You guys are too good, noticing that Twilight is getting sloppy 😂 He absolutely is! He has been on this mission for TWELVE YEARS and now that the Forger family know each others secrets, he isnt as stringent as he ususally would be around the home, hence why his office door wasnt locked ... And if they knew Damian would turn up, I'm sure he would have prepared!

Name is name: Thank you so much for the offer of translation! I would be absolutely overjoyed for you to translate! I think there's some chapters of a Russian translation started somewhere on the internet (they didnt ask me, which is a shame) but you are welcome to tackle as much or as little as you like because it is such a huge project, and I would honestly be so honoured if you took it up on yourself to do such an amazing thing! Thank you a thousand times because you have really made my day 💕

Warning: Long chapter ahead!

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Damian would have liked to say something along the lines of 'at least Mrs Forger isn't suspicious', but he couldn't have been more wrong.

His muscles already strained from his session at the gym - and Watkins' idea of a 'good workout' was Damian's idea of something just shy of actual torture - but they roared in pain from following the directions of Yor Forger, and the worst bit was that Damian could tell that she was holding back by a significant margin.

They initially started off with the basics, and Yor had circled him thoughtfully, making a few adjustments to his posture, nudging limbs into place before she nodded in approval. "That's it," she affirmed. "That's where we'll start."

She showed him a couple of forms, including how to throw a punch, how to hold his stance to be able to block a blow, and then she declared that they should get started. "I find that the best learning method is through experience," she had said to him with a cheerful smile, as if she had no idea of the damage that she could inflict.

He would be lying if he said he wasn't nervous to be dragged into a forgotten corner of the empty City Hall staff gym with the formidable Yor Forger. He hadn't forgotten how vicious she was from when they went to rescue Anya together from the lab, nor the murderous intent in her eye when she gripped Adrian by the throat, or when she threatened the scientists at knifepoint, or when she held off the entire security team while he ran with Anya in his arms, trying to bring her to safety.

He also hadn't quite appreciated how safe he felt to be fighting with Mrs Forger, as opposed to suddenly being on the other side of her fearsome fists. Yor was truly a force to be reckoned with. Suddenly the primal instincts had risen back in him full force, screaming at him that he was in danger. She was a tiger, and he was nothing more than a mouse. A housecat, at best.

After about an hour, Yor declared that was enough, and Damian collapsed onto the ground, his chest heaving for breath.

"How are you so strong?!" he gasped, refusing to move any of his limbs out of fear that he would crumble into dust at any second. His throat burned with the exertion of breathing, while Yor had barely broken a sweat.

Yor paused, watching him carefully. He saw the gears turn in her head as she decided how much she should tell him, and with the grace of a panther, she lowered herself to the ground to sit next to him, her balance steady and unwavering.

"I lost my parents to the war at a very young age," she started, "and I learned how to protect myself and my brother in the only way that I could."

Damian watched her carefully. He recalled something from Anya's genealogy presentation at the beginning of the year, saying that her mother had to take up a job that required insane physical strength, so that she could raise her brother. He tried to think of what it must have been like to truly have nothing: no parents, no money, no family to lean on for support, not even being able to go to school, and his heart twisted in his chest. There was so much that he had been lucky enough not to experience.

Anya's mother really was strong - in every sense of the word.

"How did you do it?" he rasped. "How did you learn all this? How did you survive?"

Yor pressed her lips into a thin line, her eyes drawn tight in thought. "You're a smart boy, Damian. I imagine that you have figured out by now that Anya isn't the only one in our family with something to hide."

Damian froze. What did she know? Did she think he suspected something? Just how many more secrets did this family have? He tried not to let the panic show on his face, but he needn't have worried, as Yor only stared at her hands clutched in her lap.

"I would like to tell you my story eventually, but I think it is not yet the right time. Or maybe I'm not brave enough yet," Yor turned her gaze to him, eyes drooped in sadness. "Can you find it in yourself to wait a little longer?"

He nodded wordlessly, his heartbeat drumming in his ears. He couldn't even begin to think what secret Mrs Forger's story held, and he wasn't a hundred percent sure that he wanted to find out.

"Besides," Yor added with a small smile, and dropped her voice to a low whisper, "since you and Anya are dating now, I think it will come out anyway soon enough."

Damian jolted. "You knew?"

"I had a hunch," she winked at him. "I've never seen Anya so happy."

Damian blushed at that. "I'm sorry. She asked me not to say anything until she was ready to tell you both herself…"

"I can understand that. She's worried about what Loid will say," she said it quietly, but didn't elaborate.

