rolling towards her, but she felt too sleepy, too drugged to respond. 

A hand gently skimmed along her arms, over where the tubes had been connected to her. And then it grazed her face. 

In her drugged haze, she imagined that it was Sy-on boy, telling her to wake up from her dreams.

She opened her eyes blearily. Even with the water blurring her vision, she would recognise him anywhere. 

Damian floated before her.

She gasped, and the oxygen mask fogged up. 

Damian is here? How?

There was no time to think. Pain tugged at her arms as Damian tried to pull the tubes from her. Bubbles fizzled from his mouth in a frustrated, steady stream. The wires disconnected easily, but the tubes had affixed her relentlessly into place. 

Shit shit shit! I can’t get them out! 

While everything else was a blur to her, his thoughts resonated clearly in her mind. She wanted to reach out and touch him, if just to make sure that it wasn’t all a dream. 

I have to free her!

Pain burst in Anya’s and Damian’s ears as something grinded above them, and darkness closed over them.

Loid had never heard anything like it in his life. Certainly not from her . 

A beastly scream clawed its way out of Yor’s body. It shattered the air. Rattled the blood in their veins. It grabbed everyone within hearing distance and shook them by their throats.

The lid sealed over the tank with a final and deafening hiss , trapping Damian and Anya inside it.

“You bastards!!” she seethed.

Yor unleashed her rage.

She turned her back on the collection of shivering scientists and tore her way through the labyrinthine layout of desks, tossing them aside as though they were cardboard. She closed in on the tank, and raised her fist to -

A gun clicked by her temple.

Yor stopped in her tracks. The airflow generated by her attack swirled around them.

Blinded by rage, she had failed to notice the bald-headed doctor raise his weapon.

“Step away from the experiment,” he ordered sternly, but his finger trembled on the trigger.

Though Yor bared her teeth in a menacing, beastly growl, he shakily stood his ground. “I’m warning you-”

Bang!

Yor’s ears rang as she watched Dr Parker step back, and a red flower bloomed rapidly across his shoulder and chest. His eyes met Yor’s as he fell backwards, and his head hit the ground with a crack . 

A shout from above: “Yor! Go, now!!”

She shook the ringing out of her head, and spared a grateful nod to Dr Atkinson, before she squared her shoulders toward the gigantic water tank in front of her.

Aim forward, hips follow through-

Yor channelled the strength of a meteor screaming to earth.

“STRIKE!”

Her fist slammed into the glass, shattering it on impact. Water seeped in streams from the cracks.

She leapt away before the wave thundered outwards, spraying saltwater and glass everywhere.

The water flow tried to pull Anya from the tank, but the remaining tubes held her fast. Damian had wrapped his arms around her as if his life depended on it as he, too, was pulled by the current, before the water disappeared and their feet touched merciful ground.

When they landed, his lungs gasped awake. Damian wheezed for breath and spluttered up mouthfuls of water.

“Damian!” Yor ducked under a large shard of glass and stepped towards him. “Are you okay? Can you breathe?”

Damian vaguely nodded as another coughing fit spurted from him. 

There was a whirring noise that penetrated Damian’s eardrums, and then in a cloud of steam, several of the tubes detached from Anya’s arms on their own while she lay curled up on the cold metal floor.

Her eyes fluttered open.

Light set her eyes ablaze, and she tried to close them again against the harshness of it. The oxygen mask fell from her and she sucked in the lab air in a strangled gasp.  

Every sense was alight. The metal floor of the capsule pierced her with frigidity, and the lights blinded her. Closing her eyes against it did nothing. Even the hands that had grabbed her elbows were too painful for her, but she felt too weak to make a sound.

Then the tremors overtook her. The water had leached the warmth from her body.

Damian didn’t even see Dr Atkinson enter the sheltered, broken capsule with them, but suddenly he was there, holding Anya close to his chest.

In his arms, Anya stirred. “Papa?” she mumbled. 

“Shh,” said Dr Atkinson. “It’ll be okay.”

To Damian’s astonishment, Anya settled herself in the arms of Dr Atkinson almost instantly. 

Damian snatched his jacket back from Dr Atkinson and draped it over Anya, in an effort to stop her shivering, and at that moment a piercing noise screeched through the facility. 

A siren. Shortly followed by the flashing glow of red lights, and an incredible groaning sound. 

Twilight cursed. “We have to get out of here!” He turned to Damian. “You take her, I’ll watch your back.”

Damian gently picked Anya up from Dr Atkinson’s offering arms and cradled her close to his chest. She was so cold to the touch. He tried to tuck his jacket around her, and followed Loid out the capsule.

The groaning sound continued ominously. Damian clutched Anya tightly as he followed Loid from under the glass remnants of the testing water tank, and the two splashed their way across the flooded lab.

Twilight sucked in a gasp when he realised what they were doing. “They’re shutting down the building! They're going to have us locked in here!”

And both wondered the same thing: Where did Yor go?

When Twilight heard a bear-like roar, he oriented instantly towards it.

Yor held open the closing doors of the lab with her sheer brute strength. She strained against it with all of her might, but the thick metal around her hands dented with the effort of trying to crush her.

She was giving them an opening! 

“Through there!” Twilight shouted to Damian. “Hurry!”

Together, they dived through the doors before Yor leapt away, and the heavy doors of the lab slammed shut behind them.

Yor sprinted down the corridors first, knives out like claws.

Damian followed, keeping Anya secure in his arms.

Twilight held up the rear, gun in his hand. 

As they rounded another corner, Yor stopped so abruptly that Twilight nearly bumped into her, and Damian’s face hit Dr Atkinson’s back. He stepped back and tried to see the whole picture in front of him.

Security guards lined the corridor like beetles, all guns aimed at them.

An unmistakable murmur of: “That’s Damian Desmond.” 

Damian gulped. Shit. They knew him?

“Get Anya out of here!” Yor shouted to Damian. “I’ll handle them!”

Damian retreated behind Yor, his heart hammering in his ribcage. Staring down the barrels of so many guns pointed right at him dried up his mouth completely. His legs rooted through the floor.

The lead security guard stepped forwards. “Release Subject 007, and put your hands behind your heads.”

A paternal voice murmured to Damian. “Take care of her,” said Dr Atkinson out of the side of his mouth, and he clicked the safety of the gun.

“Damian, Go!” shouted Yor. “I’m right behind you!”

A burst of adrenaline shot through him, and Damian ran without thinking, clutching the soaking Anya to his chest, while the sound of gunshots rang out behind him. He sprinted through the corridors as fast as his legs could take him.

But even more than adrenaline, it was one thought that kept him going.

Hold on, Anya. I’m getting us out of here.

He ran into the maze of corridors. It only took one minute before Damian felt the panic starting to rise in his chest. There were so many corridors, so many ways out. How was he supposed to know which way to take?

He skidded around another (blissfully unguarded) corner, when his heart leapt into his mouth.

A man leaned heavily against the walls, and started as soon as he saw Damian. 

With the white overalls, he could have passed for a scientist in the lab, but Damian recognised the pattern of buttons on his uniform, the hairnet snapped over his blond hair.

A chef?

The man’s eyes flickered down to Anya, and Damian instinctively retreated, turning her so that her face was obscured from this new threat.

“Relax,” the man panted, and waved one hand in the air in surrender. He was dripping in sweat, as though had just run a marathon. “I can’t hurt you.”

As if to emphasise the point, the man sagged further down the wall, and leaned his back against it, trying to catch his breath. “You wanna follow all the paths that go left.”

Damian eyed him with suspicion, but then he heard the pops of bullets echoing down the corridors, and his feet moved on instinct. 

Yor snapped open her stiletto knives in a fan formation. Her eyes flicked over to inspect Dr Atkinson’s gun, as he eyed her knives warily.

“What are those?” he gulped. Twilight was pretty sure that he had never seen them before. Did she keep them in the house? 

She was the picture of innocence. “A present from my husband. Just the tools of a housewife!”

She flicked her wrist and threw the first knife, and true to its aim, she sliced a man clear through the throat. Blood spurted from the wound in his neck - almost comically - before he buckled and collapsed to the linoleum floor.

Twilight realised that he had no time to interrogate his wife, and he started blasting bullets as more and more security guards made their way towards them, all cylinders firing. 

“Behind you!” shouted Yor. She leapt and stabbed a man holding a gun right against his forehead. 

Twilight gulped. How did he miss that? And how was Yor keeping up with him?

As they fought, trying to buy Damian and Anya as much time as possible, it dawned on Twilight that he had never seen his wife fight to this extent. She was a beast - and he knew he had made a terrible mistake underestimating her.

She wasn’t just keeping up with him. She was overtaking him by a thousand miles.

Yor spilled blood mercilessly, while Loid fought to stay alive. 

He was certain that she had never shown this side of herself before, but while Yor fought beside him, he couldn’t take off his disguise, and he couldn't make the emergency call to WISE.

“I’ll handle the rest of them!” he shouted to Yor, and wiped the blood off his brow. “You get Damian and Anya out of here!”

Yor turned back to Dr Atkinson, and speared another guard in the throat without a second glance. “Right!” And she wiped her knives on the guards clothing, folded her knives together, and flew towards the exit.

Beneath the silicone mask of Dr Atkinson’s face, sweat dripped down Loid’s brow. Yor didn’t even look phased when she had killed so many people, and even left the fight with not a single drop of blood on her. 

As soon as she was out of eyesight, Twilight ripped away his disguise in relief. He felt the spy-nature return to him, and his character as Dr Atkinson fell away.

The guard stared at him in shock. 

“Who - who are you?”

Twilight didn't even dignify them with an answer when he fired the gun at them. 

As soon as the guards had dropped to the ground, more appeared to take their place. Twilight narrowed his eyes and he dropped his lab coat. It was just dead weight anyway.

I’m Anya’s father .

Chapter Text

Damian’s chauffeur, Hugh, had a lot of requests, but this was probably the strangest one. He sat back in his seat, relaxed, and read the newspaper. It was nice to be out in the middle of nowhere around the trees, but Master Damian hadn’t exactly given him any instructions on what to do while they were out there, or how long he would be.

He liked his job, and he was good at it. He liked being a driver. He often had moments of peace throughout the day where he had time to think to himself. 

Birds chirped. The rasp of wind blowing through the trees, and then…

The sound of sirens split the sky, and Hugh jumped out of his skin.

The newspaper shook as he dropped it over the steering wheel to look out to the forest.

Alarms blared from the white building in front of him, while dishevelled, people in soaking white lab coats ran out of it screaming, some tripping over themselves to get out and away as fast as possible.

He spotted two running figures coming towards him, and he carefully rolled down the window of the tinted car. 

And then he saw it.

The young master ran toward the car with the girl - it must have been Anya  - in his arms. She looked like a poor bedraggled thing, with wet pink hair, covered by Damian’s Eden Academy jacket. 

“Start the car!!” Damian ordered, and Hugh jolted into life. He turned the ignition just as Damian and Yor threw themselves into the backseat.

“Hurry! We need to get out of here!”

The chauffeur set the car into reverse and floored it back to the main road, skidded, and set off again towards Berlint.

His eyes flicked to the back of the car - what the hell had happened in that building?

Well. That was the end of the quiet day then.

“Is she breathing?” Damian cried out. “She's so cold…”

“It'll be okay, Damian,” Yor said, and then she burst into tears. “But I can't thank you enough. You got my daughter back!”

Even from the driver’s seat, the chauffeur could see the red of Damian’s face. “It w-was nothing…”

The girl in the backseat stirred once again and both Yor and Damian sprang up at once.

“Come here Anya, come here,” Yor said, in the gentle voice only a mother could have.

Hugh averted his eyes from the touching reunion in the backseat, and focused on getting them all home. They must have had one hell of a day.

