CHAPTER III: ROCHE LIMIT

Spy grimaced as his head began to throb again, a reminder of what had happened earlier today. A reminder of waking up in the dust. A reminder of finding only a small medikit for the worst of his wounds. A reminder of barely managing to grab a promising bottle off the shelf and shove it into his pocket, a bottle of what would hopefully dull his headache and not send him spasming into a seizure. A reminder of almost knocking into Medic on his way out of the ward.

Spy's eyes shifted to look up at a window on the second floor of the base. The moonlight shone off it with a blue-white glow.

F*** it. Scout was going to pay.

Though the Frenchman was bristling with rage, he stood in the backyard with an eerie stillness. He then slowly, slowly walked back to the door. He gently turned the knob, quietly stepped over the threshold, and closed the door behind him without a sound.

Spy was very good at keeping himself under control. Very, very good.

He made his way through the base, creeping up the stairs and coming to the third door from the left of the stairwell. He did not need to see the class emblem of a winged foot emblazoned on the doorway to know whose door this was. The door was, predictably, unlocked, not that something like a simple door lock could stop Spy. He turned the knob, and though there was a slight squeak to the hinges, Spy heard nothing else but the slow, steady breaths of the enemy within. He walked inside and closed the door behind him.

The dim light of the stars glided past the curtains and lit the bed, which was covered with a mess of little hills, valleys, and plains of white sheets that came together to form one massive hill, underneath which lay the body of the slumbering Scout. He was laying on his side, and from where Spy was standing, his face was obscured by the arm that clutched a pillow to his chest.

But what was more important to Spy was what lay in the darkness.

The room was a small affair, every inch of the walls adorned with posters of movies and various baseball players, posters that curled at the edges where the tape had peeled away by itself. Stray socks, underwear, shirts, and pants were scattered across the room like debris on the street, scattered this way and that, along with a few stray baseballs that Spy would have to avoid tripping over. A dresser stood to the side of the bed, underneath the window, and it was covered with magazines and more laundry, along with neatly arranged stacks of baseball cards, the only organized thing in this room, it seemed. There was a closet across from the bed, on the southern side of the room, its wooden doors slightly ajar. The nightstand on the left of the bed had a small lamp, a plate with some crumbs still on it, and a tattered old book, its page marked by a sock stuffed into its side.

Spy moved to the nightstand, took out his penlight, and gently held up the book to the blue beam coming from the pen's end. The title read as Charlotte's Web. It appeared to be a children's book, an out-of-place thing to find in a 23 year old's room. He took the sock out and flipped through the pages. There was nothing written inside, beyond a few stray doodles of spider's webs and pigs, so he stuffed the sock back in. It was something juvenile, and yet Scout wouldn't feel that much embarrassment if, say, Spy left it out in the open on the kitchen counter. The runner's poor reading abilities were regularly made known by how slowly he read aloud the sports section of the newspaper.

No, Spy needed something worse. Some dirty little secret, some awful, nasty thing that he could use to shut Scout up and keep him from talking about the fight to his team. Someone like Scout had to have something. He was blindingly prideful to the point of thinking he was better than everyone else, and he was impulsive enough to blurt out whatever he was thinking regardless of how much trouble it would land him in. Also, he had terrible taste in clothing, music, food, everything in general… Scout must have done something so awful in a fit of vanity or impulsiveness, or liked something so shameful that any rational human being would reject, And if the other mercenaries found out about what he had done or what he liked, the others would hate him, shun him, perhaps even look over Spy attacking Scout.

And here Spy was, with decades of experience in sleuthing out the secrets of anyone and everyone, from the average man on the street to the scum of the earth. And there Scout was, deep asleep, terrible at lying or keeping a secret, dumb, witless, unable to fight back or prevent the Frenchman from doing his work.

Spy's gloved fingers gently wrapped around the handle of the nightstand's drawer and slid it open, his gaze briefly switching to look at the inert form of the Bostonian. He pointed the penlight inside the drawer, finding crumpled balls of paper and the shining foil of candy wrappers. But as he looked down into the drawer, something at the edge of his mind prodded at him. That peculiar feeling that he had forgotten something important. What was it? He stood there for a moment, thinking, but nothing came to him.

Shrugging, he unfolded the balls of paper. A myriad of doodles covered them, most of them of what appeared to be his fellow mercenaries shooting each other. Nothing really of note, beyond the sketch of Scout's face that had a peculiarly high level of accuracy to it in the placement of features and the shading, but someone else had to have drawn something that good. He shut the drawer halfway, stuck a hand inside, and felt in vain for something taped to the top of the drawer. He closed it, and again, that feeling of forgetfulness poked at him. But now, it came with the pained, awkward sense that he was doing something wrong. What he'd forgotten really wasn't important if it was tied to that irrational, instinctive guilt. Scout deserved to have his things rummaged through, and worse besides.

Weaving his way through the wayward piles of laundry that littered the floor, the Frenchman came to the dresser below the window. Let's see: magazines, baseball cards, some shirts, and...