He didn't know what to say to that, and after a long minute, Yor sensed the conversation was more or less over, so she shot to her feet once again.

"All right! Break's over! Let's get started!" Yor said excitedly.

"What? There's more?" Damian paled.

Yor laughed, as if he had told a hilarious joke. "Oh, Damian, that was just the warm-up!"

Damian's stomach dropped.

"Are you fucking kidding me?!"

True to his word, Twilight led Anya to the WISE headquarters, even showing her how to enter through the disguised telephone booth. Her eyes almost popped out of her head once the booth started to descend slowly downwards, and brought them into a kind of basement, where they were greeted by someone who introduced himself as Agent Dusk. She noticed that he also wore the earphones that Sylvia had brought from the lab.

Agent Dusk was a few inches shorter than her father, but he carried himself with the same upright grace. Very slight ginger roots showed beneath his dark-brown hair, and Anya guessed that he had to dye it. Not many people in Ostania had orange hair, and she wondered if they made all their agents with distinguishing features hide those parts of themselves.

Twilight and Dusk greeted each other with the barest of nods, and barely exchanged words, except that Dusk handed Twilight another pair of earphones. Twilight twisted the earphones into place, and a dark feeling roiled in her gut. She knew that WISE would want to keep some things confidential while she was there, but Anya couldn't help but wonder what she was walking into.

Together, they led Anya through a dizzying maze of corridors, until eventually Dusk opened the door to a small room, which was empty except for a couple of chairs, a desk, a radio, writing paper and a pen. Anya hoped that she wouldn't have to do some kind of written test, but then she saw something else: they were on the other side of a two way mirror, with a bare interrogation room fully visible.

It already had someone in it.

His entire left side was covered in bandages, and if it weren't for the thick band of bandages around his head, he would have been bald. He looked worse for wear. Haggard. Worse than Anya had ever seen him. A scraggly beard now grew on his face, and dark circles stood out against pale skin. He had a slight sheen of sweat on his head that reflected against the harsh glare of the room's lighting.

Anya's chest tightened, and her eyes flicked to Twilight, trying to convey her unease somehow, but she waited until Dusk had left the room, and went to the other side of the interrogation space until she said anything.

"Papa?" she whispered tentatively, hoping that there weren't any listening devices in the room. "Why is he here?"

She didn't say the other half of the question out loud, which was: I thought he was supposed to be dead?

The radio on the desk crackled to life. "Hi Anya. It's Sylvia. Thanks for coming in. You feeling okay?"

"Yup," Anya squeaked, even though her insides churned.

"Do you know who the man is in the interrogation room right now?" The Handler sounded expectant, which made her feel even more nauseous.

Anya folded her sweaty hands in her lap, and shuffled uncomfortably in her seat. "That man is Dr Parker," Anya swallowed. She wondered if Sylvia expected her to deduce the reason why they wanted to interrogate him, but Anya thought that much was obvious: They hadn't found the Director, and they were starting to panic.

A moment of silence, before the radio crackled again.

"The truth is, I was reluctant to recruit you for this task. You are not assigned to this mission, and you have no obligation to speak to this man given what he has put you through, but unfortunately we will not get anywhere without your help. As an apprentice spy, you must be willing to do what must be done. Are you ready?"

Anya nodded, then realised that Sylvia couldn't see her. "Yes."

"Then we'll begin," said Sylvia, and the radio clicked off.

Straight as an arrow, Dusk launched into the interrogation: "Tell us about the Director."

Dr Parker lifted the corner of his mouth in a wry smile. "You lost her didn't you?" he sneered, clearly hoping that he could barb his interrogator into a reaction, but Dusk showed no emotion on his face.

"Tell us about the Director," he repeated mechanically.

Belatedly, Anya remembered that she was there to do a job, not just to witness an interrogation, so she took a deep breath, focused her mind, and held the pen ready.

"You'll never find her," Dr Parker retorted in a mocking voice, and as Anya suspected, his thoughts said a lot more than his voice did. Hah! This fool doesn't even know the first thing of what to look for. That woman is a visionary. A genius. She's an expert at hiding in plain sight.

Dusk was nonplussed, as ever. He reached into his dark-coloured blazer, and pulled out a selection of photographs.

"We have stills from the CCTV images of the traffic stops surrounding the facility, documenting your frequent trips in the area. I assume that she is the shadowed figure in the back seat. What is your relationship with the Director?"

Anya couldn't see the photos that Dusk had pulled, but she saw the muscles tense in Dr Parker's neck, and the way that he pulled his lips into a snarl. "Purely professional," he answered, and in that moment something stuck out to her.