Damian couldn't breathe as he stared at the near-lifeless form of Anya Forger. She had her eyes closed, and although she had dried off a little bit, her skin was cold to the touch. Her lips and fingertips even started to look a little blue…

“We need to take her to a hospital,” said Damian.

Yor noticed it at the same time that he did. “Damian, Do you have any clothes in this car? Blankets, or anything?”

“Er,” said Damian and he scrambled at the drawers underneath the seats, but both came out empty. “No, I'm sorry, we don't have…”

An idea sparked. He rummaged around in his school bag, and pulled out a perfectly folded Imperial Scholar’s cloak, and draped it over Anya’s unconscious body. 

He watched, speechless, as Yor manoeuvred herself to keep Anya on her lap, and she took off her own coat and draped it over the both of them, trying to keep as much heat in as possible.

“I’ll keep my daughter warm,” she said, and looked at Damian with tears in her eyes. “You just focus on telling the driver where to go.”

“Uh,” said Damian. “Sure.” And he swallowed. He felt as though something had gotten stuck in his throat. 

They drove on in silence, and Damian didn't dare tear his eyes away from the steady rise and fall of Anya's breathing. He couldn't believe that she was actually there and in front of him, but the adrenaline still coursed through his body. His entire body was tense, on edge.

“Damian,” Yor said softly. “You did everything you could. You can relax now.”

Damian shook his head. “No I can't! What if she gets taken again? What if she disappears forever next time?”

Yor stared at him in surprise. “Damian…”

“And we still need to figure out what the hell that place even was, how they managed to get Anya in the first place, and why they wanted her of all people?”

“I think we already know,” said Yor gently. “Since Adrian told us…”

Yor clutched the sleeping Anya tighter to her. “I wonder if she’s okay…”

During the search for Anya, Damian had conveniently managed to forget what Adrian had told them. A part of Damian still wondered if any of it was true.

Telepathy? A human experimentation? Subject 007?

He didn't want to believe it, but he had seen evidence with his own eyes, and he couldn’t ignore it any longer. Even thinking about the fact that she had been there before was too much for him. How could someone survive such a horrific place twice?

He glanced at her reflection in the window. He didn’t want to look like he was staring, but he couldn't help that he was drawn back to her..

So, he was right, in a sense. Even though she wasn’t a spy, she was something .

He had always thought of Anya as special, but knowing her secret made him realise that she was far more than he thought. Her past haunted her, but in the face of it all, she was just a girl doing her best to live.

A small voice in the back of his mind wondered: What do I do now?

When WISE arrived at the scene, several cars turned up outside of the building, and seemed surprised to see Twilight standing outside. He looked peaceful, even though towers of smoke pierced the skyline behind him.

Alarms fired all around them, but Sylvia Sherwood herself stepped out of the car, with her long leather boot meeting the twisted mulch of the forest floor. She moved the wide brim of her hat to look up. 

“What a beautiful day to be rescued, “ she said to no one in particular. 

As agents buzzed around the building, seized documents, and arrested scientists and other members of staff, Sylvia strolled over to where Twilight stood. Her best agent.

He had seen her approaching, but he didn’t raise his eyes to meet hers until she was only a few steps away from him.

She raised an eyebrow at him. What happened?

Twilight sighed, and ran his hands through his hair. He didn’t even know where to begin.

“Well,” he sighed again. “We found Anya.”

Sylvia resisted the urge to move a single facial muscle. “We?”

“Yes.” He resigned himself to the thought that she would find out eventually, and this kind of disaster was bound to happen at some point. “Myself, Yor, and Damian Desmond.”

Sylvia's eyebrows disappeared under the wide brim of her hat. “Oh?”

And Twilight told her everything that he could. “I didn't even realise that they followed me,” he finished. “But they didn't know who I really was, since I was disguised as one of the scientists. As far as I'm aware, they've left with Damian’s chauffeur, and I hope that they're taking her to hospital right now.”

Sylvia nodded carefully. “We followed up on the lead you sent us - Erik Zacharis?”

Twilight’s attention snapped to her. “He’s still my patient. Please tell you me you didn't hurt him, or torture him or -”

“Relax,” Sylvia held up a hand in signal for him to stop. “We managed to follow up on his intelligence agency based on the Eastern side, and we found a few things relating to his past missions.”

It turned out that the intel from Erik Zacharis was exactly the missing piece that Sylvia had been looking for when it came to Operation Bellator - although that was a conversation that she would save for Twilight after he had reunited with Anya.

She handed Twilight a piece of paper in a beige file. Stained from over a decade of storage, it held the key to Anya that Sylvia had been looking for all along.  

Twilight raised his eyebrows at her. “What's this? Isn't the mission over?”

Sylvia pursed her lips. “You might want to take a look at this.”

Twilight flipped the first page open, and saw immediately why Sylvia wanted to give it to him. The face of a little girl with pink hair stared at him from a tiny photograph. She must have been around three years old.

Twilight’s stomach dropped, and as he read more and more into the file, his gut twisted further and further, until he genuinely thought he was going to be sick. 

When he finished, he held the paper stiffly in his hands, and gritted his teeth. 

Someone was going to pay for what they did to her.

“And,” said Sylvia, breaking the silence once again. “I’ve been meaning to speak to you about something else as well.”

She passed him a camcorder.

“This is evidence of Damian’s kidnapping. It’s the recording of the ransom video the kidnappers got Damian to film.”

Twilight passed his hand over his face and groaned. “Honestly Handler, I’m not sure if I can take any more surprises-”

Sylvia shrugged. “It could be worse. But I hear you. Go get your rest, and you can come back to this. Later.”

She pressed the camcorder firmly in his hands, and patted his hand closed over it. “For now, go to your daughter. She needs you right now.”

Damian watched Yor carry Anya into the hospital, watched the staff envelop them with warmth and concern, and sagged back into the seat of the car, sighing with relief. The only thing he wanted to do, now that he made sure Anya was in the care of medical professionals, was to sleep for a thousand years. 

He had tried to go into the hospital with Yor, but she had insisted that he go home to rest. 

“You’ve done so much for Anya already, and it’s getting late,” Yor had said in such a gentle way, that Damian wondered if that was what mothers were supposed to sound like. “Go, get your rest. You can always come back to visit Anya tomorrow.”

Damian held his face in his hands. “Take me back to Eden,” he mumbled to his chauffeur. 

He was so fucking tired. 

It had been an extremely long day, and he had only just at that moment stopped feeling so wired that his eyes had been kept wide open, and his muscles were rigid with adrenaline.

He watched the familiar Berlint buildings float by. He had seen them before, but for some reason, it really felt like everything had changed. 

Absolutely everything.

He had so many questions, too. 

How long had Anya been hiding this? Did anybody know? If somebody did know - did they send her there?

He thought back to the times in school when she had seemed so attuned to him, and he had really thought they fit so well together. She made him feel so special, so understood, but was she reading his mind the entire time? 

If she had been hearing his thoughts the entire time, then she would have known about how he felt about her since he was six years old, surely? 

Damian reddened. 

But if she knew about how I felt, then why didn't she say anything? Is it because…

The world stopped moving. 

… she doesn’t feel the same?

Damian gulped as he realised that the only thing worse than Anya knowing about his crush on her, was if she didn’t like him back. 

Oh my god. He started to panic. What if she was making fun of him the whole time and she really was just laughing behind his back with Becky?

Damian wanted to slap himself. How could he even think those things about her? It wasn't her fault that she could read minds (he imagined, based on what Adrian had told him). And if he knew anything about Anya over the last twelve years, was that even though she carried a lot on her shoulders, she still tried really hard, and wanted to make friends with him and Becky. She was genuine in all the ways that she tried to befriend him.

And, they had been getting closer recently. She went with him to the cinema. He walked with her from the bus stop, sometimes holding hands. 

She even rescued him from kidnappers… That had to count for something, right?

The slow drive back from the hospital had helped to wind him down, but since he knew that Anya was safe with her mother in hospital, and hopefully being seen to, his body started to shut down. He had just been running on adrenaline, energy and stress, but now he was ready to collapse.

Once back at Eden, he did his best to hold himself together as he walked through the darkened corridors. Damian didn't notice the voices as he turned the corner on the way to Cecile Hall. 

“I’m telling you, Damian still hasn't responded to any of my texts!”

“It's only been a day, Blackbell! You can’t think that he's also been -”

The sound of someone being shoved aside. “Damian-sama! You’re here!”

“Huh?” Damian lifted his head at the sound of his own name, to be greeted by the surprised faces of his friends Emile and Ewen, and even Becky, even though it was well after dinner time. 

They approached him quickly, and Damian suddenly had the distinct and powerful feeling that they had just been talking about him.

“What’s up?” said Damian, nonchalant.

Becky baulked, her eyes almost popped out of her face. “What's up? What's up? You disappeared after lunch, and you show up looking like that and you don't even answer any of my texts and all you have to say is what’s up??”

As Damian stared at the faces of the three of his friends, he had the distinct feeling like he was watching a movie, and all of this was happening to somebody else.

And what did Becky mean by ‘looking like that’? What was wrong with-

Oh.

Oh right. 

Dirt and the occasional spot of blood crusted his uniform, and the salted water from the tank had left his almost-dry clothes sticking uncomfortably to his body. Damian reached for his phone in his pocket, about to check the texts that Becky had supposedly sent him, and he stared at the black screen. He pressed the power button. Nothing.

“Ah, shit,” Damian said out loud. “It was in my pocket when I dived into the water.”

Immediately, Becky picked up on Damian’s words. “Dived in, where? Where have you been? Is it to do with Anya? Have you found her yet?”

“Hey, stop crowding him!” Ewen stood protectively between them. “Can't you see he’s exhausted!”

“I would,” Becky huffed, “but he's holding back on me, I can tell! If he wont tell me what’s going on, then I’ll-”

“We found Anya,” Damian mumbled. He could feel that if he didn't get into bed right that second then his limbs were about to give way on him. He let out a huge yawn. “I have to go to bed.”

Damian pushed past an incredulous Becky, while Ewen and Emile shrugged at her apologetically, and followed Damian into the boys’ dorm. 

“Hey boss,” it was Ewen that spoke up first. “Everything okay? You look terrible.”

“Thanks,” sighed Damian, and gave a weak laugh. “I’m just… I need to go to sleep.”

At the silence, Damian guessed that Ewen and Emile were exchanging a secret, questioning stare. He imagined they were thinking something along the lines of: What's wrong with him?

As they walked into the boys dorm, and past some of the rooms, Damian saw something out of the corner of his eye and stopped. He turned to face them.

Their room was a mess. It looked as though clothes and books had exploded everywhere, which made sense when Damian noticed that Adrian was packing up his bags. He walked up to Adrian’s door, and knocked. 

Adrian jolted up in surprise, and nearly tripped over a stray shirt on the ground. “Desmond!” said Adrian in surprise. He glanced warily at Ewen and Emile. “Er, can I help you?”

Damian looked behind him to see a very confused Ewen and Emile, and he whispered in a hoarse voice: “Could you guys give us a minute?”

Damian waited for Ewen and Emile to back away, before he jutted his chin out at Adrian, slowly removed his hand from his pocket, and held it in front of Adrian, who gawked at Damian's open offer.

“I owe you one,” said Damian calmly. “We wouldn't have been able to get Anya back without your help, so if you ever need anything, you can always count on the word of a Desmond to help you out.”

“R-right,” Adrian stamered, and very hesitantly, he took Damian’s hand and shook it. 

Damian shifted on his feet, suddenly feeling awkward. He hadn't planned to come out and say any of this. 

“And… Desmond,” said Adrian tentatively. “I think you should know something else as well,” and it was Adrian's turn to shift on his feet. “I can't hear her but... I can tell that she thinks about you, a lot.”

