Anya has never been good with crowds.
There are many people in a crowd and with that comes the voices. Thoughts after thoughts make their way into Anya's mind and it simply gets overwhelming. She does her best to quiet them down and ignore them, but it is challenging and draining to do so. Places like the cafeteria are rather unpleasant to deal with, although she does have Becky to help her focus on something else.
She prefers places where there are fewer people, where it is easier to mute only a handful of voices coming to her. Places like home, where she only has papa, mama and Bond's minds to read or block off. Or places like the classroom, where there are fewer people to a more manageable level. Plus, she has to focus on what is being taught at the front of the class.
Over the years she has learned to control her power. She is no longer the 6 year old little girl who couldn't stop people's thoughts from infiltrating her mind when she was in a large crowd of people. She no longer has to always hear people's bad opinions about her at school simply because she couldn't control what she could hear from people's minds.
She's now a 16 year old young lady who can control her power.
To a certain extent.
She can now create barriers when she doesn't want to hear people's thoughts. She no longer has to hear her mother's rather gruesome and violent worries or memory of her assassination job. She no longer needs to hear her uncle's hating her father while he keeps accessively loving his dear sister. She no longer needs to hear her father's long internal monologue and plans about his latest mission or the operation Strix (although she does tune in at times simply because she is curious).
She still doesn't like crowds, but at least she has learned to quiet down most of the noises from them. Anya would love for her mind to stay as peacefully quiet as when she's at home, but she will take the annoying unintelligible buzzing over the many clear voices talking over one another. Some days the buzz is quieter than other days, but achieving that is exhausting.
But even if she learned how to control it very well, sometimes her control slips. When she gets too stressed or overwhelmed by a situation, the barrier slowly crumbles down. Like when she gets embarrassed in class sometimes when a couple of remark makes their way to her mind and if she's not quick enough, more and more add on, making her spiral down.
Becky doesn't know about her power, she's too scared to tell anyone really, but somehow it is as if sometimes she knew. Or maybe her best friend has simply gotten good at reading her? When she sees that Anya is getting too overwhelmed in crowds she will gently drag her away to somewhere quieter, even if it means putting a stop to their lunch or shopping trip.
When they are at an event held by Eden Academy, Becky will sometimes help her sneak to somewhere quieter, telling her she'll warn her if someone starts to notice her absence. She is very thankful to her for her help.
Sometimes, when Becky is not here for her, Anya feels like the gods are sending her another way out of being around too many people. Sometimes, Damian will seemingly appear out of nowhere and ask Anya for help. She does find it weird since he would usually ask his two friends for help, but she always takes the opportunity to get away from the buzzing anyway.
She had a slight sneaking suspicion that maybe it wasn't always coincidental when he came to her. Even Becky was teasing her about it. At first, it was a bit hard believing Sy-on boy was also able to read her so easily, but it wasn't completely impossible to believe that maybe he truly did. Despite all their bickering, being around Damian is easy and relaxing, so she doesn't mind it.
Anya has never been good with crowds, but she is getting better as years pass by and all she can do is hope for one day being able to mute everyone around her.
Damian will never admit it, but he does observe Anya from afar.
And he noticed something.
It took years before Damian really took notice of this, as he was too occupied being annoyed at the girl to really look. But once he did, he realised something about Anya: she looks uncomfortable in crowds.
The first time he really noticed it, they were in year 4. After three and a half years of constant bickering, the first annoyance he had towards her had faded away. A strange type of friendship forms between the two. Despite still getting flustered by times when with Anya (It isn't a crush, Emile!), now he wasn't outright ignoring her when she wasn't getting his attention first.
He'd look at her from afar sometimes, seeing how uncomfortable she seems when there were too many people. She usually seemed alright if she was with Blackbell, maybe it was a distraction from everyone else? Because times when she was alone, she'd sit as far away from everyone else at lunch, a little frown on her face, her attention seemingly everywhere at once sometimes.
He had first tried to chuck away what he noticed, but he couldn't fully do so. This led to Damian finding other times where it happened: at the cafeteria, at the assembly hall, when Eden Academy hosted indoor events for all students, school outings somewhere crowded. Even when he tried looking back, there were clues since their first year that she didn't like crowds, now that he was thinking about it.
What truly cemented his suspicion though happened at the start of year 5, as they were out on a trip to visit some historical monuments in the city. Unexpectedly, a small rally had started forming near the entrance of one of the monuments, causing some trouble for the teacher in charge. As they were trying to safely make their way back to the bus, Damian and Anya ended up swept into the mass as more people were coming to listen to the person speaking.
