I was absolutely terrified to post the last chapter. I thought I'd overdone the talking elements and overwritten the bits in between - but I am absolutely over the moon at how many of you liked it😭😭

Now for the harder job - resolving the Damian v Twilight confrontation!

What a time to be alive 😂

Enjoy xx

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Even though the trees swayed in a gentle breeze and the sun filtered through the leaves, dappling beautifully on the clearing floor, Damian felt as though he were in the middle of a brewing thunderstorm, slowly swirling around him and gathering force with every breath, crackling with the promise of a strike waiting to be released.

"Are you a psychiatrist, or not?" Damian gasped, sure that his heart was going to beat right out of his chest, sure that he was going to vomit his nerves right onto the forest floor.

In front of him, Dr Loid Forger sat very, very still, with his eyes downcast, and a pensive look on his face. A flash of pain crossed his eyes, and he leaned forward with a weary sigh, his elbows resting on his knees.

"No," sighed Loid, defeated. "I'm not."

At his admission, Damian felt every muscle in his body seize with fear. His heart thumped in his chest, every beat a punch against his ribcage that grew louder and louder, until there was a crack, and suddenly it was like his senses had been magnified tenfold. Every whisper of the wind through the trees whipped past him like a storm, the colours around him saturated until he was enveloped in a lurid landscape that made him feel sick.

Because for the first time in a long time, his vision was clear. He could see.

"Oh my god," Damian gasped. "I knew it. I fucking knew it."

He was right. Every suspicion that had come to him in the last few months had finally reached its peak, coming together in one whole realisation that shook the earth, but almost as soon as the thrill of victory rushed through him, Damian paled as a new fear made itself known.

"Are you going to kill me?" Damian rasped, and automatically took several steps back.

Despite the tension, and the brewing pressure in the atmosphere, Loid chuckled.

"I'm afraid I don't have clearance for that," he said dryly, invoking Damian's earlier phrase, and then he smoothed his expression over thoughtfully. "Although it is in my handbook."

Damian gulped. His eyes flicked to the pistol just out of arm's reach.

"Just kidding," Loid chuckled, before he stood, and dusted himself off. "I'm not going to kill you. I wouldn't do that to you." He furrowed his brow. "Or to Anya."

It didn't make Damian breathe any easier, but he took some solace in the fact that Loid had put his gun back on top of the briefcase, and at that moment in time, both of them were unarmed. This was the most honest he was ever going to see Dr Forger - if he could really call him that.

"Does Anya know about you?" Damian began, and then he clenched his fists, bracing against the physical impact of the realisation. "Who am I kidding, of course she knows," he exhaled in a heavy breath, trying to lessen the feeling of his heart racing in his chest. "She knows everything."

Damian didn't know how to feel about that. Of course Anya knew everything. She had always known that her mother was an assassin, that her uncle was in the secret service, that her father was a spy, and now she even knew something about his father that she couldn't tell him. Anya had always sat atop the mountain of secrets, able to see everything from her seat above the clouds, while Damian felt that he had only just started climbing. What else did she know? What else was she not telling him?

How long would it take to reach her?

Damian felt Loid's eyes on him as he worked through his thoughts, all the while keeping his gaze fixed to the ground. He also sensed when Loid shifted his posture awkwardly.

"How much has she told you, exactly?"

"Not enough," said Damian straight away, and he straightened up before delivering the rest of his thoughts to the spy in front of him. "Even though I know she's been hiding something from me. There was something that she wanted to talk to me about, but she couldn't, for whatever reason…"

Damian cleared his throat. "The only thing that made sense in my mind was that it was about you, or Mrs Forger. She would only keep something from me if it was personal, or about her family, because she's the most loyal person I know. If she couldn't tell me something, it's because she's afraid of what would happen if she did."

Across the clearing, Loid's eyes widened imperceptibly. He understood that Damian had always had an interest in Anya, but he had underestimated just how much Damian had been observing the whole time. Damian must have been paying more attention to Anya than he originally thought. His love must run deeper than Twilight had ever realised.