Damian felt his ears burning slightly, but he didn't want to acknowledge it. He had completely forgotten that Adrian could read minds, too. Suddenly, all the questions that had come to him before came back a thousand fold, all at the same time.

Does she know I like her?

Does she hate me?

Is she trying to get close to me for my father? 

Does she like me back?

Is she using me after all?

Adrian grimaced and started to massage his temples. “Damn, how does Anya tolerate all of this?”

Damian stepped back sheepishly. “Sorry, it’s not like I can control it.”

“No it's okay, I know.” Adrian exhaled deeply. “In the… In the lab, they release a constant soundwave that blocks us from using our power. Apparently it's a security measure, but I just haven't had a lot of practice.”

That gave Damian a thought: Did that mean that Anya was more powerful than Adrian?

“Uh, kind of,” said Adrian, and Damian jolted in surprise. “She’s had literally years of practice, so she might be able to do things that I can't. I can't turn it off, and I can't tune in and out of people's thoughts. From what I can tell, she has managed to block it out sometimes.”

Damian lifted his head in hope. “Does that mean that she-”

“-doesn't know how you feel?” finished Adrian.

Damian flushed again, to his embarrassment. “I wasn't gonna say that.”

Adrian rolled his eyes, but a shy smile played on his lips.

Damian couldn't help it. He laughed. “I can't believe I’m talking to you about the girl I have a crush on. We’re not even friends.”

But he stopped laughing as soon as he saw a flicker of hurt pass across Adrian’s face. “I’m sorry, I didn't mean it like…” he didn’t know how to finish his own sentence. 

Adrian turned away, and continued to pack up his belongings. “Nah, it's cool. It is weird. You don't know me very well, but I can't help but know a lot about you. I bet that's uncomfortable.”

Damian didn't know what to say. He felt the words get stuck in his throat. 

After a few beats, Damian took another long look around him. “Where are you going, anyway? Why are you packing up?”

Adrian shrugged, but with his back to Damian, he couldn't be sure what Adrian was feeling. “My mission is finished, and now so is Project Apple. Now that the lab is disbanded, I don't have the funding to keep me in school anymore. Simple as that.”

“Oh,” said Damian, who had never really considered that funding for school could ‘run out’. “So where are you gonna go instead?” 

He almost missed it, but he saw Adrian tense up, saw him ball hup his hands into fists. “I’ll figure it out,” was all that Adrian managed to say in the end. 

With nothing much left to say, Damian made his way to leave, but turned to take one last look at Adrian. 

“I meant what I said earlier. Anything you need, you can ask. I swear on my name as a Desmond that I’ll do what I can.”

Finally, when Damian made it to his room, he peeled off his dirty uniform, and stepped straight into the ensuite shower. As hot water ran down his shoulders and back, Damian felt his muscles relax and all the tension melt away.

He would face Becky’s wrath later. For that moment, now that he knew that the love of his life was safe, all he needed was sleep.

Chapter Text

After Sylvia gave Loid the files from the raid of Project Apple, promising to update him later, she left him with his thoughts. 

As he drove back to Berlint, Loid couldn’t help but glance at the stack of documents every now and again. It was a struggle to pull his gaze back to the road and focus on the drive ahead of him.

He was tempted to watch the recording that Sylvia had handed him, but he honestly didn’t know how much new information he could take. So, iti would have to wait until later. 

The words contained in the files she gave him shook him to his core, and even worse, Loid knew that he wouldn’t be able to hide it from her. Which meant that in the time it took to drive himself to Berlint General Hospital, he needed to know exactly what to say to Anya. 

Yor didn’t let go of Anya’s hand the entire time that they were in the ward, although there was a brief moment in the emergency unit when she had to step away while they brought Anya’s body temperature back up. 

She didn’t know what else to do. Yor called Loid’s mobile near-constantly, but her heart dropped each time it went to voicemail. 

“Where is he?” she muttered, and paced up and down the waiting room. She had actually paced so hard and so fast that a small groove had been worn into the tiles of the hospital floor, but although the hospital staff had noticed this, they wisely did not challenge the physically formidable Yor Forger. 

Doctors bustled through the hallways, and Yor’s heart leapt out of her mouth every time that an alarm dared to sound. She even tried to call Franky, and Yuri, but no-one picked up. Where was everyone? What were they doing that was so important they couldn’t come to the hospital?

After almost an hour, the tiles started to smoke as Yor paced even harder, and each step was a thunderous strike that shook the floor. 

The other guests that gathered in the waiting room grouped together in a protective huddle and eyed Yor warily. 

Yor reached for her phone for what felt like the thousandth time when a man in an olive green suit burst through the hospital doors. 

“Where is my daughter?” 

At the man’s voice, Yor’s head instantly snapped up and she ran to him. (The floor just about held itself together).

“Oh, Loid!” she fell into his arms. “Where have you been? I’ve called you a thousand times!”

Loid nearly staggered back at the sudden weight of his wife falling onto him, but he had been married for over twelve years and he knew his wife well. He strategically shifted his back foot to take the instant pressure, and stabilised her with his hands, before returning her embrace. 

“I know, I’m sorry,” he breathed into her hair. Even though he was part of Anya’s rescue, Loid realised that he would never be able to tell Yor that he was there with her, that they had rescued their daughter together. And although he had his suspicions, along with a thousand other things to worry about, for that moment he leaned in to the familiarity of her in his arms.

They pulled apart when a doctor called for them: “Mr and Mrs Forger?” 

Together, they followed her into a quiet room, where she indicated for them to sit. Loid glanced at her tag that read Dr Greta Hahn . 

On instinct, Loid and Yor grasped each others’ hands tightly. 

“I’ll start with the good news,” said Dr Hahn in a gentle voice. “Anya is currently stable, and we expect that she will make a full recovery.”

Loid had no idea how much tension he held in his body until he sagged in relief, but he and Yor held their gaze on Dr Hahn as they waited for her to deliver the rest of the news. 

“There were a lot of substances in her system, and our lab technicians struggled to identify them all. It was mostly opiates and benzodiazepines, which can have quite serious side effects, and usually carries a severe risk of overdose when used together. Anya is extremely lucky that the dosage was just below the threshold to trigger a dangerously slow breathing rate - what we would call respiratory depression, but we are still treating her with an opiate antagonist to prevent any further risks.”

Yor furrowed her brows. “What’s an-”

Loid squeezed her hand. “I’ll explain later.” He nodded for Dr Hahn to keep going.

“As for the other injuries,” Dr Hahn continued. “We would like to keep Anya in hospital for a few days to monitor her recovery. The lesions on her arms and legs do still present a risk of infection, and it is clear that there is some internal bleeding, and possibly some other hidden injuries we have yet to identify. Having her here would mean that we could keep an eye on their healing. ”

Dr Hahn drew in a breath, and Loid braced himself. He knew from experience that a steadying breath often delivered the final blow. 

She added: “We are also concerned about the levels of substances that Anya has been exposed to, and we don’t have any information on what dose Anya has been kept on and for how long. So, while she stays with us we will keep her on an intravenous drip that should help with any potential withdrawal symptoms.”

“Withdrawal?” Yor breathed. “Are you saying that she could be-”

Dr Hahn shook her head. “We don’t expect that Anya would have developed a chemical dependence after such a short time, but given the volume that she was exposed to, I would personally prefer to assume the worst and give her this, just as a precaution. She might not need it, but it won’t harm her.”

“And what will you give her?” Yor narrowed eyes suspiciously. 

The doctor handed over a piece of paper containing a list of names that Yor wouldn’t even dare to pronounce. “I was going to suggest keeping her on a very mild analgesic to help with the pain, and also a round of supplements. We have found that thiamine can be effective in instances like this.” 

Loid glanced at the list over Yor’s shoulder and nodded to both to himself, and in reassurance to his wife. It was what he would have recommended, too.

He put his hand over Yor’s, and gave her a supportive squeeze before directing his attention back to the doctor. “Can we see her?” 

Loid and Yor braced themselves to enter Room 207.

The adrenaline of Anya’s rescue had taken them this far, but neither husband or wife were ready to acknowledge their suspicions of each other.

Loid regarded Yor carefully out of the corner of his eye. He had never seen Yor demonstrate such an amazing talent for combat before, which meant that she must have been holding back in front of him all this time. Where did the knives really come from? Just how strong was she? How was it that she killed so easily? What was she hiding from him?

At the same time, Yor was hyper-aware of Loid’s every movement. She had heard him over the phone to Franky, had heard something about ‘agents’, tailed him all the way to the facility, and Loid had vanished from her in plain sight, only to reappear when she least expected. What did it mean? And what was he hiding from her?

Their hearts beat loud in their ears, and both reached to turn the handle to Room 207 at the same time.

Their hands touched, and electricity shot up their arms. 

Husband and wife dared to look at each other behind false smiles.

“You first, honey,” said Yor with a voice like ice.

“After you, darling,” said Loid smoothly, but he could not hide the undercurrent of suspicion in his voice.

Neither could tear their eyes away from the other. Loid briefly pictured the dance of two lions prowling before each other. A thousand possibilities of Yor’s next move swam through his mind. 

Yor’s arm twitched and immediately, Loid lunged for her. 

She grabbed his outstretched wrist and wrenched it behind him in one fluid movement. “Don’t you dare try to attack me, darling ,” she growled in his ear. 

Loid grunted and twisted in midair, using the momentum of her hold on him to push her against the wall. 

“What are you?!” He hissed, and his carefully maintained mask slipped. “I saw you at the lab! You slaughtered people!” 

Yor gasped sharply, in disbelief that he would dare confront her. Then, she narrowed her eyes at him in a venomous glare. “What are you?!” she retorted. “I followed you there, and then you disappeared and then-”

She sucked in a breath, and forced out what she had held in for the last few hours: “I saw you take off that mask!”

Loid’s stomach dropped. “What?” 

That couldn’t be true. He saw her turn the corner before he removed the mask of Dr Atkinson. Unless…

Yor met his stunned eyes, with triumph in hers. 

Unless she looked back. 

He could picture it. That moment when he told Yor to go, when he made sure she had turned the corner, when he turned back to the guards, raised his gun -

And he took off his mask. Like an amateur. 

He didn’t wait. And somewhere in that moment, she had come back to look, maybe to check if he really could handle the guards without her, and she caught him in the act.

Sylvia was going to be furious with him.

A tiny whimper floated through the walls, and both parents froze.

Even though he had her pinned against the wall, it suddenly dawned on him that he was powerless against her. He had already seen her kill dozens just a few hours ago. He witnessed her destroy an entire tank of water with just one punch. She must have also hidden the stiletto knives somewhere on her person while he had stupidly tossed his pistol somewhere in the car.

He was outmatched. 

Rage burned in his throat. Then, he swallowed his pride, and released his hold on her, before he took a step back.

“We’ll talk later,” Loid sighed, and ran a hand through his unkempt hair. “Anya comes first.”

At least that was something they could both agree on.

Loid tentatively pushed open the door to Room 207, while Yor remained outside to give them some space. 

All the tension left his shoulders when he saw Anya lying in the hospital bed, her bandaged arms draped over the sheets, with an IV drip attached to her from a tall metal pole. 

At first he thought that she might be asleep, until she turned her unsmiling face towards him. 

His heart sank. 

Dark circles under her eyes stood out against her nearly translucent skin. Even worse, the rims of her eyes were red and puffy.

“ Papa, ” she croaked. 

That one word broke him. Everything that he had planned to say to her disappeared from his mind.

Loid had been trained as a spy to always hide his true emotions, but more than a decade of parenthood had trained him in how to be a father . 

He gathered her in a tender hug and tried to muffle the sob that escaped him. “I’m so glad you’re safe,” he managed to say, before his throat tightened with emotion. He hoped that she didn’t see the burning of his eyes.

