Chapter Text
Earth, Sol System, 2186 (present day)
Tony leaned against the railing, looking out over the Vancouver skyline. The buildings glinted in the faint morning sunlight and the Fraser River glittered as it cut through them. He’d never been to Vancouver before. Most of the brief time he’d spent on Earth had been at the Alliance base in Rhode Island going through Basic, but he could never forget that particular shade of blue. Any other planets he’d been to, he’d been too focused on fighting Batarian slavers or stumbling into sketchy Cerberus projects he’d been only too happy to tear apart.
Vancouver was a beautiful city; different entirely from the Citadel, the heart of galactic politics and trade, where he’d spent most of his childhood. He knew they’d moved to the Citadel when he was about five, after the First Contact War, but didn’t remember much before that. The Citadel was recycled air and an artificial day/night cycle, it was prejudice and aloofness, pretty on the outside but ugly underneath, at least all the parts he’d seen of it. Even the Citadel sky was artificial and he’d felt like he was living in a bubble. No matter how long he’d spent planet-side, he never got used to all the open sky and the fresh air. He didn’t even remember smelling fresh air until he was eighteen and on his own.
All anyone around him seemed to be talking about was Shepard’s court martial, opinions vacillating between support and repudiation. But then Shepard had always been a polarising figure. Saving the galaxy a time or two would do that. Tony wasn’t sure how he felt on the matter either. He’d admired Shepard and, when Tony had been in the Navy, had followed Shepard’s career closely, trying to model his own after it. Working with Cerberus... he shook his head. There were few sins he found so unforgivable.
Cerberus was the reason he’d gotten up at an entirely unreasonable hour so he could scout the location of the meet. There was nothing quite like turning an agent of a terrorist organisation before breakfast. He felt a sharp thrill of satisfaction at the idea of getting one over on Cerberus. The organisation had been allowed to run rampant for far too long, had ruined far too many lives, his own included. It was about the only reason he’d even agreed to work for a Spectre in the first place.
He had liked being a free agent, liked not being tied down to anything or anyone, but the Spectres did some good work. They might be lone-wolf loose cannons who were above the law, but they got the job done and that was something Tony could appreciate. Special Tactics and Reconnaissance, Tony thought with a snort, wondering how long it had taken someone to come up with that name; the left hand of the Council, reaching out from the shadows to make the Council’s word law.
The Council wouldn’t usually involve themselves in strictly human issues, which they’d claimed Cerberus was for years. It was only recently, predominantly with Shepard’s involvement with both the Council and Cerberus, that they’d been willing to quietly look into the matter.
“DiNozzo?” a soft voice asked, the slightest tremble underlying it. Tony turned slowly, making sure none of his movements attracted attention, and leaned a hip against the railing so he could look out over the people walking past them. No one was paying any attention to them, just two more tourists admiring the view, but that didn’t mean they were safe from prying eyes.
“Ross.”
Stephen Ross furtively looked around, twitching whenever anyone wandered too close. His hair with thinning and his pale skin had a fine sheen of sweat. Tony sighed. He hated the twitchy ones. You could never be sure they wouldn’t change their minds when things got a little bit difficult and sell you out for what mercy they might receive from whatever quarter.
“I shouldn’t be here,” Ross said, wringing his hands. Tony had to remind himself that this might help the Spectres target Cerberus. Cerberus was worth any price. If he’d bothered to keep in contact with anyone, they’d probably tell him he was obsessed, but he wasn’t going to let it bother him as long as he got to raise a little hell along the way.
“There’s a reason you contacted me,” Tony told him. He’d had a crisis of conscience that Tony hadn’t hesitated to take advantage of. Ross was a scientist for Cerberus and there wasn’t a single one he’d met that hadn’t done something awful in the name of humanity. “You wanted to do the right thing.”
“I did,” Ross insisted and then jumped, looking around. He continued much more softly. “I do.”
“Then all you have to do is give me a little information, that’s all I’m asking for,” Tony told him, keeping his expression open and his tone cajoling. If there was one thing he missed about the Navy it was how straightforward things could be. Mostly aim and shoot. Grinning at Ross at the thought would definitely be the wrong move, so he very carefully didn’t.
“You don’t understand,” Ross said, backing up a step. Tony let him move away for now because too much intimidation would only make him run.
“Cerberus does some terrible things,” Tony told him. “I understand that better than most. I’m not asking you to act, but you’re living under an enormous weight. All I want from you is for you to unburden yourself.”
“I...” Ross began, eyes only settling briefly on Tony’s face before darting away again. Tony watched him steadily. “That is... We’re looking into ways to combat the Reapers.”
It was one of many things that frustrated Tony, that Cerberus was actually doing something about the threat of the Reapers while the Council and the Alliance dragged their heels. Granted, he probably wouldn’t approve of any of the things Cerberus was doing to prepare and likely half the experiments would be something someone would have to deal with when the Reapers were knocking on their doors.
