Archive of Our Own ^beta

Yor never envisioned herself living the normal family life. She had her brother to take care of, yes, but it was just the two of them. Besides that, she had – has – a dangerous job no one can know of.

When someone would’ve asked her, a bit over a year ago, when she’d be getting a family of her own, she probably would’ve laughed at them. Or more of a nervous chuckle, since that probably meant they had seen through her curtain of lies.

Yet, here she is.

Cleaning the dishes of three people, while the television plays a kid’s show in the background.

In moments like this, she allows herself to forget about her job, her past and the distance that hangs between her and Loid and Anya. In these moments, she is just a wife and the mother of a child.

But moments like this are short-lived.

This moment of serenity soon gets disrupted when Loid’s arm swings over the backrest of the coach. When the light hits it like this, Yor can perfectly see them: the scars that cover his arm.

Within a split second, Yor realizes how she barely knows the man she’s living with.

Sure, during the past year she’s come to know that Loid’s a psychiatrist. She knows that, while Loid’s a very composed man, his job can exhaust him to the point that he oftentimes doesn’t want to speak to anyone whenever he’s had a late shift. She knows not to give him too much coffee, because even though he clearly prefers it black, it really upsets his stomach. She knows he’s a stern father, but he has a soft side too. And though he’s really good at coming up with ideas for things to do as a family, he’s not great at reading the room when it comes to Yor and Anya’s moods.

She knows him. To some extent, at least.

But it’s all the little things she doesn’t know that keep reminding her that the Forger family is just forged. Fake. A cover. She doesn’t really know where Loid came from or who he is when he’s not around her, just like Loid doesn’t entirely know Yor or her past.

Yor tries to keep focusing on drying the plate in her hand, ignoring the scars she’s been noticing, just like she’s been doing for a pretty long time now. She’s been noticing small things about Loid she just can’t piece together, but maybe that’s just because she knows so little about him.

Her eyes glance up from the towel. Carefully, her eyes trace Loid’s skin. She swears it used to look clear when she’d just met him, though maybe he just wore long sleeves more often; she’s not sure.
It’s like, over the past months, he’s gained so many more scars.

But Yor’s certain that’s just her imagination.

Maybe those are just little things the brain starts registering after spending a long time with someone. Which makes her wonder-

Has Loid noticed hers?

She’s lucky, given her skill at her job and her skin not being prone to developing scars. On top of that, she’s able to hide the ones she does have underneath leggings and long dresses. So, she doubts Loid has seen hers. Still, she can’t help but wonder if he has. She wonders if he’s just as curious about them. Does it also make him question his knowledge of Yor as someone he’s been sharing a home with for over a year? Would he ask her about it? Would he be okay with her asking about his?

She’s been pondering, hesitant to bring it up, despite her curiosity.

Most times she’d caught glimpses of them, whenever Loid wore short sleeves or his shirt crept up enough for his stomach to be exposed for a split second, Loid didn’t seem in the mood for this type of conversation. Yor doesn’t know what caused them, after all, so it never felt like the right time to bring it up. Until now.

It’s a Sunday and for the first time in weeks, the Forger family got to spend it together. Lazing around; Anya and Bond playing in the living room as Loid tutored Yor on cooking simple recipes.

It’s been a fun, calm day.

Yor takes a slow breath, scanning for any sign of there being something off about Loid’s mood. A small chuckle coming from Loid as some silly joke about spies is being made on the television, gives Yor the final push she needs.

“Uhm, Loid?” she hears herself say, her voice barely loud enough to make it to the living room.
 Loid’s shoulders tense up briefly, before he turns around to face her. “What’s wrong?” he asks, probably able to sense the hesitation in Yor’s voice.

“I-“ Yor bites the inside of her cheek. Is she really going to ask this? “-I’ve been wanting to ask you something.”

A quick flash of pink shoots across Loid’s cheeks, his eyes growing larger. “Like what?”

“I’ve been noticing your scars.”

_

“My scars, huh?” Twilight repeats.

