Chapter Text
"I'm not even your boyfriend, I'm just your pack mule." Damian complained.
"That's not true," Anya shot back without even looking up from the box she was sorting through. "You also cook for me, drive me around—"
"And now that you're moving in with me I'm sure my duties will increase, like being your living alarm clock."
This time she shot him a sunny smile. "Glad we have an understanding!" He only scoffed in return, hip checking her on his way to deposit the box to the growing pile in his-their bedroom. He was going to do that, if not for Anya's retaliation.
A tickle fight.
Damian still cursed the day Anya found out about it.
He was also cursing at present because the box and its contents were also strewn about the floor, the lid apparently not taped down.
Eventually Anya let up, though at the cost of his pride, but as he was still catching his breath, he couldn't care less.
"Are you going to sleep there instead of unpacking?" Was the first thing he said once he was able. And it was worth it.
"I'm just catching my breath," she said with a laugh.
"Oh you are?" Damian stood up and swept up the collateral damage—journals, packets, loose napkins with childish drawings on them. That's why the flowing, large calligraphy drew his eye. "Spy Oars?" He flipped the cover over, revealing the same childish scrawl covering the rest of the papers from this box.
"Oh! I remember that," Anya rolled over to flip through the papers he hadn't picked up yet. "It's a story I came up with as a kid, Spy Wars, but Grandpa Henry thought I was calling it Spy Oars. The main character is this guy, Bondman!"
Damian scrutinized the paper, surprised it wasn't a stick figure with clothes drawn on. "He's bald."
"He's not! He has hair under his hat!"
"Then what color is it? And what kind of a name is Bondman?"
"…blond. And a code name, because he's a spy," she rifled through the papers. "I didn't draw maps for my stories at that age, so I think there's one part of the story where he's training in the jungle? And he saves Princess Honey a lot, but I never really thought about the governing structure or anything."
"Wow, I have one of your rare romance stories in my hands. A limited print edition." He flipped through the pages, but wasn't able to skim it very well. Or maybe that was because the workings of a child's mind didn't make much sense to him.
"Romance? Hmm, I don't think it was. He saved her, but it wasn't… a romance. I just wanted an exciting story." She dragged him to a seated position to stare at the pages over his shoulder. "I don't think I ever finished it."
He flicked at her hair tickling his neck. "Are you going to recycle some ideas from here for your penguin series or something?"
She hummed and nuzzled her face and bangs into his shoulder. "Maybe, I don't know."
"Well, whatever you do, let me go so at least one of us can finish carrying the rest of your stuff inside." He said, but made no move to go through with it.
Damian had already accepted that actually living with Anya full time meant he'd be subject to her antics and pranks. But this, this re-enactment of one of her favorite Sherlock Holmes scenes? It was a bit much. Least of all because he had no idea where he was. He did know that he was cold, the ground uncomfortably wet beneath him.
"Anya?" He called out, scanning the increasingly unfamiliar surroundings. Something about the treeline unsettled him. His eyes didn't need to adjust much to spot Anya near a passable camp. Tied up, and sending him desperate glances. Too bad he wasn't a mind reader.
"Who are you and what are you doing here?" Damian snapped his head to the stranger and was met with an uncanny sight.
"You're… Bondman?" Damian could barely make out Anya shaking her head in his peripheral vision.
"Wrong answer."
Waking up a second time didn't make the wet ground feel any more pleasant than the previous. Damian, too, was trussed up next to Anya, though unlike her, his mouth was left free.
"Let's try this again," Bondman leaned against a tree. "Who sent you two after me, and how did you manage to actually find me?"
"Why isn't she allowed to speak?"
Bondman didn't look very amused at being answered with another question but didn't make a fuss of it. "She's a witch, can't risk her trying to curse me again."
"Again?"
Pursed lips, and a gaze that told Damian he had pushed his luck enough already. "I don't want to talk about it. I answered your question, now it's your turn to answer mine."
"I swear, nobody sent us here to do anything. It's all an accident — well, not recognizing you. Your outfit kinda stands out? Especially your mask, why are you still wearing the same clothes anyway?" He didn't need Anya kicking him to realize he wasn't helping his case. "There's nothing we can say or do to make you trust us, but we're not a threat to you — "
"Bondman would never kill anyone." Anya slipped off the cloth covering her mouth. "Or harm innocents." She tacked on.
"What do you think spies actually do?" Damian knew her target audience were children, but sometimes he wondered if she adjusted her worldview to that age or if she didn't actually have to.
"I would never." Bondman retorted, "Besides, how do I know if you're innocents, anyway?"
"We are." Anya answered with a boldness that caused one of Bondman's eyebrows to rise over his mask. "Wait, does it work on us?"
Damian answered back on instinct. "Does what work?"
Anya stared Damian down, blase to Bondman's growing irritation. "I wonder what you would look like bald."
"Excuse you?!"
"I guess it doesn't work then." She shrugged. "If you won't let us go, I'll make you bald again." Bondman shuddered.
"That doesn't guarantee anything for either of us. Even if you do leave me alone after this, you could be informants selling me out."
"I don't — "
"Bondman would never hurt anyone in broad daylight, and it's noon now." Damian was going to ask what Anya was smoking until a lurch not unlike a roller coaster brought the sunlight directly into his eyes.
Bondman gaped openly at her now. "What was that?! You're even more powerful than Yorticia!"
"Who's that?" From the utterly dumbfounded look on her face, Damian knew Anya wasn't faking the confusion.
"The great witch that hypnotized not only Princess Honey, but also my informant Frankie who tried to investigate her." It was entirely possible that Anya, especially as a child, created a witch as an antagonist in a series about 'spies' then completely forgot about it, be it immediately or years later.
"I never gave you a name," Anya realized, ignoring Bondman's tirade of justice. "You'll be Loid." She nodded.
With a poof, an anachronistic 'HI, MY NAME IS' sticker appeared on Bondman's suit, drawing a squawk out of the man.
Staring at the unfamiliar, loopy handwriting that spelled ‘Loid,’ the jab came out on instinct before he could stop it. "Why would you spell 'Lloyd' like that?"
They were at an inn's tavern, nursing drinks that definitely bore no resemblance to any he knew. Although he still appreciated the effort, with how easily the tavern staff were adapting to the stark shift in time.
"I never created that character," Anya muttered to him while Bondma—’civilian-farmer-Loid-totally-not-Bondman’ was away. "Yorticia."
"In a way, it makes sense. Like that waitress? A background NPC. The world filled in the blanks like a game of Mad Libs." He took a sip, then grimaced. Was water too much to ask for?
"Clearly." She sipped her own mug and paused. "I'll make a magic macaron that will grant me the knowledge I seek." A rose colored macaron poofed into existence. "Do you want half?"
"Are you going to split it like an Oreo?" She took his response as a no and popped the macaron into her mouth. "I don't feel any different," she admitted after a while. "Ask me something I wouldn't know."
"Who's the President of the National Unity Party?"
Anya's gaze went out of focus. "Hey wait, that's your dad. I know that one already!"
"Still took you a while though." He tried Anya's drink. Unlike his, it was cold, though it had no ice.
"Don't you have a dinner thing with him in a few days?"
Now it was his turn to stare into the void.
"I guess we should figure out how to get out of here before then, I'm sure it'll be fine. We'll be fine." Famous last words.