Attention! Headcanon ahead!


The sun beams entered the bedroom, birds chirping on the outside and muffle rumble of chairs and clanks of pots on the dining room. The Australian opened his eyes only to find himself in a foreign bedroom, sharing bed with someone else. At first, he didn't know what happened and then he remembered the date. He saw the Spy fully asleep by his side and checked if they were naked. Good for him, they weren't. Sniper looked around in the room: the walls were light blue, decorated with pictures of Paris in dark wooden frames. One of the pictures hat an adult lady holding two children by their hands and the Australian got up to take a closer look. The children were twins: both wearing a white shirt, shorts and suspenders and long socks, but one of them had short hair and the other one a bit longer. Sniper noticed the long-haired kid looked sad and wanted to ask Spy, but he didn't want to wake him up: he was better when he kept his mouth shut. Sniper was getting dressed when the Frenchman woke up. He got up and leaned against the bushman's back, but he pushed him away.

- Someone woke up in a bad mood today- the Frenchman said while rubbing his eyes.
- Not in a mad mood, mate. I'd loike to know why am I in yar room.
- You fell asleep in my car and I didn't want to get in your property without permission, so I tucked you in my bed. What are you looking at?
- Did you take all these pictures- Spy nodded- even this one?- Sniper pointed at the twins picture and Spy examined it closer.
- That one no. I'm afraid I can't tell you much more about that picture.

The Australian man was curious and he took the picture off the wall. The kids' faces seemed familiar, but he couldn't tell who these were. He insisted and Spy finally gave up and took the picture between his hands.

- These are François, my aunt and I when we were children.
- François?
- My twin brother, the RED Spy.

Sniper looked confused. When he first arrived to Mann Co., he was explained that he will fight a clone of himself created via respawn, how did the Spy manage to fight against his brother?

- I know it seems absurd, Mundy, but it's a long story I don't want to talk about.
- I will tell no one.

Spy looked down and began his story.

Our parents died during the WWII. A group of Nazi soldiers broke into our house and brutally murdered them, leaving François alone who managed to sneak out of the house and go to his aunt's. He spent several days on the streets, pickpocketing and doing small errands in order to get food as an exchange, since the aunt spent most of the day working and he soon became a skillful rogue.

One day, he was rushing back home. It was a rainy night and a butcher was chasing him because he stole a handful of ribs, sausages and other pieces of meat. The streets from Paris were foggy and the city was big, so he soon found himself lost. His feet hurt from the blisters and he leaned against a wall to rest. He saw a tall man walking towards him with a black coat and a matching hat and he told him to come with him. François has never been afraid of death and he knew all the risks he could take, but he followed the man anyway.

The child found himself in front of a gang and he was being questioned by their boss. He told them his skills and how good he was at sneaking in places. The crew decided to hire him and they had their ultimate plan complete again. They had on their hands one of the most skillful engineers in Paris who designed the most powerful cloning device, maybe a precursor of our respawn, and François was about to be their test subject. He was an orphan and in case everything failed, nobody would miss him.

The child was exposed to several malfunctions, injuries and illnesses until the device functioned properly. And then I was created and my name was 180793. In fact, they have marked me that number in the back of my neck in order to make differences. The gang knew I wouldn't live much longer because I am a test result, but they had the perfect job for me. I worked with François and helped him and our crew to take down our enemies.

My brother soon became homesick and struggled to see our aunt, but our boss had too many plans for us and no time to see our only alive relative. After a huge argument, we were allowed to see our aunt for only one hour. We picked her up on the Metro station and we had to explain to her why were they two Françoises. After crying and assimilating everything they had done to us, she adopted me as his nephew and François' twin. She also refused to call me 180793 and gave me the name of Claude, like our father, his little brother.

When we grew up we stopped working with the crew, but we were payed to do them some secondary jobs. We sent money to our aunt and assured her we were fine, but she has never seen us again. Then we saw that Mann Co. was looking for mercenaries and we decided to join. Since we were already cloned, our punchcard to the respawn is slightly modified: it allows several of us in a team, but recognizes eachother as clones instead of creating one itself like in your case. Nowadays we are still being payed by the gang to do their unwanted errands and we are still sending money to our aunt, but she has never heard from us again.

Sniper was astonished and unable to say a word. The Frenchman finished the story telling him that the day the picture was taken, it was the day they were able to see their aunt for one hour. The bushman bit his lip so hard it started to bleed. The story almost broke him into tears and he was debating between telling the Spy about it or stay there, looking at the floor and fiddling with his hands and feet. He finally spoke.

- Do ya still have the number?

Spy nodded and turned on his back, lifting his back hair and revealed a white ink tattoo which had the numbers 180793 in it. He also told the bushman that one of the reasons he left his hair grow was because he wanted to hide the number from everyone, but now it wasn't much of a problem because of the balaclava.

- But do not worry about it, Mundy. I don't seek attention nor empathy. I want you to forget about that.

Sniper couldn't hold anymore and hugged his friend, burying his face on his shoulder. Spy looked at him slightly surprised and patted his back. "There, there, you god damn pansy" he told him. The Australian glared at him and shoved Spy away.

- Stupid bloody spook.
- I told you to not worry about it.

They got dressed and went downstairs: some teammates needed to be scolded.