Chapter Text
The low monotone of his father’s voice seemed to be getting farther and farther, his clothes were too hot but also so bitterly cold, the worn wooden table in front of him was pressing against his lungs, the walls were enclosing around him, the edges of his vision blurred.
“-sure you understand our purpose far better than your naive brother.”
Damian Desmond forced his head to raise and meet the sunken eyes of the monster that he called his father.
“Of course father, as Desmonds it is our sole duty to ensure Ostania reigns supreme over the power hungry savages in the West.” He recognized it was his voice that uttered these words but he couldn’t recall his brain ever sending out the command.
But it seemed to appease his father, who, for the first time in Damian’s fifteen years of life, gave him the slightest upward twitch of his mouth, imperceptible to someone who wasn't looking but Damian was always looking, always searching, aching for even the slightest indication of approval.
“Not anymore.” that man’s satisfaction came at a price Damian was unwilling to pay.
“I knew you would understand, you were always such an obedient child, never causing trouble. It was such a shame Demetrius insisted on being such an unruly boy, taking all the attention for himself. He never did possess the same loyalty to the Desmond name as you did, he was foolish, believed he could be anything separate from our lineage.”
“I am a Desmond before I am even Damian, father, you can trust me with anything. I am willing to go to any lengths to uphold our nation’s honor, your word is my command.”
It was overkill, anyone who knew Damian knew he would never talk like that. He was surely lucky his father didn’t know him at all. “You were always much more befitting of the role of heir than Demetrius. You understand why I, we, have to do what we do, don’t you, my boy?” He was manipulating him, it was as clear as day, but Damian despised just how tempted he was to please him, to throw every moral, ethic and ideal away just to hear his father look at him with that approving stare just one more time. God, he was pathetic, his mind supplied as he looked down at the logs and documents detailing every horrible act of cruelty inflicted on innocents, every family he ripped apart, every psyche he broke, all in the name of some godforsaken “greater good”, but thankfully, not pathetic enough.
“Project Apple will be in good hands father, I will never let all your efforts for Ostania go to waste.”
Spoiler alert; Damian absolutely dumped all of Donovan Desmond’s achievements in the garbage.
The documents in front of her blurred as she felt her eyes fill with tears as she yawned, Anya shoulders sag from exhaustion that stemmed from the hours she spent pouring over the logs in front of her, analyzing the stupid sheets time and time again all for any information, hint or evidence that would bring her even an inch closer to her goal. She blinked, attempting to clear her vision before blearily glancing at her alarm clock and yup, it was four am. God her parents’ would bury her alive if they found out she was anything other than soundly asleep at such ungodly hours.
She looked at her bed briefly, contemplating, before sighing and turning back to her mess of documents. Yeah, she wasn’t planning on going back to bed any time soon.
It wasn’t that she wasn’t tired, she was drained really, but Anya knew what awaited her when she closed her eyes, flashes and nightmares depicting the horrors that she forced her and her family to go through just a few weeks ago, the guilt that threatened to consume her, the pressing, crushing weight of the man she failed to save.
She remembered it as if it was yesterday, it had been a full moon, they’d known, of course they’d know, she was coming back from school, looking forward to a weekend filled with Bondman reruns and walks with Bond, she never got that weekend, when suddenly the world around her faded into nothing but darkness and agony and she woke up back in that awful place, with blindingly white walls that seemed to close in on you and that nauseating hospital smell of medicine and sterility. She’d thrown up, cried, begged, pleaded, howled at them to let her out, to give her back to the family, Anya refused to acknowledge their attempts at consoling her, demanding she be returned back to her parents, her home, she shrieked until her throat was too raw for her to continue, she only quietened when she met him, another patient, he was only a toddler, clearly no older than six, but he had been the one comforting her.
They can do whatever they want to us but they can’t take away our identity no matter how hard they try, they can never really ever take away the fact that you’re Anya, remember that. You’ll always be Anya.
He was much too young to be saying that in such a knowing, solemn tone.
He shared his experiences of the Lab with her, he told her about every blurry vague memory he had of his parents, recalled every experiment, every trial, all horrible, excruciating pain he was forced to undergo to gain the power of invisibility. Anya remembered how disgustingly okay he’d sounded, like the torment was an inescapable part of reality. No child, no, no person should ever have had to go through that place. They hadn’t given him any other form of identity than the numbers 09, Anya called him Ken. He’d liked that name. But just as she began to calm down, they took him.