It was interesting that he would actually choose to give an answer to that question, instead of just blatantly ignoring it, or deflecting, like he usually did. As she suspected, his mind revealed a different story: she saw images of the Director surrounded by a sort of glow, and Anya wanted to be sick, but not wanting to appear weak, she scribbled her findings on the paper in front of her.

She wondered what part of this was meant to be a test. They all knew that she would be able to read his mind and procure information from it no matter what, so was that really all there was to it?

Unless…

Were they trying to see how she would react to having to read Dr Parker's mind, specifically? They knew that he was one of the scientists from the lab after all. Maybe they wanted to see if she could handle being faced with something from her past.

Anya braced herself, and kept going.

Dusk's posture was rigid in his seat. Elegant and businesslike, even as he pulled yet more photographs from the inside pocket of his jacket, showing them to Dr Parker and asking questions about them one by one.

"Are you familiar with the man in the photograph?"

Despite his feigned disinterest, Dr Parker leaned forward with a spark in his eye.

"Not a clue," he said out loud, but his mind said something else clearly. The funding sources. The Investor. Anya wrote it down.

It continued on like this for three hours. Dusk asked question after question, usually backed up with photos or documents, and Anya hastily scribbled down anything that she could glean from the mind of Dr Parker. Even if Twilight and Dusk weren't wearing the thought-blocking headphones, Anya wouldn't have heard them, she was so focused on the prisoner in the interrogation room.

Dusk was relentless, and at some point, Anya struggled to catch up with Dusk's rapid-fire bulletin of question-and-answer vignettes, and her handwriting deteriorated to a point that even she would struggle to read it.

Twilight noticed this of course, and reached out to press the button for an intercom speaker that Anya didn't even realise was there. "Come in, Dusk," he said simply, and leaned back. Likely code for 'let's take a break'.

Anya sighed and put down her pen, relieved that she could rest her hand for a little while. In an instant, Dusk had entered the room.

"Something wrong?" he said, sharp and to the point.

Twilight indicated towards Anya, and he took the hint. Anya held out her pile of paper towards Dusk, ammunition for the next round of questions.

As Dusk flicked through the papers in front of him, his eyes widened in surprise. "You got all that in just this round?"

Anya creased her brow in a moment of confusion. She didn't recall anything particularly damning or insightful from the notes that she took, but if Dusk thought that any of it was important, or significant, then she must have passed the test, right?

Anya gulped and looked to Twilight for answers, but he didn't give her anything to go on.

Then, surprising Anya, Dusk swivelled sharply round to her and gave a curt bow with just his head. "I'm sorry Anya, but can you work with me for just another ten minutes?"

Anya nodded, and Dusk immediately reached to psress the button for the intercom.

"One final question," said Dusk into the mic. "How did the Director escape?"

Dr Parker grinned to himself and pride swelled in his chest. An image formed in his mind of the Director on horseback. Dr Parker looked far too pleased with himself, but she would wipe that stupid smug look off his face.

"She got away on horseback," Anya said out loud. "She was too fast for the agents to locate her, and she was able to cross terrain that would have been difficult for cars."

Anya closed her eyes, trying to see the picture clearer in her mind. Visual thoughts weren't always easy to understand, often blurred and shifting, but if she could get the important parts, if she could focus…

"It was a brown horse, with a pale splotch on his face, and a cream coloured tail." She didn't know that much about horses, but she hoped that something in the detail would be enough for them.

Dusk exchanged a glance with Twilight, and then in a rare display of emotion, he whistled under his breath. "Twilight, you should have brought her in years ago."

He flushed at that, but he didn't have time to reply before Dusk asked his final question: turning away from the two-way mirror showing Dr Parker, and addressing Anya instead.

"Did you ever meet the Investor?"

Was it out of curiosity? Was it part of the test? Anya shook her head honestly. She didn't even know about him until Sylvia came to her room, when she tried to give her information on the Director from what she had.

Twilight sighed, and a dark look crossed his face. "Show her the photo, Dusk."

Dusk reached into his blazer pocket and procured the small stack of photographs he had used in the interrogation room, and he shuffled through them quietly until he got to the one he wanted.

And when he brought out the photo, Anya's soul left her body.

That face was unmistakable. Those hollowed out eyes. The man who was frequently pictured in every Ostanian newspaper, whose pictures covered the walls of Twilight's private office.

"This is the man that you and Dr Parker identified as the Investor, who provided the funding for the facility," said Dusk quietly.

No.

No no no no no.

"It's not true," Anya choked out. "It can't be. Damian, he'll be-" she forced herself to breathe in. "He'll be devastated."