He hated to admit it, but a part of him had honestly thought that Anya was gone forever, and glimpsing that possibility was torture for him. She was a part of his life for over twelve years. It didn’t matter how many ‘reminders’ Fiona or Sylvia tried to give him about the mission: He was her Papa. Now and forever.

Anya sniffed loudly, which drew his attention. “I’m sorry…” Her voice was a hoarse whisper.

Loid leaned back, and hastily wiped his eyes. He wanted to say “What for?” but Anya burst into earnest tears.

“I failed the mission!” she sobbed, and Loid had to pause. 

What is she talking about?

Anya covered her eyes with her hands, and the IV tube swung with the momentum of it. She cried even harder, but even with her hands over her face, and her hiccups as she choked through the words, Loid could hear every word:

“Are you going to replace me now?”

He went white. 

“What?” he gasped. “Why would you say that?”

Slowly, the cogs turned, turned, turned, before they snapped into place. 

“Oh my god,” he said out loud, as realisation slammed into him. She was fucking telepathic . The entire time, she knew he was a spy. She knew about Operation Strix. She knew about Plan B. And, it appeared, she even knew about his initial thoughts of replacing her - something he had long forgotten about. 

“No, Anya. Of course not.” He knew that those words wouldn’t be enough to undo the years of emotional hurt, but at least he could start somewhere. 

She raised her head from out of her hands, and Loid’s heart twisted at the sight of her tear-stained face. “Even though I’m a failure?”

Loid steadied himself. “You’re not a failure. You’re my daughter.” Once again, he brought her closer to him in a gentle embrace.

At first Anya’s arms hung limp by her sides, but she slowly moved to wrap her arms around him - gently, so as not to damage the carefully wrapped bandages - and she leaned into her father’s hug.

After a full minute, they pulled apart once more, and Loid leaned back on the chair.

“What about Mama?” Anya whispered with her gaze on her fidgeting fingers. “Why did you all come for me?”

Loid’s eyes softened, and with a small smile he remembered the obviously terrified, but stupidly brave boy who had followed him in. “Because we love you, Anya. That isn’t going to change. I promise.”

Anya exhaled in relief, and wiped the remaining tears from her face. She sat like that for a minute, breathing into the moment. 

He wanted to ask her why she had never told him about her, had never confided in him even as a child, but as he thought more about it, it made sense. Didn’t he tell her on the first day they met that she was to act as though he had always been her father?

It dawned on him, then, that Anya had been actively following his unspoken orders for nearly her whole life. Like a real spy.

Her next line dragged him out of his thoughts.

“You should tell Mama that you’re a spy.”

Loid wasn’t sure whether to laugh or scream as the memory of their altercation crossed his mind, but at the sight of his doubtful face, Anya doubled down. 

“I already know everything, and you both know everything about me now.” She wrapped her arms around her legs, and tucked her knees under her chin. “It’s only fair you should know about each other.”

Loid sucked in a breath. So Yor was hiding something big. 

It astonished him just how much Anya had been hiding for all these years. She had her own secrets to keep safe, and she had protected his identity as a spy the entire time. Was Yor a spy, too? Is that why Anya thought it would be okay to finally break the Forger tradition of secrecy?

A grimace flashed across her face, and Loid leapt from his chair. “Are you in pain? Do you need the doctor?”

“I just,” Anya groaned and rubbed her temples. “I can’t remember much of it.” And then her head snapped up. “Wait - was Damian there?”

“Ah,” said Loid. “I wondered how much you would remember. Diazepam is known to affect memory formation.”

“Papa,” Anya rolled her eyes. “Ostanian, please! ”

“Sorry. Nevermind,” Loid laughed. He resolved to explain it all to her later. “But yes, he was there. He was quite impressive, actually.” Loid gave his daughter a sidelong glance. “What do you remember?”

“I…” Anya started, but then a blush crawled up her neck as she remembered the soft touch of his hands grazing her face, skimming her arm. The heat of his chest against her face as he carried her. His strong, warm hands on her shoulder and thigh. “N-nevermind.”

Hoping to change the topic, Anya asked: “What happens now?”

The confusion must have been evident on Loid’s face, because she buried her head in her knees, gathered her courage and asked the question she had been dreading her whole life.

“Will WISE take you away from us?”

Loid opened his mouth to reassure her, then promptly closed it. Shit. What happens now, indeed?

But he wanted to be strong for his daughter, so he gathered his resolve and looked her in the eyes. “Don’t worry about that now. I’ll handle it,” he reached out to smooth her hair. “I’ll sort everything out.”

It wasn’t long before Loid invited Yor back into the room at Anya’s insistence, and they had sat stiffly opposite each other, ready to pounce - until Anya took matters into her own hands and blurted everything out.

There was shock. Some shouting. But mostly laughter.

And, above everything, relief.

Chapter Text

While Loid spoke with the doctor, Yor helped Anya to fill in the gaps of what the drugs had forced her to forget, and told her the story of how it all happened.

Anya could barely believe it. She knew that both of her parents were fighters, but what truly surprised her was that the whole time that she had been held captive, there was a shy and awkward boy fighting to find her, and pushing everyone around him to get to work. A boy who followed the Forgers into battle and took everything that was thrown at him - an incredible feat, if also because the Forgers themselves undoubtedly provoked some fear in him. 

When she heard the story, something in Anya’s chest kindled. 

So when Damian did eventually show up the next day, his face as red as the roses he carried, it didn’t take her by surprise. In fact, she had heard him coming long before he had even entered the ward. He hesitated at the door, clearly wondering if she wanted to see him.

“H-hey.”

Yor spotted his awkward glance towards her, and she understood instantly. “Come on, darling! Let’s go downstairs to the cafe for a little bit.”

“Huh?” Loid blinked, midway through a thought. “But-”

His words were stolen away by Yor yanking on his arm and pulling him physically from the room. On her way out, Yor gave Damian a conspiratorial wink, and he blushed even more. 

The door closed behind him, and it was Damian and Anya alone. 

Her medication had made her feel slightly dizzy, but she did manage a weak smile in Damian’s direction. “I heard you came to rescue me.”

“D-don’t think too much about it! I just owed you from when you rescued me first, that’s all!” Damian tried, unsuccessfully, to hide his face behind the flowers, but at least he did take that as his invitation to go over to her.

Her eyes crinkled in a soundless laugh, before she glimpsed the other package in his hands and she sat up with interest. “Are those for me?”

Damian wordlessly handed her the chocolate covered peanuts (her favourite brand), and while he busied himself with the flowers by her bedside, Anya tentatively opened the packet and inhaled their scent dreamily. 

“Mmm,” she sighed and flashed a grin at Damian. “My hero!” she exclaimed and tore into the treats with relish.

Damian’s brain temporarily turned to static, secretly overjoyed that she loved his present enough to eat it in front of him. At least she didn’t feel too awkward around him. 

But Damian was also painfully aware that this was the first time in a while that he and Anya were talking, alone, and he couldn’t put into words how strange it felt. All the adrenaline from the week buzzed in his blood, and found that he couldn’t sit or stand still. He leaned against the windowsill and shoved his hands in his pockets in an effort to hide how much they were shaking.

He cleared his throat, drawing her attention back to him. “How… uh… have you been?”

She lifted up the hand with the cannula that attached to her IV drip, and gave it a playful wiggle. “Whatever is in here is really doing the trick.” She beamed with a silly smile. “I feel great!”

“That’s… good.” Damian mumbled, and then inwardly cursed himself. He had tried so hard to forget that she could apparently read minds, but being in front of Anya brought all of that back up to the surface, and he found himself at a loss of how to act around her. How much of his mind was she reading right then?

What did Adrian say… That she might be able to ‘turn it on and off’ at will? 

Anya’s eyes furrowed. “That reminds me - how did you know it was Adrian?”

“Uh,” said Damian, and thought back to his heist escapade with Bill and Becky, when they had sorted through the papers of the school office. “Reconnaissance.”

As he thought of what it took to get to Anya, an image then formed in his mind of Yor with her hand around Adrian’s neck, and Anya went white. “She did what??”

Damian froze. Having his thoughts being seen live was weird . Was this what it was like for her all the time? Was this how it was going to be from then on?

“Anya,” said Damian in a tight voice. “Can you please not read my mind right now?”

That was not a sentence he had ever imagined that he would say. 

Anya bit her lip and dropped her head, suddenly shy at being called out. A wave of her hair fell in front of her face, hiding her withdrawn expression. “I’m sorry. It’s just second nature to me. It’s like…” she tried to think of something Damian would understand. “It’s like asking someone not to use their thumbs.”

Damian pictured trying to pick something up without using his thumbs, and he winced reflexively. It did look difficult.

Still, this was not how he expected his conversation with Anya to go, and the instant responses to something he didn’t even say out loud was much more disorienting than he imagined. 

“Just for ten minutes?” Damian pleaded. “It’s just… a lot… right now.”

Anya sighed and twirled a lock of pink hair around her finger. “Normally I can turn it off, but it’s kind of hard to do right now. It’s so weird. Everything feels like it’s been turned up!” She threw her hands in the air for emphasis. 

But the energy soon vanished from her when she glimpsed his pained face. “I’m sorry, I can’t help it,” she mumbled, and her gaze landed on his feet, away from his hesitant scrutiny. 

“Turned up?” Damian squeaked. Just how much could she hear, exactly? 

He felt the urge to jiggle his foot, but he crossed his ankles in a way to hold back. “What is it like right now?” 

She grimaced. “It’s a lot. There are so many people in this hospital, and they are so loud . Everyone’s thinking different thoughts all at the same time, it’s like there’s a huge crowd in here.” Anya raised her emerald gaze to Damian. “But it’s okay talking with you just now. Saying things out loud is helping me focus.”

He softened his gaze on her. All of that sounded horrible. Even if he tried to think about what it would be like, his imagination just wouldn’t be accurate enough to understand. 

Damian glanced at the cup of water next to her bed. Like not using thumbs, huh?

He moved towards the table, folded his thumb back in his grasp, and tried to curl his fingers around the cup. It tipped dangerously to the side, and Damian tried to adjust the angle as his fingers splayed awkwardly against it.

“What are you doing?” Anya said, and she burst into giggles. 

The sound of her laugh jolted Damian, and he fumbled, knocked it over, and watched with distanced interest as the water spilled and trickled into a puddle on the floor. 

Despite his discomfort, he managed a small laugh. She was right, it was a stupid idea.

 “Sorry, I figured I would try and see what it’s like. I’ll go get you some more-”

Anya waved away the idea. “Don’t worry about it, my parents will bring something back from the cafe.” 

“Ah, okay then,” said Damian as his arms hung limp by his sides.  

He wasn’t quite sure what to do or say next. She had only been gone for less than a week, but somehow everything had changed, and suddenly in the space of just a week, it was like he was talking to a whole different person. This Anya was miles away from the Anya he thought he knew. 

It occurred to Damian, then, that perhaps this entire encounter was as awkward for her as it was for him.

In fact, the more he looked at her, the more it made sense. The way she avoided eye contact with him, scratched at her neck, held her head in such a way that her hair hid parts of her redder-than-usual face. Her smile was too tight, her laughter too high. 

She knew that he knew her secret, and she was trying to pretend that it was all okay. Otherwise, how could she accept it all so easily?

Damian let out a long, slow breath as realisation sank into him. Despite appearances, Anya was not okay at all.

Was she trying to pretend to be comfortable for his sake?

When he next raised his head towards Anya, his chest tightened at her expression: lips parted slightly in surprise, she looked at him like he had just said something profound. 

Her voice wobbled as she spoke. “Sometimes I think that Sy-on can read minds too,” she exhaled in a hollow laugh. “You know me too well.” 