A feeling of unease spreads through his gut. He must’ve gotten a bit a too careless when it comes to covering up his scars. But what else could he have done? He couldn’t walk around with full body make-up to hide them from the outside world; skin isn’t made to be covered by layers of make-up twenty-four seven.

Twilight takes a slow breath, before patting with his hand on the couch as a sign for Yor to join him. Whatever she wants to know, Twilight knows it’ll be more comfortable to explain if he doesn’t need to be twisted around to even see Yor.

“What do you want to know about them?” he asks, once Yor has made her way to the couch, making sure to leave the presence of his nerves unknown to Yor and Anya.

Yor fumbles with the skirt of her red dress. She seems anxious, even more so than Twilight, making him wonder which of his scars she’d noticed to be alarmed by them to this extend. They don’t even sleep in the same room, nor use the bathroom at the same time, so he doubts she’s seen the bigger once he’s luckily able to keep hidden beneath his clothes at all times.

“Well-“ Yor uncomfortably shifts in her seat. “I noticed you have a pretty big scar on your stomach.” She looks at her hands and shakes her head. “You don’t have to tell me how you got it! I just-“ A slow sigh makes its way out of her mouth. “-never mind. It was stupid of me to ask about them. It wasn’t my place.”

Twilight reaches out to her shoulder, giving it a comforting squeeze. “It’s okay. I don’t mind telling you.” He’s not sure he’s going to make that scar in particular fit in with Loid’s story, but he knows keeping it a secret is only going to make him more suspicious to Yor.

He takes his hand past his t-shirt, visualizing the places where the scar stretches over his stomach and chest. The skin, red and ragged, and less flexible than before.

He does have some ideas that could work for Loid’s back-story, with a lot of tweaking; he can easily chalk it up to something that happened during his childhood, and she probably wouldn’t question it.

But something inside of Twilight’s chest’s fighting the logic behind lying about his scars.

Telling lies, no matter how harmless, feels wrong with how long he’s been sharing a home with Yor. Not even just a home, but also a kid they’ve both grown to love. They may not be a real family, but they are part of each other’s daily lives.

Though certain bits of Twilight’s identity are best hidden away from Anya and Yor, for everyone’s safety, the line between Loid and Twilight has started to fade over time. Because of that, keeping this part of this strangely merged identity completely hidden, makes Twilight’s stomach tighten.

So, instead of making a completely different story up on the spot, he decides to alter the truth. He won’t let his identity as a spy show through of course, that’d be dangerous, but he can at least share something as close to what happened as possible; his past, especially when it leaves marks like this, automatically becomes part of Loid’s past as well.

With that decided, Twilight takes a slow breath.

Think Loid. He told himself, before finally saying, “It’s actually a bit of an embarrassing story.” He forces a chuckle; if he’s really going to tell this close to how it happened, he has to lighten the mood a bit. Yor already seems worried enough about him, he really doesn’t want to worry her more.

“Really?” Yor responds, her shoulders tensing. “It’s okay if you’d rather not tell.”

Twilight shakes his head. “No, it’s okay.” He takes a slow breath, allowing him some time to puzzle the details together of his cover-up story. “It happened quite some time ago already anyway.”

Seven years ago, to be exact. Twilight had been in the spy business for just three years, but was quickly rising to the top at his profession. This, obviously, was contributed by him being assigned more dangerous missions.

“It’d been a long day; I’d gotten up early for work and had worked overtime. I was going to have some visitors over and, you know me, I like to have something to serve when I have guests. But since I’d worked so late, I felt a lot of time pressure.”

Five secret police agents who’d placed a trap to lure a spy, ready to finally catch one of WISE’s men, were seconds away from capturing Twilight. This was his first time being in this type of situation.

Maybe they’d underestimated the mission, or overestimated him, he’s still unsure to this day.
He was sent out after a bomb was detected, that it was a secret police’s trap was still unknown. He thought all that was at stake was that a wrong bomb dismantling would blow up the rendezvous point.

With the presence of the secret police agents, those stakes had completely changed; if he didn’t dismantle this bomb quickly he’d be captured and tortured, with no way of being saved.

This change of stakes pressured him into making stupid beginner’s mistakes.

