Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

To Spy, one of the best parts of his long and illustrious career is the number of lives he has led.

At least, that is how he prefers to think about them. Each of his identities is a different person, as far as he is concerned. A journalist in London, a diplomat in Stuttgart, a salesman in Dijon. Of course, he had given up most of them to pursue his work here full time.

(A father in Boston. He can never forget that one.)

When he had first arrived here, Medic and Miss Pauling had done their best to explain the Respawn technology. Whereas Medic’s explanation was overly technical and complex, Miss Pauling had simply shrugged and said ‘it just works, and you just get revived. It makes another body out of the atoms in the air, or something. To be honest, I don’t know much about it.”

Perhaps each time the machine spits out another him it’s a different person who merely thought it was Spy, containing all his memories and personality and everything else that intrinsically made Spy him. Or did those things make Spy the person he was, no matter what?

Not that any of this really mattered on a practical level. There was just something appealing about becoming a different person all over again. It was the most thrilling part of living the life he did. The construction of another person from the ground up, to walk into that life and leave all regrets behind. Liberating, really.

The Respawn machine spits out Spy, as it has done again and again. He looks at his gloved hands. The leather looks and smells the same. Maybe at the end of the day he’ll take off his gloves and mask to find that his skin has been dyed dark red.

Just to satisfy his thoughts, he slips off his left glove partly, so his wrist is exposed. It looks all the same, pale skin split in half by a vein. It is still him, at least on a superficial level.

Spy breathes in and leaves the resupply room.

---

Everyone thinks Soldier has his volume turned up to LOUD 99% of the time. They’re not wrong, obviously. It’s just the other 1% which no one notices.

He’s walking through the halls, boots clomping on the concrete floor, but the nothingness in the air is even overpowering that rhythmic drum. It is really silent now - a rare occurrence. Usually, there’s always some background chatter or explosions inside the base - only a few of the mercs are known for being quiet, after all. But on tonight of all nights, not a sound stirs the base. It almost feels lonely.

If he thinks about it too much, Soldier is a lonely soul. He knows no one outside of the eight individuals he shares a base with every day (and, debatably, Miss Pauling, but she’s their platoon commander from faraway), and has only really one person he’d maybe call a friend. The other seven address him with varying levels of respect, but mainly on the lower end. He once had had Merasmus too, but last October Demo had convinced him that Merasmus had been trying to kill them all, and friends didn’t really do that.

If Miss Pauling was ever to come in one day and say “You’re fired, Soldier!” where would he go from there? He doesn’t have an answer. His one love is the army, but he had already been rejected from it so many times…

It’s probably a good thing that Soldier’s decidedly awful at thinking. He continues marching through the hallways; his nightly routine, to ensure that the base was safe and everything was locked up accordingly.

He also needed to check that no one was messing about and holding a secret party. One, because they had a match tomorrow, and Soldier wanted everyone up at the crack of dawn to do their training exercises, and two, because it would be very rude to not invite him.

His final rounds around the base are nearly over, when he peeks into the recreation room one last time and hears the sound of soft snoring.

Two slackers, one dead ahead and the other at two o’clock. Unsurprisingly, it’s Demo and Scout. Soldier frowns. On the Scotsman’s lips, the pungent smell of spirits lingers, and Soldier thinks he can smell some on Scout too. It’s not surprising, not for Demo, at least. But they do have a match tomorrow, and so Soldier will have to keep an eye on Scout. Hopefully the caffeine will do its job.

But there are still two mercs’ taking up space in the recreation room. And Soldier needs to move them back to their beds. He looks around. If it was an emergency he could carry both of them at once, but there was no guarantee he wouldn’t drop one.

Soldier was prevented from even thinking of the possibility of taking two trips by the appearance of another figure, although this one was both conscious and walking. Heavy appears at the end of the hallway, in a set of striped pyjamas. Soldier does not even process that.

“You there!” He barks at Heavy. The two sleepers do not stir. “Your task is to help me evacuate these two slackers off to bed!”

Heavy looks around, shrugs, and complies, moving closer and picking up Demo easily with one arm, throwing the Scotsman over his shoulder. The man lets out a slurred grumble, but nothing more. Soldier takes Scout, putting the boy on his back, and they head off wordlessly in the direction of the barracks.

Not talking is easy with Heavy. The large man doesn’t often engage in conversation, so Soldier doesn’t have to reply or wonder if he’s missing conversation. Heavy follows orders too, so Soldier doesn’t have to keep shouting out instructions. Instead, the two men simply march through the hallways, up to the barracks.

It’s quiet again, then. The day’s work is almost done and Soldier can be at ease. The rhythm of every single step on concrete brings him comfort, a steady beat. Soldier’s so engrossed in that thought that he almost doesn’t notice when a small voice breaks through.

“Pa…?”

The two men freeze. Heavy turns around to stare at Soldier. Soldier looks in his peripheral vision at Scout, who’s eyes are flickering half open, right hand opening and closing around Soldier’s forearm. “Are you there…dad?”

Heavy blinks, eyes wide. Soldier stands perfectly, rigidly still. The two awake men look at each other.

Scout’s father was always a tricky situation. The kid was weird about it, mentioning it at inopportune moments but refusing to talk when pressed about the topic. The aforementioned father’s identity was no secret to anyone on the base with two eyes and a brain (well one eye worked too, considering Demo), but Scout seemed to believe the man was dead, at least ostensibly. No one else had contradicted him so far, least of all the man in question.

Heavy shifts Demo’s weight onto one arm and puts his hand gently over Scout’s face.

“Shhh…” the large Russian man rumbles softly. Soldier looks at the large man, who nods, a certain look in his eyes.

“Yes, private. Go to sleep,” Soldier adds, somewhat uncertainly, but the words seem to calm Scout, and he falls back into peaceful slumber, closing his eyes once again.

Soldier shifts Scout a little onto his left side, and salutes Heavy. The Russian nods slowly in reply, and the two men continue their march along the base with their charges, back to the bedrooms.

Behind them, a shadow steps lightly. Nobody notices in the silence.

---

“Oh Ma, please don’t freakin’ cry.”

He doesn’t sound very convincing at all. Over the phone, he can hear his mother laugh a little, which makes Scout feel a bit better.

“I know, Jeremy, I shouldn’t. It’s just…I know Nick’ll be alright, but hearin’ that he got injured like that, makes me worry for all the rest of my boys, including you.”

“I’m fine, Ma, don’t worry. I told’ja they got this cool technology thingy that makes all my organs grow back and stuff. It’s real, I swear on God.”

“It’s not that I don’t believe you, sweetie. I just worry ‘bout you anyway. Thanksgiving can’t come quick enough.”

“Yeah, I promise I’ll be back then.”

Scout can feel his mother smile on the other end of the phone, which makes him grin too. “You better not miss it, okay?”

“Course not! See you in ‘bout….four months!” Jeez, now that he said it out loud, it sure seems a long time away. Four whole months? That’s probably a thousand matches away or something like that - in short, ages and ages.

“Alright, I have to go now. Trish is knocking. Call back soon, okay?”

“Yes Ma. Bye!”

“Love you, sweetie.”

The phone clicks unforgivingly. Scout stands alone in the hallway.

As far as Scout knew, they only got real time off on the big holidays: Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter. No New Years, no Halloween (though the team would have a pretty sick party the week of, so that was alright) no Labour Day (whatever the heck that was), and no day off for your birthday. Scout knows he should’ve expected that, but come on! Not even a bit of spare time off just so you didn’t have to spend your 24th getting shot in the head or blown to pieces?

It wasn’t very enjoyable, but the job paid well, so Scout shut up and took it. He always got presents from his Ma and something from the rest of the team (and weirdly enough, an extra gift would turn up in his room too) so it wasn’t like his birthday was uncelebrated. It was simply that Scout had been used to living with all his brothers and Ma for all his life, until he moved out here. And while sharing a base with the rest of the team kinda felt like living with his brothers (even though the rest of the guys were so much weirder than his brothers could ever be), he missed his Ma.

There, he said it! Scout missed his mother. And now he was lying on his bed, sulking about not being able to visit her soon. Jeez, as much as he hated admitting it, he was kinda a kid at heart still. But he felt bad for his Ma being on her own all the time, he really did.

There’s a light knock at the door. Scout lays face down on his bed and hopes it will go away.

It doesn’t. Scout groans. “Who’s there?”

“Me.” Great, really freakin’ helpful, chucklenuts. Except it was kinda helpful, ‘cause there were only two people on the team either dumb enough or annoying enough to give that response. And it wasn’t being shouted at him, nor was his door being broken down, so…

“Spy?” That was weird. Scout was usually the one banging on Spy’s door. This was the first time the Frenchman had bothered to come by where he slept.

“Yes. Open the door.”

Before Scout has time to consider the pros and cons of letting Spy in his room, the door’s lock is picked. He lets out a yelp as the Frenchman strides into his room.

“Whoa, man, ever freakin’ heard about privacy? I coulda been naked in here!”

“I have seen much worse things, though I will admit there aren’t many which could compare to that.” Spy smoothly closes the door behind him and leans on it. “Anyway, I am here to ask why you are sulking in your room.”

“Does it matter to ya?”

Spy flickers his eyes over Scout’s room before answering. “Yes.” The answer is quick and short, like Spy is embarrassed by it. Scout raises an eyebrow, and pulls himself up, until he’s looking at Spy face to face.

The other man is doing his best to avoid eye contact. Somehow, this makes it easier for Scout to believe him, and everything just tumbles out like a waterfall.

“I…I wanna see my Ma, alright. I know it’s freakin’ stupid, but she’s got a lot going on and…y’know one of my brothers got injured at work and she’s worrying and i just wanna make her feel better and I wanna see her too—”

“It is not stupid,” Spy interrupts. “Family is important. You obviously love your mother, which is a good thing.”

“I…what?” Scout had expected the Frenchman to laugh at him, or provide some bitingly sarcastic comment, but instead the man had provided a surprisingly normal response.

“You want to see your mother. That is to be expected. What about it?”

“Well, I can’t get outta here, can I? I gotta wait ‘til Thanksgiving, and that’s ages away.”

“Take time off.” Spy shrugs and lights a cigarette.

“How am I gonna do that though? We don’t get holidays or whatever, right?”

Spy sighs and takes the cigarette out of his mouth without even a single inhale. “You realise the hag must give you at least one day off per year due to local employment laws?”

Scout blinks. Spy sighs again. “Have you even read our contract?”

“Uh, hell freakin’ no? Why would I spend my free time trying to decipher that shit?”

“Yes. She cannot fire you. In fact, if you had bothered to read our terms of employment, you would discover that you have five days off per year for any reason, as long as you give 48 hours notice.”

“Wait, really?” The whole reason (well, a big reason) Scout took this job was ‘cause he figured he wouldn’t have to read shit. Jeez, if only someone had bothered to tell him three years ago!

Spy nods in response. “There is a flight to Boston from Santa Fe in 53 hours. I would recommend you avoid being late.” With that admittedly helpful but still somehow annoying message, he walks out of Scout’s room and doesn’t shut the door.

If Spy hadn’t spent the last five minutes giving him useful info, Scout definitely would have yelled at the guy. But maybe having to get up off his ass to close the door was a fair price to pay for that.

Scout gets up and wanders down the corridor, back to the phone.

“Listen Dad, it pays the bills and keeps a roof over me head, so what’s the problem?”

He might be waiting a while. But hey, it was worth it.

---

“When will it happen?”

The Russian speaks as if it is a certainty. Spy considers it not to be inevitable at all, even if in a better world it would be.

He shrugs in response, refusing to put down his book. The Russian blinks softly, like a large tiger, and says nothing, although Spy can feel his dissatisfaction ooze out of every crevice. This was not meant to be a friendly reading together session at all. This was a trap from the very start.

Spy gives in and lets himself be ensnared.

“Why do you think it will happen?”

“Hard to keep secret.”

“And yet I have kept it for over twenty years.”

“Not while living with boy,” Heavy counters. He is right, of course; it is different, the domestic circumstances Spy finds himself in. Twenty years ago he would have dreaded living with his son. Ten years ago it would’ve been all he ever wanted. Now…

He doesn’t know. Ideally, of course, the secret would be revealed; he would muster up the courage to let the truth come to light. And yet, he still hides in the shadows, behind smoke and mirrors, unable to tell Scout the one thing which matters most. A continued failure of his. Perhaps the greatest of his life.

“Is good for Spy to tell boy,” Heavy adds. “Then…”

“Then what?”

Heavy shrugs, and lets Spy form his own conclusion, like he has done a million times in the past. Then Spy and Scout could finally have a father-son relationship. Then they could both feel a little more fulfilled, a little less like a part of them was missing, and Spy could finally accept the identity that had been eluding him for over two decades.

Then Scout might hate Spy forever. A well-practiced motion brings a lit cigarette to Spy’s lips.

“Are you perhaps insinuating that you are going to take action yourself?”

“Heavy not make threat,” the Russian replies softly. “Just….telling. Family is important.”

“Hmph.” So long ago, Spy was trained away from this, never to have any connection or tie that could hold him back, keep him from being a machine of a man. Now, that seems almost a triviality, as he lives and breathes the same air with the same eight people everyday, one of which happens to be related to him. “Still. He has found his place here. Perhaps he does not need me.”

“Maybe. But Spy does not know this.”

“Do I want to know?” The response is automatic, rattling off his teeth like it came off an assembly line. A rhetorical question shielding the possibility Spy might actually not want to know.

Heavy does not reply, instead opting to close his eyes. Spy sighs. This is just one of the facets of one of the identities which Spy had. He should not be so caught up on such a minor point. For God’s sake, he has left a trail of broken hearts behind him - another one, even if it was his son, would be only one more.

He clenches the cigarette between his teeth and lets his mind focus on everything and nothing at the same time. It was not right for him to be so overly concerned with such a thing. He should be content how everything currently was. Scout seemed eager in his role, with friends and a job. Celene was happy too, across the country, with enough money to live on.

Once, when he took down some government jobs, they had provided him with a deep cover backstory. He had been expected to learn fake memories by rote, a fake name, job, family, all that nonsense. It was amazing how detailed and complete the intel department had endeavoured to make his identity.

But his current self feels nowhere as complete as that. There is some small inkling within Spy which is dissatisfied with how this story is being told. He rubs his temples in cold comfort and decides conversation is probably a better sanctuary.

“How is your family?”