“The Illusive Man thinks he can find a way to control them,” Ross continued.
Every time Tony thought he’d heard the worst of what the Illusive Man, the anonymous leader of Cerberus, was capable of, he’d come up with something even more insane. The Reapers were hundreds of thousands of years old synthetic beings, trying to control them would never end well.
“Where are you working?” Tony asked.
Like any good terrorist organisation, despite Cerberus’ protestations to the contrary, it operated in cells; each cell had no idea what the others were doing. What the Spectres needed was access to someone higher up on the food chain, but they couldn’t get that without first going through the lower levels.
“Stratford, but we’re only a small, ancillary office,” Ross told him. “There’s a lab somewhere on the East Coast.”
There was a great deal of denial in that statement. Cerberus had no ancillary or unimportant sites. Everything Tony knew about the Illusive Man, which admittedly wasn’t much, led him to believe the man abhorred waste and uselessness.
“Where?” Tony pressed, stepping into Ross’ space now that he was divulging what he knew. “Specifically.”
“I don’t know. They don’t tell me information like that.”
“What do they tell you?”
Ross twitched under Tony’s steady gaze, but he didn’t move away. Rather like a small animal that knew it was caught, Tony thought.
“I’ve taken too long,” Ross said, still not looking away from Tony. “I should be getting back.”
“Ross,” Tony said, gentling his tone but still standing over the man who swallowed hard. “You made a choice. A good choice. The right choice. And you’ve come this far. I just need a little more.”
“There’s stories of people disappearing or becoming something different, something... wrong. Our own people,” Ross told him in a hushed voice. Tony’s hand twitched with the urge to hit the man. As though Cerberus’ own people disappearing in their experiments was somehow worse than when it was anyone else. He very much doubted Ross had ever seen the real aftermath of any of those experiments.
“Go,” Tony told him, sure he wasn’t going to get anything further out of the man. Not today, at least. He’d try again when the next Cerberus atrocity made its way to the Alliance News Network. It was just pathetic that he was sure he wasn’t going to have to wait long. Ross turned and fled without looking back.
Tony watched him for a moment before sighing and turning back to the view, leaning heavily on the railing. He took another moment to appreciate the brilliant blue of the sky and breathe in the fresh air before he activated the omni-tool on his left wrist. His whole forearm lit up with an orange glow of the hologram as he linked to the Spectre who’d hired him. It wasn’t even close to one of the best omni-tools on the market, but those were only used by hackers and tech specialists. He didn’t even come close.
“Lieutenant DiNozzo,” the Spectre said.
“I’m not Alliance Navy any more, Maetar,” Tony said, resigned.
“Of course not, Lieutenant,” Maetar said, sounding mildly amused. In Tony’s experience, because their quick metabolism made them do everything so much faster, including think, Salarians tended to find other species a little slow. They were an amphibious race Tony was rather fond of, even if they did have some strange customs like reproductive contracts. Though he supposed it wasn’t any weirder than the human impetus to settle on any bit of rock they found floating in space, whether it could adequately support them or not.
“Is the connection secure?”
“It is.”
Foot traffic around him had thinned out quite a bit, but Tony still moved to a quieter area.
“The Cerberus presence on Earth is stronger than previous reports,” Tony told him.
“We had surmised as much.”
Tony nodded. Cerberus was never just what you saw, or even speculated, there was always so much more hiding beneath whatever thin veneer of civility they pretended to uphold.
“There’s a lab somewhere on the East Coast. My contact didn’t know the specifics,” Tony told him. Maetar sighed.
“It’s more than we knew before.”
“It won’t be the centre of their operations,” Tony cautioned. Cerberus was fairly decentralised except for the Illusive Man and no one knew where he’d set himself up like a spider at the centre of his terrorist web.
“It never is.”
“I’ll head to the East Coast tomorrow. See what I can uncover there,” Tony said.
“Let me know what you find out.”
“When I know anything, you’ll know,” Tony told him. Maetar made a noise of agreement and then hesitated. Tony waited to hear him out.
“I have considered putting your name forward as a Spectre candidate,” Maetar told him.
Tony laughed for a long moment before he realised Maetar wasn’t joining in. The Salarian waited patiently for him to stop.
“You’re kidding, right?” Tony asked hesitantly. It had been years since he’d depended on anyone else, since he’d let himself form attachments, but Maetar was different. The Spectre had wormed his way in before Tony even knew to guard against him.
“Over the last six months your work for me has been exceptional.”
“Thanks,” Tony said, shifting uncomfortable at the blatant praise. He’d never known Maetar to be anything less than scrupulously honest with him and knew the Salarian believed his assessment, but he wasn’t sure he could be part of something like that again. “But I’m not sure that’s something I’m ready to be.”
“Of course,” Maetar said and that was the end of it. There was a pause before Maetar spoke again. “You should take some time off while you can. I believe there’s another Blasto movie showing.”