“I quickly whipped up a recipe from the back of my mind and popped the cake in the oven. Being less experienced with baking yet, I thought it would be okay to crank up the heat so the cake would be ready sooner.” Twilight closes his eyes, remembering how he went over the steps of bomb-dismantling in his head. Maybe if him being captured was a possibility if he wasn’t fast enough, it was okay to skip some of the safety precautions; they often were useless checks anyway.

“It wouldn’t make a difference, right?” He shakes his head, carefully stroking past his chest. “Wrong.”

Twilight, in a blind rush, bend over the bomb to investigate what type of IED he was working with, he forgot a crucial step. A missed step that might as well have been fatal if luck hadn’t been on his side.

“If I’d paid more attention, nothing would’ve happened; I would’ve had a normal cake done in time for my visitors,” Twilight continues. “But now, instead, I was in the same room as a burning oven.”

A bomb, ready to blow up.

“You should’ve seen the smoke. Heard the blast-“ Twilight remembers it all.

The slam, like lightning striking right beside him.

The way he got pushed back by the force as flames and shards got blown in his direction.

The flash of heat scorching his skin despite his heat resistant clothing.

The damage had been done. And since the secret agents heard the bomb detonated, probably also still fairly new in their profession, they decided the spy they’d hoped the catch had passed away.

Twilight had been able to escape the building fueled by the adrenaline rushing through his veins, only to spend the next hours sitting in the nearest public bathroom stall, tending to a blast injury that’d left him with a couple of bruised ribs, pretty deep burns and tinnitus he still has to this day.

“One of my neighbors must’ve heard the commotion and called an ambulance. I was brought to the hospital where they were able to give me good burn care and physical therapy.”

Twilight looks up at Yor to see the shocked expression on her fears, tears glimmer in her eyes.

“I know it sounds, and looks, pretty bad-“ It was. “-but trust me when I say the scar doesn’t hurt me anymore, outside from on some rainy days.”

That isn’t a lie; beside some stiffness, the wound healed surprisingly well. Especially considering going to a hospital was out of the question; with the help of Twilight’s past first aid lessons and a broad archive on how to treat chemical burns, he was able to thug it out alone.

“Still. That sounds scary-“ Yor’s hand squeezes Twilight’s leg. “-and painful.”

Twilight takes a slow breath and as he exhales he carefully whispers, “Yeah.” It had been really scary.

Sure, he’d been taught ways to suppress the emotions about what’d happened to him; it was part of being a spy. He wasn’t extremely new to the business anymore and because of that he had to push away upsetting events many times before; he or his colleagues getting injuries, some of which fatal, was an occupational hazard. He knew that, and everyone around him knew that too.

So, following the protocol of what they’d learned; other spies, informants and operators went on with their missions. And Twilight took care of his injuries, his only help being high doses of painkillers.
When someone acknowledged what happened, he’d just shrug it off, like it had been like any other day at work. Emotions were not allowed to hinder him in this field of work.

No one had ever asked him if he was feeling alright, or addressed how scary the situation he’d been in actually was. Not until now, at least.

“I’m sorry-“ Yor’s voice is soft. “-if talking about it brought up bad memories.”

Twilight closes his eyes and shakes his head. The memories are always there, in the back of his mind whenever he’s on a mission or in the nightmares that show him how the world will end.

Yor hasn’t brought up those memories, if anything she’s given him the chance to find a bit of closure.

“No one has ever dared to ask me about it. And, honestly, I never thought I needed someone to do so.” He places his hand over hers and smiles gently. “So, thank you.”

Yor’s eyes glances away, her cheeks getting slightly flushed with pink as she stammers, “N-No problem.” She shrugs, fumbling with the skirt of her dress again. “I’m glad talking about it helped.”

“Do you have any, if you don’t mind me asking,” Twilight carefully asks.

“Any what?” Yor’s eyes get bigger. “Scars?”

Loid nods once, slowly.

“Well- why do you ask?”

“I-“ Twilight closes his mouth, not sure what to tell her.