Heavy’s eyes slowly open and fixate onto Spy. After a long pause, he answers: “Is fine. Mother is aging but well. Yana and Bronislava do best looking after her. Zhanna is impulsive and wants to move out of home, but is same as always.”

“And what of yourself?”

“Me?” Heavy leans his head slightly backwards. “I am me. What about it?”

“I mean, how of your relationship with them?”

“Is same. Money sent. Visit. I do not change. Nothing changes.”

I do not change. Nothing changes.

Smoke dissipates into the cool air of the room. Heavy wrinkles his nose. Nothing more is said.

Chapter Text

the pain was founded on pleasure, and the pleasure on pain. I had to swallow the two as a single entity

It was sort of an open secret around the base that Spy and Scout were related. Engie still remembers the day he realised - that awful time when they had all thought they were going to die of teleportation-induced tumours. The way Spy spent his last few days helping the boy in the only way he knew how sealed the deal for Engie.

After that, other things kept cropping up. The way Spy would scold Scout much like how Engie’s own father would do to him, with sternness yet from an honest care. If you looked closely, the Frenchman would only jab at Scout about things the boy could actually improve. It’s funny, how the two simultaneously get along and don’t - but that’s simply how family is.

Engie laughs and shakes his head. It all seemed so stupid now. Especially the bread creatures. Absentmindedly, he wonders where those things are now, or if their properties could be traced back to something singular. Flour? Yeast?

Hopefully not yeast, seeing as he’s opening the fridge for a beer. Pyro notices and reaches out, opening and closing their hands.

“Hol’ on a minute, exactly how old are ya?”

The firebug slowly counts on their fingers, before shrugging. Engie shakes his head.

“I don’t think this is right for you anyway.”

Pyro looks down.

“Not the type o’ thing anyone should be drinkin’, really.” He remains firm. “Do you want some lemonade instead?”

That cheers Pyro up, and they happily accept a glass. Engie watches with mild curiosity as the liquid disappears into the gasmask.

Oh well. He wasn’t the one to ponder the inner workings of Pyro’s anatomy anyway. His metal fingers wrench open the cap and Engie is rewarded by a swig of the drink. It hits the spot. An ice-cold beer and a working fan are all one needs to get through the hottest of summers. Engie had learned that growing up in Texas.

The relative quiet of the kitchen is broken by the tap of boots on concrete. Engie glances at the doorway to see a flash of white entering.

“Afternoon, Doc.”

“Guten Tag.” There’s silence for a second. Engie takes another drink of his beer.

“So,” Medic announces, drawing in a breath. “Spy and Scout.”

Truly an interesting way to start a conversation, Engie notes, especially with the thoughts he just had running through his head. Pyro looks back and forth between the two men.

“What about ‘em?”

“How long have you known?”

Pyro shrugs and turns to Engie, who gives more of an answer. “Two years, I suppose. Not since the beginning. Just became obvious.”

“But you have had no proof?”

The other two both nod. Medic grins.

“Well, wonder no longer, my Freunds.” He produces a piece of paper from his inside pocket with a flourish. “Look! The genetic sequencing matches up!”

Pyro peers curiously at the paper, making a soft mumbling sound. Engie raises an eyebrow. The lines and dots mean nothing to him anyway. “Is this what you wanted those upgrades for?”

“Well, yes,” Medic grins. “But this is all in the name of science, nein?”

“Science?”

“Figuring out more of that Frenchman’s psyche, I’d say. He’s always been a tricky one - but this sheds a little more light on him, does it not?”

“Didn’t know you were a psychologist too.”

The German shrugs. “I was very close to being licensed, until they removed my application on character grounds. But ah! — that’s all in the past. Either way, I have some rudimentary understanding.”

As far as Engie understands, Medic is also not licensed as an actual doctor, which might say something about his expertise in psychology.

“Awlright,” he drawls. “So, what’s the verdict, doc?”

“The essence of the situation is this: I think the boy should know.”

Engie shakes his head. “I’m on board with you, but…ain’t this just too much too fast?”

“It’s been nearly five years,” Medic insists. “At this rate he will never tell Scout, and they will both be worse off for it.”

“Maybe he ain’t ready.”

“Will he ever be? It seems not to me. Besides, there’s the small matter that he doesn’t exactly have a soul, so he may not really care about what he does or not—”

“What?”

Medic waves his hand. “Never mind that. The point is, someone has to tell him, and I believe that that someone won’t be Spy.”

“Surely you ain’t sayin—”

“I am.” Behind those round, thick-rimmed glasses lie steely blue eyes. Engie has always known that. All the people here are ruthless killers, one way or another. Some hide it better than others. Medic hides it worst, but still. Killing a man is awfully impersonal most of the time - at least, for Engie it is. This is different, a slow, insidious sort of death. Some men relish in torture. Engie is not one of them. Engie likes to believe he is not one of them.

“Well,” he whistles out in a long sigh. “Guess I can’t tell ya what to do. Jus’ think it’s a bad idea.”

Pyro looks back and forth at the two men. Medic frowns, although the expression does not seem sincere in the least, and casually shrugs, closing his eyes as he does so.

“No, I didn’t think you would agree. I just thought you might like to know.”

He walks away with a sweep of his long white coat. Pyro tilts their head at the doorway which once contained the man, and turns to Engie with questions in their eyes.

The Texan sighs. “The doc sees himself as a bit of a saviour, in more ways than one. He…he thinks he can’t ever be wrong.”

Pyro mumbles something.

“Yeah, it ain’t right for him to think. But he does, anyway. Can’t change nothin’ about a stubborn man— hell, know that one myself.”

The firebug gently places their empty glass on its side.

“No. I don’t think it’ll be good either.” Engie lets out a long whistling breath. “Just hope somethin’ nice comes outta it.”

---

Oh, for God’s sake, they had lost again. And it was probably his fuckin’ fault too. He knew he had been underperforming today - it was probably ‘cause he stayed up late again. Medic would say it was ‘cause of the Bonk!. He only had like…five or something, but that was enough to deplete his stock for the month. Goddamnit. Now he couldn’t even use it during work.

If only he had gotten back behind their lines. The other Engineer had put his sentry in such a good place, though, and the guy kept moving it - it was like he knew where Scout was gonna run each time! And the other Soldier, too, just kept blasting him to bits with rockets. Scout hadn’t ran fast enough, hadn’t jumped around enough. And the other Demo leaving a bunch of sticky traps which Scout hadn’t seen. And the other Pyro blasting him with compressed air off the bridge on his usual flank route. And the other Medic also somehow sawing right through him a couple times.

Fuck. Fuck’s sake. Scout trudges back to the base. At least the BLU team hadn’t found him to blow him up or set him on fire or stab him right at the end - that would’ve been the cherry on top of a super annoying day.

When he gets back to the resupply room, no one else is there except probably the last person he wanted to see.

Spy. The Frenchman’s eyes flicker up as Scout enters, and Spy turns to face him. Scout does his best to avoid eye contact.

It doesn’t work. Spy neatly steps in front of Scout and blocks him from exiting. It was a piss poor attempt anyway.

“Scout. You do realise your role on the battlefield is to distract the enemy and occupy their attention, not to be a sponge for projectiles?”

“Yeah, ‘course I freakin’ know that,” he huffs. “I know ya think I’m dumb, but even I know that bullets aren’t s’posed ‘ta go into me!”

“Then why not act on such insights?”

“I dunno, maybe ‘cause no one sapped the freakin’ sentry?” It’s a pretty weak excuse, but Scout hates how Spy always tries to pin all the failures on him. It can’t all be his fault, right? Like, they’re a team and all, but surely some of it isn’t Scout’s doing. Or maybe he’s just telling himself that to try and feel better.

“Yes, but still. There are flanking routes for a reason. You can run fast and jump high for a reason. Exercise those skills.”

“It’s not like I wasn’t trying!”

“Try harder, then.” Spy flicks his cigarette ash on the floor. Scout has always hated that about the man, hated how the smell of smoke lingers around him like a heavy cloak.

“Oh, why didn’t I think of that, huh? Jeez, Spy, thanks for freakin’ letting me know. I’ll remember that next time I’m getting my head blasted off or my guts ripped apart.”

Spy sniffs. “In any case, I hope you learn from this.”

“Yeah, whatever, man.” Scout sidesteps the older man and walks off, barely resisting the urge to flip Spy off as he leaves the room.

“I’m sorry to have to do this to you all.”

The mood in the room is verging on somber. Everyone is pointedly looking away from the woman standing in front of them. Miss Pauling sighs, and puts her clipboard down on the meeting room table.

“To be fair, though, it has been a week of losses. The Administrator wants to know what’s up.”

Scout thinks about speaking up. Today was kind of his problem. It kind of wasn’t, too, but obviously the Administrator probably saw how shitty he was doing anyway. Maybe it’d be better to just admit it outright. Not that that hurt less. God, he didn’t want to say he did godawful in front of everyone! But maybe that would be the right thing to do. Maybe Miss P would respect him for it? More likely she’d think he was a goddamn loser who couldn’t do his freakin’ job right.

Still though, she was asking. So maybe he should just suck it up and take the blame.

Before Scout can say anything, though, another voice breaks the silence.

“Tell the witch that it was my fault. There was a sentry nest at a crucial chokepoint which I failed to disable. This lead to a fruitless seige.” Scout opens his mouth, but a quick glance from Spy ensures he closes it. “I hope that will satisfy her questioning.”

Miss Pauling blinks. “Are you sure, Spy? She seemed pretty angry.”

“Yes, of course I am sure,” he scoffs. “Unlikely anything will manifest from it anyway.”

Miss Pauling looks like she wants to say something, but shrugs instead and writes a note on her clipboard. The rest of the team let go of a collective held breath.

Scout sneaks another look at Spy. The man is staring out the window. Scout can only see the outline of his chin, the face hidden by the ever-present mask. Miss Pauling nods.

“Thanks guys. That’ll be all. Hope tomorrow’s better.”

She clicks out of the room on her high heels. The sound echoes throughout the hallway. Scout looks at Spy again. The man glances over for a second, then immediately looks away.

“But even though he said it was my fault, he stood up took the blame. What’s up with that?”

Pyro sits crosslegged on the couch and tilts their head to the left. If they didn’t know, they would shrug. But they do know. So they cannot shrug. Instead, they sit there, gently staring at Scout.

The boy takes the lack of response as something normal from Pyro. “Yeah, I dunno. He’s weird, isn’t he?”

They nod. That’s something they can agree with, at least. Scout falls back onto the couch and starts absentmindedly pulling at the seams. Pyro takes the opportunity to keep on doodling on their little notepad.

They draw two squares of similar size, one above the other, and link them with a line, bordering the whole thing with red hearts. On one square, they scribble a smiley face; on the other, a question mark. Scout looks over their shoulder at the drawing.

“What’s all that about?”

Pyro wants to shrug. They don’t. Scout loses interest quickly enough. Pyro continues to stare at their creation.

Maybe it’ll come true someday. Life imitates art, after all.

---

Maybe it’s stupid. Maybe he’s drunk.

Well, he’s always drunk. Maybe he’s more drunk than usual, then, if that could be even possible. But Demo swears up and down on his heart, that there is something going on.

For the past day or two, there has been this prickly tension rising in the base, like something big is about to happen. It’s the feeling of imminent danger he knows from years of working as a bloody good Demoman.

And yet, it’s all wrong. They’re on base. Surely the other team hadn’t been paid enough to ambush them, right? No, that couldn’t be it. Their alarm systems were immaculate, oversensitive even (Demo knew that from stumbling into base at 3am sloshed off his gourd one too many times). A bloody Spy? Even more unlikely. The other Spy seemed to hate his job even more than theirs; he’d have no reason to go above and beyond and try to infiltrate their base at night.

So what is going on? There is something unmistakable in the air - something big, something looming, something about to go terribly, terribly wrong. Demo looks around again. Nothing seems out of place. Everything is nice and calm and quiet - even a little too quiet. Although that could be because the only other person in the room was Sniper.

Still, he saunters over to the other man.

“Oi, look. What the bloody hell’s happening?”

Sniper raises an eyebrow. “What d’yer mean? And why are yer whispering?”

“Just…don’t ye feel it? This…feels like something’s up, dunnae?”

Sniper looks away, eyes hidden behind his tinted glasses. A short pause passes before he responds. “Yeah, guess I know what yer mean. S’pose it does feel like something’s waiting to jump out.”

“Isn’t that weird?”

“Yeah. Strange.” Sniper clicks his tongue. “Dunno what it could be, though.”

Demo frowns and tries to organise his fumbling thoughts into something coherent. Surely there’s some possibility he’s overlooked, some crucial piece of the puzzle he’s missing. He’s so close to figuring it all out. There’s just something going on that Demo doesn’t know.

“LADIES!” Soldier enters the rec room with the rhythmic footsteps that accompany him everywhere. The American salutes the two others with unbending stiffness.

“’allo, Solly.”

“Evening, mate.” Sniper tips his hat at him. Demo looks at the American. Well, it wouldn’t hurt…

“I gots something to ask ye.”

“YES?”

“Do ye feel like…something’s happening?”

The helmet tilts to one side. “WHAT do you MEAN? There’s ALWAYS something happening!”

“Nah, not like that. I mean—”

A loud crash from outside the room interrupts the conversation. Demo jumps and looks into the hallway.

“Spy, WHAT the fuck?”

The sound is coming from the dining room. Demo runs towards it, the other two close behind.

There’s a couple of chairs overturned, a few plates smashed into pieces on the floor, but the centerpiece is Scout standing in the middle of the room, spiked bat raised, standing over Spy. Medic stands behind Scout, arm half reached out, but Heavy is somehow faster and grabs Scout’s arm, pulling the boy towards him.

“What’s goin’ on?” Demo yells into the room. Medic turns towards him with a half-sheepish smile, and it is only then that Demo notices the bright red mess oozing from Spy’s arm.

“You…you fucking…piece of shit,” Scout huffs out. “I can’t believe…it’s you? You’re my fucking dad?”

Spy does not respond, only emitting a grunt of pain as he hauls himself up on his non-injured arm.

“You BASTARD!”

The shout rings throughout the otherwise quiet room. No one can move, least of all Spy. He lies there, half-prone, eyes firmly fixed on the floor. Demo wants to look away, wants to imagine that such a scene cannot be happening, but it is undeniably right in front of him.