The Blasto movies were truly awful, but somehow Tony still ended up seeing all of them. They were practically a rite of passage into a Galaxy-wide culture now.
“You might be right,” Tony said with a grin.
-
The Citadel, Serpent Nebula, 2163 (23 years earlier)
Tony hated reporting to his father, but there wasn’t any way to avoid him in the apartment. It was spacious as these things went, especially for the Citadel, but his father’s presence seemed to take up all the room until it was hard to breathe. The whole Citadel felt like that sometimes. Like there was too much squished all together and he’d never be able to escape.
He watched his father tap at the display at his desk for a long moment, waiting to be noticed. Experience had taught him not to stand at anything less than attention while he waited and Tony always learned quickly.
He didn’t know what it had been like when his mother was still with them. He had only vague memories of her; the sound of her voice, the particular shade of her eyes that was so like his, her laugh. She hadn’t come with them to the Citadel and he’d never found out why. The consequences of asking his father were uncomfortable and he'd learned quickly to stop. There were days he resented her for leaving him alone with his father and days when he wished she’d kept him with her. Sometimes he wondered if she was dead.
Tony shifted his gaze from his father to the window that took up an entire wall. The artificial sky was bright and blue, but he could see the flickering of the shield. He wondered what a real sky looked like. He’d seen what was beyond that artificial sky only once, when his father took him on a business trip to a cruise ship, and it had been beautiful. The Serpent Nebula was luminous and colourful and he wondered why they didn’t have that view all the time.
He hated living on the Citadel, hated the people and their attitudes, hated the way they looked at him with suspicion when they looked at him at all. They’d moved here, his father and him, just after the First Contact War and everyone thought humans were a violent expansionist species. He had been five years old at the time, barely cognisant of the undercurrents around him. Earth, the planet of his birth, was just a story he’d heard and a collection of distant, disjointed memories.
Despite everything, Tony was fascinated by the aliens he encountered. They were strange and colourful, and so very different. Every encounter or observation seemed to teach him something new. For the first few years, the only other humans he’d ever seen were the soldiers and politicians mostly just passing through. Certainly no other children.
“Junior,” his father said, pulling him out of this thoughts. He never needed to say more. Tony knew the routine by now.
“I’m up-to-date on mathematics,” Tony told him. “I’m ahead with humanities, but behind with physics.”
Tony hated the technical subjects where everything was either right or wrong, black or white. He was much better with the arts, with interpretation and stringing together discordant pieces of information. He would never tell his father, but he had half-formed plans of doing something with music. He wanted to be able to create something that added to the universe, not barter around what was already there like his father did. And he knew he would waste away behind a desk.
“You need to focus more,” his father said, rising from his seat and going over to the cabinet where he kept his liquor. Tony swallowed.
“Yes sir.”
His father poured a drink, watching the liquid swish the ice cubes in the glass.
“You spend too much time playing around with your music,” his father said, turning to stare down at him. “I’ll be suspending your privileges for anything but school work.”
That stopped Tony cold. All his school work was sent to him and submitted over the extranet and there was never anyone his age around that would speak to him for any length of time. Music was the only part of his life that made him truly happy.
“You can’t,” Tony said before he could stop himself.
“What did you say?” His father asked, voice carefully calm in that way it sometimes was right before he exploded.
“Please.”
His father raised a hand and Tony found that he wasn’t just scared, he was angry. He’d been moved away from his people, his home, to a place that couldn’t be either. His mother was gone and his father vacillated between disinterested and annoyed. He was angry at the unfairness of it all and the way he’d never had a choice in anything.
Tony raised his arm to protect himself. A blue light swept across his closed eyelids and he heard an exclamation and a crash. Slowly, he opened his eyes and stared, open-mouthed, at the blue glow surrounding him. He could feel it tingle, like pins and needles just before the sensation would get painful. He twisted his hand, staring as the light shimmered over it before it faded away.
Biotic. That’s what he was. That’s what he could do. It had been all over the news and the extranet, even at the Citadel. Stories of children hurting and bullying others. There had even been a murder. The news stories had made it clear how much of a threat these new abilities were and how justified the fear was of people who had abilities they didn’t. Human biotics were dangerous and out of control, everyone knew that. They had been the result of exposure to Element Zero, not born naturally with the abilities like other species.
He looked up to see his father sprawled at the base of the wall. Fear shot through him at the thought of the consequences he’d face now and he trembled. His father didn’t move, but Tony could see his chest rise and fall steadily. The realisation of what he’d done was slow to dawn, but finally he smiled. He could fight back now, even against someone bigger and stronger.
He didn’t need anyone. Not when they’d fear him just for what he could do. He’d spent his entire life following indefinite rules he only half understood. He wasn’t going to fit in anywhere; the aliens wouldn’t accept him because he was human and the humans wouldn’t accept him because he was a biotic. Maybe it was his turn to be a little out of control.