He had first tried to make a way out for himself, assuming his classmate would follow behind him. Yet when he turned around, he found Anya frowning and holding her head, looking unwell. He had quickly made his way back to her before anyone could separate them, asking what was wrong. "Too many people" Anya had replied weakly. Damian couldn't help but panic a little bit when her nose started bleeding.
He had quickly grabbed her hand to make sure she wouldn't fall behind, dragging her with him as he pushed people aside as best as he could. She clearly started to look a little bit better once they were away from the denser crowd. The teacher quickly joined them, followed by a worried Becky.
After that day, Damian always kept an eye out for similar situations when Anya happened to be in the same crowded place as him. She was usually accompanied by Becky, so things were generally alright. But when he noticed her alone and struggling a little, he'd find reasons to join her or reasons for her to leave the crowded place.
He even managed to do this with an event organised by the school. When Becky was not the one checking on her he would do so. If he was asked to do a task, he'd ask her for "help" or would distract the people checking the entries to allow her to slip out for a moment.
As years went by, his attempt at helping became less subtle and bolder. Him doing that was fueling Emile and Ewen's idea that he had a crush on her (he did not!), but as frustrating as that was, he'd rather that than see her uncomfortable. Even Becky seemed to have joined them in teasing him while Anya stayed seemingly oblivious to his doing.
They were 16 when he made his boldest move. It was a fundraising event held by the school, where students, their parents and other important people were invited. Anya had come with her parents, although they were quickly occupied by conversations while she stayed more on the side. He noticed Becky had disappeared from her side for a while now.
"I'll be back in a moment," he told Emile and Ewen before leaving them, both looking at him a bit confused as they ate from their plate. He guessed they must have understood what he was doing since he heard snickering afterwards.
"Hey," he said when he joined Anya, trying to look nonchalant, "I was going out to get fresh air… do you want to join me?". He couldn't help the small smile on his lips when he saw how her eyes lit up at his suggestion, finishing the bite she had taken. "Yes!" she quickly replied.
They quickly sneaked out, not that anyone would care since it wasn't an obligated event per se, but Anya seem amused by the idea of being sneaky. They made their way to a nearby garden, sitting down next to each other on a bench in silence. Contrary to the event's hall which was pretty crowded and noisy, the garden was quiet, all one could hear was the sound of leave rustling.
Damian had to admit, that even he found it rather good to take a small break from everyone at the event. Now that he was getting older, more people were coming to him about the Desmond family. It was a bit exhausting sometimes to deal with. Plus, having some alone time like this with Anya was rather nice and calming, he enjoyed it.
"Damian" he heard called as he looked at the darkening sky, simply humming in response. "Thank you" he then heard from Anya, making him turn toward her, getting stuck at the pretty smile he was given.
"W-what for?" he asked while looking away, feeling his face heating up a little.
"For getting me out of there for a moment" she replied with a small laugh. "I don't do too good with crowds, I was fine at first when I was following my parents or Becky around, but then I lost sight of them" she explained.
"It's nothing" he mumbled out, "I got tired of talking to people and needed fresh air" he simply stated. False, he totally did this for Anya, but she didn't need to know that.
Her smile only grew wider for some reason before she left out a chuckle. "But you could have gotten out alone, or brought Emile and Ewen with you if you wanted company" she pointed out, which only made Damian blush even more at her observation.
"I just needed fresh air!" he stated again firmly, not ready to admit he did it for her. This only made her laugh, making him feel butterflies in his stomach. He prefered her laughing like this than looking uncomfortable. "Okay okay, the great Damian Desmond needed a break from all the people who want to talk to him, got it" she teased him.
When she was done laughing at him silence settled back down between them, comfortable. They were simply looking at the stars appearing in the sky, enjoying the moment.
"But… I'm glad to hear it also helped you relax" he ended up saying. He look from the corner of his eye as Anya turned towards him, offering him a smile. She gently bumped her shoulder against his with a little chuckle, looking pleased by his words.
They stayed like this for a while, neither of them really wanting to get back inside and abandon this quiet and peaceful moment. In a way, Damian wished he could simply finish the night here with Anya, simply enjoying the stars above them. Surprisingly enough, Anya was the first one to get back up "We should go back before someone worries about where we went" she offered. Damian simply looked at her for a moment, before a sigh escaped his lips, soon getting up too.
"Yeah, better going back before they worry" he agreed.
As they made their way back to the event hall, Damian thought that maybe he should act boldly more often. This had been pretty nice.