"Do you have any idea how much it's been hurting her?" Damian said quietly, and Twilight softened.

"I know that she has found it… challenging," Twilight conceded, but at that word, Damian gritted his teeth. "But she knows that my objective is about peace. That we're working towards the greater good."

Then it was Damian's turn to look surprised, but soon his expression morphed into irrepressible anger.

"You really have no idea, do you?"

His tone was low, foreboding, like the roll of thunder before a lightning strike, and Twilight felt the hairs prickling at the back of his neck. He sometimes forgot that Damian was still a Desmond, and with that name came a certain power.

"Anya knows what must be done," he replied, cautious of Damian's impending wrath. "She knows what's at -"

"It's been crushing her!" Damian cried out. "Anya - she - she has panic attacks. Did you know that? And every time, I'm the one that sits there with her until it goes away. I'm the one who sees her cry, every time that it's too much for her, and I'm the one she goes to when she doesn't know what else to do. Did she tell you that?"

Twilight was stunned, and from his silence, the answer was obvious.

For a moment, Damian's anger boiled to the surface, but he held himself, and soon his muscles shook for an entirely different reason.

"She can't tell me anything, because she doesn't want to let you down," Damian gasped through the pain inside him, "but if you told me, it would be better, she'd be… she could be happy again."

God, it sounded so stupid when he said it all out loud. It was a simple, juvenile idea, but it made sense to him. If only he could try to make Dr Forger see the truth.

"Whatever you're asking her to hide - I know it's big, because she has nightmares about it - and it's tearing her apart! She feels so much guilt about how she can't talk about any of this stuff, she kept saying that she was sorry but she couldn't say it out loud, and I saw her dream… when she…"

Damian trailed off as he realised that Loid wasn't supposed to know about the fact that she had slept over in his dorm.

"You saw her dream?" said Loid with unguarded interest. He knew that Anya's powers were growing and changing, but he didn't know about this. That thoughts and pictures could leak out of her without her being conscious.

"Er-" Damian cleared his throat and tried to think of a white lie to cover himself up. "She fell asleep in the library when we were studying together. She dreamed about the time she tried to punch you."

Twilight blinked in surprise. If Damian saw that - if he heard anything from that memory - then Twilight's mission was in deeper trouble than he thought.

He sucked in a breath through his teeth. He was a spy, for god's sake. He was supposed to be guarding secrets, not broadcasting them, and no matter how much Damian wanted to help Anya, Twilight knew that there was nothing more that could be done. He had already somehow allowed Damian to back him into a corner, but he couldn't let Damian find out any more. It was still too dangerous.

"I'm sorry, Damian," said Twilight evenly. "I've already told you too much. I can't say anything more-"

Once again, Damian barrelled through Twilight's attempted defence.

"It has something to do with my father, doesn't it?"

Twilight stopped, stunned. How did Damian keep doing this?

"How do you…?"

"I'm sorry," Damian spluttered, not sorry at all. "I saw your office."

Twilight sighed gruffly and ran a hand over his face. Handler was going to kill him.

"And it was in her dream," Damian added, and then corrected himself. "Memory."

Silence elapsed for a few moments as Damian shuffled nervously on his feet, and waited for Twilight to speak. He clearly hadn't expected Damian to have figured out so much on his own, and while Damian hoped that it would get him somewhere, he couldn't help but wonder if it was really enough. He knew that Dr Forger was secretive (and now he knew why), but more than that, he would protect his family at all costs.

But Damian had people to protect, too, and he wasn't going to walk away without getting what he came for.

Twilight stayed silent, his hand poised against his chin in careful thought, as though he was really considering whether or not to reveal anything to Damian, and how much. He was likely completing a cost-benefit analysis in his own head, or at least running through possible consequences of revealing much more to Damian. (Or at least, that was what Damian would do).