Maybe this wasn’t the best way to go about asking it, though he’s not sure how to ask someone if they’d like to talk about something like this; Twilight, just like his colleagues did when something happened to him, always followed their education and didn’t address anything that might emotionally distract him or his colleagues.

And sure, Loid is a psychiatrist, but there are dozens of books written on how to keep those kinds of conversations as a professional. But this is different; he’d spilt his heart to Yor, to the extent that felt comfortable for him, it feels wrong not to grant Yor the same opportunity. To talk to him as a friend, and for him to respond as that as well, instead of as a psychiatrist following a flowchart.

So he just puts on a compassionate smile and tells Yor, “If there’s any scar, physical or emotional, you want to share anything about, I’ll listen.” He pauses briefly, squeezing her hand gently. “I want to be here for you.”

_

Usually Anya would be annoyed by Loid and Yor talking over the Spy Wars episode, but now she’s intrigued. Loid’s scar story sounded very scary, but epic.

Okay, maybe not what he actually told Yor, though that wasn’t a bad story either, but what really happened; that was a story worthy of coming from a real-life spy.

And now, with Loid asking Yor if she wants to share the story behind one of hers, Anya’s even more invested in this conversation. Even more so than watching the television, though she does pretend she’s still trying to watch; maybe if she’s silent, they’ll forget she’s in the room. She’s learned that’s something that happens from time to time, it’s a grown-up thing, she believes.

Or maybe it’s just what happens if someone can’t constantly hear the thoughts of everyone inside the same room; they forget there’s someone else there.

But despite pretending to watch the TV, Anya’s ears and mind are fixed on hearing every detail.
Yor’s mind is hard not to hear. Her thoughts ramble on as she tries to decide on which story she should tell, and all sound equally terrifying and badass.

A large flesh wound on her back, she got during her training.

A bullet fired at a questionable area to talk about.

A Molotov cocktail blowing up close to her.

Maybe it’s safest to tell him about that one time I accidentally cut my finger with a letter opener at work. Yor thinks to herself. Anya can see her looking at her finger from the corner of her eye. It did actually leave a scar, strangely enough; it wasn’t even that deep.

Okay, maybe not all of Yor’s stories sound interesting. Luckily Yor seems to notice it’s not okay for her to respond to his story with something so uncool, and decides to pick something else.

Through her mind flashes a short image of a long scar running along her upper leg.

It’s an old one. Yor thinks to herself. And it’s probably the safest.

From the corner of her eye, Anya sees how Yor fumbles with the long skirt that covers it. Carefully, Yor lowers her hand onto her upper leg and traces the line.

“I have one right here. But I’d prefer not to show it, because it-” Looks exactly like what it is; the slice of my own weapon. “-it’s, uhm, pretty large and ugly.”

Loid nods once. That explains why she always wears dresses that reach below her knee, or leggings to cover up her legs, I always thought she just was very cold at all times.

“That’s okay,” Loid answers, to Anya’s relief; she really doesn’t want Loid to see Yor’s assassin battle-scars. “You can show me or tell me as much as you’re comfortable with.”

“Thank you.” Yor takes an audible breath before continuing. “I got it in my late teens; a burglary.”

In reality, Yor was the one breaking into and entering someone else’s home, Anya finds out through

Yor’s memories of the events. It was an assignment she’d gotten from her boss; entering a building filled with people making trouble in the East as they were having a meeting.

Anya can see why she doesn’t tell that to Loid, but in her opinion keeping it unsaid really diminishes the badassness of Yor in this story.

“We were home alone; my brother was already sleeping and my parents were gone. So, I had to stand my ground against-“ A dozen well-trained Westalian agents, but let’s make that a more common amount for burglars to be in. “-four burglars.”

“Four?” Loid repeats. Anya can’t see his face, but she’s certain he’s staring at Yor with that face of disbelief; the same look he gives Anya when she answers a math question wrong. His tone sure matches how he sounds when she does so. “You stood your ground against four burglars?”

“D-did I say four?” Yor lets out a nervous chuckle. “I meant two, of course- burglars always come in pairs.” Her voice became a soft mutter against the end of her sentence. “Anyway, these men were bigger and stronger than me and they really wanted to-“ Survive my attacks. “-steal from us.”