The light of the stars faintly outlined the edge of a rectangular frame that was mostly obscured by a stack of magazines. A rectangular, wooden frame.

Containing that picture.

Spy lifted the picture to the light and just made out the curving lines that composed Christine's jawline, her little nose, her dark hair, softer than silk…

It was a picture he often snuck into Scout's room to gaze at, when he was sure the boy was away. He often felt a pang in his chest when he looked at her, wondering what she was doing, if she was safe, whether she needed him wherever she was.

The pang was different now. Now holding her picture was almost profane.

He should have never come here. He should have never…

He really wasn't harming her though, was he? She couldn't love Scout that much. So what if he was blackmailing her son and emotionally wounding him? The boy had it coming. She had lived with him for years; she was surely used to her son paying for his mistakes, no? She knew how awful he was.

He tilted the picture towards the light, and flinched the moment he glimpsed at her eyes. The picture was set on the dresser a little too quickly, clattering against the hard surface for a moment.

Scout's arm moved a bit, but that was all. Spy opened the dresser drawers. But now, he was making little pauses, little twitches, little errors as he prodded at Scout's clothing, feeling for anything the boy had perhaps stuffed in them, feeling for things taped to the inside of the dresser, pointing his penlight here and there. Again, there was no evidence of Scout's misdeeds. The drawers faintly squeaked as he shut them.

He should not have looked at that picture.

What had been drilled into him long ago was that he could never let his personal morality distract him and get in the way of his job. Sparing an enemy only meant that they'd be back later to kill him. Honor meant his allies' blood would paint the windows as red as the Nazi flags waving in the train station. Mercy meant his lungs would be filled with water as he vainly strained against his captor's iron grip, not because it would ever give him a chance to break free, but because it was the movements of a wild, panicked animal who didn't know what reason or logic was, whose basic instinct to live overrode all conscious thought and reduced common sense to a stain on the ground. Spy himself was reduced to something vaguely resembling a man after he had listened to his morality's commands too often and was tortured to the point of insanity.

And here he was, years later, his mind intact, letting his feelings get in the way. Had the war really been so long ago? Had he forgotten what it taught him?

Nothing got in the way of his work. Not even if his work was something as small as dealing with Scout. That was how you got soft. That was how you got killed.

Spy walked over to the wardrobe and carefully opened the doors. He flicked the dim blue beam of his penlight through the closet, finding empty, neglected hangers and a few tattered sports magazines on the bottom.

M***e. There was only one more obvious hiding spot left, and he was practically obligated to check it at this point.

He refrained from a sigh as he lowered himself to the dirty, dusty floor to look underneath Scout's bed, where yet more of the silver wrappers of old snacks gleamed and shimmered, and the magazines displayed their glossy sheen. There was a scuffed-up catcher's mitt with the initial's J.O. penned messily on the side. Spy already knew what they stood for.

As much as he looked, he found nothing of importance under the bed.

Spy quickly stood up, and brushed the dust off his suit, glad to be standing again, but feeling a sense of frustration start to creep in. He hadn't found anything remotely useful so far. Was anything behind the posters? Behind the dressers? In the magazine stacks? Underneath the mattress? Spy checked all these places, yes, even delicately sliding a gloved hand under the mattress to find something, anything, but no. A few cards had slipped behind the dresser, but… nothing.

Frustrating, useless, implausible nothing.

Everyone in this base had something that Spy had photographed, meticulously inspected, recorded. Sniper's hit lists, the names of innocent men and women written down like items on a shopping list. Newspaper prints of the buildings, factories, stores, warehouses that Pyro had turned into funeral pyres. Medic's records of his experiments, which Spy couldn't read without being overpowered by a feeling of horror and nausea. Tapes of the secrets Demo has whispered while held in the thrall of alcohol. Engineer's blueprints, detailing the schematics of war machines that killed people in inhumane, sickening ways. Spy even had found a small file that neatly recorded every "Nazi" Soldier had murdered when the Frenchman had dared to look through one of the Administrator's offices, as well as copies of Soldier's rejected military applications.

So many nasty little secrets that these men kept from their teammates. So much, ah, "dirty laundry".

...Why the h**l didn't Scout have anything?! Why was there only literal laundry?

Scout had manslaughter charges to his name, but everyone knew about those, and Scout got a certain nervous look in his eye when he tried to look tough and distract his teammates from the fact that Scout had been less of a participant and more of a bystander in that killing. Scout knew his teammates didn't believe him but still scrambled to look as tough as actual killers.

That couldn't be the worst thing Scout had ever been part of.

But no matter how hard Spy looked, there was nothing.

M***e. M***e, p****n, fils de p**e, b****l de m***e. What the f*** was he going to do now? He knew every nook and cranny of this base, and he, on a weekly basis, checked the spots the mercenaries loved to hide things in. And now Spy didn't have any more time to spare for searching.