“You? You’re the one who…who fuckin’…and now you’re here?”

“Scout, wait!” Medic cries out. “Think about it - we do not want to be down a team member.”

It doesn’t seem like a very compelling argument - at least not to a guy who is currently beating said team member half to death, but Heavy’s grip is vicelike, and Scout either cannot or does not strike again. The momentary pause gives Spy enough time to disappear in a flash, and the only sound left is Scout panting. He wipes away the sweat on his face, and his hands linger far too long around his eyes.

“I can’t fucking believe this shit…”

Suddenly, he twists his arm out of Heavy’s grip and bursts through the crowd of people watching at the door, sprinting away.

“COME BACK HERE, PRIVATE!” Soldier dashes off after the man. Medic stands in the middle of the room, mouth agape, while Heavy is opening and clenching his large fists, eyes closed tight.

Complete, pure silence falls over the room. Demo breathes in, one long gasp of air.

---

When all the kicking and screaming finally stops, Sniper’s just glad he’s got a place to sleep for the night that isn’t in the half-wrecked base.

He knew, of course. He knew it was important too, obviously, but it never was his place to say anything. Hell, he doesn’t even know why he’s thinking so much about what he knew and what everyone else knew, because it was Spy’s problem after all.

Or maybe it was Medic’s fault, for forcing the Frenchman’s hand into confessing. Then again, he’s thinking too much once more, so Sniper sighs and pulls down the brim of his Akubra. In a better world, he’d be wearing his hat with gumnuts tied all round the rim, and he could watch them clink into each other to distract himself from the thoughts running amok in his mind. In lieu of anything to do, he runs his fingers along the folded edge, and feels each grain of sand and dirt beneath his fingers.

He really does need to clean his hat, but there’s always something else to do, so he never does. The dirt gives it a nice, gritty, colour, after all. In the distance, he sees a figure trudge up the hill, and its size means its identity is unmistakable.

Heavy. Sniper sighs. Not that it’s unpleasant to be around the man, but his peace is being interrupted again. The Russian approaches, until it’s obvious that he’s looking to find the Australian’s company

“Evening,” Sniper greets smoothly. Heavy only nods in reply, then sits down in front of Sniper’s van without invitation. Sniper feels only a little irritated.

“How’s it lookin’ in there?”

“Bad.” Well, Heavy was nothing if not succinct. Sniper makes a ‘hmph’ noise and sighs, looking upwards into the night sky. The clouds seem to have been told of their misfortune, and so have gathered over the desert valley.

“Kid stopped yellin’ yet?”

“Yes.” Heavy grunts. “Shut in room. Spy missing.”

Barely, Sniper notices how he did not specify, intentionally or not, whether Scout was locked into his room or if he locked himself into his room. Perhaps he doesn’t need to know. The outcome is the same. He sighs, and continues to stare upwards. Beside him, he can hear Heavy adjust his seated position a little.

Wish he could see the stars tonight. But the clouds are too thick, and so the sky is some sort of smothered dark instead. Sniper could just pretend it was the Milky Way, but what would be the point?

He sighs, and turns back to Heavy to make bare conversation.

“Aren’t yer cold out ‘ere?”

“No,” Heavy replies. “Before have slept in one metre of snow.”

Sniper raises an eyebrow but doesn’t comment further. Heavy is naturally honest, but some of his stories sound a little too unbelievable.

“The other thing: do not wish to be inside.”

“Yer got that right.” The base was usually oppressively noisy. Now it was stiflingly quiet. Christ. Sniper likes the silence, but not like this. Not when it weighs heavy on the shoulders of everyone there.

Uncharacteristically, Heavy continues the conversation.

“Is very un-pretty. Hit once, maybe twice. Floor bloody.”

Sniper involuntarily winces at the thought. “The lil’ rat’s fast, isn’t he?”

Heavy shrugs. “Spy could dodge. Did not.”

“Ah.” Well. Not any more of a nice sight to imagine, certainly enough. Sniper tilts his head down until his hat covers his eyes again.

Just under the brim, however, he can see another person pulling themselves up the hill. Sniper begins to wonder if there is going to be a full-scale invasion on his quarters.

“Ah, Mikhail. I was looking for you,” Medic grins, taking the last few steps and sitting down beside the large man. Sniper wonders how the man can still smile after everything, but he has definitely committed actions of greater moral dubiousness.

“Doctor.”

“Nice night tonight, ja?”

Sniper makes a noncommittal noise. It isn’t a nice night, but everyone already knows that, so there’s no point saying it aloud.

“Not many stars out,” he observes instead. A useless thing to say. Much better for his sanity than anything useful, though.

Sniper counts about sixty seconds of awkward silence before Medic sighs loudly.

“It’s unfortunate, isn’t it?”

“So you admit it,” Sniper mutters. “Did’ja really have to spill the beans?”

The man shrugs. “Well, it’s fine, really. It’s only the first step. I would have been more surprised if Scout did not attack him.”

“You wanted this bloody mess?”

“No, of course not. But there was no other way.”

Heavy humphs but does not vocalise anything. Sniper sighs.

“Ain’t pretty either damn way.”

“I suppose not.”

Sniper can think of nothing else to say. The clouds move in the night wind. Up above, the faint outline of the moon shines feebly behind the clouds.

---

Blood. There’s blood forming a splatter across the floor, all red and sticky. Patches of it have already started congealing into dark purplish blobs.

Engie and Demo stare at the mess. Medic, the team’s resident expert in both creating and cleaning up spills of bodily fluid, has easily vanished along with most of the team, leaving a precious few to deal with the task of cleaning up. Pyro hovers around the edges, trying to figure out what’s going to happen.

Engie is the first one to break the silence, with a loud sigh. Demo takes it as a suitable time to speak.

“Dunnae understand why the man just stood there and took it.”

Engie grimaces. “Well, can’t you?”

He’s silent for a second. Pyro crouches down and pokes at the at the edge of the blood spill. Small red bits flake off the concrete floor.

“Respawn’s not even active. And it cannae heal old injuries,” he thinks aloud. “I guess there’s tha’ Medic’s healing juice too, but he’s gotta bloody hate tha’ doctor right about now.”

“I’d guess he’d had thought ‘bout that,” Engie mutters. He puts his non-robotic hand on his face, and sighs loudly again. “How’d it come to this?”

Demo doesn’t reply. There is only one correct answer, after all. His gut feeling had been right after all. Bloody hell. The boy deserved to know, but still…

Pyro pulls out their lighter and and lights a flame. Engie’s goggles somehow widen.

“Hey, hey, hey!”

The firebug tilts their head, but does not release the lighter. The fire flickers threateningly. Demo stutters, looking from one side to the other, but luckily Engie’s quick thinking comes in.

“Could’ja grab us some stuff from the cleaning closet? There’s this white and yellow bottle, if you could grab that, and maybe a mop?”

Pyro tilts their head back the other way and, thankfully, nods and runs off on their mission. Engie sighs, partially in relief and partially in exhaustion, and takes off his glasses, dark circles under his eyes ever more evident in this moment.

“Christ Almighty,” Demo comments, and Engie only nods.

They stand there, silent and still, only staring at the mess in front of them. There’s much to do, but neither of them can move. Blood is far from a new sight. It is hardly the worst thing they see on a daily basis. This isn’t even the first incident of an injury on base. Yet this one runs darker, deeper, wine-red threatening to permanently stain a streak through their mess hall.

Pyro runs back soon enough with supplies, and Engie spills bleach onto the floor and starts attacking it with a cloth. Demo follows suit with a mop, and Pyro tries to help with their gloves. The sharp smell cuts through the dense atmosphere. Demo breathes it in, and tries not to sneeze.

“Cannae believe this was the day the lad decided to have his spiked bat.”

Engie is silent for a moment, scrubbing at the red mess. “Do y’all think the doc thought ‘bout that?”

Pyro shakes their head a definite no. Blood seeps through the fabric of the mop. Demo feels a pounding headache manifesting, and is therefore thankful to be interrupted by heavy boots thundering in.

“MISSION REPORT, LADIES! UNSUCCESSFUL!”

Pyro tilts their head.

“I lost ONE and the OTHER is in HIS ROOM!”

“Bloody hell.” It’s a nice, concise sort of way to sum up everything that’s happened today. Engie simply frowns and wipes the floor dry. There’s no physical trace of anything having happened.

“Y’all think we’ll be awlright?”

“WE?”

Engie nods. “The team, I mean.” He pauses slightly before answering his own question. “Guess we have to be.”

“Ye think they’ll get over it?”

“Well, I sure darn hope so.”

Pyro nods their head slowly and sadly. Solder looks solemn.

“We MUST stick TOGETHER. We are a BATTALION!”

“Yeah,” Engie replies quietly. “We have ‘ta.”

Chapter Text

It’s quiet again.

Soldier doesn’t like that. He misses when it was nice and lively, when silence only happened once in a BLU (wait no, that’s traitorous) RED moon. But now there are no loud conversations which bounce around the halls and fill the space. There’s nothing, nothing at all, except a thick uncomfortable blanket that has covered the entire base.

Where is everyone? Ladies, hiding in their rooms, angling for a charge of desertion! A true American would face it head on! Damn the communists, the hippies, the traitors - you must always be forthright and straightforward in war! And that applies equally to all battles, big and small!

Soldier sighs. Even he cannot bring himself to truly believe that. His boots clomp down the hallway. He stops, dead still, at the third door and rapidly knocks. The sound echoes, and it reminds him of machine gun fire.

There is no response. In the silence, Soldier strains to hear something, anything. His deafened ears return nothing, but even if his hearing was perfect, there would have been no sound to be discerned. The silence has made itself a home here in their base.

Dear God. He’ll have to smoke it out somehow. Better yet, why not blow the silence out? Soldier brings his hand up to his chin. Many choices to consider. What would Sun Tzu say in this scenario? Or rather, who would Sun Tzu beat the ever-loving brains out of?

He stands there, straight as an arrow, by the closed door in the hallway, head resting on his chin. Soldier does not move for several hours. The silence, too, does not leave.

---

Bandages missing - two rolls. Painkillers depleted to the tune of three foil sheets.

Medic usually hates it when the team takes his stock without asking, but this time, he’s not shocked, not in the slightest.

“Maybe shadow took them,” Heavy comments, in that tone which Medic can never tell if he’s joking or not.

“Ja,” he agrees, closing the overhead cabinet with a soft thunk. “It seems he is still above actually asking for help, though.”

Heavy hums, a deep guttural sound that Medic has always liked. He especially likes how he can see Heavy’s lungs, made visible by a few neat slices of his scalpel and kept breathing by the Medigun, gently vibrate with the vocalisation. What an exquisitely freakish thing, the human body is. When it all comes down to it, every single living, thinking human is no more than several dozen kilograms of meat, held together by millions of years of evolution (and sometimes a little extra help, courtesy of your wonderful Medic).

“Have you seen him?”

The Russian shakes his head. “Have not looked.”

“I doubt you’d find him even then,” Medic dramatically sighs, moving to his drawers. Everything seems to be in order - he doubts the man would know how to use even half the tools stored here.

He flings open the lower cabinets instead to peer inside. A needle and roll of sutre material gone too. Medic sighs, and bumps the doors closed with his hip.

“Perhaps doctor is paying for what was done.”

“Which vas?” It’s annoying how his accent comes out when he gets a little agitated, but it’s simply impossible to control. Perhaps he could somehow surgically alter his voice-box. Self-surgery is a risky thing, but it has been done before.

Heavy shrugs. His organs heave. His muscles pull on bone in a grotesquely beautiful way. “Doctor believes this was needed to happen. But now everyone not happy.”

“Maybe, maybe. But zat is progress, my friend. Progress is only gained from blood, sweat, and tears.”

“Still not happy.”

“There’ll always be struggle in success.”

Heavy shakes his head again. “There is better way.”

“Is zere?”

“Yes.” As always, Heavy speaks with such finality that Medic feels compelled to throw away his rebuttals and bite his tongue instead. It is true that this situation they now find themselves quite unpleasant. Yet, how else could it have happened? Of course, in a perfect world, there would have been so many better ways. But Medic knows all too well that the world he lives in is far from perfect - he is proof of that. Therefore, he must have been correct to do as he did, right?

He sighs. There is nothing else to it. What’s done is done. Overhead, a dove flutters softly with a gentle coo. Medic wants to soak his hands in bright red blood and stop overthinking it all.

He does so, thrusting his hands into the larger man’s chest cavity. The red looks like his familiar rubber gloves, and the sight makes him feel better.

“Something good vill come out of this.”

Heavy does not respond. Medic presses his lips together into a thin line.

---

One, two, three, four, five.

One, two, three, four, five.

One, two— hold on, weren’t there six the last time he checked?

Demo raises an eyebrow at his super secret storeroom scrumpy stash. Unless he’s completely forgotten how to count (which is possible, considering Demo can’t even begin to guess at the total number of bottles he’s had this week), it seems like some of his scrumpy is missing. While he likes to share a drink with the rest of the team, he’d appreciate whoever took it asking him first…

Strange, too, as most of the team don’t even want a glass of it when he offers. Demo looks around, but unluckily for him the culprit is not within viewing distance. In fact, the only person he can see is one of the people he’s sure wouldn’t have taken the scrumpy: Soldier.

“Oi, Solly!” He waves his hand wildly at the other man, the only surefire way of getting his attention. Soldier, for his part, stops stiffly at attention to listen to Demo.

“Ye been drinkin’ my grog?”

Even though Demo’s usually the only one who’ll touch the stuff, but it can’t hurt to ask. No idea why no one else likes it, but hey, it leaves him more.

“No, siree!” the other man shouts. “And if I catch any of you SLACKERS drinking on DUTY—”

“Aye, aye,” Demo interrupts, unsure that he wants to hear the consequences of a pint or two on the job. “Jus’ sayin’, because I noticed some stuff missing.”

“WHAT?”

“Thought one of the lads took it.”

Soldier stiffens up. “UNACCEPTABLE! I’ll have the MAGGOT who did so COURT MARSHALLED! STEALING among a battalion is NOT to be TOLERATED!”

“It’s fine, ish fine.” He waves his hand carelessly. “Don’t matter. Scrumpy’s made for sharing anyhow.” Demo’s only wish is that whoever took it is enjoying it as much as he could’ve.

He frowns. Hopefully Scout isn’t learning to drown his sorrows in a brown tinted bottle. He doubts it though - the last time the boy had tried some, he had immediately spat it out. That is some small comfort.