Memories flash by of twelve men fighting Yor. Twelve became eleven. Eleven became ten. So on, so forth; Yor kept beating them until there were just two left.

“I couldn’t fail at keeping them from taking what little we had. But at some point, as I was tracking one of them, the other man grabbed me from behind.” Yor’s muscles tense as she remembers the way it felt to be unable to free herself, no matter how much she squirmed.

“The other man-“ Yor swallows thickly.

That bastard, using my own weapon to torture me. Yor remembers. I thought I was done for.

“-he emptied our cupboards.”

For, God knows how long, they tried to get information out of me. Useless, I didn’t talk; not a word.

“And to keep me from calling the police and thereby securing their escape, they pushed me through our backdoor’s window. I got knocked out, the burglars made a run for it.”

Knowing they were just wasting their time with me, they sliced my leg open as their final move. Leaving me behind to bleed out.

Anya almost gasps out loud; this story is getting a bit too intense. She hopes Yor survives, because it sounds pretty serious. If Spy Wars has taught her anything, it’s that when people are left to bleed out, they usually don’t pull through.

She’s relieved to hear, though, that Yor was able to stop the bleeding with the use of a very tight bandage and, later on, stitches.

“When I came to there was glass stuck in my leg. We were able to get it out, but it did leave a scar.”

Loid shakes his head slowly. “I didn’t know this still happens in this day and age. And to teenagers, for God’s sake.” He places his hand on top of Yor’s and says, “I’m sorry that happened to you.”

“It’s nothing,” Yor promises, she sounds sincere. “Doesn’t this happen all the time?”

“What?”

“What?” Yor immediately responds, her voice alarmed.

“Burglaries happen, yes. But this-“ Loid takes a slow breath. “-a duo of burglars attacking young people for no reason.” I thought Ostania made it through this war better than Westalis has, but apparently things here weren’t all good either if people were so poor they’d do something like that.

Yor simply shrugs again. “I grew up in a very bad neighborhood; that’s just where people like us with-“ No parents. “-little money to spend ended up. Most people in my region were kindhearted people, but sometimes even the kindest people do bad stuff to make sure their family can live a normal life.”

Anya watches how Yor plays with her dress.

“I think, maybe because of that, I’ve always considered stuff like that happening to me and my family to be normal,” she explains. “It never occurred to me that this might not happen in wealthier regions.” Maybe some people don’t have to spend their youth around beggars, thieves and killers, even becoming one themselves simply so they can feed and take care of their families.

Anya wonders if she really never thought about that, though, she can imagine she never has; Anya also thought her life was just like everyone else’s, until she realized not everyone could hear other people’s thoughts. Until she realized she was just one of many test subjects. To her, it felt like any other day when she was poked and prodded and experimented on.

I guess none of us know what a normal life is supposed to look like; Yor grew up fighting off burglars, I grew up in the middle of a war and Anya switched families for the first years of her life. Even our dog doesn’t have a normal past. Loid’s thought crosses Anya’s mind and she feels like she should agree with him. But she kind of doesn’t.

Because while she surely hasn’t had a normal start of her life, she feels like she has been living a pretty normal one lately. She guesses the same goes for Yor; until Loid came around, she considered her life to be normal. Loid, strange as it sounds seeing as he’s a spy with a very cool yet unusual life, has allowed both Anya and Yor to experience what a normal everyday life looks like.

Yor clears her throat, interrupting the silence between the three of them. “Well, I guess I’ll go back to doing the dishes now.” Before I actually say something to give myself away.

She gets up before Loid can say anything.

Anya doesn’t want this moment to end, though; she was really enjoying hearing their scar-stories. On top of that, if Loid notices how late it is, she’ll have to go to bed immediately. She doesn’t want that, she wants to stay up and hear more of their stories. Or maybe even share one of her own.

“Wait, don’t go, mama!” Anya blurts out. “I want to tell a story too!”