They took him, they took him, they took him, they took him-
And she’d stood there, helpless as she struggled against her restraints, wailing. She remembered how her cries had been drowned out by the sirens that told her they were here, they came for her. They’d tried to transport her along with the rest of their victims, but Anya, against popular belief, was smart, she’d pretended to have passed out in her misery and the moments they’d loosened her chain, she struck. Every muscle memory gained from her training with Mama kicked in and she suddenly wasn’t 007 or Anya, she was the lethally clever daughter of Thorn Princess and Twilight, the same people that tore through that terrible place like a hurricane, unforgiving and merciless, unable to think of anything other than getting back their child.
In hindsight, Anya was amazed she’d doubted them for even a fraction of a second. She throat punched the guard and sent a kick at another, and in their stupor took the guns secured at their waist and shot the pair in the leg, not quite sure she had the mental capacity to become a murderer just yet.
Anya sprinted down the narrow winding halls like the devil himself was chasing her and was met with her reassuringly terrifying mother who almost dropped her bloodstained blade in her relief. Not before ruthlessly jamming it between a doctor’s eyes though.
Yor enveloped Anya in her soothingly strong embrace as she felt the sudden weight from the day’s events crash down on her and shuddered, threatening to keel over. The assassin gently led her daughter to Loid, who nearly sobbed with relief and the trio stood there, just drinking in each other's presence.
“We have to go,” Loid said suddenly, Yor nodded urgently and pulled on her daughter, but Anya didn’t budge.
“N-no, we-we have to stay- we have to get him, he’s still in there!”
“Anya we can’t afford to rescue anyone, they're sending backup, we have to go now!”
“But papa, they still have Ken, they won’t let him go, he’s not safe-” And for the first time in however long she’d known him, Loid’s eyes hardened, not in the stern way they would when she refused to eat breakfast or do homework, no, this was Twilight, she’d sparked the anger of Twilight.
“They took so many Anya, and I promise you, I will get them out, but I won’t- can’t let them take you too.”
That hadn’t quite been the end of the ordeal and the peaceful weekend she was supposed to have was now filled with teary confessions, heartfelt apologies, lengthy explanations and the sacred promise of no more secrets.
And here she was.
Anya has faith in her papa, god knows she should after what happened at the Lab, but that doesn’t stop her from taking matters into her own hands and using her father’s connections with WISE to get her hands on anything that could give her more evidence on Project APPLE, the work of power hungry elitists who couldn’t ever even think to consider the abhorrent consequences in their pursuit for more, Unfortunately the most she could get was old logs and vague blueprints that would hold no sway in the face of the actual law. But that couldn’t stop her from trying, she had to, for them, the children that hadn’t been quite as fortunate as her.
Damian lay in his bed, he’d been staring at the ceiling blankly for hours now, just mulling over what happened that day. He knew there was no way his father wasn’t involved in anything shady, there was no way for someone to get that powerful with clean hands.
But this? This was something he couldn’t have expected in his wildest dreams.
Donovan hadn’t been necessarily wrong earlier, Damian’s entire life was dedicated to the Desmond name, every action, every decision, every breath he took, he took in consideration of not sullying his legacy, but there had been one exception, one gaping flaw in his quest to be the perfect Desmond, Anya.
She’d come into his life like a twister and left it in shambles, all of a sudden he would find himself waiting each day for her to arrive at Eden, he found himself unable to throw away the the worn, fraying handkerchief she’d given him all those years, he constantly had to remind himself to stop gazing at her so often, but how could he? She was the singular person who stubbornly refused to see him as a Desmond, no, in her eyes she was Sy-on Boy, her annoying classmate. And abruptly, he was no longer just a way to acquire influence, he wasn’t Donovan Desmond’s son, he was Damian. She’d shown him life outside of school, outside the paranoia-inducing world of politics, she treated him… normally, and he’d begun to crave that. She was the one thing preventing him from being perfect in his father’s eyes.
So imagine his shock when he found her face staring up at him from his father’s Project APPLE logs, they’d called her 007, the esper. And now he would beg said esper to force herself to re-explore her grim childhood, in order to prevent other children from the same fate.