As if Soldier had been reading his mind, he immediately looks around, helmet swivelling on his head almost comically.

““NOTHING NEW to REPORT! The BOY is still in his ROOM!”

Demo’s frown only etches itself deeper on his face. “Bloody thought as much. What about the other one?”

Soldier looks from one side of the room to the other. No shimmering air, no extra set of breaths, the room’s secrets (if any) are held wide open and bare for its occupants. Demo sighs and reaches for one of his five remaining bottles. It feels nice and heavy in his hand, the familiar swirl of liquid gold inside.

“Want some?”

“NEGATORY!” the American shouts. “I MUST stay ALERT for any SIGNS of LIFE!”

“Suit yerself.” Demo opens the bottle with a satisfying pop and takes a large gulp. The easy burn of the alcohol as it slips down his throat is calming. Something to find a bit of solace in, in the midst of all this mess.

“Where is everyone else, anyway?”

“The MEDIC and BIG MAN are doing SURGERY! The CAMPER and SMART GUY and WEIRD GUY are outside!”

“So they’re all accounted for?”

“AFFIRMATIVE!”

The Scotsman frowns again. Engie’s words come back to him. We have ‘ta stick together. We simply must. Christ, it ain’t going to be easy. Demo’s not even sure its possible.

He still doesn’t know when he shudders awake at 3am, groggy and sore, on the cold storeroom floor.

---

Midnight, or close enough. His watch tells him 12:37.

The hour doesn’t matter. It is Friday night, or rather, Saturday morning now, so they have two days of rest. Maybe the doctor had considered that when thinking of the timing of his reveal.

A small saving grace. Still completely idiotic of him.

God, why did it have to be then? Why did the doctor have to interfere? Spy’s thin breath rattles through his chest as these thoughts run circles throughout his head. He must keep them, keep asking himself these rhetorical questions in order to never hear the answer.

His left shoulder is dotted with bloody holes, thanks to Scout’s rage fuelled attack with a bat full of nails. And yet, he could not blame the boy for that. He could not blame the boy for anything, really; even for being the loud-mouthed dim child he was. At the root of it all, it was Spy’s fault. He was simply getting his just punishment.

This does not help the fact that Spy’s shoulder is still in a world of pain.

The wound is only flesh-deep; his muscles still work perfectly fine, but it burns like fire when he moves his arm. A small part of him wants to hope that that is because Scout held back against him, even just a little. Rationally, he does not know; likely he is simply cursing himself with false hope.

A terrible evening, all around. There is no other way to describe it. How awful it felt to crawl out of the dining room, his arm burning with each movement, reduced to his knees. Was that truly the person he had become? A pariah, a failure, a man who can never justify himself because he is so deeply, intrinsically wrong? God. That isn’t him. Spy wants to believe that so badly, and yet he cannot.

Perhaps he should not think about that, and merely focus his energy on the bloody wound on his arm. One thing at a time. Or maybe he is avoiding thinking about what could possibly happen in the future. Worst case scenario, he would have to leave the job, abandon any possibility of a relationship with his son. The best case is…torture to think about, now. Spy shoves those thoughts out of his mind and tries to concentrate back on his task.

Glass of good, 1952 red next to him. Glass of shitty, pungent, scrumpy next to that, only destined for disinfecting. Spy hisses a pained breath through his teeth as the ethanol touches his bared flesh.

It hurts. Long ago, so long it felt like another life, he had learned the basics of first aid. It was a necessary skill to know; he had spent many nights in a lonely hotel room licking his wounds after an assignment gone wrong. That had occurred less and less over the years, as he had gotten more cautious and skilled. It also meant his proficiency in stitching himself up had suffered. Having to deal with the pain of cleaning and wrapping wounds was not a sensation he had felt in a long time. The convenience of the Medigun had made him weak. Still, it would be wrong to say it was not objectively better in many ways. Not that Medic would ever hear him say those words out loud.

His breathing, already usually laboured and wheezy, is even more evident in the dark silence of his room. Spy sighs and puts the sutre in his mouth to thread into the needle. If only the doctor did not religiously patrol his surgery. Then Spy would be able to sneak in and use the machine for himself. But there would still be the issue of the birds, who’d probably alert Medic still. He takes in a deep breath and gives thanks to God that he is right-handed.

The needle plunges into soft flesh. The ache in his head and the weight on his heart hurt more.

Chapter Text

It’s interesting to think about all the different temperatures that things melt and burn at. Paper at 451 Fahrenheit. Steel at about two and a half thousand. Flesh at three hundred, usually.

Flesh is weaker than thin sheets of paper. Isn’t that funny, Pyro thinks. There are a million things they could draw from that, but they’d prefer not to.

They sit in front of Scout’s room, unicorn plush at their side. He hasn’t been outside since last night. It’s been nearly an entire day now. The other team members left him meals in front of the door, and he took them, but that’s the only sign of life. Scout knows how to avoid attention when he wants to. Unexpected, in a way, almost predictable in another.

There’s this uncomfortable sensation within Pyro, like bubbling lava deep within their stomach. They wonder if a volcano is going to erupt within them. They hope not. There are already too many things going wrong this week. Pyro doesn’t want more bad things to happen.

The rumbling feeling doesn’t go away, but they still sit and stare at Scout’s door. It’s a boring grey colour. They wish it was something nicer, something warm, like red orange yellow all sparkling. Their team is RED anyways, so why can’t their base be that colour too? Deep inside, Pyro makes a promise that someday they’ll paint the entire world those lovely colours.

Pyro is full of wishes and hopes.

They should put them into action. Slowly, they get up from their post opposite Scout’s room and approach the door.

Once, twice, the dull sound of a knock rings.

Why do they knock? It is because they know nothing else of what they can do. But long ago, when they first came here, and the rest of the team was still unknown to them, Scout reached out.

He didn’t have to. He could have looked away with fear or disgust, like so many had before him. Pyro had become used to that, the hurried diversion of gazes, to the hushed whispers surrounding them. It hurt once. It doesn’t matter now.

Instead, he had looked at the scribbles Pyro had made, and said “Hey, those are kinda cool.”

The rest of the story is history. Pyro feels this small burning thing inside them forever binding them to Scout, to everyone here. A flame that will never die. Pyro’s favourite type.

Just for good measure, they knock on the door once more. The sound is much the same. There is no difference. Pyro stands there, arms hanging by their side, and they stare unflinchingly forward. They will wait. They will wait no matter how long it takes. An hour, a month, a year - it is all the same to Pyro.

They do not have to wait too long. The door is soon opened. Pyro looks inside. It’s Scout, unsurprisingly, without his familiar cap. Instead, there is red cracked through his eyes, paleness drawing his face thin and slightly sunken. A million lives ago, Pyro would’ve known so intimately what those things meant, could have understood the things that would’ve happened in between last night and now to make the boy this way.

They do not think of such things. Each and every past moment is washed away for the present. Pyro looks up at Scout and holds out the unicorn as a peace offering.

Scout takes it, clutching it by the neck and holding it close to him. The plushie is soft and good. Pyro knows that. Pyro hopes Scout can know that too.

“Do you wanna come in?” he asks. “We can…do some doodlin’, or sumthin’.”

Pyro nods. Something is better in the world. An old, flickering, flame dies out; something new grows from the ashes.

---

Too often, Engie finds himself with a visitor. Really, he doesn’t blame them. He doesn’t talk much when he’s focusing on his schematics, and his workshop is tucked away in a quiet part of the base - Medic’s lab is too, but none of the mercs would ever willingly go into that room (apart from Heavy, perhaps, but Engie likes to pretend he knows nothing about that).

The door clicks softly, and a shadow walks in. There’s no figure there, just a dark patch gliding across the concrete floor.

“If you want ‘ta talk, at least give me a face ‘t look at.”

An indiscernible noise, and then the swish of an uncloak.

“How annoying that it is impossible to come quietly into this room.”

“I like it tha’ way,” Engie replies, and it’s the truth. Spy makes a disgusted sort of grunt, but settles into leaning on a wall behind him. The fluorescent light over them buzzes and flickers. He really needs to get around to fixing that, but there’s always something more interesting to do. Engie tweaks at his prototype instead. His mechanical fingers whir pleasantly.

“Have y’all fixed it up yet?”

It’s like he’s talking about a machine he’s constructed, or a mistake in an equation. If only relationships had blueprints to see where you went wrong, and how easily you could repair it.

“No.” The reply is almost incredulous, as if Engie shouldn’t have expected any change. Of course he shouldn’t have. He didn’t, and yet he still asked. Pointless exercise, but sometimes a little hope is a good thing. Engie sighs. They both do.

“Ain’t much fun livin’ with a storm cloud over our heads.”

“I am aware. If only that idiotic German had not—”

“Ah, stop grumblin’ about what he did. Think ‘bout what you did as well to make it this way. It was damned foolish in the first place.”

“Et tu, Brute?” Spy replies, with a testy smirk on his face. Engie shrugs, frown reinforced on his face.

“Just sayin’. Keepin’ secrets in this team ain’t right. Wasn’t surprised he found out eventually, with the good Doc’s intervention or not.”

“Perhaps it would have happened anyway.” Spy lolls his head around as he stretches his right shoulder. “Or perhaps you do not fully trust in my powers of secret-keeping.”

“We’re all cooped up out here, in the middle of the desert, going insane together.” Engie pulls a face as he tightens a nut. “Keepin’ talkin’ in whispers is only gonna make everyone get worse faster.”

“You speak as if everyone on this team is not already fucked in the head.”

There’s silence for a second, as Engie finishes his handiwork and puts his wrench down. “S’pose so. Still, you can get what I mean.”

Spy seems to have no retort for once. Engie decides to immaturely ignore him for a while, and focus on writing out his calculations instead. The smell of cigarette smoke becomes ever more pungent.

Ten minutes later, Engie is surprised that he can still feel the air grow heavy with the scent of tobacco. He flicks a glance over. Spy is still leaning on the wall, cigarette in his mouth, right hand resting over his left shoulder.

“You must have a barrel full o’ those suits.”

Spy shrugs. “I have enough. I would fix the other one, but it is tailor-made, and ah! I will have to wait until our next break to find someone talented enough to properly dry clean it and sew it up.”

“Y’know hydrogen peroxide gets rid of blood, right?”

“I am not allowing you or the drunkard to do your so-called science experiments anywhere near my clothes.” Spy makes a face. Engie nearly laughs. He breathes out through his nose, a quick puff of air instead.

“So, what now?” he chooses to ask instead.

“What now indeed,” Spy echoes his words back to him, and the Texan can’t help but feel a little annoyed. Copycat, even in conversation.

“I’d recommend you swallow your damn pride and get the doc to fix ya up, and go have a heart-to-heart with the kid. God sure knows he needs it.”

Spy blinks. Engie turns back to his bench. It’s harsh, but it’s about damn time he tells it to Spy straight. He looks down at the schematic and grips a pencil in his flesh hand. There are calculations and such to be done. It’s nice how neatly numbers and equations all work out into something beautiful. Engie loves the sight. So calming.

Of course, it must be broken by a thin, strangled voice from behind him.

“You know this…this is not what I wanted to happen.”

“Well, that’s as clear as day.”

Spy hums. “I simply feel powerless. I felt conflicted before, but at least the decision was up to me.”

You seemed to be more for sittin’ on your backside ‘bout it, but Engie lets him continue.

“Now, where do I go from here? I had tried to achieve…something with him in our time here, and now that progress is gone. He simply hates me.”

Engie turns back around and looks at the other man, who is tapping his fingers on the wall, gaze averted, whole body trembling. Engie frowns again. He knows this is not entirely the Frenchie’s fault. Things happen, family can be tough, Engie is all too painfully aware of that. These are problems that cannot be solved cleanly, ones which Engie tries not to concern himself with but always inevitably crop up, one way or another.

Darnit, I really do have to say somethin’, don’t I?

“I know it ain’t all your fault, and don’t make me regret sayin’ that.”

“Never.” Spy half smirks. It cuts a crooked line across his face.

“But you gotta play the hand you’ve been dealt, so…just try to make the best out of it, alright?”

The other man shakes his head slowly. “That is so easy to say…”

“I know that. But it ain’t like you rebuilding it from nothing. He knows you look out for him, I’m sure.”

There’s a short silence as Spy raises the cigarette to his lips and blows out a stream of smoke. “Does he? I cannot be certain.”

“Well, I see it, Sniper sees it, Heavy definitely sees it, even Demo sees it and he’s drunk near all the time and only got tha’ use of one eye. Boy might have a few rocks rattling round in his head but he ain’t really stupid. Live on hope a little, instead o’ wallowin’ in your pit of pity.”

That brings out out a proper smirk on the Frenchman’s face. He takes the cigarette away from his mouth and bows, right hand outstretched.

“Alright. I understand, dear Labourer. I will take some of that misguided optimisim and apply it to my ‘sorry self’.”

Engie folds his arms and frowns, and it provides the perfect moment for Spy to vanish once again. The door clicks open and shut, and Engie is left all alone in the flickering lights of his workshop.

Still, somehow, it doesn’t feel all superficial. Or maybe Engie’s just being hopeful. But hey, that’s not such a bad thing either.

---

Flock of vultures passing over.

Sniper hums. That’s the third one today. Seems ominous. Or perhaps they’re signalling him. Sniper has always liked birds. He slowly lowers his binoculars and sighs. It’s quiet outside. It’s probably quiet inside, too.

Loathe for Sniper to go in there, especially now. And anyway, he can wait. He is used to waiting. He’s made with the mettle for patience. Bloody hell, how many hours did he used to spend cooped up in watchtowers and on roofs? He should be counting himself lucky that he gets to be outside in mild weather, with lots of interesting things to stare at.

Heavy, too, has seemed to suddenly realise the joy of being amongst nature, and is now reading a thick novel behind Sniper’s van. Sniper has learned to stop finding it annoying. Mostly. He flicks his gaze over at the man, who could be easily mistaken for a statute, if not for the periodic hand movement to turn to the next page.

“Have ya seen the kid yet?”

Heavy shakes his head. “Not Heavy. Fire one, yes.”

“Really?”

A slow nod of the head.

“Go on, tell us about it.”

“Nothing to tell.”

Well, obviously not nothing if he’s talkin’ to someone for the first time in a day or so. Heavy somehow hears this thought and clarifies.