Shit- Loid’s shoulders tense up. –I thought she was too focused on watching that show to notice us talking. His thoughts overlap as he wonders about how gory his story was and whether Anya will be able to sleep tonight, as well as the thought Anya already was dreading: What time is it? Isn’t she supposed to be in bed?

“Anya-“ Loid glances to the clock and Anya knows for sure he’s going to send her to bed straight away. The Spy Wars episode has already ended, which means it’s bedtime. But then his expression softens. He briefly exchanges a look with Yor. I guess letting her share her story wouldn’t do any harm.

Yor nods once, almost as if she can read Loid’s mind as well.

“I’ll let you tell us a story too.” He pauses briefly. “But just one, okay? You have school tomorrow.”

Anya nods. “Just one.”

“Okay, then.” Loid looks up at Yor, patting on the couch beside him. “Will you join us for a bit longer? I’ll help you finish the dishes afterwards.”

Yor nods once, before lowering herself onto the couch again.

With both of her parents looking at her now, Anya suddenly feels the pressure of having to tell them a good story too. Theirs were really cool, but she doesn’t have any cool scars yet.

She glances down at her knee, remembering how blood poured from her wound.

“It happened a week ago-”

I scraped my knee during school recess,  Anya remembers as she picks at the scab. It’s kind of lame in comparison. But Loid and Yor also didn’t tell the real story of how they got their battle scars, so I might as well make my story as cool as theirs-

Anya lowers her voice to a more ominous tone and continues. “It was a terrible injury. It happened as I was on a special mission to recover-“ Anya gives it a thought; what do cool spies recover? “-a very secret information I cannot tell you any more about. For this mission I found myself at school, where this secret thing was being heavily guarded by-“ She inhales sharply. “-mean people.”

Loid’s previously interested face grows into a worried frown. She’s not getting bullied, is she?

“They were mean because they were brainwashed!” Anya adds. “By an evil organization.”

Where does she get all of these ideas from? Yor thinks to herself.
Loid glances over at Yor, smiling awkwardly, thinking about the same thing.

“As I made my way to the secret hiding place, I got terribly injured by those people.” Anya shows off her injury. “You should’ve seen the blood; I could have died.”

She thinks back to that evening she got home after falling onto the pavement. It was still a little dirty and bloody, which she only saw after she took off her leggings which surprisingly enough hadn’t torn from the fall. She was shocked by how much it hurt when the air got to it.

“And I would’ve died if I hadn’t gotten to home base in time.” She thinks back to how Loid rushed to her side as she came out of the bathroom, crying. “There, my skillful medic patched me up. He’d been trained well at doing so. He’s very good at helping the wounded.” And afterwards Yor helped her get all comfortable on the couch and successfully made hot cocoa for Anya. “And the assass-- Uh, I mean, assistant, she made sure I was comfortable as I sat through the pain. Without them-” Anya pauses. “-I don’t know what I would do.”

After a short silence, Anya looks up at her family.

Neither of her parents says anything for a couple of seconds, until Loid finally smiles. “That was a nice story, Anya.” He reaches out and tousles Anya’s hair. “I think you were very brave. You really were able to keep it together really well until you got home from school-“

Anya clears her throat. “From my secret mission,” she corrects him.

“Apologies. Your secret mission.” Loid chuckles. Little does she know. “You were very strong.”

Anya smiles. But her smile grows just a bit sadder when she realizes how much more work Yor and Loid must’ve put into staying strong.

“You were both very strong as well.” She scoots closer to her parents and hugs them tight. They deserve it; Yor almost died because of those evil men, and Loid could’ve blown up or bled out. It makes her stomach tight when she realizes they both could’ve actually died back then.

It’s a scary thought.

But as Loid and Yor’s arms also wrap around her, hugging her back, she’s able to let that thought go. Because of how strong her parents have been, she has them here, right now.

There’ll probably be more moments where they need to be strong. Every spy story has its intense parts, after all. But there’s comfort in the knowledge that the three of them can combine their strength, so that they won’t need to be strong alone anymore.

Anya holds her parents tightly. Yeah, she’ll make sure they won’t need to be strong alone anymore.

The End.

.