Work Text:
Twilight counts twenty-seven opponents. His current objective is to steal the dossier that a group of five men was going over in detail at a large table in the middle of the warehouse, while the other men stood guard. The dossier contains plans to infiltrate Westalis and information on a few compromised western spies in Ostania. It was imperative that he gets it without drawing too much attention.
He double checks his mask for the day, one Gerd Engel. A man in a leadership position in the Ostanian People’s Chamber with the party of Unity Democratic Nationalism, the successor to Donovan Desmond’s defunct National Unity Party. Twilight has no problem acquiring the documents, it’s getting out of the warehouse that is proving to be a bit more difficult. His mask and flawless acting got him to the table, but when he moved to take the dossier out of the warehouse that’s when questions started being asked. Why did he need it? After all, Gerd Engel isn’t the one who would be going undercover or get his hands dirty catching spies.
Twilight would have much rather snuck in late at night and stolen the documents when no one was around, but W.I.S.E. didn’t know where the group was going to be next. He reaches into his pocket and presses down on a small remote, so much for not drawing attention. Immediately the lights in the warehouse go out due to an explosion at the electric box he had planted earlier. It takes him approximately thirty seconds to take out the five men around the table.
Now he needs to deal with the ten other men inside the warehouse, without alerting the twelve men outside guarding it. Twilight reaches into his jacket and pulls out a silenced pistol. He hears a footstep to his right. Twilight swings around searching the shadows, it takes him 0.04 seconds to find the dark shape of the guard and fires two shots at the center of mass. Then he shifts his stance slightly to the left and shoots two more guards coming from behind a large crate. Three more down in one second, seven more to go.
Twilight runs toward the bodies, and he scales the crate, he can see four more of the guards. He takes one down before reloading and finishing off the other three. Seven down three more to go. Twilight scans the darkened warehouse, straining his sense and looking for possible places of ambush. There is a glint of what he believes to be reflected moonlight flashed through one of the warehouse’s high windows for all of 0.03 seconds before it’s gone.
A shiver runs down Twilight’s spine. He needs to get out of here now, this assignment just got a lot more complicated. W.I.S.E. needs this dossier and while his true pursuer wasn’t antagonistic to his organization, just him, he isn’t going to gamble his country’s future on a Garden assassin’s goodwill. He jumps off the crate and runs to the other side of the room. He looks behind another pile of crates the only area that he couldn’t see well before. Two of the guards have their guns out and are working together to try to clear the area. It takes him fractions of a second to take them down.
Just then there is a squeak from the sole of a shoe right behind him. Twilight pivots gun raised, but it’s too late the last guard has the drop on him. Twilight thinks if he throws himself to the left the bullet should hit his right arm or shoulder. As Twilight starts to move, suddenly his attacker’s head whips back before the guard’s whole body falls a few feet from where he previously had stood with a golden stiletto knife embedded in his head.
All thoughts of escape leave Twilight as he hears the deliberate footsteps of his wife, ex-wife if that is what you can call someone who you tricked into marrying you then walked out on them and left them to raise a child alone. When he left she promised to put him on Garden’s list, in the six months since then he had been ambushed thirty-nine times with fourteen of them having him barely escape. Apparently, she was tired of either her coworkers’ incompetence or Twilight’s tenacity to stay alive and decided to come finish the job like she threatened to do all those months ago.
Still, he couldn’t help the longing he felt, he had been keeping himself busy so that he wouldn’t have to think about his family. But here she was he would get a glimpse of the woman he loves and be able to access how she was doing. A smile forms briefly on his lips, she might not view it this way, but it truly would be a kindness for him to see her before he dies.
Twilight turns towards the footsteps and puts his indifferent mask back on, he refuses to cause her any more pain than he already has. He is about to speak when Thorn Princess gets close enough for him to pick out the bloody assassin. She is covered head to toe in spatters of red, the two stilettos in her hands are dripping the sound of each drop seemingly echoing in the warehouse. Something isn’t right, she hasn’t looked at him in fact her gaze seems stuck on a point on the floor between them.
He takes a step towards her a hand reaching out for her, “Yor…..” Before he can finish, he sees her flinch at using her name. Twilight closes his eyes and reminds himself he no longer has the privilege to be that familiar with her. He opens his eyes and drops his hand, “Thorn Princess, please what is wrong.”
Thorn Princess lifts her head, and her crimson eyes meet his. They are puffy and red, and there are bags under them. He can see the clean trails where tears have fallen over a dirtier face. He watches as she tries to gather her assassin persona around herself, he loves how strong this woman is. If only things were different. If staying with her didn’t mean a death warrant for them all, he was her’s but he could never tell her that.