“Boy is alive.”

“Well.” At least that’s something. To be fair, Pyro’s impossible to get any information out of - whether that was intentional or not in this case, no one will know. Sniper brings up the binoculars again and swivels his head in the direction of the base. It ain’t like him to spy on his teammates - hell, he’s only done it to one other man in the the base who’s name matched this very action. Plus, that was only because the bloody wanker did the same to him, so Sniper considered it payback.

Still, it can’t hurt to take a peek. Just to make sure everything’s alright. Or rather, to see if things have become alright.

The curtains are drawn. Sniper can’t exactly see inside the room - the window’s at an awkward angle - but the curtains are drawn.

He whistles, clicks his tongue. They weren’t drawn the last time he looked, which was definitely long after the sun went up. Kid’s seeing sunlight, at least. That’s probably something too.

“Think it’s getting better.” It’s both a question and a statement. Heavy nods in response, turning his book to the next page. Sniper rubs the back of his head. He’s getting low on coffee grounds. And he could probably do with a shower.

---

The first day, Scout felt like he couldn’t fuckin’ breathe. It felt like his whole world was crashing down around him.

The biggest question mark hanging over his entire life had finally been answered. And it was Spy? Fucking Spy? The guy who took every freakin’ opportunity to berate and needle him?

Christ. His father hated him after all. ‘Course, he should’ve known that when the man ran away from him when he was born. And for some reason the guy had shown up again, twenty years later, to be the biggest asshole in the entire world. Is that really his father? Is that really who Scout had been looking for all this time? He doesn’t even know what to think about that. At first, he was obviously furious, but now…he just feels confused, mostly. Confused about how he should feel and what he should do. Hell, did he even have to do anything? Scout kinda just wanted to rot in his room forever. He had seriously debated whether or not to open the door when he heard a soft knock.

But after he had let Pyro in something had changed. **Scout didn’t feel like sitting around and doing nothing about it anymore. He wanted answers. Explanations for the uncertainties that had plagued his entire freakin’ life up until now. There is so much to know. So much to ask. He picks up the phone and dials a well-worn number.

“Jeremy! I was wonderin’ when you’d call, sweetie.”

“He told me everything, Ma. I know who he is.”

Nothing moves. It is so quiet. Scout can hear the gurgling of the pipes in the hallway walls, the hum of electricity running through the ceiling. He listens to his breathing, and says nothing more.

Finally, his mother’s clear voice cuts through the silence, awakening Scout from his thoughts.

“How do you feel?”

“I don’t know,” Scout replies, and the admission alone almost makes another rush of tears come to his eyes. “I don’t know. I should be mad at him for leaving you, and I did get really angry and I kinda fucked him up, but I don’t know what ‘ta think now.”

There’s a gentle humming noise on the other side of the line. “I know, sweetie. It’s complicated. My feelings were were all topsy-turvy at the start too, but it’s mostly all settled down.”

Scout breathes in, and just listens to his mother speak.

“I’m not going to tell you how to feel about him. Take some time to decide that for yourself. He’s a man with problems. But only the good God and baby Jesus are perfect, and I know he tries. Sometimes it ain’t enough, but…I’m happy with how he does it, at least.”

“Does he, Ma?” Scout frowns. Half of him wants to believe there is nothing good about his father, that he was a lowlife scumbag who ditched his family. The other half cries out for a sliver of hope.

“I know I told you he was dead, sweetie. He wanted me to say that ‘cause he thought you’d be ashamed to be his son.”

“Well…”

There’s a light laugh. “If you want something more concrete, he does send me part of his paycheque. When you were young he visited more openly, then as you grew would come by at night. He….he’s a complicated man, but he’s not an evil person. Well, not completely. Not in the way which matters.”

There’s a pause. Scout imagines his mother twirling the cord around her hand, as she usually did while on the phone. He vaguely wonders how many of her calls she said were to ‘friends’ were really to Spy.

“Still, sweetie. It’s your own decision. I understand if you don’t want to talk to him. He’s just…”

“…weird. Confusing. Kinda an asshole.”

“That’s one way ‘ta put it,” she chuckles. “I hated him too, at first. Thought he was just another good-for-nothing who wanted any excuse to leave. But…well, for a while he seemed ‘ta really want to leave that life. And they dragged him back in. So he had to go.”

“Really?”

“Mm-hmm. People were showing up in the middle of the night, leaving notes, breakin’ windows. Maybe that’s my mistake for getting involved with a spy in the first place.” She sighs wistfully. “But it’s worked out alright so far.”

There’s silence. Scout’s mother is waiting for him to reply. All he can muster is a muted “oh.”

“Besides,” she adds quietly. “There is a reason he took the job with you.”

Scout breathes in. He blinks. God, why’s there so much he’s been in the dark to all this time?

“I hafta think. I’ll call you later.”

“Okay.” Her voice is as soft as Scout’s ever heard it. “Love you. No matter what you end up choosing to do.”

“Love ya too, Ma.”

He’s used to the rush of anxiety that comes with the click of the phone, the ringing dial tone afterwards. Still, he clutches the receiver close to his chest. He’s got a lot to consider.

---

That night, Spy dreams.

How terrible. He does not wish to be burdened with visions of what could’ve been, what should’ve been - and yet they come anyway, unstoppable as the tide.

He is standing in a darkened corridor. The walls are partially painted with whitewash, and the paint is cracking in other places. The only light comes from the room at the end of the hall. On the walls move large shadows, their presence coming from seemingly nowhere. Somewhere faraway, a radio song croons, water runs, and footsteps echo softly.

The only way out is a door at the end of the hallway. On the outside of this corridor lies both freedom and a life permanently burdened with chains. Spy stares at it. It answers with a firm, steady knock. He walks down the corridor and opens the door.

The room is bare except for a wooden chair in the middle. There is a man sitting on the chair, black blindfold wrapped tightly around his eyes. His arms are not bound, but they lay motionless on his knees. The man has salt-and-pepper hair, yet Spy knows he could be young or old - his age does not matter, simply the fact he is here.

The man, perhaps recognising that someone else has entered his room (and Spy knows it is his room) turns his head up to face the doorway, although he cannot see. Spy says nothing in greeting. The man says nothing in return. The two face each other for a few brief seconds, before Spy moves closer. Instinct means he reaches for the butterfly knife, always present on his body. The fact he is dreaming means it is not there. Spy moves closer anyway, until he is standing directly in front of the seated man, feet inches from his, stance width mirrored.

“You’ve arrived,” announces the man tonelessly. “I was expecting you.”

Spy stands there, simply looking down at the man, and does not reply.

“We haven’t met in a while, have we?” There’s just a hint of forced mockery in the man’s voice. The rest is coloured by dull acceptance. This charade has happened a million times. It will happen a million more. Maybe one day it will end. Maybe it is simply a Sisyphean task, the punishment Spy must serve for his misdeeds. He can only pray it is not.

Spy reaches out his hands and wraps them around the man’s neck. He does not resist; instead his hands fall to his side, dangling over the edge of the seat. Spy only increases the strength of his grip. He has always hated strangulation as a method of killing - with a piano wire it’s acceptable, but with one’s bare hands it is so unpleasant, so primitive. Nothing like the smooth click and slide of a butterfly knife. But he has no tools at his disposal now, and he will improvise - Spy must kill this man, must make sure his very existence is completely erased from the face of this Earth. He hates him with all his heart. His grip tightens, his fingers trembling with strength and anger coursing through his veins.

Only now does Spy realise his gloves are missing. His fingerprints will be all over the corpse’s neck. Spy does not care. He must kill this man. He must. The man lets out a barely audible gurgle. Underneath Spy’s fingers, the man’s pulse quickens. Spy himself feels like he cannot breathe, but he has to keep going. His hands are unyielding around the man’s neck. He will kill him. He will. He must. Spy will make sure the man never sees the light of day again, never breathes another breath.

Before the man can go limp, Spy awakens with a sharp gasp.

Chapter Text

Plink. Plink. Plink.

It’s an annoying sound, drops of water splashing against bathroom tile. None of their taps or shower-heads leak; Engie made sure of that when he first got here.

Yet the sound persists. Engie walks through the showers, making sure his footsteps don’t make too much noise. It just feels right to be tiptoeing around, with all the quiet around base and everything. So he walks softly, making sure any sound he makes remains hidden in the crushing silence. Like a big game hunter sneaking through the jungle, like an ol’ time cowboy stalking their nemesis in the gold mines, Engie is searching for something. He just doesn’t know what.

The dripping gets louder and louder. His hearing isn’t what it used to be (standing next to a machine gun all day will do that to you), but the noise sticks out like a sore thumb. Engie cocks his head and strains, trying to figure out the direction the sound is coming from.

It’s at ten o’clock. He moves closer, slides softly around the bathroom wall, and looks for the source of the noise.

It’s Scout. Scout, sitting in one of the shower cubicles, the shower-head above him leaking water. The boy hasn’t noticed him, or at the very least, hasn’t chosen to face Engie. He takes the time to drink in the pitiful sight. Scout hasn’t been seen for a couple of days; not very long compared to the disappearing acts Spy likes to pull, but extremely concerning for him. The kid doesn’t have his cap on, but everything else seems normal; except for the fact that he’s sitting cross-legged in a shower, letting drops of water fall on his bare head.

“Y’know we got water rationing, right?”

Scout turns around, and his eyes widen as they meet Engie’s. “Oh. Shit. Sorry.”

Three simple words, but it’s the first time he’s has heard the boy speak in almost two days.

“Nah, don’t worry too much ‘bout it.” Engie runs his fingers through the water droplets on the wall. Little liquid webs form. “Worst comes ‘ta worst, I could probably rig something up.”

“Really? You can do that?” Scout whispers.

“’Course,” he chuckles, the faint arrogance of a Conagher running through his veins. “Could’ve built the Statute of Liberty, if ya gave me enough metal.”

“Right,” Scout breathes, less convinced by the second.

“Aw, come on,” Engie smiles. “You see what I can do on the field.”

“Yeah, but it means you’d probably replace the showerhead with a semi-automatic, or sumthin’.

He hasn’t lost his sense of humour, then. That is an extraordinarily positive sign. Engie crouches down beside Scout.

“How’re ya feelin’?”

He shrugs. “Better, I guess. I dunno. I know it looks bad, but…I just kinda wanted to do something to get it out. In, like, a less shitty way than trying to beat someone up.”

“Well, that’s welcome to hear, at least.” Engie hums. “I know it must’ve been a real big surprise—”

“Yeah, it freakin’ was, wasn’t it?” Scout turns away with a half wretched smile on his face. “I dunno. Well, I guess like, some part of me kinda sorta knew for a really long time, and I just wanted to hear him say it but he never did, so I just kept waiting and…in the end I just got let down again.”

Engie nods and simply lets Scout continue to ramble. “Still, though, like if I really think about it, I kinda get it? Like not the bit about him abandoning Ma, but like the bit about him not really telling me, ‘cause I suppose it is a bit weird to go up to one of your colleagues and be like ‘hey it’s me your long-lost dad anyway that’s cool right?’ so like…yeah.”

Damn, the boy knew how to talk a mile a minute. Engie wedges a bit of his opinion in. “Yeah, he didn’t make such a good choice, but he knows he was wrong. I think he hates ‘imself for it.”

“But, like, he always comes off as such a prickly jackass. He could…like, if he really thought that…then why’s he such a freakin’ jerk about it?”

“I ain’t gonna argue that the man could be a thousand times nicer,” Engie replies, metal fingers flexing underneath his glove. “He’s jus’ that way. But there’s no way he’d dislike you, let alone hate you.”

Scout looks down and flicks at the puddles of water. Engie takes it as a good moment to keep going.

“Besides, think about it. I know he can be a bit bullheaded, as can you, son, but let his actions speak for him. He ain’t always talk the sweetest, but he does try ‘ta teach you.”

“…I know,” Scout mumbles. “I just…gotta think about it for a while.” He sighs. “God, I freakin’ hate thinking.”

Engie has to stifle a laugh at that. To make up for that transgression, he extends an arm to Scout, who takes it and uses it to pull himself up. Engie reaches behind him to turn off the tap off. Finally, the annoying dripping noise is gone, and they were probably back up a team member.

“Now, let’s getcha sorted. If you pass me your old clothes, I’ll wash ‘em.”

The boy nods. “Thanks.” His voice is only a whisper. “I mean, really. Thanks for stickin’ with me.”

Engie takes another good look at Scout. His face is wet, although whether thats from all the dripping water or something else Engie can’t tell. Cracked rivers of red are flushed through his cheeks, standing out especially on his white, drawn in face. The sight is almost enough to make the Texan weep himself.

“No worries,” Engie replies quietly. “It’s what anyone would do.”

“You’d hope so, wouldn’t ya?” The smile is not quite there on the boy’s face. Engie chooses to pretend he doesn’t notice anything is wrong. In any case, the words are stuck in his throat. He can’t blame Scout for thinking that. Engie just wishes the kid wouldn’t. That’d sure make everything damn easier.

Luckily, he’s saved by another set of footsteps. The two men turn around and meet a gangly figure, who blinks politely at the happenings.

“What’s happening here?”

“Kid’s using up our water.” Engie pats Scout on the shoulder.

“Jeez,” Sniper grumbles. “I just wanted a bloody shower.”

“Yeah, you sure freakin’ need one,” Scout grins, and Engie smiles too.

---

Spy is always the hardest member of the team to find. After all, that is his job: to be undetectable and invisible. It is what the man prides himself on.

And yet, with enough effort, Pyro can always somehow manage to find him. Perhaps that is not surprising either. During each day’s work, it is their job to look out for Spies. Pyro started off simply burning nearly everyone they saw, but after enough time, they simply got a sense for it. Not only an idea for who was acting ‘wrong’, but also the parts of the air which would shimmer in the silhouette of a man.

Spy has pretended he has been in his room for the past three days, but Pyro knows that cannot be true. The man needs food, at least, and Pyro has heard rumours from the rest of the team of items simply vanishing. There’s only one explanation. Even they can figure it out.

So they tiptoe down the hallways in search, keeping their weight on the balls of their feet. It’s a skill Pyro had learned from Spy, when they had wanted to get better at surprising people around corners. Spy had both pointed out this flaw and therefore corrected it, all in one afternoon. Pretty cool, Pyro thinks. They wonder if Scout has noticed that about himself - how he almost unconsciously fixes things based on Spy’s scolding.