Damian knew that he should have stayed silent as he let Dr Froger work it out in his own mind, but his curiosity overwhelmed him, and soon enough he couldn't stop it from coming out of his mouth.

"Are you going to kill him?"

Twilight did not reply straight away, which only heightened Damian's fear even more.

"We're hoping it won't come to that," he answered honestly, and privately noted that Damian was handling the conversation in a much more calm way than he had ever predicted.

Twilight had previously evaluated Damian as intelligent and good-natured, alongside some difficulty with regulating his own emotions - especially anger, as the young scion was easily irritated, which was his biggest weakness. However, Twilight wondered if he would have to reassess. The questions Damian asked were well-reasoned, rational, and direct, leaving no room for interpretation or error, and he had clearly thought a lot about what he wanted to know before he asked Loid for a private lesson. It was admirable, and impressive, especially because the subject matter was objectively difficult. For both of them.

Although he didn't act like it, Twilight did agree with his wife and daughter: Damian deserved to know - but there was so much to consider. When Twilight had last assessed him (admittedly, some time ago), he noted that Damian's emotional regulation skills were underdeveloped, and his likelihood for impulsive behaviours increased alongside his irritability levels. According to that assessment, Damian should not be that calm.

Assuming that Damian did somehow manage to learn how to better regulate himself, there was still the matter of his loyalty to consider. Historically, Twilight knew that Damian was primarily motivated by external validation - especially his parent's approval, and especially his father's. Did he miscalculate? When did that change? What happened to change things?

Damian stepped forward, catching Twilight's attention once more.

"If it's something Anya's scared to tell me, then it means it's big. I'm guessing it's big enough to be reported in the news. So, in a way, I'm going to find out eventually, right?"

"It's hard to say," said Twilight cryptically, although he knew that was a significant possibility.

"If it's about my father, I need to know. I deserve to know," Damian pleaded, no longer angry, but instead hopeful, and trusting. "Please."

It occurred to Twilight that there was something else that motivated the young scion. Someone else had been the centre of his attention for at least twelve years.

Do you have any idea how much it's been hurting her?

You really have no idea, do you?

It's been crushing her!

She has panic attacks - did you know that?

I'm the one she goes to.

Did she tell you?

Whatever you're asking her to hide… it's been tearing her apart!

If you told me… she could be happy again.

An ache pulsed in Twilight's chest. The pain had always been there, but he was adept at hiding his emotions, even from himself - but it was getting larger, too large to hide, or to ignore. He knew that Anya was hurting, but Damian was right, there was so much that he didn't know, so much that Anya hadn't told him.

He was blind. Damian wasn't doing all of this for his father. He never was.

Twilight wanted to fall to his knees in shame. How could he call himself a spy - the best that Westalis had to offer - if he did not know the true depth of his daughter's pain? If he misidentified what Damian cared about most in the world, even more than his own father?

The least he could do was break the news himself, before Damian ever saw it splattered across the front page, no doubt mangled into an unrecognisable shape by bloodthirsty reporters. Anya was right - Damian deserved to know the truth about his father, but more than that, he deserved a kind delivery.

Twilight had to deliver bad news hundreds of times. Maybe thousands. As Dr Forger, consultant psychiatrist, it was his job to make tough decisions, and to communicate them empathically to patients and families. He often had to be the one to discuss controversial diagnoses, unfavourable prognoses, difficult treatment plans - even when the chances of recovery were low to almost zero.

He would rather tell a patient that their illness was incurable, or that they would spend the rest of their life in hospital, than tell Damian the truth about his father.

"Are you sure you want to know this, Damian?" Twilight began, unsure if he was being truly considerate for Damian, or selfish for his own fears. "As Donovan's son it will be difficult for you to hear. If you like I can tell you at a time when you feel more ready."