Damian disagreed. He didn’t know her nearly as well as he wanted to. A secret this big gave him far more questions than answers - but Damian rightly sensed that this was not the time to ask about her powers, or her past.

“It’s weird, isn’t it?” She tried to laugh again, but it came out too high, her smile too wide. Her eyes contained a manic quality. “How creepy is it that I can hear people’s thoughts? I’m like some kind of mutant.”

Damian wanted to interrupt, tell her it wasn’t like that, but the words quickly died away as he looked at her. Even when she had the panic attacks, he had never seen Anya look so haunted. 

Anya’s smile slipped even further as her eyes became shinier. “You must think I’m a freak.”

“Ah-” It came out in a whisper. “Actually…”  Pink tinged his cheeks. “I think it’s really cool.” 

“You’re lying,” she spat and a tear fell down her cheek.

“You know I’m not,” he said as he held her gaze. “It explains a lot. Like how I always felt you could see through me. You understood me more than anyone else ever could. And how you were able to find me when I was…” he cleared his throat. “You’re like a superhero!”

Anya wiped at her eyes with the heel of her palm. “I… am?”

He nodded emphatically. “Are you kidding me? Of course you are! It’s just one more thing that makes you special.” 

Her eyes shined at him, and Damian found himself looking away. He never knew how she could look so beautiful even when she cried.

He stilled, hoping that she didn’t hear that. 

“Now that I think about it,” he started again, avoiding her gaze. “You being able to read minds has really helped out, hasn’t it? You’ve used it to save yourself and the people around you so many times. It really is like a superpower.” 

The more he thought about it, the more he realised it must be true. If she could hear everything that was going on, then she knew who needed help, and knew how to help them. It was how she found him. It was how she got the guard to lower his gun. It was no doubt how she navigated her life, and kept herself and the others around her safe. He couldn’t even think how many times she might have saved him without him even knowing.

If only she could have read Adrian’s mind, and knew what he was planning, then she wouldn’t have been abducted. 

The words he had said to Yor in a panic rose in his mind: What if she gets taken again? What if she disappears forever next time?

“Maybe…” he gulped. “Maybe knowing that you can read my mind wouldn’t be so bad.”

He heard Anya’s sharp intake of breath.

While Damian waited for Anya to say something, he kept glancing towards her. Would she think he was weird for suggesting it?

Anya’s eyebrows scrunched together in deep thought. She balled up the hospital sheet in her fist, before smoothing it out again with a deep sigh.

“Okay then,” she started, and Damian snapped his attention to her. “If you really don’t mind, could we… practice? Or something?”

He could have melted from how she looked up at him with those gorgeous, emerald eyes. God, she is so cute.

He flinched, and caught his thoughts before they revealed too much. Was this how it would be? He would pretend he didn’t think it, hope she didn’t hear it, and move on?

Damian released a steadying breath, and tilted his head back in thought. Even if it would be a good thing for them to use, losing his privacy completely would be a problem.

Unless…

Maybe we could use a code?

A code wouldn’t be so bad. It could be like Spy Wars , like they were communicating in their own secret language. 

He couldn’t help the goofy grin that played on his face. It could be a secret that they shared together. It might even be fun.

They would have to have rules. He still found the idea of having his mind invaded uncomfortable, but how many times had they already been in a dangerous situation, where being able to secretly communicate would have really come in useful? 

It would be cruel if he asked her to never read anyone’s mind again. She did say that ignoring it was like not having thumbs. 

If he was going to let her read his mind sometimes, then they would need a signal so that she knew when it would be okay.

“I know!” he exclaimed, and gave her two thumbs-up. “Thumbs!”

Anya’s eyes fixed on Damian’s thumbs held out in front of her, and the moment held, before she burst into laughter.

“Are you serious?” she laughed even more. “Thumbs?”

Damian huffed. “Well if you don’t like it, you can think of one!” But then he met her eyes and cracked a smile. If he could still make her smile, then maybe there was hope after all.

“Okay then.” She smiled, and stared at the digits on her own hands. “Thumbs it is.” 

Anya wasn’t joking, when she told Damian how overwhelming the sounds of the hospital were. People’s thoughts swarmed around her, and even when there was no one else in the room with her, it was like both the volume and the sheer amount of thoughts piled up. 

She heard the nervous jittering thoughts of surgeons in theatre, the questioning thoughts of patients and family members, the stoic and calculating thoughts of the administrative staff of the hospital, the loud and worried thoughts of the A&E department on the other side, the screaming thoughts of the patients rushed into urgent care, the calm and idle thoughts of the pedestrians passing by outside.

And it wasn’t just words, either. Flashes of images, sensations, and memories assaulted her, and Anya feared that she would go insane from it all. It didn’t even stop when the sun went down, as the hospital was active at all hours. 

It was incredible, in a way. It seemed like she could tune into the radius all around her at will. Everything was available to her.

The only trouble was that she seemed to have lost the ability to dial it back down again…

It helped that Damian was the only one in the room with her. When he spoke, suddenly the background noise faded away, and she could relax a bit. She was able to take deep breaths, and pay attention to him, even when the rabble still existed in her mind. 

The smell of roses drifted to her, and Anya leaned into its scent, letting herself relax even more. 

It dawned on her that until she actually saw Damian, she had no idea how terrified she really was. Then when he entered the room, and her parents left them both alone together, Anya’s heart rate skyrocketed. 

Would he hate her? Would he think that she was a freak? Would her nightmares come to life?

It wasn’t exactly a conversation she had ever pictured having with him. She had often wondered what it would be like if others knew about her secret, if they would hate her or reject her, but she felt nothing like that coming from Damian. He seemed interested. Curious. Awed, even. And then he went and called her a superhero, and her breath caught. 

He really thought she was… cool?

When her heart rate eventually calmed down, she was surprised by how normal she was able to feel around Damian - or as close to normal as possible, anyway. There was still a strange tension that lingered in the air, but Anya figured it was because they were firmly not talking about what had happened in the lab. 

Instead, Damian told her a bit about what happened, told her what she had missed at school, and even brought up Bill and Becky.

“I think they’re dating,” he mused aloud. “But don’t tell Becky I said that.”

Anya thought back to when she had promised Becky that she would keep their relationship a secret. “I won’t say a thing,” she said with a wry smile.

It impressed her that Damian was so willing to rally their friends in the effort to find her, even going so far as to let down his guard with them. He had come to their friends for help - something that Lord Damian Desmond almost never did.

In the middle of the conversation, loud footsteps echoed around the corridor, and Becky burst through the door, shortly followed by Bill’s huge frame.

“Fucking hell-” Damian gasped in fright, but he stepped aside for the force of nature that was Becky Blackbell.

“Anyaaa!!” Becky squealed as she ran to Anya’s side and gave her a tight hug, while Bill hung back. “I was so worried about you! I’m so glad you’re okay!”

Anya winced reflexively at the tightness of Becky’s squeeze, before she smiled and returned her best friend’s hug. “It’s good to see you too.”

But Becky was more observant than Anya gave credit for. “Ah, sorry! Was that too tight? I didn’t mean to -” 

She spotted the bandages on Anya’s arms. 

“- hurt you…” 

Anya self-consciously pulled the hospital blanket up around her. “Oh, this?” she squeaked, and although she tried to feign normalcy, it was obvious that her voice had taken on a slightly higher pitch. “It’s nothing to worry about, just a scrape from… the accident…”

Becky’s eyes widened a fraction, and she quickly glanced at Bill, who imperceptibly shook his head. 

Becky righted herself. “Well - I’m super glad you’re okay! Really, you had us all worried there. So,” Becky sat up expectantly and grabbed Anya’s hands in hers. “What happened? Tell us!”

Anya’s chest tightened, and she shared a quick glance with Damian. She saw that he pictured himself wanting to rush to her defence, to try to come up with a believable story, but she beat him to it. 

“It’s not a big deal, really!” Anya started, and hoped that Damian would sit back and let her do the talking. She wished she had more time to practise the excuse with her parents, but she would just have to attempt to lie as best she could.

“I just have a, uh, slight medical problem. What happened was I forgot my medication at home, so I tried to call Papa to bring it to me, but when I left the school grounds to make the call, I fainted! A stranger took me to hospital and I didn’t wake up for a while so they didn’t know who to call because they didn’t know who I was.”

Anya gave what she hoped was a convincing smile. “Sorry to worry you all and make you think I was missing. I’ve been here the whole time!” 

Becky’s smile froze on her face. “I… see,” she said, and cleared her throat, trying to regain the sense of normalcy. “Well, I’m so happy you’re okay.”

Her eyes drifted over to where Damian stood by the hospital bed with his hands in his pockets, and her gaze hardened on him.

In an instant Becky’s smile turned into a glare in Damian’s direction. “No thanks to you! ”

Damian stepped back defensively. “What does that mean?”

Becky narrowed her eyes at Damian and prodded a gloved finger into his chest. “You know what it means, Desmond!”

He furrowed his brows in real confusion, before he exclaimed: “No - I don't!” 

“Oh really?” she snarled. “Then let me spell it out for you. You lied to us all! You said we would save her together!”

“Becky-” Bill tried to reach out to stop her, but she batted him away.

“You brought our hopes up that we could actually do something instead of waiting around like sitting ducks! You even got us to do the dirty work with you, but then you just abandoned us! I was -” her breath hitched. “We were so worried about Anya - did you even care? Did you even know that we were waiting for you to tell us the next step?”

Damian stepped back in surprise. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know-”

“No, you didn’t!” Becky said in an impassioned cry. “Because you used us, and then you left us behind! We could have helped!” 

With all the words rushed out, it left Becky breathless, with just the stares of Bill, Damian and Anya. 

Anya was speechless. It shamed her to admit it, but she had been so preoccupied with the reactions of Damian and her parents, that she had almost completely forgotten about Becky’s part in it all. 

Becky, her best friend, and a true constant in her life. Becky, who always had Anya’s back no matter what, who truly wanted the best for her and would stop at nothing to achieve it. 

A weight dropped in Anya’s stomach. She really was a bad friend. 

Sensing the sudden silence, Becky turned back to Anya with a pained smile. “I'm sorry Anya, I didn’t mean to snap at your boyfriend like that.”

Damian flushed. “Hey! You promised -”

“Fine! Fine, I’ll be going now,” Becky said and stuck out her tongue at Damian.

Anya chuckled under her breath. If Professor Henderson saw them both then, he would definitely comment on Becky’s elegance (or lack of).

Then, Becky turned to Anya with a bright smile. “Sorry for interrupting you guys, this is for you,” said Becky authoritatively as she handed Anya what looked to be a bag of stylish clothes. “That hospital gown does absolutely nothing for you. These will be much better.”

“Oh!” said Anya in surprise as she took the bag from Becky. Her eyes stung unexpectedly and her throat tightened with something she couldn’t express.

As if Anya couldn't be even more surprised, Bill stepped forward too. “And this,” he said simply, and handed Anya another bag that contained a selection of boxed meals. “I bet hospital food hasn’t been great.”

Anya could already smell the food from the bag, and it made her mouth water. 

“Thanks guys,” said Anya, on the edge of tearfulness. She tried to put as much gratitude into her words as she could. She really was so lucky to have them both as her friends.

Becky kept the smile on her face as she waved goodbye to Anya and Damian, and she closed the door gently on the way out. She kept her posture straight and her shoulders back, the picture of confidence, all the way up until she followed Bill into his family car, which was certainly large enough to accommodate his size.

She smoothed her long coat over her legs, trying to appear elegant, and waited for Bill’s chauffeur to start driving.

She opened her phone to the recent text chain with Damian.

Hey. I’m going over to visit her. I guess you could come too.