A wander around the first floor yields nothing. On a few occasions, they reach their hands out into lonely corners, the middle of hallways, hoping to meet flesh. But there is no one there. Thin air provides no comfort. So they move to the stairs to go up a floor.

The stairwell is a small corridor - cold, grey and lonely. No one enters here seeking leisure. The room is a room of a room.

Yet something is not right. They can feel that. But it’s not the same as the uncomfortable feeling that has been coming in waves over the past two days. This feeling is all-too familiar - a cold shiver, tingling down their spine. Pyro knows this intimately. They feel it all too often, almost every day.

Pyro stands very, very still.

There are two sets of breath in the room. One echoing loud through a gasmask, the other laboured and wheezy. Yes, that is the final clue. Pyro moves, each step measured, towards the only empty space in the room large enough to fit another person.

Two small steps forward, and under the stairs a man shudders into existence. Pyro blinks with leaden eyes at him. Spy cannot see for the mask in the way. A line of permanent separation between the two beings. Pyro reaches out a hand anyway, and strikes a lighter. The small flame flickers and burns, as it struggles against the breeze. Fire. All so red and hot and alive and beautiful. It brings light and life. They offer it to Spy.

“Merci,” **he mumbles, and Pyro gives their creature purpose before putting it out again. The fire is gone, and Pyro feels a bit emptier, but they turn their gaze to Spy instead. There are things in this world that are as important as fire. Several years ago Pyro wouldn’t have wanted to know anything else except roaring flames, but since coming to this team Pyro has learned that there are a million other things worth learning about. Miss Pauling taught them that, Scout taught them that, everyone did, one way or another.

Neither of them say anything. Words are useless when it comes to Pyro, after all. Just things that sound nice and people listen to, most of the time. They get by well enough without speech, after all. Instead, they sit softly next to Spy underneath the staircase. The man breathes out clouds of smoke, and Pyro notices that gradually, the breaths get farther and farther apart. Spy closes his eyes, and Pyro does too.

The warm dark is good. The warm dark feels like some sort of home to them, as this base does too. Once Pyro had no home. Now they have many. A kind turn of fate; the world is filled with guiding red-hot lights.

Briefly, they wonder if Spy knows home too. With the way the man speaks, it seems like he is no one at all; simply a shadow which flits from place to place, never staying too long. But that cannot be true. No, that cannot be true because Spy has been here even longer than Pyro. It cannot be true because Scout exists, and Spy is here, and they are both still with the team.

What is home, anyway? Home cannot be a place; Pyro feels the same no matter what place they get transferred to: Teufort, Doublecross, even Sawmill, it’s all the same. Home is a feeling, then, and the people who spark that feeling within them.

There is much to ponder about this. Pyro lets the thoughts swirl in the dark of their mind. It has been a long time since Pyro has ever wanted anything apart from the warmth of fire, but now they feel the desire to keep this close. A small flicker of something.

“Have you talked to Scout?”

Unexpectedly, Spy interrupts the silence, and with such an open and honest question too. Opening their eyes again, Pyro looks over and nods quickly.

“How is he?”

Pyro gives a small thumbs up and mumbles something. The words don’t matter, as they are lost in translation, but Spy seems to relax anyway.

“I have seen him outside more. Selfish as it is, that makes me feel better, though I do not deserve it.”

Pyro looks down. Scout’s outburst at Spy was scary, but he seemed to get over it pretty quickly. It was like a bushfire burning down all the old detritus in one violent swoop, opening the path for new life to take root. It wasn’t like Scout was totally back to normal, but at least he wasn’t holed up in his room anymore, which made Pyro happy.

They raise a finger to point at Spy and tilt their head. Spy catches their stare and turns away, staring at grey painted wall.

“I assume you are asking about me.”

Pyro nods. Spy hums, even though he could not have seen them nod. They wait for a response, hands still in their lap.

It comes. “What about me?” the Frenchman sighs. “It does not matter what is happening with me. I am here. Is that anything?”

They don’t know how to respond to that, and a silence is born. Spy flicks ash everywhere. Ash is not a very nice thing. Pyro has wondered for a long time why such a thing exists, why fire does not burn ash too.

They sit under the stairs quiet, and close their eyes once again, grasping at the warm dark with both their hands. When they open their eyes once again, the space beside them is truly empty, with only lonely air to be found.

---

In the end, perhaps the most surprising thing was how quickly Scout felt better.

Yeah, it was kinda shitty hearing that your long-lost dad turned out to be the colleague-that-hates-you-or-at-the-very-least-only-barely-tolerates-you. Scout’s chest squeezed itself tight for an entire day, his head just kept spinning and spinning, it hurt. But now. that was all over, he could think.

On the one hand, this whole situation was kinda Spy’s fault. On the other, it was also not very nice of Scout to fuck up the man’s shoulder.

And now the man was hiding, too much of a coward to talk to Scout face to face.. Once again, Scout feels conflicted. It was so typical of the man to just run away from his problems, but…

…it would be amiss to not say that Scout didn’t miss him. Just a little, the teeniest tiniest little bit. After all, Spy was a constant presence around the base; even if he was invisible half the time, his lurking had gone from creepy to…weirdly comforting. It meant someone was always watching out for the team.

At first, he had tried to convince himself that that was looney to think. They were two people, constantly at odds. Him being Scout’s father should change basically nothing about the situation they were in. They were just colleagues who happened, by pure coincidence, to be related, right?

And yet…

Spy took the rap for him when he really didn’t need to. Spy would give him shit half the time, but also kinda helpful advice. The way his Ma had spoken about him, told him he wasn’t just a bad guy, that he was just complicated…who knows? Scout sure didn’t.

He sighs, and picks at the skin near his fingernails. Where is the man, anyway? The base isn’t that big - in fact, it’s pretty freakin’ cramped, considering there are 9 guys living in it. Spy’s just slippery as a fish. Obviously. Still goddamn annoying. Scout’s already run around each floor of the building at least three times. He’s even peeked outside and on the roof. Spy’s nowhere he can see. Scout trudges into the rec room.

Spy’s still not here. What a shocker. There is one other guy in the room though: Heavy, who’s sitting perfectly still on a blue one-seater, eyes shut, seemingly asleep.

“Yo, big guy!”

At first, it seems to Scout that Heavy has not heard him at all, and he’s getting ready to yell even louder before the Russian opens his eyes slowly.

“You seen him lately?”

“No.” Heavy flicks his gaze back and forth. It is the only part of him which moves. “Not surprise.”

“Huh.” Scout frowns. “Thought you would, ‘cause you seem to be aware of most things.” Of course, if he wanted to usually find out something like this, he’d ask Spy. Not like he can do that right now, though.

Heavy makes a ‘humph’ sort of sound, but does not comment further.

“D’ya know where he is?”

“Around. Here and there.”

Jeez, that sure told him a lot.

“Trying not to be seen. Is hard to find, anyway.”

“C’mon, man. Can’t you at least give me a clue or something?”

“Do not know where he is.” Heavy blinks, almost innocently, at him. “Would not hide information from little Scout.”

“Yeah, unlike that bastard.”

For a second, Scout thinks he sees the whispers of a smile arrange themselves on Heavy’s lips, before they melt away just as quickly as they appeared. He blinks, and the large man is already shrugging.

“Maybe Scout waits. Wait and he will come to you when ready.”

Scout huffs. He hates waiting. Jeez, why does Spy get to turn his life upside down and force Scout to wait for further answers? It’s not freakin’ fair.

Heavy, perhaps noticing Scout’s visible unhappiness, adds a little more explanation.

“Spy may be afraid. Not good to rush him. Will hiss and run away. Like cat.”

Spy…as a cat? The thought’s weird, but it also kinda fit. He steals another glance at Heavy. The Russian has closed his eyes again, which means no more talking or Heavy will rip your head off like bear. Scout says nothing, which for once in his life, isn’t that hard.

He groans instead, and slumps against the wall. He needs something to do or he’s going to go crazy.

One thing pops into his mind.

---

From his perch up on his van, Sniper can see a small figure circle around and around inside of the base’s perimeter. If he was unkind, he’d compare it to a hamster, running on a tiny wheel.

Sniper is a little unkind.

Still, there’s something admirable about the action. You couldn’t force Sniper to run at gunpoint - well, maybe you could, but that was the line he drew. Anything less than that, Sniper preferred to walk, or even better: stay perfectly still, watching his target.

But Scout’s job was basically in the name: running, and by God, the boy seemed to love doing the thing. And with him doing his daily 20 laps around the field, it seemed like everything was back to normal. Sniper trails his eyes around and around, following Scout’s track. It’s a little hypnotising. Sniper could learn to watch it all day. He’s getting ready to do so before something interrupts.

“GOOD JOB, SON!” A shout echoes across the base. Sniper turns his head to see who is doing the shouting, but there’s basically only one candidate. Soldier marches out of the back door, straight as an arrow towards the kid.

“Hey, thanks!” Somehow, he can hear Scout too. Well, it wasn’t like the kid ever had a reputation for being quiet…

“GLAD to see you OUT and doing DRILLS!”

“Yeah, yeah, no problem, man.”

The older man claps Scout on the back. It cracks like a whip. Sniper winces a little on his behalf. Soldier salutes and departs, and Scout is left alone in the yard.

It doesn’t look right. Sniper sighs. Problems with seeing everything, to be honest. He hops down from his campervan and ambles over to Scout, who’s standing unnaturally still, staring back at the base. The building looms tall over the both of them, the afternoon shadow making it feel just a little too cold, even though they’re in the middle of a desert.

“So everything works out, does it?”

Scout turns around in a single fluid movement. “Oh, jeez, it’s you. Thought’cha were someone else.”

“Nah,” Sniper replies. “Just saw you out on your little jog.”

“Yeah, well, it clears my head.” He pouts. Sniper raises his hands in faux surrender.

“Not blamin’ yer. Just sayin’ what I saw.”

“Oh. Right.” Scout’s shoulders slump down a little. There’s something strange about this conversation. Sniper raises an eyebrow and tries to puzzle out what it is.

“Good to see yer feeling well enough to run around like a little maniac, though.”

“Yeah, thanks.” What is going on? Sniper raises an eyebrow.

“Yer feeling fit and ready for tomorrow?”

“Uh, yeah, guess so?”

It clicks.

Sniper has actually been able to hold a conversation with Scout where he has spent an equal amount of time speaking.

Why is Scout being so…unsociable?

Perhaps that’s an exaggeration. It’s to be expected that Scout isn’t chattering his teeth off, as he was probably reckoning with the shock of the past two days and all. But considering the running, and the fact he had reappeared at mealtimes with not a word about the situation that was hanging over everyone’s heads, it seemed that Scout was essentially back to normal. Hell, it now seemed like the one who was really off moping was Spy, who had seemingly all but vanished from the base.

(Of course, Sniper knows that can’t be true. Sometimes he tells himself he’s hallucinating when he sees the plumes of smoke drift up from nothing, but he’s trusted his eyes for his whole life. He ain’t gonna stop now.)

Yet there’s obviously still something occupying the boy’s thoughts. He pauses for a second.

“The running clears yer head, y’say?”

Scout nods.

“What’re yer rackin’ your brains about?” Stupid question on Sniper’s part, really. There’s only one thing Scout could be thinking about right now.

That’s confirmed by Scout’s wordless blink at Sniper. The Australian clicks his tongue. “Yeah. Right. Okay. Got anything yer’d like to share?”

“I dunno.”

Sniper waits. Not a single person can say he’s not patient, after all.

It pays off, because Scout sighs, shoulders slumped, and keeps going. “He’s…he’s just so freakin’ weird. Like, the Doc really just told me about it all, and then I had to think about it all and what it meant, but now he’s the one hiding? As if, like, I don’t have any questions or anything?”

“He prolly thinks you despise him right now.”

“That’s the hard part, right?” The words are really spilling out of Scout now. “He…I feel like I should hate him, and, yeah, that’s prob’ly what he thinks, but I…don’t, really. I can’t bring myself to. It’s weird, I know, and it’s not like I’m not angry at him for leaving my Ma and stuff, but even she said that he kinda had to, and he’s here for a reason and…I don’t know.”

Sniper nods and stays quiet.

“And…and…I did just beat him up so I guess that’s why he’s probably not showing his face or whatever. I guess. I dunno.”

“You did hit ‘im pretty bad.” Take one thing out, aim true at it.

Scout flicks a quick glance at Sniper. “Yeah, I know, but like after that, I stopped feeling so hyped up pretty quickly. I just felt…so weird. Like I just…didn’t know what to feel about it. Like, I should hate him. After the shit he’s done. But I dunno. He’s just a guy, I guess.”

“Yer can hate ‘im if yer want, but don’t force yourself.”

“I ain’t—” Scout stops and frowns. “I ain’t trying to hate him. I ain’t trying to like him either.”

“Good. Think about it and see how yer feel after that.”

The boy pauses. Out of the corner of his eye, Sniper notices a flock of birds pass over. Small, so not vultures. Something else, then. He tears his thoughts away from the wonderful world of aves and looks back at Scout. The kid is tapping his left hand against his thigh, frown still firmly plastered across his face.

“I dunno,” Scout repeats. “I don’t know.” He sighs, and looks up at the blue sky. Sniper's gaze follows him, until they're both staring at the clouds.

"Guess I gotta figure it out, though."

"That's the spirit."

There's a soft exhale beside him, and even without looking, Sniper can tell the boy's smiling, at least.

---

Medic’s never been the type for betting. A stupid pastime for stupid people to lose all their money, really.

Yet if he was a gambling man, he’d have bet his life savings on seeing Spy before the weekend was up.

This imaginary wager pays off, as at exactly 8:01pm on a Sunday evening he hears footsteps entering behind him. Medic turns around, and there’s ostensibly no one there.

“So,” Medic announces to the air, drawing out the word. “Look who finally decided to get some professional medical attention.”

There’s the click of a decloak, and the man in question appears in front of him, right hand hovering over his left shoulder.

“You have no right to be so insufferable,” Spy growls. “You were the cause of this.”

Medic shrugs. “And I am able to cure it.”

“Be quiet, or I will force at least seven of your idiotic animal organs down your throat.”

The doctor pushes his glasses up. “If you do not come closer, I will be unable to heal you, dummkopf.”