"No!" Damian jolted, and cleared his throat, lowering his voice once again. "I want to know. I… knew something wasn't right for a long time, but I just, I don't know who else to talk to about this. I didn't want to put Anya in a bad position, or make her feel bad, so I thought…"

The ache in his chest twisted even further, and Twilight knew: he was about to make a terrible mistake.

Twilight ignored his years of training, his decades of experience in the field, and the voice of Sylvia in his head.

"I really am sorry to be the one to tell you this," he started. "Truthfully, there was never going to be a good way for you to find out."

Damian braced himself for what was going to come.

"We received intel that Donovan Desmond was a threat to the peace between Ostania and Westalis, and it was my job to find out why that is. I've been investigating him for over a decade."

Damian paled. "What does that mean? Investigating him for what? How would he be a threat?"

Twilight paused once more. Again, he was struck by how Damian held himself with composure through the entire exchange, as if he had already thought about how his father could possibly be involved - and he was prepared to hear it.

Well, there was no going back. Twilight had made his decision.

"We have documented evidence that Donovan Desmond has been funding and coordinating dangerous military projects."

Twilight waited to see Damian's reaction before saying anything more. It was extremely important that he didn't overwhelm him with too much in one go, especially because Donovan's secrets were more unsavoury than others, certainly more than anything Damian had heard so far, and he needed to see how he would react to each part before he told him any more. It was the safe thing to do.

"I can… believe that..." he said through gritted teeth, as if even the words themselves caused physical pain. "My father is very secretive. I can't imagine he would have been hiding anything good."

Twilight held himself still, and let out a breath of relief. So far, so good - but he couldn't relax just yet.

"There's more," he whispered, catching Damian's attention once more. "One of these projects specialised in creating animals with extra sensory perception, including precognition."

Damian's eyes widened in recognition. "Bond."

"And…" Twilight continued, and from his hesitation, and the dark look in his eyes, Damian knew that the real bad news would be in what came next.

Cold liquid trickled down Damian's spine, making his hairs stand on end.

"A similar project that wanted to create the same abilities in humans."

At this, Damian looked like he had just been punched in the chest. The air had been knocked from his lungs, and he hunched over in pain, gritting his teeth with the effort of keeping himself together.

"No," he gasped, "you can't mean…"

"I'm sorry, Damian," said Twilight, with genuine remorse. "Donovan Desmond is on the shadow board of Project Apple - a top secret military operation that intended to create enhanced humans. They would have then been used as soldiers, spies, assassins, or bodyguards for the highest bidder…"

Damian tried to think about what Dr Forger had just told him, but at the same time, his mind had painfully frozen, and it was an effort to identify even a single clear thought in his mind - but through the pain, and the fog, and the ice that encased his entire body, one phrased echoed through his mind.

It can't be true. It can't be…

He knew that his father didn't care about him, knew that he was perpetually busy with 'important' meetings aligned with his career and the country's political state, but something like this was beyond anything he had ever imagined. It had to be a mistake. How could his father do this? How could he have let human experiments take place under his supervision?

And if that was where the Desmond fortune was going… Damian wanted to be sick.

How could it end up like this? That his father was the one who had allowed children to be tortured and experimented on…

That he was responsible for what happened to Anya…

Nausea overwhelmed him, and Damian held his head in his hands. "No…" he groaned softly. "That means that Anya - that she - it's because of him - I should have known - I should have-"

His breathing came hard and fast. "It's all my fault. I should have stopped it. I should have tried to -"

"Damian," Loid's voice cut through Damian's panicked outburst, sounding much more calm than Damian felt. "Breathe. It's not your fault."

But another voice slithered beside his ear, one that was much darker, much more shadowy in nature:

He's wrong. You know you could have stopped this. If only you made Father love you.

"I should have - it's my -"

A firm, warm hand rested on the space between his shoulders.