Omg yay!! OF COURSE I’ll be there! And don’t forget to bring her roses when you see her! x

…No. She wouldn’t be interested in them.

Bring. Her. Roses!!! I’ve sent some to your dorm to deliver x

I’ll get her peanuts. See you later

Becky clicked her teeth. Damn it. Since when did Damian know Anya so much better than she did? Since when did they keep secrets together?

As the car shifted and they started to move away from the grounds of the hospital, Bill gave Becky a sidelong glance. “Are you alright?”

She huffed. “I’m fine. I really thought I wouldn’t snap at him, but I guess I’ve been holding it in too long. I’m sorry you had to see that.”

She tried to lean back into the comfortable leather seats, but something still pricked at her mind.

She couldn’t hold it in anymore. 

“That… was weird, right?”

“What do you mean?” Bill furrowed his brow at her, but he reached across to hold her hand in support. His hand dwarfed hers completely. 

Becky gave a weak laugh, trying but failing to hide her discomfort. “Anya has always been such a bad liar. And that Desmond! I mean could he be any more obvious? I know they are both hiding something.”

Bill shrugged. “She did have a terrible nosebleed on the day that the fire alarm went off. She was in the nurse’s office for a while. It wouldn’t be impossible for her to have some kind of medical condition.”

“I know that, but still…” Becky hummed, not convinced. “Why wouldn’t she tell me?”

“She probably doesn't want to worry us,” Bill  said decidedly, and he gently tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “Maybe we should let her have her privacy.”

“Hmph. Fine,” Becky sighed, and tried to ignore the warmth of Bill’s hand near her face. She wanted nothing more than to lean in to him at that moment, but she held herself back.

Maybe Bill was right. Maybe she should leave it alone.

As the journey back to Becky’s manor progressed, she couldn’t ignore the feeling in her gut that there was something important going on. Whatever it was, Anya and Damian were in on it together. 

Becky’s gut twisted with unease. Sure, Bill had asked her to leave them alone - so she would give them their privacy.

But he never asked her to forget.

Chapter Text

Loid frowned at the burning smell in the air, and sighed when he found the source. It had been a long time since he had last burned dinner. 

He threw away the charred remains of the broccoli, and searched the fridge for a replacement vegetable. In that background, Loid listened to the steady stream of water running from the shower. 

He had been tempted to ask Anya if she needed any help, but thankfully, Yor had it covered. His wife - a fucking assassin!! - was on standby outside the bathroom, ready with a pack of fresh bandages and a first aid kit to tend to the wounds on Anya’s arms. 

When the hospital discharged her, the nurses gave Loid several packs of bandages and gauze, as well as antiseptic creams and some packs of painkillers for Anya to take when she needed to, but Yor insisted that she would take care of it. Loid entrusted the wound care to Yor, since he had no doubt that she had seen her fair share of injuries. She was an expert in her own right.

The newly-opened asparagus simmered with the butter and garlic, and Loid continued to cook as he thought back on his conversation with the Handler earlier that day. 

Sylvia was rightly worried. Suddenly his secret wasn’t so secret anymore, and his entire family was in on it. Not only that, but he had been living under the same roof as a highly-skilled Garden assassin the entire fucking time and could have been taken out at any minute!

Loid had to work hard to make sure that Sylvia understood that Yor was not a threat to him in any way. (Unless he hurt Anya - but that was something he would never do.) 

He had initially suggested meeting at the cafe that they normally frequented, but Sylvia insisted on having a more private meeting in the WISE headquarters. That was when he started to sweat, possibly out of fear for his life.  

Or, more realistically, the fear that he was about to lose everything.

“We have to talk,” Sylvia lit a cigarette and narrowed her eyes at Twilight. “Let’s start with that spectacularly unplanned and unauthorised rescue mission for your daughter.”

Twilight rose to his feet. “I did what I had to!”

“I understand that,” said the Handler. “But what I don’t understand is - do you even know how you pulled it off?”

Twilight blinked, and took an uncertain step back from her desk. “Excuse me?” 

“You got Anya back, flooded the lab, assisted in apprehending most of the staff, and got away with barely a scratch on either of you, nevermind the complications that were your wife and Damian Desmond. Yet, you had next to no intel, a badly packed mission pack, no insider, no back up, and no real plan. I thought I trained you better than that.”

“Well, I-” Twilight had readied himself to meet Handler’s challenging stare, when he blanked. 

She was right. There was no way that it would have worked in any other circumstances. He met her eyes with a blank stare.

“I thought so,” she tilted back in her chair smugly. “We’ll save that conversation for next time. Before then, I imagine you have some questions about the debrief?”

Twilight nodded hesitantly. He had a lot of questions about how the Handler, well, handled everything once he took off to the hospital to see Anya.

“We did manage to sweep the place for evidence before the SSS got wind of the operation and took it out of our hands,” she blew a stray lock of hair out of her face in frustration. “So, you’ll be glad to know that the staff of that awful place have been apprehended. We have most of them in our holding cells, and we have interrogators mining for information as we speak.”

She looked at him coolly. “Anya might be interested to know that the other children in the facility will be looked after. Since they were found on Ostanian land, their cases are being handled by the Ostanian government in partnership with the SSS, since this is a special security case. They will be rehabilitated into normal society and placed into foster homes, but we will be keeping a close eye on them.”

Twilight nodded. “Will they be staying in Berlint?”

“I’m afraid that’s classified,” said Sylvia smoothly, and at Twilight’s utterly bemused stare she added: “You have a certified telepath for a housemate. Right now we are debriefing Anya’s case, which I think she has every right to hear, but given the potential data breach, I’m afraid I can no longer include you in classified briefings.”

Twilight felt as though he had just turned to stone.

If he couldn’t be partial to classified briefings, then how could he do his job as a spy?

His mouth opened and closed soundlessly, before he formed a semblance of a thought. “Anya has kept the fact that I’m a spy a secret for nearly twelve years. Surely we can have a bit of leeway on this?” 

Twilight cringed at himself. He sounded so immature, so far removed from the analytical and professional spy he was so used to being.

“Weeellll …” Sylvia took a long, slow drag of her cigarette, and turned her lips upwards in a smirk. “There might be an agreement that we can come to.”

She flipped open a file that was already prepared on her desk, and she pushed it towards Twilight. 

He picked it up.

“Operation Bellator?” Twilight read from the title of the document. “What is this? Have you-” He flicked faster through the pages. “Have you been spying on Anya??”

“Not me,” smirked the Handler. “I assigned that task to Agent Dusk.”

Anger burned in him. “ Handler .”

“All for a good cause, I promise,” she said and flicked the cigarette over the ashtray. “Did you watch the video on that camcorder I gave you?”

He hadn’t. He was too scared of what he would find out. 

He shook his head.

Back in his kitchen, Loid prepared the rest of dinner. It sounded like Anya and Yor were nearly finished with what they were doing. 

Loid retrieved the camcorder from his bag, and pressed ‘play’.

At first, he found it amusing. He even chuckled a little bit. The amateurish attempts of the kidnappers was honestly laughable. But as the video continued, the smile slid from his face. 

He began to understand why Handler wanted to recruit her.

Yor did her best to hide her seething thoughts from Anya, but it was proving to be a difficult task. 

The doctors at the hospital had advised that Anya’s wounds should be dressed twice daily, preferably after a shower so that she could be completely clean, so Yor carefully prepared the materials she would need while Anya took her time in the shower.

Behind the shadow of the curtain, Yor watched Anya’s shadow move slowly and cautiously as she washed herself, watched every time that Anya flinched from the sting of the water. 

Anger built in Yor as she thought of the marks that Anya now carried on her arms. 

When she helped Anya to unwrap the bandages, she baulked. It was a good thing that Loid didn’t see it. He no doubt would have broken something in rage.  

Circular bloody cuts formed an obvious line down her arms. Clearly manmade, very likely to scar, and extremely difficult to hide. 

Yor’s stomach dropped. How would Anya even begin to explain away the strange shape of her scars? Would she have to cover up her arms forever?

“Mama,” Anya said from inside the shower, and Yor jolted out of her thoughts.

“Yes, dear?”

Only the sound of the shower water spraying filled the air for a long few seconds, before it turned off. 

“I’m… I’m ready now.”

Yor nodded to herself, and took the fluffiest towels she could see from the radiator. She held it behind the shower curtain for Anya to grab. 

Shuffling sounds, before Anya pulled back the curtain and timidly stepped out onto the bathmat. She had wrapped the large towel around her torso, and cautiously held the towel turban atop her head. 

Yor tried not to stare at the red circles that stood out so boldly on her skin. She directed Anya to sit on the edge of the bathtub, and washed her own hands in the sink. 

She went slowly, first using a saline-soaked gauze to gently dab the wounds. Their redness worried her, but she pressed her mouth in a thin line as she worked so that she could try to hide her own reactions. Yor tried to be as gentle as she could, but each time that Anya hissed she felt her entire body tense with rage.

Those bastards. Those bastards . If she ever saw any of them again, she would rip their [ redacted ] clean from their [ redacted ] and shove it up their [ redacted ]. 

How could this happen? How could Yor have let this happen to her daughter? 

She would raze the earth if it meant making sure that this never happened again.

Maybe if she kept a closer eye on Anya. If she had followed her to school  like she sometimes did. If she gave the news straight away to Yuri so that he could follow up on the trail. If she had just picked Anya up from school that day instead of waiting for hours at home with no news. If she-

“Mama,” Anya whispered. “It’s not your fault.”

Yor sucked in a breath. She forgot that her thoughts were completely visible. She switched out the gauze for a clean cloth and used it to pat Anya’s skin completely dry, before she started to apply the dressings. 

She brought out the bandages, and wrapped them around each of the circular points on Anya’s arm, so that it looked like she had textured stripes. Skin and cloth, skin and cloth, skin and cloth. 

The whole time, Anya sat still as stone, with her lips pinched in an effort not to make any noise from the pain of it. Although the wounds were clean and on their way to healing, they were deep, and still felt tender to the touch.

“There we go,” said Yor gently, as she stretched the microtape across the bandage seams. “All done!” 

“Thanks, Mama,” Anya mumbled, and Yor faltered.

She wanted so badly to show Anya that she wanted to be there for her and support her no matter what, but this was new territory for the both of them. 

It was Anya that broke the silence.

“Are scars bad?” said Anya in a quiet voice.

Yor froze, her hands hovering above the remnants of the first-aid kit. What did Anya just say?

“I heard your thoughts,” she said sheepishly and looked away. “Sorry.” 

“Oh,” said Yor, and frowned. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for you to hear it like that.”

She closed the kit, and then moved to sit beside Anya on the edge of the bathtub.

Yor sighed. “I only meant that scars can be very recognizable. Depending on what job you have in the future, it might be hard to keep them a secret.”

Anya nodded in understanding, then creased her brow in confusion. “Am I supposed to?”

“Well,” Yor sighed. This wasn’t a conversation she had ever planned or prepared for, but out of everyone in the Forger-Briar family, Yor realised that she was the best person to do it. Her career choice had made sure of that. 

“It’s your choice. Having scars is nothing to be ashamed of, so if you want to show them to anyone, that’s okay.” A thought came to her. “In fact, I’ve got plenty of scars!”

Yor rolled up her own sleeve to show Anya. “Those marks there, and that one,” she pointed out the small white lines over her hands and fingers. “Those are from when I started out as an assassin. That one-” she pointed to a dark blob. “That’s a burn mark from when I tried to cook for Yuri for the first time!” 

She let out a small laugh, and to her relief, Anya joined in with a chuckle.

“Scars are stories,” said Yor, feeling a bit more positive. “You can decide the ending for yourself.” She gave her daughter a kiss on the forehead, and Anya smiled.

“Thanks, Mama.”