Spy snorts, but moves to sit on the infirmary gurney. Medic unwraps the bandage and inspects Scout’s damage. The wound has mostly stopped oozing blood, but is still not a pretty sight.

“No infection, stitching passable for an amateur,” he murmurs. “Impressive.”

“I am not a fool.”

“I do not take you for one.”

“Then why—” The word is punctuated by a hissing breath as Medic moves Spy’s arm into the beam of the overhead Medigun. “Why did you tell him?”

There’s silence for a second.

“Well, someone had to.”

The Medigun works its scientific magic and the wound in Spy’s shoulder closes up, flesh appearing and growing out of nothing. Beautiful. The product of progress, all wrapped up in one neat machine, so that one may be cut open over and over again without a single lasting effect. Oh, and it’s alright for healing wounds too.

Spy pulls his arm out of the beam’s light and shakes it. Muscle and skin as good as new. Medic is quietly nods at the work, the satisfaction of his machine working causing a growing warmth within him.

“Look where we have ended up,” Spy continues, voice shaking, although Medic cannot tell whether he is holding back tears or unbridled anger. “How awful it is for everyone. I have never felt such a depressed atmosphere over an area before.”

“Listen,” says Medic. “I know this is not the way you wanted, ja? But he’ll come around to you.”

Spy snorts. “Oh, yes. I will listen to you, dear fortune teller, who so graciously foretold of me being beaten by a spiked bat.” Medic only just resists letting out an annoyed huff at that. He sidesteps the point instead.

“Don’t you feel as if you have an opportunity to create a new version of yourself?”

“What do you mean?” Spy narrows his eyes at Medic.

“You have a chance to redefine your relationship. He knows you are his father, and now…well, perhaps he will see you differently. What you have done in a new light.”

He expects Spy to scoff at that, but the other man simply sighs, a long stream of air out through his nose. Medic blinks, surprised at the chance he’s been given to continue speaking.

“Just watch it happen. Maybe you’ll be thanking me then.”

“…right. Of course.” Spy shoots one final glare at Medic before leaving the surgery. Just outside the door, he vanishes into nothingness. Medic watches the nothingness vanish into more nothingness, and he shrugs and sighs.

“Boy seems much better.”

“That’s welcome to hear.” Medic grins. “It does seem a lot more noisy today.”

“Perhaps not such a good thing.” Heavy says in his half-joking tone of voice. Medic laughs, and Heavy joins in, the surgery finally filling up with the wonderful joyous noise.

Finally, when it calms down, Medic asks the question he really wants to know the answer to.

“He is looking for Spy, ja?”

Heavy shrugs. “A little.”

“That means he wishes to speak to him.” Medic puts his hands together, pleased. “It’s all coming together.”

“But boy knows Spy does not want to be found,” Heavy adds.

“Has something like that ever dissuaded the junge from being annoying?”

A small smile creeps onto Heavy’s lips. “нет.”

---

He still remembers the first time his son, a young baby boy, reached out to Spy, asking to be held.

No one ever talks about that. Everyone always speaks of first words, first steps, such silly things in the grand scheme. What about that most painfully human gesture - the want of comfort, of companionship and love in a solitary world? Thinking about that memory, even now, makes his heart break a little. It makes his breath catch in his throat, and Spy stops, that single thought consuming all of his being.

Celene was there too, of course, wearing a yellow flower-print dress. He had always wanted to get her clothes from France and Italy and all over the world, but she said no, they’re much too fancy and too much trouble. No dresses. In the end, he had to acquiesce, and bring gifts in the form of tablecloth, silverware and stockings.

It was not the sort of thing Spy had ever given to a woman. But, he supposes, flowers and earrings and perfume were all seduction. This was different. Lust and domesticity may as well be miles apart, even for how the former could lead to the latter. He had once thought only the former would suffice for his life. But God, how he began to miss the feeling of domesticity. Now he sits here, smoking in a darkened room, the desperation to go back clawing through his flesh.

His boy, his petit lapin, babbled something that wasn’t quite English or French in his bed, and then looked at Spy. Spy had made some sort of neutral expression back at him.

(Was he already considering leaving then? Spy truly cannot remember. How cruel if he was. How terrible of him.)

Jeremy had reached out anyway, slowly lifting up his stubby arms and opening and closing his hands. Spy had stared like an imbecile.

Finally, Celene had giggled, and said “pick him up, stupid.”

He was not trained for this. Obviously not. Spy had stood there, unmoving and blank, looking completely out of place. He had croaked out a single word: “how?”

Celene rolled her eyes lovingly. “You’ve seen me do it a million times, haven’t ya? It’s easy. Just put him in your arms and let him settle. And make sure to hold his head up.”

He had done so dumbly, clutching at her instructions as if he was a child himself, clumsily reaching for comfort. His son had arranged himself well enough in Spy’s arms, tiny hands feeling the soft silk of Spy’s suit.

In that moment he had felt something. Not happiness. Perhaps it was relief, contentment, Celene’s presence by his side, his son a young curious creature. Holding a person who should’ve never existed, yet Spy felt pure warmth towards.

He cannot go back. Spy knows this, not only because the past is the past, but because a person who was once him made the decision.

How he wishes he never knew him. Spy gnaws at the cigarette and tastes pure bitterness. All this time, he had convinced himself those were actions that were necessary to ensure the safety of his only family. Yet were those just excuses he fed them and himself, a ticket to an easy way out that meant he could escape all responsibility? Questions Spy cannot answer, even if it is just for the few shreds of sanity he holds close.

The cigarette is stubbed out and disposed of into an ashtray. Man constantly fights to be able to live in his memories - it is of course impossible, and yet so many try everyday. Spy’s own thoughts deliver him nothing but a disgustingly blissful torture.

What can he do, except light up another cigarette, and continue thinking?

Chapter Text

When he sees 8 mercenaries gather at 9am on a Monday morning, Demo sighs. He understands why they’re short a number, but it doesn’t make it any less annoying that BLU team will be one up on them. No one else says anything out loud about it - not even Soldier, which is a shock in itself - but Engie’s shoulders fall as he enters the room and Heavy is frowning deeper than usual.

Still, they get on with it, because they’re paid professionals. It’s not like this hasn’t happened before. People get sick (somehow, considering they’re out in the middle of nowhere), there are bad Respawn trips, sometimes (albeit rarely) someone bags a day off.

It happens. But it’s still bloody irritating.

But when he’s locked and loaded onto the enemy Engineer’s nest, he hears the sound of buildings exploding and the frantic shouts of “Sentry down!”, followed by “There’s a Spy around here!”.

At first he thinks they must be hallucinating, or maybe there’s some other explanation. Scout also runs the backlines, Sniper could’ve had a lucky shot from afar. Million things might’ve happened to disrupt the other Engie.

But then, he sees it with his own two eyes - the enemy Heavy freeze up and fall for no apparent reason, and then, a BLU sentry starts freaking out, alarms blaring. That can’t be Sniper. That couldn’t be anyone but Spy.

Or maybe he’s hallucinating it? God knows he’s drunk, anyway. Maybe he’s seeing things that aren’t quite there - hell, he sees double half the time, so maybe it’s cancelling out.

He’s thinking this all the way back to Respawn after he takes a rocket to the face, which is probably on the worse side of ways to die.

When he blinks in though, he sees Scout appear at the exact same time.

“How’s it looking out there, lad?”

“Not bad, not bad. Their frontline is good, but behind the scenes they’re pretty freakin’ screwed.”

“Well, that’s bloody brilliant!” he cheers. Scout grins too.

There’s a silence. Some monitor in the respawn room beeps. Neither of the two men move.

“He’s out there, isn’t he?”

The two men’s eyes meet. Demo inhales sharply.

“I freakin’ saw him. Well, he was cloaked, but I still know I saw him.”

“Aye,” Demo replies after a short pause. “I saw ‘im too.”

“Seems like your one eye’s good for something, at least.” Scout breathes in a large breath, puffing out his chest, and speaks in one long sigh. “I guess he didn’t freakin’ leave, then.”

“Well, to be honest, I dinnae think he would’ve.”

“…yeah, guess not.” Scout’s gaze flickers from side to side, searching for something that isn’t there. No one’s in the room except them, yet the simple possibility that someone could be in the room keeps the lad looking.

We should go, Demo thinks, the guys outside need us, but for some reason he can’t bring himself to say that out loud. Scout’s right hand plays concertos back and forth on his leg, and his eyes cannot stop moving.

Behind them, the Respawn Machine fizzles to life and pops out one very patriotic man.

“SCREAMING EAGLES!” He carves a path between the two stragglers in the room and charges straight outside. Scout jumps at the sound, and even Demo twitches a little bit. Soldier could be LOUD within an enclosed space.

“Guess I should go,” Scout mumbles, the sudden appearance of Soldier seeming to suddenly remind him of the endless fight raging on outside.

Demo nods. The digital clock flashes over the main exit. Battle calls. He takes another swig of his drink.

“Come on, lad!”

“Alright, let’s do it!” He rushes out of the room. Demo gives himself a second to breathe a sigh of relief, and then charges out too, howling a battle cry.

---

When she gets on base, the first thing Miss Pauling notices is how weirdly quiet everything is. Usually, she had to shout to be heard over the clamour. Now, there is no one, not a soul waiting to greet her at the entrance - not even Scout.

Maybe it’s the impromptu nature of her visit. She peeks through the corridors, but there seems to be no one around.

Her next plan of attack is to wander into the kitchen. That too, is nearly deserted, save for one person, who seems to be washing up the remnants of dinner.

“Oh, Medic.”

He turns around. “Ah. Gluten Abend, Miss Pauling.”

“I’m looking for Spy.”

Perhaps it’s the suddenness of her request that makes Medic briefly tense up. “Well, viel Glück. He is especially evasive these days.”

“Really?” Miss Pauling frowns. “I have a message for him though. Kinda urgent.”

“He’s choosing to make himself as unavailable as possible.”

Medic seems very intent on making his answers to her questions as unavailable as possible. Odd, considering how talkative the man usually is (especially on gossip surrounding his teammates), but Miss Pauling does not vocalise this thought. Instead, she starts wondering: If I was a snarky French guy, where would I most likely be?

The most obvious answer is his room. She knocks on the door a couple times, to no avail.

“Spy? Are you in there?”

There’s no response. Miss Pauling weighs up the possibility that it is actually empty against the possibility that Spy is in there, simply choosing to ignore her. Both seem equally likely. She could break down the door, but the repair would come out of her paycheque, and she could pick the lock, but what are the chances Spy would let himself be broken into? Miss Pauling sighs. It isn’t like her job is meant to be easy, but can’t the world give her a break sometimes?

She’s startled out of her thoughts by a sudden poking at her arm. Miss Pauling turns around to see Pyro standing there, large goggled eyes wide, as always.

“Oh! Pyro! Have you seen Spy?”

They tilt their head back and forth like a metronome. Ostensibly there is something they want to say, yet cannot express easily.

(Miss Pauling has spent nearly four years trying to understand Pyro. She has taken one, microscopic step in doing so.)

Pyro, perhaps with a touch of pity, takes her wrist and squeezes it, then pulls.

“You want me to come with you?”

They nod. A universally coherent response.

“Alright.” She lets herself be gently dragged along the hallways. Pyro’s grip on her wrist is surprisingly soft - maybe it’s the rubber gloves cushioning their fingers (if they even have fingers), but Miss Pauling follows along. They walk quickly, and she is almost sprinting to keep up. Lucky she’s had practice in heels.

The firebug leads her up several sets of stairs, and by the end of it she’s nearly being dragged. Pyro shows no signs of tiring. Miss Pauling needs to work on her cardio. Just when she’s about to beg Pyro to go on without her, they reach the top of the stairwell, and Pyro opens the door to the roof.

A lone figure cuts a shadow across the horizon. Miss Pauling turns to look at Pyro, but they have already stolen away, scampering down the stairs. She’ll have to be alone on this one, then. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Her heels make soft clicks on the concrete roof as she walks towards him. Spy shifts slightly, one ear cocked in her direction, and she knows he is aware of her presence.

“Oh, merde,” he declares with an ever-performative air, and partially turns his body around, so he is just facing her.

“Evening, Spy. The Administrator wants to know why you weren’t on the job today.”

He scowls something fierce, and flicks ash onto the floor. Miss Pauling has never seen Spy so discontent. “I was on the job. Ask any of the enemy team and they will confirm that.”

Miss Pauling only barely suppresses a smirk. Perhaps she will. “Still, she wants to know why your comms weren’t on.”

He looks away from her, back out at the horizon, and takes a long, long, drag of his cigarette. “Perhaps I wished for some peace, away from her tiresome announcements.”

“I would’ve thought you’d be better at lying than this, Spy.”

His eyebrows raise in a way that isn’t completely practiced. Then he sighs and takes another drag of his cigarette. The small thing struggles feebly in between his fingers.

“Scout knows.”

There’s something almost eerie about being on base when it’s completely quiet, thinks Miss Pauling. The wind rushes through the railing, brushing new wrinkles into her dress. It sounds like a distant whistling. Haunting, almost, in the middle of the no-name desert full of gravel.

“Oh,” she limply replies, because there’s nothing else to say. Spy sucks in a hissed breath.

“How can I face him? How can I face anyone else?”

“What happened?” A proper response escapes her, so she makes up for it with another question. Miss Pauling has never been trained in family counselling. Though she supposes she’s probably the next best thing in this godforsaken place.

Spy shrugs. “Medic let him know on Friday. He beat me half to death with his bat. Now everything has fallen apart.”

Great. She really shouldn’t be surprised it was Medic behind everything. Still, Scout had performed normally on the battlefield today - even a little above average, so from a purely business perspective, Miss Pauling had no weight in the matter. On a personal level, however, things are very different. The wind blows cigarette smoke back to her face. Miss Pauling tries to stifle a cough, but makes a very inelegant hacking noise instead. Spy stubs the cigarette out and flicks it over the balcony.

“So what’s happened since then?”

“Hm. I have not been around to witness most of it.” He speaks in tones as flat as the endless plains expanding beneath them. “Though I suspect it will have been quite poor. God knows the atmosphere around here is quite…different.”

She can’t argue with that. There is surely a change around the base - even the air seems to stick to your skin, now. Yet this sensation has only become more oppressive since she came onto the roof. If there is a reason for the shift, it must be mostly pinned onto one man. Miss Pauling folds her arms in front of her.

“Are you sure it’s really that bad?”