"Breathe," came Loid's voice once again. "Do it with me. In through the nose… Out through the mouth…"

Damian felt like his chest was about to burst apart, and he tried to suck in his breath alongside Dr Forger, but his throat seized, holding his lungs hostage until he wheezed and gasped and spluttered, and he thought for sure that he was having a heart attack.

"Keep going, that's it…"

Was he doing it right? He couldn't tell. Everything was wrong. Damian felt like his chest had decided to constrict his lungs without his permission, but if there was a way to stop the pain, then he would take it.

Loid's encouraging voice came again, slow and gentle, and it was a miracle that Damian felt the pain in his chest unravelling, until Dr Forger understood that the panic had passed.

"It's not your fault, Damian. It never was."

You don't know that, Damian wanted to say, but he swallowed the words down, along with the final remnants of his attack.

"Does she know?" Damian gasped eventually. "Does she know that my father is the one who… that he…"

Twilight pressed his lips together, clearly hesitant at revealing the truth - but in Twilight's mind, they were already over the worst of it. They had already come far enough.

"Yes. She knows."

"How long?" said Damian desperately. "How long has she known?"

"Since Sunday," Twilight answered honestly.

Sunday… Damian thought back to what had happened only the previous Sunday, and he realised with a blush that it was the same day that she had snuck into his dorm. The same day that she had cried on him and slept in his bed.

So, Anya found out about his father, that he was at least partly responsible for what happened to her, and the first thing that she did was to… go to… him?

He recalled her terrible guilt, the way she cried "I'm sorry" over and over as he held her close to him, as the water from the shower soaked them both. Anya wasn't sorry because she thought it was his fault, or because she had mixed feelings about the fact that his father played a part in her trauma, but she was sorry because she had been ordered not to tell him: she didn't want to keep the secret from him, she had even pleaded with her father to be allowed to say something, and it was Dr Forger that had forbidden her - and how could she disobey the man that agreed to take her in and be her father?

Damian felt his heart warming as he thought back to that night. She looked so scared, so upset, and she wanted to feel better by going to him. That had to count for something right? That had to mean she didn't think any less of him - because of what his father did?

Twilight watched Damian with interest, noting the way that Damian first furrowed his brow in concentration, and then released all the tension in his body, like he had just been freed from a crushing burden.

Damian straightened up, and with renewed purpose addressed Twilight once more.

"So - my father is responsible for funding the project that hurt Anya. What about the Director? What are you doing to find her?"

Twilight grimaced. "My superiors don't see it as a high priority just yet, since the Director hasn't yet been sighted, and Anya is still safe with us-"

"Safe?" Damian let out a mirthless laugh. "Anya won't be safe until that woman is dead!"

Once again, it was Twilight's turn to be taken aback. He had made the mistake of taking Damian's interest in self defence at face value: that Damian wanted to become stronger and more skilled, yes, but Twilight had also wondered if Damian's renewed fervour was perhaps due to wanting to establish a more firm connection with the Forgers, or wanting to do things that were 'cool and illegal' (since he was still a teenager after all). But, Twilight surprised himself that he had once again underestimated just how deeply Damian cared for Anya, to the extent that it drove him through his training.

"Our calculations suggest we still have time," Twilight said carefully. "We know that her resources and staff were severely implicated, and that it will take some time before she can build these back up again."

"So - we shouldn't be sitting around waiting! We have to stop her before she can take Anya again!"

"Do you call this sitting and waiting?" said Twilight, with conviction in his voice, and he gestured to the firearms gear lying on top of the briefcase. Although only the pistol and ear defenders were within sight, they weren't the limit of what Twilight wanted to draw attention to. He also thought about Damian's lessons with Yor, Damian's drive to improve his own skills, Twilight's determination to investigate any clue that the Director could have left behind. He thought about Anya's dedication to her own training, and her growing strength, and drive to learn how to use her powers as they changed month by month.

Twilight thought about the new 'recruits' to the mission to take down the lab: Yor, Adrian, even Yuri - somehow, their orbits had collided with serendipitous and violent precision, but Twilight couldn't help but wonder if their 'alliance' was being driven by an external force.