Yor helped Anya up, and gathered the supplies in her hands. “Now come on. Loid will have finished dinner by now. Let’s go and set the table for him.” 

As Twilight had predicted, he couldn’t hide it from her. 

“They want to recruit me?” Anya exclaimed, spraying flecks of butter in her excitement. 

“Close your mouth when you’re eating!” Loid chided her, but sighed as he speared his own slice of meat. “But yes. Sylvia said you had talent.”

She struck a hard bargain, but in the end, Sylvia had argued that the only way that Twilight could keep his career and his family, was if the “certified telepath for a housemate” was an official agent of WISE.

“Think of the recording as an audition. She passed with flying stars, don’t you think?” she winked at him. “And it really is the only way. You train your daughter as a spy, and we get a new agent. Everyone wins!”

She beamed a smug smile at him, while Twilight’s gut twisted. 

Even though he had sometimes fantasised about going on a father-daughter mission, he never even stopped to think for a second that it would actually be a possibility for him. Plus, he had hoped to spare her from a dangerous life. Being a spy was his burden to bear, so that the next generation didn’t have to suffer like they did. 

“I started my job when I was younger than Anya,” said Yor calmly, and tentatively flicked her gaze up to Loid’s. “It might not be such a bad idea.”

Anya brightened. “For real?? I’m gonna be a spy??” 

“Don’t get too excited,” Loid directed his attention to Anya, and she swallowed. “You would have to take a test.”

Anya groaned and threw her head back dramatically. “Ugh! I hate tests!”

“Not that kind of test,” muttered Loid, but he didn’t elaborate. The less she knew, the better. 

But he had something else he needed to talk about first.

“There’s something else you should know as well,” and this time Loid steeled himself for a different kind of conversation. Anya sensed it, because she put down her knife and fork, and waited for Loid to start speaking.

“As you know, they have most of the staff in custody.” he didn't mention that Sylvia had said she would like Anya’s help with the interrogation. They would come back to it later. “But…”

It was the elephant in the room. None of them had talked about the Director yet, but they had to sooner or later.

Anya paled. 

“Darling,” Yor interrupted, worried. “Are you sure it’s safe to talk about-”

“No, it’s okay,” mumbled Anya. “I already know.”

Of course she does . Loid sighed. He didn't know if he would ever get used to it.

“I’ll say it out loud anyway, if just for Yor’s benefit,” said Loid, and he leaned back from the table to maintain better eye contact with the two.

“The good news was that the lab took significant water damage, and destroyed the technical equipment. My colleagues have seized what they could from the building to analyse for information, and most of the staff have been arrested and are in custody.”

Loid let out a breath. Anya had stopped eating, and couldn’t look up from her plate of unfinished food, while Yor’s cutlery had frozen poised in midair.

“What happened to…” she cast a worried glance at Anya. “-her?”

“Gone,” said Anya, a bit too quickly. “She’s gone.”

“What?” Yor paled, and spun back round to Loid. “Is this true?”

Before Loid could even open his mouth, Anya scraped her chair back and got up from the table. “Thanks for the food,” she said in a low voice. “I’m going to my room.”

Guilt twisted in Loid’s gut as he watched Anya walk away. He resolved to go and check in on her later but for now, there was something important that he had to discuss with Yor, with or without Anya’s presence.

Yor looked just as worried as he felt. He reached across the table to hold her hand as she too stared after Anya’s receding figure.

She jolted at his touch, but didn’t move away.

“Yor,” he said softly. “Anya’s right. We still haven’t found the Director.”

“You mean,” her breath hitched. “That - that monster is still…”

He nodded. 

He told her more of how WISE had put a lot of resources into trying to track the Director after the incident, but even after everything, she seemed to have just vanished. 

“The Director, whoever she is, would have to build her resources again from scratch,” he added, and he met Yor’s eyes. “So we might have a bit of time to prepare Anya for what’s to come.”

He would be lying if he said that he hadn’t thought of just relocating everyone, and taking them to somewhere far away. They could start a new life, where the Director wouldn’t have a hold over Anya or their family any more.

But - and he hated to admit this - he was still a spy. Operation Strix had to continue for the sake of world peace. They had no choice but to stay in Berlint.

And if the Director could find Anya after a decade, using a child as a scout, then what would stop them from finding Anya again somewhere else? 

If the Director wanted to come back for Anya, she knew where they were. And they wouldn’t go down without a fight.

Anya closed the bedroom door behind her and tried to quieten her thrumming heartbeat. Blood rushed in her ears, and she slid down to the floor against the door. 

The Director’s taunting face flashed in her mind, and Anya suppressed a gasp.

The Director holding the needles, holding the scalpel, holding all the cards. The Director twisting the key into the handcuffs that held her still. The Director ordering the guards to capture her.

Always, always, the Director made themselves known to Anya through fear. Her presence inspired trembling knees and wide eyes. 

Because she had control. She always had control over Anya.

Anya tried to get her breathing under control, otherwise she feared that her heart rate would skyrocket. She honestly didn’t know what she would do if she ever saw that woman again.

Her parents hadn’t seen the Director in their rescue - Anya knew that - and yet still she had hoped that she would be caught along with the other scientists and staff. How the hell did she get away?

Having the Director on the loose was the last thing she needed. 

She drew her knees up closer to her, feeling the warmth of her breath on her skin. In and out.

Even though she had seen the fact in Loid’s mind, she still hoped. If the Director was gone, then she could live free. Everything would be fixed, and she would have nothing to worry about. But she had no idea what to expect for the new life that awaited her.

It was bad enough that her Mama and Papa knew. After over a decade of secrecy, she wasn't sure how she would be able to get used to the fact that they now knew her biggest secret.

Although… their reactions did surprise Anya. They didn't seem to be scared of her, so that was a plus. All those nightmares she had that people would think she was a witch and abandon her, she was glad that they did not apply to her parents. For now.

Williams.

Levski.

Roche.

It had been a while since she had remembered those names.

They thought she was creepy. She was too intuitive to be a normal child, they reminded her day after day. They invited her into their lovely homes with a smile, only to look disgusted when they handed her back.

Would Loid hand her back now that he knew the truth? Would Yor?

The fear had been ever present in her, but at that moment, Anya felt something lift from their shoulders. If they had not handed her back already, that was a good sign. He had kept her for over twelve years after all.

They knew she was an experiment in a lab, and still they chased after her. They saw her helpless and trapped, and still they got her out. They took her to the hospital. They stayed by her bedside while she recovered, and had the patience to listen to her blurt out all their secrets to each other. And still they forgave her.

Why did you all come for me?

Because we love you.

As Anya kept breathing, she felt her heart rate slow, and the rush in her ears subsided. 

It would be stupid of the Director to come back for her. Not with the might of the Forgers protecting her. 

With the knowledge that both of her parents would fight tooth and nail for her, Anya’s shoulders relaxed, and slowly she emerged from her cocoon. 

Anya raised her head from her knees, and took a look around her room. It was almost as she had left it on that day. Schoolwork strewn across the desk, shoes stashed under the desk, although Loid must have tidied away the piles of clothes from her floor, and straightened her bed. She normally left it unmade.

An absence of silver in the corner of her eye formed a pit in her stomach. Of course Loid would have confiscated the gun that she took. If she was going to be a spy, she wanted to have her own weapon. 

Something drew her eye to her bed, and Anya slowly stood while she counted out the plush toys that had been arranged in a neat pile by her pillow. 

She liked having them near her pillow. It made her feel safe. Agent penguin and chimaera were her favourites of course, but there was one addition to the pile that Anya had no memory of admitting.

Anya picked up the gryphon. He fit snugly into her palm, and flopped slightly to the side, with its wings outspread, and beak lifted in a noble pose. It looked old, but not worn. It had been a well-loved toy.

The scent of cinnamon drifted up to her, and Anya lifted it up to her nose to sniff. 

It smelled of… Damian?

Her brain buzzed with something she couldn't identify, but she tried to pick out the facts. Damian had been in her room. After she had been abducted. He brought her this toy - his toy. 

Anya couldn't help the tears that pricked her eyes as she took in the sight of the gryphon. She knew they had their bad moments in the past, but this proved that he missed her enough to leave her a present for when she got back. If she knew Damian at all, she guessed that it took a lot for him to leave it there with her.

She would have to thank him when she saw him. It was too bad that her phone was taken, otherwise she might have sent him a text.

She put it back in its place, cradled between penguin and chimaera. Truly a place of honour. 

Later, she would go back and apologise to her parents. For now, she crawled back into her bed, keeping close to her collection.

The gryphon rested against her forehead as she drifted into sleep.

Chapter Text

Saturday arrived quickly, and with it, so did Damian.

Recovering at home was so much more boring than she thought it would be, so when Saturday came, she glimmered with excitement.

He had been holding back from visiting her during the weekdays since he had already missed so many assignments and had to catch up, but she was happy that she was going to get a visit to break up her mundane week. With Yor’s help, Anya had gotten to the point that she was able to change her bandages on her own. However, because of the sedative effects of the painkillers, she was advised to rest as much as possible.

Anya spent the last couple of days mostly watching TV on the couch, while either Yor or Loid stayed home to keep an eye on her, and took it in turns to go to work. She had also somehow managed to eat a lot of peanut ice cream. 

The increased radius of her powers was also a problem. After a few days of constant noise, she was more tired than usual, woke more in the night, and found it difficult to drift off into sleep, but she did her best to just ignore the heightened rabble. 

It took her years to master her powers secretly when she was younger - she was confident that she would be able to dial it down in no trouble at all.

In the meantime, when peoples thoughts buzzed around her, Anya actually found it more confusing to interpret them. It just sounded like constant noise to her. Sure, sometimes a thought or two would shine through the fog, but it happened less frequently than before.

Her parents didn't know that she had been trying to train her mind while lying on the sofa all day, but what they didn't know wouldn't hurt them. They were already so worried about her as it was, and Anya felt really guilty about adding more to their already large to-do lists. She had to do as much as possible on her own so that she wouldn't be a burden to them anymore.

Still, she would have liked something more to do on the long days in the apartment. 

So it was a nice surprise when Damian called on Friday night to let them know he would be coming round the next day.

With all her missed schoolwork!

Anya pouted while her parents weren’t looking, and turned the volume up on the TV. Her favourite episodes of spy wars blared from the screen, and she half-hoped that Damian would cancel so that she didn’t have to do school work.

When the doorbell did ring, Yor clapped her hands together in delight. “I’ll get it!” she called, and went to buzz him up. 

Anya sat up to welcome him, keeping her movements slow as she was instructed to do. It wouldn't do to have any of her wounds reopen this soon after the hospital discharge. 

“Sy-on!” she exclaimed when he entered, and Yor had let him in. 

Anya looked on as Yor leaned down to say something in his ear, and a smattering of pink spread across his cheeks, but it was nothing compared to the colour he turned when he saw her strewn across the sofa.

“H-hey,” he said stoically. “You good?”

When she nodded, his shoulders visibly loosened, and he pulled on his satchel strap. “Come on then. I’ve got all your schoolwork.”

“Ugh,” Anya groaned. “Do we have to?”

Anya noticed that he studiously avoided eye contact with her. “Dummy. Are you really that desperate for another Tonitrus Bolt?” he said playfully. 

Anya hmphed and crossed her arms over her chest in light protest, but it was only then that she realised - she was still in her pyjamas.

Her Princess Honey pyjamas. 

“Ah!” she leapt up from her comfy space on the sofa, wincing only slightly when the sudden movement pulled at her stitches, and barrelled her way towards her room. 

She slammed the door behind her, panting for breath from the sudden exertion, and pressed her hands to her face in embarrassment.

Thumps pounded on the door. “Hey! It's only schoolwork, it's not going to kill you!”