The man turns around to fully face her. “What do you mean?”

“Just, I don’t know.” She frowns in thought. “To be honest…watching Scout today, he didn’t seem very out of the ordinary. If you asked me, I would’ve said nothing’s wrong with him. Maybe you’re making a bigger deal out of this than it really has to be.”

“It is a ‘big deal’.”

“I mean, I’m not saying that abandoning your kid at a young age isn’t a bad thing.” Miss Pauling closes her eyes and thinks back to cold, dark, and lonely nights. “But you took this job for a reason, right? Might as well make the most of it.”

Spy snorts. “You sound irritatingly like the Engineer.”

If I’m going to be compared to anyone here, that’s probably, unfortunately, the best choice. Miss Pauling allows a small self-satisfied smile and lets Spy continue.

“I am just saying that I feel like there is no way I could ever aim for the relationship I could’ve wanted now.”

“Well.” Miss Pauling brushes a strand of hair behind her ear and pushes her glasses back up the bridge of her nose. “Maybe not. Maybe so. But I don’t think avoiding him’s going to make it any better, really.”

Spy turns away, but on the edge of his face she can see a smirk form. “I suppose not.”

“Anyway,” she says, bringing the conversation back to its intended topic. “I’ll confirm you were actually out and if true, I’ll relay it to the Administrator. But, just to let you know, that’s your last warning for slip-ups.”

“She has said that every time.”

Miss Pauling lets out a single chuckle. “Not exactly a lot of guys lining up to die over and over again in the middle of nowhere.”

“You seem to have found at least nine.”

“Well, there’s 3 and a half billion people out there. Some of them are gonna be…insane.”

He snorts, finally, and Miss Pauling feels just a bit relieved. It’s not really her business, so why’s she caring? Because she has to, she supposes. Because she’s done so much, shed so much blood, sweat and tears in the name of bringing and keeping this team together. She’s not going to let a little domestic dispute undo all her hard work.

Plus, she does actually care. Even if she’d be the last person to admit such a thing. She would’ve said second-last before tonight, but seeing how Spy reacted, she’s pretty sure she’s the winner here.

“You’ll sort this out. See you later, Spy.”

He blinks quickly at her. “Goodbye.”

She can feel his stare on her back all the way down the stairs and out the front door. Yes, it’ll be fine. She’s sure of it. Miss Pauling allows herself another real, proper smile.

---

The Labourer’s words ring in Spy’s head. Miss Pauling’s ostensibly innocent advice, too, only serves to support this incessant circling of thoughts in his mind.

He lingers outside the door of his son’s room, hands behind his back. Should he knock once, or twice? What if Scout does not let him inside? Would it be disgraceful to press on with the conversation? How could he phrase the multitude of things simmering inside of him, waiting to be let out?

God, why is this so hard? Just open the damn door. He places an open palm on the wood, fingertips trailing and caressing the flat surface. Spy has faced much harder doors to open in his long career: doors with a million locks, doors with armed and alert gunmen waiting behind, Celene’s when he came crawling back for the first time after abandoning her and his son.

His index and middle fingers itch for a cigarette to hold. Any sort of comfort would be appreciated at this moment. Spy reaches into his inside pocket.

The familiar taste of smoke. The feeling of something between his lips. It is so easy to succumb to a vice. It is so easy to ignore the issues piling upon you.

He coughs. The Engineer was, unfortunately, right. Why did Spy delight in self-misery for this one error? There are much worse things he has done. His muscle memory knows exactly the place to slip a knife into another’s back to kill them instantly. He has worked for all manner of governments and unsavoury organisations, only looking at the number on the paycheque to decide where to lay his loyalties. He has relished in lying, in murder, in torture. Abandoning a child was far, far down on his list of crimes and misdemeanours.

He coughs again. How old is he, really? Spy does not care to remember. Probably not geriatric, as Scout sometimes liked to label the rest of the team, but getting on in years still. It did not help that the smoking had likely cut his natural lifespan short. Old enough to have made many choices in his life that he regrets.

So still he despises that weak part of himself, that imbecile of a man who simply walked away from a young boy and a love. You had to, the rational part of him says, reminding him of the threats, the simple authentic fear. There was a better way, says a larger part.

Autumn in Boston. The wind, the rain, fallen leaves crunching underfoot; memories that have dripped like saccharine honey through his hands all these years. How he imagines those days, so deeply that Spy himself feels like a child, reaching out to touch and absorb every single piece of the scenery. Such wonderful torture; the sensations wash over him like a wave, until he can do nothing except clench his jaw and bear the inevitable ache that comes.

How stupid. Did he not train for years, both under the tutelage of others and through his own experience, to suppress such feelings? Even with that, they creep up, silent killers ready to throttle him from behind. Ironic. Spy breathes out smoke, and it rises and disappears in the air.

Purgatory, for him, then. Destined to wait outside this un-openable door forever, to atone for his crimes. Though he should really be grateful he has not been sentenced to eternal damnation.

“Hey, uh, what are you doing?”

Uncontrollably, Spy jumps at the voice. Spinning around, he sees the very person he was seeking, yet he cannot help the shock which shudders through his body.

“Oh, merde. I thought you were in there.”

“No, I was, uh, lookin’ for you, actually.”

Spy blinks, eyebrows raised. “For me?”

“Yeah, ‘cause you keep freakin’ avoiding me.” The boy huffs. “It ain’t exactly easy to find ya, y’know.”

That is the point, he thinks of replying, but luckily, he holds his tongue. For a while, the two men stare at each other in the hallway.

Foolishly, Spy realises he must break the silence. He wets his lips. “Well, since you are here now, I was going to ask you if you wanted to talk.”

“Yeah, sure,” the boy replies with mismatched blitheness. “You wanna do it out here?”

Spy blinks at him. The day is full of surprises, apparently. Scout, for his part, simply raises an eyebrow in Spy’s direction.

“No. Come with me.”

He turns and strides away. Scout lets out a surprised yelp and scrambles to follow.

For some reason, Spy cannot bring himself to look back.

---

He’s only been in Spy’s room once before: when they had all thought they got a bunch of tumour thingys and were about to die. He had to shove his way in back then. This time, Spy is leading the way silently, up the stairs and down the corridors.

Scout had never really thought about why Spy had helped him so much back then. The guy found out he had three days left to live and spent the time coaching Scout in dating? Whichever way you looked, it didn’t really add up.

Hindsight’s 20/20, Scout supposes. Spy clicks open the door. Inside is the same stuff he remembers: a fireplace, fancy desk and chair, side table with a collection of alcohol and glasses. The room is infused with the stench of cigarette smoke, and Scout’s nose twitches.

For some reason, Spy doesn’t turn the light on, instead letting moonlight soak through the room. It’s a full moon, cloudless night, and the light outlines Spy’s silhouette, dark against the window. From seemingly nowhere, he produces a glass with ice, and pours it half-full with whisky.

“Would you like one?”

“Yeesh.” Scout makes a face. “No. It tastes gross.”

“Compared to those so called ‘energy drinks’ you regularly consume, this is heavenly.” Spy sniffs the glass. Scout rolls his eyes. So it is the real Spy then, at least, given the way he’s jabbing at Scout. Not some guy pretending to be him. Huh. Wouldn’t that be funny? Someone dressed up as the Spy. Scout almost snickers just thinking about it.

“You wanted ‘ta talk in here for a reason, right? So what do ya wanna say?”

Spy swirls his glass and sips at it. He’s dancing around the subject. Scout pities him a little. What can either of them really say? He settles for slumping into Spy’s nice cushiony chair instead. The other man briefly directs a sharp glance at him, but does not audibly complain. He decides to push his luck a little and cross his legs on the chair. Spy is looking away, and so he gets away with it.

Unsettled silence permeates the room. Spy holds his glass, and he sips at it slowly, still facing out the window. Scout looks outside. There is nothing (that he can see, at least), except the bright moon and unmoving stars, and yet Spy stares at it like it’s the most interesting thing in the world.

Who knows, it might be. Scout never knew there were this many little shining dots above him when he lived in Boston. It was only when he got out here, where it was basically pitch black at night, that he was able to see the entire night sky for what it really was.

But they’ve looked at this view a million times already now. They’ve been here almost the same amount of time - in fact, he once heard Engie comment that Spy joined the team only a week before he did. He only finally understood why yesterday, too, with what his Ma said.

The silence continues, and Scout can’t bear it anymore.

“Are ya gonna say something, or did ya drag me in here to look out the window?”

There’s a long, soft sigh, and Spy tilts his head back. In the moonlight, Scout can see it all happen.

“What do you think of your father?” Answering Scout’s question with another question. Scout frowns.

“What d’ya mean? It’s you, isn’t it?”

“It was me,” Spy says slowly. “Yet it was not. Do you understand?”

Scout shakes his head. “No? What the hell do you mean? A-are you saying that the Doc got it wrong?”

“I am not. The doctor is right, and biologically I am your father. I mean that the person that abandoned you and your mother is a different person to the one I am now.”

“But it was you.”

“It was—” A harsh cough interrupts whatever the man was going to say, and Spy does not perform the courtesy of finishing the sentence, choosing to drink from his glass instead. Scout’s brain spins.

“You—”

“That person. Your father. What do you think of your father?”

“I mean, I get what you’re saying, with how you’ve changed and stuff, but at the end of the day it was still you, right?”

The clink of ice on glass. Another quiet sigh. “Yes. It was me. I have hated that since then.”

Scout looks at the Spy’s figure, set against the soft glow of the moon. It was him. This was the man who had vanished from his life more than twenty years ago, left him and his Ma and his seven brothers with nothing except faded memories and periodically arriving paycheques.

Maybe there should’ve been some grand music playing for this, some orchestral soundtrack that rose to meet that moment. Instead, a lingering stillness trails those words. It’s dark and quiet, and the lack of any stimuli makes Scout’s skin itch. It doesn’t feel right, but he doesn’t know what he could even say, so he is forced to simply stare at Spy’s back wordlessly.

“What do you think of me?” Spy repeats, words begging for a response.

“I dunno.” It’s the truth. Spy looks unimpressed, unsurprisingly, eyes peering for the real answer. “I dunno, ‘cause I guess if you really had to leave you had to, but…”

“At the time it seemed like the only option. However, on reflection, perhaps that was not true.” The clink of ice is so, so loud in the pauses. “Perhaps there was another way. That option just seemed…like a perfect solution at the time. I, too, did not know what kind of father I would become.”

“Might’ve been better than no father.”

“I am aware **of that.” Spy swivels around, and for a second, Scout sees a flash of something in his eyes. It dissolves quickly, though, and once again Spy listlessly leans against the windowsill, swirling his whiskey without ever drinking it. Scout doesn’t know how to reply. It seems like the man already knows everything and anything Scout could say.

“I do not know what to say. I am sorry, but does that really matter?” Spy mutters, and it seems more for his own benefit than for Scout to hear. The mumbling continues, now in French, and Spy rests his hands on the windowsill and leans forward. Spy puts the glass down on the windowsill and lights up a cigarette instead.

Right. Really, whatever or whoever he expected his dad to be, it wasn’t this, some half-snide, half-self-reproaching soul. God, the man really was an enigma wrapped up in a mystery. Scout shifts his weight on the sofa and thinks about what he can say. He isn’t heartless, after all. Well, not unless Medic’s replaced it again, but he’s pretty sure he had a heart last time he checked, even if it is a gorilla’s. He looks directly at Spy.

“Are ya gonna do anything about it?”

Spy raises his head sharply. “What?”

“I said, are ya gonna do anything about it?”

The other man’s eyes sweep the room from side to side, avoiding Scout like the plague. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, like, we already know that ya regret leavin’, or whatever. But like, what are you gonna do about it now? It’s not like you can really change anything, right?”

“No.” Spy stops looking around, and merely hangs his head in Scout’s general direction. “But…I do not know. You…loathe as I am to say it, I do not know what I can do for you. You are your own person now, and I gave up my right to have any influence over your life.”

“I know. And that’s why I’m, uh, giving you another chance.”

Spy looks up, making eye contact with Scout in one swift motion.

“Wha—?” It’s ragged, half-cut off. Scout keeps his gaze steady on Spy.

“I mean what I said. Like, alright. I get it. You’re my dad. Can’t change that. You can’t change the fact you left, too. But, like, now we both know, maybe we can both be aware of it. I dunno.”

Spy raises an eyebrow.

“And, we’re not going to do anything different, okay? I, just, now I know you’re my dad, but that’s it. We’re not going to do any like…weird family bonding shit, right?”

“Alright,” the other man replies, quietly.

“Except ya could be a little nicer to me. Why do you always gotta be such a damn ass to me when I mess up or do somethin’ stupid?”

“While I will acknowledge that I am needlessly harsh at times, I am doing it for your own benefit. I believe you can be the best member of the team with the right training and practice.”

“I know that.” Well, really, he didn’t. Spy admitting that someone else was better than him? Scout files it away in his head under ‘things to bring up at inopportune moments’. “But, can’tcha be a little, I dunno, gentler about it? It ain’t gonna get the message across any better if you’re all snippy at me.”

“Fine. I will consider it.” Spy frowns, but something in his face relaxes a little. “But I want you to know that I am here.”

“Course I know that. Where else would’ja be?

Spy breathes out a long stream of air through his nose and tilts his head to one side. “Thank you, Jeremy.”

It’s the first time he’s ever heard his dad say his name. There’s a brimming behind Scout’s eyes.

God, the man butchered the pronunciation. Probably his accent. And yet it just sounds so familiar, like he’s passing by a childhood friend he only barely remembers. He can’t point to any concrete memory or thought that means he knows this sound, but it fills his heart full up and Scout can only squeeze his eyes tight and wipe away any stray escaping tears.

“Alright, now we’ve got that sorted out, that’s it, right?”

He can feel Spy smile, even with his eyes half closed. “Yes. That is all.”

“Okay, so are you, like, gonna finally have dinner for once, or what?”

“I have survived without food for several days before.”

“Oh, so you’re disguised as Heavy now, telling us about how you sleep in five feet of snow or whatever. Well fine. I’m sure Demo’s vanishing scrumpy was taken by the cows out there.”

Spy snorts. “I would never stoop so low as to consume that. Not even if I was stranded on a desert island and it was my only hope of survival.”

“Alright, I have ‘ta agree with you there,” Scout laughs. The other man - his father - does not respond, except by closing his eyes and smirking.