Archive of Our Own ^beta

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Hi!! So just for some context, this’ll only include official media (as stated b4) and only friendly / I can tolerate your existence moments between Spy and Sniper (otherwise there’d just be pictures of them tryna kill each other). I’ll mostly be including content with them both on red team, as that’s what has the most content and that’s who TF2 focuses on the most (however much u guys like to ship blu spy and red sniper). However, ALL friendly interactions will be included despite their team colours, as Valve keeps fucking switching them around everytime we see the mercs. And lastly,

This is all for fun!

I do not think the ship is canonical, it’s just fun for my simping brain to see these two together in more than fan-content (and hopefully fun for yours too!).

And my favourite class is the spy (it's actually sniper), thanks, and have fun!

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Let’s start with the “they don't want each other dead” moments. This is kinda boring tbh

We’ll start with the animations, as that's what i went through first

He’s honouring his honourable (debatable) death (that he caused), how nice!

And now Spy is honouring the dead! Though, this time he didn't kill him. I like that Spy brought his corpse to the table, even though he actually didn’t need to. Could’ve just told them that a red spy’s on the loose

Wow. They’re… standing next to each other. Incredible. I’m really reaching here lmao, my evidence gets better I promise

The issue with Sniper and Spy specifically is that they both just hate people in general. It’s hard to find pictures of them hanging out with literally ANYONE in the team, not just with each other. It gets better in the comics, because they actually interact a few times, but here are the other “I don’t mind you existing next to me” moments I found from the comics

A little cameo from the catch-up comic. Practically every iconic duo are next to each other here, so of course we got a little Sniperspy! Speaking of, isn’t it a little funny how Scout is the only one not obviously standing next to someone? Speaking of Scout, he’s just staring at us in the corner. Hi Scooter!!

I just realised a lot of these pictures could be used as matching pfps (plz bare with me my evidence DOES get better later on)

They’re so cute in this artstyle, gargoyles and gravel is my favourite comic bc of the artstyle specifically. I love how the other mercs have elaborate costumes, and Sniper and Spy just have 2 or more accessories on top of their normal wear. Very in character for both of them

Technically they're not actually standing next to each other here, as this is just Heavy’s sisters’ imagination. But it's confirmed! Sniper and Spy are canonically the most attractive mercs

Not ship content, but it’s kinda nice that the first official comic was focused on Sniper and Spy. And isn’t it nice that Spy knows exactly what Sniper was gonna do? Granted, they are counters to each other. But still, man has had to pay SOME attention to Sniper if he knows what he does every time they encounter on the battlefield. And Scout is back in the corner again! He just loves showing up with these two (side-note, this is my favourite panel in all of the official comics)

WHY IS HE JUST SO DONE WITH EVERYTHING. SNIPER LITERALLY GOT SHOT IN FRONT OF HIM AND HES JUST “😐”

This isn't even the first time, in every panel where he's not talking he just looks like he wants to leave

Quick Spy being so fucking done with everything compilation;

ok emo Spy comp over

Here’s some achievements I found amusing, these are as low as it’s gonna get

I found the picture cute, and honestly that name can be taken romantically if you really squint. Spy, love the xo’s btw

Not ship related, I just thought this was funny. You get an achievement for getting backstabbed? Tha’s some shonky business right there

I found where the “Spook” nickname came from! It’s weird how popular it is in fan content considering it stemmed from ONE achievement. Granted, a lot of things in this fandom stem from off hand comments, have you ever heard the ship name red oktoberfest? The one for Medic x Heavy? That one also came from an achievement. I dunno where knife party came from though, probably nothing notable considering, well, they both wield knives lol, pretty self explanatory

Aaaaaand that’s where that ends. Again, not much evidence, the main story comics are where it’s at

Speaking of the comics,

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Look in the background! They’re playing “Don’t shoot Demo’s other eye”! I just love how Spy is giving the thumbs-up like it was his idea. It probably was tbh. This is our first evidence of them being (at least) friends. Just some dudes having fun together doing stupid stuff at a party. It’s a shame this background gag gets missed a lot by people, I never hear anyone talk about it

This is a great detail as well, he hit his shot!

