Work Text:
Operation Poach Ivan Vorpatril from Ops had been going perfectly. Miles’s little adventure on Cetaganda had been frustrating in many ways, but it had at least the silver lining of being an excellent proof of concept. With the caveat that Miles was involved, and Ivan had never learned, as his mother had often entreated him to as a child, not to let Miles walk all over him, Ivan’s conduct had been admirable. He kept his head well in a crisis and had good instincts for covert ops. And reading his log and final report was like a breath of fresh air after Miles’s report. They were straight-forward, informative, and exactingly honest, and if Ivan had a tendency to go off on small tangents to complain about Miles and express his panic in writing, well Simon could sympathize. Ivan, as Simon had suspected, hadn’t ruined himself as an adolescent. All the traits he had shown as a child that had made Simon think he would one day make an excellent ImpSec agent were still very much in operation.
Ivan’s stint on Earth was temporary, and it would give him some galactic polish. But it was also a trial period, one which Ivan was doing well in.
His actual job, of course, he performed with the same efficient mediocrity he had shown in Ops, but Simon didn’t care about that, he didn’t want Ivan to work a desk job. It was the escort duty that Simon actually cared about, and not knowing that it was a test, Ivan passed it with flying colors.
So, Simon had his plans for Ivan’s future all laid out when Miles entered the scene to cause havoc.
In fairness, it wasn’t really Miles’s fault this time. Dragging Ivan into things was probably Miles’s fault. The general Miles-ness of the situation, Simon was going to go ahead and pin on Miles too.
But this specific problem wasn’t Miles’s fault. Simon had simply miscalculated.
Things had turned out more-or-less alright, as Miles’s adventures were wont to do, and both boys had survived the experience, albeit by the skins of their teeth. Even Captain Galeni was salvageable.
But, Simon had read all three reports, and come to Ivan’s capture and near execution. Miles had brushed over it with a lightness that stank of guilt. Ivan had described how he was captured with detailed exactness, right up to the moment when he was locked in a dark hole to wait until the tide came in. At that point he said that the others would be able to tell him what happened with more objectivity. Galeni’s report was the most illuminating overall. A good man, Galeni, and unflinching when it came to the truth. All three reports revealed the same thing in their different ways.
Ivan had very nearly died on Earth.
It hit him with full and unexpected force, that realization, the sudden image of what might have been.
Miles was bad enough, but Ivan…
Simon had very nearly had to go to Lady Alys and tell her that her son had died under his command.
He couldn’t do it, he realized, he simply couldn’t. The very idea made him sick with dread.
Simon wouldn’t be able to take responsibility for Lady Alys’s son and put him in danger. And Ivan would have to be in danger if he was in ImpSec, Simon knew that. Ivan worked best under pressure, you had to put at least a little pressure on him or he wouldn’t work properly at all.
It was cowardly, selfish, but it was also stark, objective fact.
Simon couldn’t. He would break.
Simon felt sometimes, as though he had pared himself away, until only cold logic was left, paranoid machine.
And then sometimes, as now, he was reminded that he was purely, imperfectly, fragilely, selfishly human.
Simon mentally discarded all the plans he’d had for Ivan in ImpSec, and began the paperwork that would end Ivan’s stint on Earth and deliver him safely back to his desk job in Ops.
It wasn’t a waste, Simon told himself, Ops was an undervalued department, and Ivan was brilliant at logistics. Ivan could do as much for the Imperium there as anywhere else.