“Just a second!” Anya called through the door, and scanned the area to locate something, anything, that she could use to get changed quickly. Her eyes landed on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt strewn across her bed.

Damian shouted through the door once again as she hurriedly pulled on the jeans. “Stop avoiding me! Open the door right this second!”

Anya was halfway to pulling the shirt over her head when the door creaked open, and she yanked the t-shirt down before turning to see a redder-than-normal Damian. 

“Uh,” he gulped.

Anya’s cheeks flamed. “You saw nothing!” 

She saw the image in his mind. He did not see nothing, and they both knew it.

“Sure,” said Damian, a bit too quickly. “I’m just gonna… um…” His voice trailed away as he drifted back towards the kitchen table. 

Anya was torn between laughing at the silly expression on his face, or hiding herself under the duvet forever. She put her hands over her hot cheeks and tried not to scream. Why was it always Damian that saw her at her absolute worst?

Anya tried to calm her thunderous heart with a few deep breaths before she threw her shoulders back and shook herself off. If Becky could exude confidence on the outside, then she could too. 

She threw open the door, startling Damian just outside of it, and stormed towards the kitchen table. 

“I'm ready now,” she muttered, not quite looking Damian in the eye. 

She had forgotten about her wounds. Goosebumps flared on her skin as she felt his eyes roam to the bandages striped across her arms, but he didn't say anything. 

An image flashed in his mind of her in a tank, hair floating like a halo, trapped in the web of tubes, shortly followed by an image of her clutched to his chest, her circled wounds freshly open and bleeding into his clothes. 

Anya started. She didn’t like to remember what it was like in the tank, and she was too sedated to sense things at the time, but Damian’s image of her was almost… beautiful. Until he saw what the tubes did to her afterwards.

Nausea roiled in her stomach. Damian had seen her like that?

Damian cleared his throat and pulled out the seat next to her. “So, um, I think if we started with the policy brief projects…”

It felt like Anya was trying to remember things from another time. She could barely recall the assignment, but Damian gently explained that Professor Henderson understood that Adrian’s absence might affect her grade. Anya was a bit offended at this. 

“I think he’ll find that I pulled all the weight on that one,” she muttered, but she got to work anyway. With Damian’s gentle guidance, she had been able to create a brief draft of what she wanted to explain.

Catching up on schoolwork was certainly a drawback at Eden college.They were expected to be the best of the best, and illness was seen as no excuse for turning in less than adequate work. 

Once they finished her assignment, they moved onto maths. Even after twelve years, it was Anya’s least favourite subject.

The numbers on the page taunted her, and she tried to puzzle out the answers as she tapped her pen against her lips. She liked the feeling of it bouncing against her skin, and found that fidgeting helped her to focus somewhat. 

After a minute of trying to think through the problem, something stood out to her against the rabble.

She looks so cute when she does that…

The pen slipped through her fingers.

“Oh!” she said in a voice a bit too high. “Whoops! How did that happen-” She dived down under the table to retrieve her pen, and hoped that Damian didn’t catch sight of her hot face. While under the table she took a moment to compose herself while she pretended to look for the pen. 

“Ah, found it!” she exclaimed and came back up with a smile, holding it triumphantly in her grasp. “Now, um, where were we…”

Damian stared at her, and swallowed. Shit, did she hear me?

Anya tucked her hair behind her ear in an effort to look nonchalant and airy, and flashed him what she hoped was a convincing smile. She had completely forgotten about their agreement. “Oh yeah! Something about this… uh.. equation?”

“Formula,” Damian corrected her gently and leaned forward, his own pencil at the ready. “Look here, it’s simple if you think about it…”

But the damage was done. Suddenly, Anya found it exceptionally difficult to concentrate on anything that he said, instead looking at the dark hues of his golden eyes, and she couldn't ignore the scent of cinnamon in the air.

“Does that make sense?” said Damian casually as he glanced back towards her, and Anya blushed. 

“Uh…”

A pained look crossed his face. “Anya…”

“I’m sorry!” she said reflexively. “Um, could you explain it again?”

She tried to listen. She really did. But once it was clear that nothing was going in, Damian finally put his head in his hands.

“Anya!” he grumbled. “If you don't get this, you’ll fail the exams! And if you fail the exam, you'll get a bolt and you’ll be expelled and-”

He stopped, and swallowed. And even if he hadn't said it in his mind, Anya might have understood what he wanted to say.

I’ll never see you again.

Anya gulped. She was so stupid. The whole reason that Damian was trying to help her catch up on her missed schoolwork was that she was still just one Tonitrus Bolt away from expulsion. She should have been paying better attention, should have been making the most of him giving up his time to tutor her.

Anya breathed, and tried to focus her mind.

“One more time.” she said resolutely.

After a few hours, they were both relieved when Yor came through with mugs of hot chocolate for them both. “You both have been studying so hard,” she said with a smile, setting the mugs down in front of them.

“Thanks, Mama,” said Anya as she took the mug gratefully, and hummed after taking a large sip.

Damian took his and mumbled his thanks with a red face. 

The door clicked closed as Loid returned home. “I finished up that side mission a lot earlier than I thought,” he called to the kitchen, “I can start making dinner just now!”

Damian frowned into his mug. “You work at the hospital on a Saturday?”

Anya and Yor froze. 

A strained voice called in from the hallway. “Oh, Damian! You’re here!” he turned round the corner with a strained smile frozen on his face. “Forgive me, that was a bit of an exaggeration. I was helping a colleague with something.”

Anya flicked her eyes to Yor’s, and they made brief eye contact.

Does he suspect anything? Her Mama’s voice rang clear in her mind.

Anya, very slowly shook her head.

Damian didn't ask any further questions, and Anya fought the instinct to pry into his mind, remembering her promise that she made to him. After all, he hadn’t given her the code.

Loid moulded his face into something a bit more pleasant. “Since you're here Damian, why don't you stay for dinner?”

A pit formed in Anya’s stomach. She knew what Twilight was doing.

She knew that he had a fairly positive opinion of Damian himself, and did not object to him coming round occasionally, but the phrase Operation Strix was a constant in Twilight’s mind, as if it was a record on repeat. That moment was no different. 

She knew what her father wanted - if she and Damian were friends, there was a greater chance of Twilight interacting with Donovan Desmond outside of school, and possibly even being able to infiltrate his house. They would find whatever they needed to, have world peace, and Operation Strix would end forever.

Or at least, that was the shortcut version that Anya had created long ago.

“Oh, uh,” Damian stammered. “I can't, I'm expected back by the matron.”

“Of course,” said Loid smoothly. “But if you change your mind, just let us know…”

Then something crossed his mind, and his eyes flashed with an idea. 

“Actually, Anya, I’ve forgotten some of the ingredients for tonight's dinner, could you go and get them?”

His voice rang clear in her mind, penetrating through the ever present fog of thoughts: I need to speak with Damian alone.

Sweat prickled on her skin, and she rose from the table without even thinking. “Yes, Papa,” she heard herself saying distantly. “I’ll just get my bag…”

She left through the front door, and closed it carefully, pressing herself against it. 

Pretty naive of Twilight to think she wouldn’t eavesdrop.

Damian swallowed, suddenly realising that being alone with both of Anya’s parents was a bit more than what he had bargained for on a Saturday. 

“Is everything okay?” he squeaked.

Yor made eye contact with Loid, and together they pulled a couple of chairs round the table and sat opposite Damian.

He wondered if he was about to be interviewed. Or interrogated. Or just ripped to shreds entirely. Damian clutched his hands underneath the table and tried not to look too nervous.

“We need to talk about Anya,” said Loid quietly, and flicked his eyes towards the door.

Damian tensed. Why would they want to talk about Anya with him? Did Mr Forger figure out that he liked her?  And wanted to hang out with her all the time? Was he about to do the father-daughter boundaries talk thing?

He really hoped not. It wasn't exactly a conversation he had prepared for, along with everything else. Damian clutched his hands tighter under the table and hoped that they didn’t know he had accidentally seen Anya in her bra. He was pretty sure that would be less of a conversation and more of a physical duel. 

“Now that her past has been exposed, and her safety is compromised we should work together to protect her.”

Damian blinked, and the scenarios in his mind screeched to a halt. 

“Excuse me?”

Loid didn't relent. “What extra measures are you taking for security?”

“Uh,” Damian blanked. He hadn't thought about it at all.

Loid narrowed his discerning eyes. “She hasn't told you, has she?”

Damian’s head snapped up. His mouth went dry in fear as he frantically thought back to every conversation he had with Anya since he had visited her in hospital. 

They talk about school, mostly. The ongoing tension with Becky and Bill (although Anya refused to say anything to him), the homework, and the classes that she missed. He asked after her recovery, and if she was okay, and if she was eating, was she looking after herself and taking care of her injuries. After a while, Anya had stubbornly told him that he was “too worried” and to let it go. Oh, and she thanked him for the gryphon, after which he embarrassingly muttered “don’t mention it” and hung up the phone.

Sweat prickled on the back of his neck as it dawned on him that he and Anya hadn’t actually talked about anything of consequence, so it was likely that whatever Mr Forger was about to say would likely be very bad news. 

“Told me what?”

Loid scanned Damian’s nervous posture and lowered his voice. “The Director is still out there.”

The blood froze in Damian’s veins. “Oh.” 

And as the full weight of the news set, the implications stood clear in his mind. “You mean, they could be back at any minute?”

“It's possible,” said Yor, who had chosen to join in the conversation. “So Anya is no longer going to ride the bus to school. Loid and I will take turns escorting her to and from school each day.” 

(They didn't mention that they planned on taking it in turns to keep an eye on her at school as well).

“Well,” Damian's mouth went dry. “I could hire more bodyguards.”

“Wouldn't your father object?” said Loid and raised an eyebrow at Damian.

“Not if I said it was for me,” said Damian confidently. “I thought about it after I was… um… after you got me out of the warehouse, but I wondered if it was overkill.”

“That's a reasonable solution, and perhaps appropriate given that the staff of the facility knew your name. You may be on their list of targets,” said Loid, but he folded his hands together and brought his eyes level to Damian’s. “But what if you're alone?”

“What do you mean?”

“What if for whatever reason, the security wasn't there. They might not be allowed on school grounds, or there might be a situation where you've been separated from them, and Anya would be an open target. What could you do then?”

“I-” Damian stuttered. “Well…”

“Darling,” interrupted Yor, and put her hand on Loid’s shoulder. “Perhaps this is overstepping a little-”

Damian swallowed dryly, and looked Loid in the eye. “I could have something to defend myself with.”

Loid’s response was immediate. “That’s illegal,” said Loid smoothly, as he reached for his cup of water. “And perhaps not appropriate for a boy to bring into school with him.”

Damian fidgeted with his hands. “What about the gun you took from Anya?”

Loid spluttered on his drink, and stared at Damian, speechless.

And it was Yor that broke the silence. “How did you know about that?”

“Because I took it from her first,” he said quietly. “When I visited your house before. I saw it in her room and I took it. And I brought it with me to the lab.”

Yor and Loid exchanged a panicked look, and Damian wriggled into his seat even further. Even though he was terrified of them both, he couldn't help the questions that burned to the surface. 

“And you’re hiding it in your jacket right now.”

Loid’s hand flew protectively to his jacket’s opening, but he stopped suddenly, realising that he had just given himself away entirely. His shoulders sagged in resignation.

“Fine,” said Loid. “Here.”

He took the gun out from his jacket pocket and rested it on the table between them. “It’s yours.”

"Wait, seriously?" Damian hesitated to reach for it, but at Loid’s encouraging nod, he laid his hand to rest against the cool metal of the handle. He weighed it in his hands, still as heavy as what he remembered.

“Do you know how to use it?” said Loid.

Damian met Yor’s eyes briefly. “I’ve had, um, a brief instruction.”