While Twilight was reminiscing, Thorn Princess was losing the battle with Yor. It started as sniffles then a wail as she started to cry in earnest. Twilight quickly closes the distance between the two of them. He gently reaches for her hands, holding her fists gently in his palms while brushing over the back of her hands with his thumbs. “Please tell me what’s wrong, you know I can’t stand to see you like this.”
Yor drops her stilettos and leans into Twilight. He leans his head on top of her’s. She takes a ragged breath, “I messed up.” Yor sniffles and nuzzles further into his chest, “I didn’t know …. and now, now she’s gone.” Twilight tenses as she looks up at him, “They took her three days ago, please Twi .. Loid she’s the only thing I have left. Help me get her back.”
Twilight swore the world just fell out from underneath his feet, instinctively he reaches out with his right hand and grabs Yor’s left shoulder to steady himself. One of his girls was here in his arms because the other was missing. He left them so this wouldn’t happen! His hands shake as he looks down at the assassin in his arms. He whispers with intensity “What happened to Anya!”
Yor pulls her right hand out of his left and brushes it across his left cheek before taking a step back from him. She manages to pull her persona back together finally and nods her head towards an exit. “I’ll tell you on the way to your drop off.” He’s about to explain that he can’t let a Garden assassin know a W.I.S.E. drop point when Thorn Princess raises an eyebrow and says, “You realize Garden has been aware of all your movements for months if we wanted to take down W.I.S.E. it would have already happened.”
Twilight swallowed, this new version of his wife ex-wife was confident instead of shy, knew what she wanted, and was very capable of kicking his ass. The fact that it was making him want her more should be more disturbing than it was.
Thorn Princess collects her stilettos and starts to leave. Twilight sighs and brings a hand up to his face, he can’t help but let out a small “huh” as he realizes they have had this whole exchange with his mask still on. He can’t leave it as evidence at this scene of a massacre. He rips it off and stuffs it in one of the inside pockets of his jacket, he’ll get rid of it later. He quickly follows his … um …. Thorn Princess out of the warehouse.
Twilight finds Thorn Princess waiting for him by his car, how she knew it was his he had no idea but the fact that she was more than the innocent woman he knew was comforting. When he gets to the car, he lets her know there are some handkerchiefs in the glove compartment. He takes the first opportunity to throw his mask in the back seat. “Now what about Anya?”
He watches her out of the corner of his eyes as he drives to the drop off point. Thorn Princess wipes her stilettos clean before bringing the handkerchiefs to her face and arms to wipe off the blood. She takes a deep breath and then lets it out. “It all started because of Yuri … “ She looks over at him, “I didn’t know he was SSS.” Twilight could feel himself start to sweat; he should have told her when he left.
“I never thought he would be a danger to you, I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you.” She nods and clutches at the hem of her dress. “You are aware of the accident that I had Garden stage that led to the death of the Forgers.” Twilight swallows, it was the reason he hadn’t been able to see his girls in months. Thorn Princess had removed them both from the board as a punishment for him walking away, “Yes.”
“Yuri never bought it, he started an investigation that came close to uncovering everything. But it was too good a frame, bodies had been altered beforehand no one would believe him. He still persisted and started to put mine and Anya’s pictures in the papers offering rewards for any information on us. That’s where the problem really started. We had to move twice, and Anya started to become very paranoid. Every time we were outside she was always looking for ‘the bad man.’
Thorn Princess’s firsts dug into her dress straining the fabric. “It took me a while, but I was finally able to get her to open up.” She looks over at Twilight eyes narrowing, “Do you have any idea who you adopted? Do you even know how old she is? Did you know she was a human experiment?” With each question, Thorn Princess gets louder till she is almost screaming at him.
Twilight’s reaction to this new knowledge was to grip the steering wheel tightly and then swerve to the side of the road, where he turned off the car. He turns to give his complete attention to the angry woman next to him. “W… What are you talking about? I admit the orphanage I went to was a shit hole but there was no human experimentation there. And are you saying she lied when she told me she was six?”
Thron Princess searches his eyes to see if he is lying, “Frankie did a background check on her, but all we could find was that she had been in four other orphanages and had been adopted three other times and returned. But we could only find information on her that went back one year.”
“And you didn’t think that was odd? A child without a background?” She demands. Twilight rubs the back of his head. “To tell the truth both you and Anya should have triggered many questions, but the needs of the mission made me overlook them. That and … “ He looks at her and his face softens, “I didn’t want to see. I wanted to be selfish for as long as I would be allowed to be with you.”