The certainty grew in him, until a new confidence had taken root. It felt right, somehow, that they would find each other like this.

"Now, we do what we can," said Twilight. "Now, we train, and prepare ourselves - and when the Director resurfaces, we'll be ready."

This seemed to be good enough for Damian, since he sighed deeply, as if the tightness in his chest had dissipated, and he could finally breathe.

He could do it. He could learn everything he could, while they still could, and he would do everything in his power to make sure that Anya would never be taken away from him again.

And if, or when, the Director made the mistake of showing her face again…

He would take her down.


The phone in Cecile dorms never rang. It was an external phone only, for students to make calls to their families, and make contact with the world beyond Eden College.

Damian's hand hovered over the phone, as he wondered what to do.

He needed to talk to his father.

He did not want to talk to his father.

All his life, Damian had wanted to be a good son - he wanted to get the Stella Stars and achievements he needed to be recognised. He wanted the exceptional grades, the excellent reports, and all his life, he had thought that if he did what his father wanted, and conformed, and contorted himself to fit impossible standards, then maybe his parents would love him. Or at least acknowledge him, since 'love' seemed too high a goal to be realistic.

Damian wanted to be a good son - but he was a Desmond, and with that name carried an extra layer of responsibility and duty. He had to uphold the reputation of the family at all times, and at all costs. He had to show loyalty to his father, to his family bloodline, and protect the Desmond name as much as he could.

So, if Damian was a good son, he was supposed to tell him - right? It was his father. It was his duty as the second son to maintain the Desmond's reputation, but he didn't want to say anything, he didn't want anything to do with his father's crimes, and he certainly didn't want to say where he learned the information about his father - he didn't want to bring Anya into it at all. She didn't deserve to be on his father's radar, or his mother's for that matter. The Desmond household did not typically provide a warm welcome.

In his head, Damian imagined tossing a coin. Heads or tails, whichever way it landed, would decide the outcome of the phone call.

Out loud, Damian made the promise to himself: "If he answers, I'll tell him."

He steadied his breath, and dialled the number, and all the while, he tried not to throw up.

"Desmond household," said a monotone voice, and the sudden noise made Damian jump.

"Jeeves," he rasped, trying desperately to bring the levity back into his voice. "Is… is Father there?"

A pause, as Jeeves calibrated how to phrase his answer, and in that silence, Damian closed his eyes, hoping that Jeeves couldn't hear the thunderous roar of his heart through the receiver.

"My apologies, Master Damian," said Jeeves sympathetically. "Lord Desmond is away on business. Can I take a message?"

Damian's legs shook, and he was a breath away from collapsing with relief. He didn't have to speak to his father after all. He didn't have to be a bad son, keeping secrets. He didn't have to blame himself for what was going to happen.

"No, it's okay, forget it," Damian desperately backpedalled, but beneath his relief, and his fear, his anger at his father simmered on a low and steady heat.

"Actually," Damian interrupted himself. "Can you tell Father -"

Damian inhaled a swift breath through his nose, willing his legs to stop shaking, and pressed the receiver harder to his ear.

"Tell him that I know what he did. And that if he ever wants to see or speak to me again, then he'd better beg for my forgiveness."

Damian was met with stunned silence from Jeeves, followed by a staccato noise through the earpiece as Jeeves cleared the surprise out of his throat.

"I'll pass along your message," he said slowly, hesitantly.

"Thanks," said Damian through gritted teeth, and though his hands shook from several emotions running through him at once, by some miracle he managed to align the receiver with the phone handle, and pressed down firmly to end the call.

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Wow. Lots to unpack here.
I'm just so proud of Damian, honestly. He's been fighting so hard. 😭 And maybe Twilight is beggining to be open to new perspectives...?

Next chapter Saturday! (probably)
We're going back to the Eden Three (my favourite trio)