This one, this comic issue right here is the whole reason why I made this entire thing

To catch you up to speed (and bc some of us need a little clearance on what actually happened here, It took me 5 whole read-throughs of this comic to fully understand what went down), Spy (disguised as the TFC engineer) and Sniper are planning to lure TFC sniper out of his nest so Sniper can whack him in the head. In this panel Spy is trying to lure him out of the room

Here, TFC sniper sees through Spy’s disguise and locks the door with the codeword “apricot”. (look, if it took me as long as it did to figure out everything going on in this scene then I’m sure someone else here needs an explanation too) Sniper freaks out and runs up the stairs cause he knows something went wrong

Again, he's repeating the codeword “apricot” to try and unlock the door. I’m guessing it's programmed so that it only works when TFC sniper uses it. How that works, I have no idea

Now, the real evidence for them being friends comes a little later in the same strip, but what I’d like to take away from this is the plan they devised. For them both to go along with the plan they’d have to both have some kind of trust with each other (that gets explored later). Obviously they’d needed to trust each other to get out of this whole shitshow alive, but there’s still something to be said about Sniper specifically trusting Spy’s abilities to outsmart the TFC sniper (even though the plan failed)

Aaah, the iconic Sniperspy moment. Sharing a dead man's cigarette with your homie while bleeding out on the floor. Lovely. I just love how silent it is, they just sit in silence and enjoy a quiet moment with each other. This is what I love about these two as a pair specifically; They both hate everyone, and that’s something they bond over. Basically, “every single person on this team is a fucking idiot, and you are too, but you’re more tolerable than they’ll ever be”. Also, yeah, Sniper lost his pants when crawling out of the window, but what the hell happened to his underwear? Either he lost them with the pants or he just didn’t have any on. I’m counting on the latter tho, I mean, he prolly didn’t have time to put on underwear when fleeing Medic’s place (though, it would've been nice if he did. I’m sure Spy would agree)

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Now this, this is the big one. This is the one you bring up when you suggest Spy and Sniper actually like and trust each other

Someone mentioning this panel on tumblr was what kick started this whole essay. This is when they find Scout bleeding out on the floor from a robot attack, and as we all know, Spy is Scout’s dad. For Sniper to have known this must mean that they have talked about it, with Spy trusting him enough to let him know the truth. And before you tell me in the comments, YES, I do know that Heavy might know about it too. BUT, out of all the mercs Spy is most likely to tell this secret to, Sniper is obviously the first candidate. He's the only one Spy has shown any interest in respecting (and Pauling of course). What I think happened is that Spy told Sniper about Scout being related to him, he asks Ms Pauling for a DNA test (as referenced in a contract line from Pauling to Spy), and then that secret somehow gets out to the rest of the team. Now, I know Sniper could’ve just as easily just heard about it from the other mercs when they got to know, but you know what? I refuse to believe it. Even if it were true, it’s still up to fan interpretation at this point as nothing’s been confirmed. I choose to believe they trust each other with their secrets, and I doubt if the secret got out it would’ve been Sniper who spilled the beans

And… that’s basically it! That’s all the evidence I could find. While a bit underwhelming, I think it was a fun dive. Before I give you my full final thoughts however, enjoy some random screencaps I got of Sniper and Spy from the comics (bc I love them)

Spy REALLY hates his team (affectionately)

Side note, you can’t comment on how Spy isn’t showing any explicit friendliness to Sniper in any evidence I showed, because… He does that to everyone. This is his own goddamn son he's talking to, I’m 100% certain he just doesn’t want to admit when he likes people to uphold his spy persona

I guess he lowered his standards

Iconic suicide attempt

You know it's bad when he starts monologuing 

“Sniper, did you fucking DRUG demo?????” “Nah :)”

Anyways, onto the conclusion

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After my years worth of research, I can conclude with 100% certainty, that these two are not canonically gay (sadly). All of this evidence only serves as proof they’re friends at most. Maybe very close friends, or maybe something more, but that’s where my research ends. But who cares! I didn’t make this to prove anything, again, it’s just fun to look through evidence that these two like each other.

Even if Valve won’t confirm anything, we’ll still ship them

So thank you! Thank you for reading and looking at my picture book collage. I gotta go write my english essay for school now, which also happens to be TF2 related! I should’ve done that first tbh, it’s due tomorrow and I’m already a few days late with it

Thanks, and have fun!!