Thorn Princess looks at him for an instant like she use to and she starts to say something before shaking her head and gazing out the windshield. “Anya will turn six in two weeks. She was four and a half when you found her. The reason that she was able to know to lie and tell you she was six was the same reason she set us up in the first place.” Thorn Princess’s gaze turns back to Twilight, “she can read minds.
“She doesn’t know if she was born with it or if it was given to her. All she knows is that before the orphanages she lived in a lab where they were always making her use her abilities and wouldn’t let her do anything a child would do. They would hurt her if she didn’t do it right or didn’t do what they said right away, so one day she managed to run away.”
The sound of leather grating on leather could be heard as Twilight used the wheel as a stress ball. “So she knew? All of it?” He watches as Thorn Princess nods. He hears someone ask, “where is she now?” and realizes it must have been him, but he can’t recognize his own voice.
“Four days ago, Anya begged me not to take my assignment. She said she was scared of the ‘bad man’ showing up and taking her away. I told her there was no way they knew where she was and that she was perfectly safe. I tucked her into bed and left to do my job.” Tears start to form in Thorn Princess’s eyes again. “I came home to an apartment in shambles. Bond had been shot, probably protecting Anya. He’s at a vet, but I don’t know if he’ll pull through. Anya had tried to tell me once that Bond could see the future, but I didn’t believe her.”
Tears start to fall, “If only I had I wouldn’t have left that night. I would have been there. I would have killed the men trying to hurt our daughter.” Twilight lets go of the wheel to grab Yor’s shoulder and lean her head toward his chest. “We’ll get her back, I promise.” He feels her nod against him. She peeks up at him, “I’ve exhausted Garden’s resources looking for her. We can’t find her. Please, I know after what I did I don’t have the right to ask.”
He shushes her and places a chaste kiss on her brow. “You have every right to ask.” They stay that way for what feels to them both like forever but is about five minutes. Then Twilight restarts the car. “I think we might be able to get some answers in a few hours. There are not many secret organizations in Ostonia that W.I.S.E. doesn’t know about.”
Thorn Princess leans back in her seat grateful that for the first time in months she isn’t the one responsible for everything. Twilight/Loid was so much better at it than she was. It didn’t take long before she was sleeping from the gentle rocking of the car.
Twilight wasn’t wrong, it took about six hours for W.I.S.E. to find Anya’s location. They even had surveillance of them taking Anya into the facility. This fact infuriated Twilight, this was information he felt he should have known. The facility was something that they had been keeping their eyes on but was never a top priority, but now that it was known they were doing human experimentation on children W.I.S.E. was ready to take it down.
He was impressed that Handler didn’t blink an eye at Thorn Princess. She just greeted the other woman and told her they would do their best. When Thorn Princess said she was going with them the older woman gave her a genuine smile and said, “Of course, you’re her mother after all.”
She looks up at him and he can see the emotions swirling there. “Are you going to stay when all this is done?” What should he say? Does he tell her there was nothing he wants more? Would they even let him have this life, now that W.I.S.E knew for a fact his family wasn’t normal? He needed to protect them from W.I.S.E. Thorn Princess could protect them from most everything else. But where was the best place to do that from?
Apparently, he had taken too long to answer and Thorn Princess’s eyes hardened. “I won’t have you show up and pull off the rescue she has been dreaming of only to disappear into the night. Leaving me to deal with her abandonment issues for another six months.” He wanted to argue, but she was right. Showing up now would only give Anya the hope that he would be back in her life when he couldn’t give it. He finds himself answering, “O.K.”
In the background the other agents are getting ready to move out, Handler calls out for Thorn Princess. “I’ve got to go.” He nods and she starts to leave, before turning back around she walks up till she is chest to chest with him. She whispers, “I called off the assassination four months ago.” She places a metal tube in his right hand, “Shopkeeper told me to give this to you should I ever see you again. He said it is cipher T.” She stands on the tips of her shoes and gives him a gentle kiss before walking away to save their daughter.
Twilight stands there watching her leave, wondering where it had all gone wrong. He takes out the paper rolled into the tube and begins to read.
Agent Twilight,
I don’t know whether to congratulate you or criticize how you almost broke my best flower. After recent events, it’s clear that neither she nor the child can stay in Ostonia. I’m sure she let you know of the canceled assassination order. That was what both she and the child wanted, I on the other hand wanted to know what kind of man you were, so I’ve been testing you. So here is the last test, do I send her with one of my best to Romonia to live as a married couple or will you finally man up and take her home with you to Westalis?