Spy silently stepped over to Scout's bed. The boy snored lightly in his sleep, blissfully aware of how the Frenchman was staring malevolently down at him. Now that he was close, he could see the scabs and bruises, faint shadows and dark lines staining the skin on his arm. His right eye was now swollen; it looked as if he had neglected to use a medikit to preserve the evidence. Most of the team had come home in an unconscious drunken stupor, and Heavy had to put them all to bed himself, grumbling Russian expletives, blearily rubbing at his eyes, clearly too irritated and tired to deal with anything else put on his plate. Scout had probably tried to tell him what happened only for Heavy to ignore him.

A well-rested Heavy would not ignore a battered Scout. Neither would Engineer, or the rest of the mercenaries. Despite their tenuous respect for Scout, they would object to hearing about what Spy had said to the runner, and though Scout may exaggerate the truth, those injuries would lend quite a bit of credibility to what he said. However, if Scout was silenced, or forced to lie about the origins of his injuries, Spy wouldn't have to face the ire of his teammates. The Bostonian's compliance could be coerced out of him if the Frenchman had blackmail, but it seemed as if Scout didn't have anything he'd be ashamed of revealing.

Spy could think of plenty of things Scout should be ashamed of. His baseball obsession, the annoying rock songs he loved to sing along to in the most amateurish, off-key fashion, his messy room and inability to put his clothes where they belonged or properly take care of them. But more importantly, he should be embarrassed about his vanity, his lack of manners, and of the fact that he never, ever knew when to stop talking. Spy didn't know how Christine had let him get like this. If Spy had raised Scout—

Again, that pang of guilt stabbed somewhere in his chest. But it wasn't his fault that Scout had ended up like this, right?

Although… Christine had raised Scout alongside her other seven sons. She also had impeccable taste in clothing despite her limited means, she had a mastery of social graces and a legendary poker face when insulted, she was always invested in what you had to say and would go out on a limb for you without hesitation, and somehow she remained humble in the face of her skills and talents. It was as if Christine was the antithesis of her youngest son. She must have been too busy with raising all her children by herself to pull Scout into line. Eight children who had to be fed, clothed, comforted, and a myriad of things besides. A mother taking care of one child by herself was a difficult enough task. Taking care of eight by herself was impossible. Corners would end up getting cut one way or another, despite how much she loved her enfantes. She must have tried so hard, but she could only be in one place at one time, disciplining a few unruly children while the rest were raising Christine...

She would have been able to handle Scout if Spy had been there.

N-no, Scout would have ended up like this anyway. He would have decided to never listen to Spy. Scout didn't listen to anyone's good advice.

There was still a needling, painful feeling, poking at Spy, but he ignored it as he mused over his next course of action: threatening Scout into submission so he didn't speak to the other mercenaries about how he had acquired his injuries. What was the Frenchman going to do? He couldn't threaten anything physical, considering that Scout won the fight earlier. Well, he was able to disguise as Scout impeccably…

He could threaten to forge false evidence of Scout helping out the BLU team. It would be easy to make an audio recording of "Scout" volunteering to be an informant for the BLU team so they'd go easier on him and he could look better. A believably underhanded thing that the boy would do to feed his narcissism. Threatening to do that would definitely shut him up.

Or maybe… Spy could make a fake diary. So classic. So damning. Pages and pages full of childish assumptions about teammates, derisive comments, idiotic rambling, everything Scout said on a daily basis magnified. Scout would be shunned and mocked by the entire team if Spy left it somewhere for his comrades to find.

But what if Spy told Scout that he would give it to Miss Pauling? Yes,Spy could almost hear Scout begging him to not do it, and see the blanched look of horror and desperation on his face. That was what would keep his mouth shut. But did it have to stop there? Scout was vulnerable, sleeping, totally unaware of what Spy had been doing for the past half hour. Spy could do anything he wanted to him, his room, his possessions, so long as the boy remained asleep. Anything! Anythi—

Scout's nose twitched in his sleep.

He must have smelt Spy's cigarette.

Scout's nose twitched again.

It was like the twitching of a rabbit's nose.

Just like a rabbit's nose, in fact.

Funny.

It made him look kind of adora—

What.

Scout was not... He could NOT be adorable. It was beyond a little brat like him. There was nothing that could make him adorable or cute or even lovable. Nothing.

Spy glared harder at Scout, who shifted his arm slightly as he slumbered. The runner's head was propped up by his other arm as he clutched a pillow to his chest.

Wait.

That shirt.

Scout was wearing a white t-shirt with a blue stripe across the torso. And though Spy couldn't see it, he somehow knew there was an "M" emblazoned on the front, for the… Minnesota Moles? Manatees? Some other alliterative animal name?

Why was it familiar?

He never really wore it much around the base. It wasn't one of his favorites. It must have been the team. Scout was a diehard Red Sox fan; he would never let himself be seen wearing the shirt of a rival. It was a hand-me-down, judging by its tattered hem and the hole Spy could see near the armpit.

Where had he seen that shirt before?

Why did it feel important? Was… was this connected to what he had forgotten earlier? What was Spy missing? What was failing to connect? Where had he seen this shirt? Where—

Oh.

…Oh.

Oh no.

He'd forgotten again, hadn't he.