As much as she tried to steady her own voice, her legs wobbled and the world tilted dangerously to the side. "It's not true," she said again weakly, hoping that the more she said it, the more it would make the horrible truth disappear, but Twilight and Dusk exchanged a pitying look, and Anya had never felt more nauseous in her life.

Dusk made the mistake of taking Anya's silence as an invitation to explain further. "In the investigation, we found documents linking Donovan Desmond to several sub-organisations, all of which showed questionable financial activity. We needed a visual confirmation to confirm Desmond's role in the facility, but with this we can -"

"Did you know?" Anya whipped round to Twilight, her blood cold, her limbs shaking. "Did you know he was the Investor?"

He couldn't lie to her. "We had our suspicions-"

"Did you know that you were bringing me in today to help bring down Damian's father?"

His silence told her everything she needed to know, and she stepped back from him, as if he had struck a physical blow to her. A hollow ache pulsed through her chest, sending wave after wave of tremors throughout her whole body.

"I can't believe you used me like this."

"Anya," Twilight said her name gently, softly, like he was trying to stop an explosion, "this is what it means to be a spy. Sometimes we have to do things that we don't want to do."

It was as if he had seen through her entirely. All this time when she had asked him to leave Damian alone, to drop Plan B, all the efforts she tried to make to keep her Damian safe - all of it meant nothing in the face of Operation Strix. Plan B didn't matter at all, because they had Anya.

Hot tears rolled down her cheeks.

"You used me," she choked. "You knew this photo was of Donovan Desmond, of Damian's father, you knew he could have been the Investor, and you used me?"

The radio crackled to life, cracking the tension in the room, and jolting Anya to her surroundings. "It was my directive," Sylvia's voice came through the radio once again. "There is no doubt that you have natural talent in combat, especially with your parents' teachings, and with your ability this makes you a huge asset to intelligence - but there is one significant risk that we had to take into consideration."

Anya blinked slowly, and understanding sank into her. She drowned in the terrible knowledge that the purpose of her visit wasn't just to read Dr Parker's mind, help out in the interrogation, provide information - she thought all of that was the test, but she was wrong.

This is the real test.

Not how she could offer her power to WISE, or how much information she could glean from the mind of a captive prisoner, nevermind one who had hurt her in the past. Her ability to do that was already a given, but the real question was: could she set aside her personal feelings for the mission?

Sylvia's next sentence confirmed what she had feared, and figured out too late.

"Your emotional connection to Damian Desmond could put the entire operation at risk."

Her throat was raw from the effort it took to breathe. How could this happen? She wanted to be a spy so that she could keep her family together, so that Twilight could continue to be her father, so that she could continue to protect Damian from the shadows, from the eventual hurt he was going to feel, but Anya hadn't considered that she would be expected to directly participate in the downfall of Donovan Desmond. How could she face Damian after this? How could she ever look him in the eye again, knowing that she was one of the people who helped to take down his father?

"Damian," Anya choked through her tears. "It's always Damian." She resented them for making his name feel bitter on her tongue.

"I know you two are close…" said Twilight, but the fact that he couldn't look her in the eyes told her everything. He was ashamed, and he had every reason to be.

She wasn't going to go easy on him.

Anya's shoulders shook with the effort of holding back her sobs. "He did what you wanted," she said through gritted teeth, half-laughing at the irony of it all. A manic laugh escaped her, and when she snapped her head up to look at her father, he was startled to see her tears. "He invited me to go to the Imperial Ball with him," her voice trembled at the admission. "He invited me, just like you wanted him to."

A lonely tear dripped down.

"And I said yes."

Twilight softened his gaze on her. Even though he had a job to do, a mission to complete, he was still Anya's father, and her tears gave him no joy. Her despair fractured his heart.

"Are you happy now?" she croaked, driving her words in like a dagger. "I succeeded in Plan B even without meaning to, even without trying, but there's no point! His father isn't going to be there, because Donovan Desmond is a monster who doesn't care about his son, he doesn't care about Damian at all! He never has!"

Twilight said nothing.

"Are you happy now?" tears wrecked through her. "We're close and I…"

I love him.

I don't want to hurt him.

I love him.

I can't do this.

I love him so much.

She sucked in a deep shuddering breath, gathering more air to push the tirade of pain onto her father.

Twilight braced himself for her outburst, but it never came.

"Please can I tell him?" she said instead, her voice hoarse and broken. "You have what you need to make an arrest. Damian deserves to know…"

"Actually," Dusk interrupted gently. "We don't yet have everything we need to make any arrests."

Cold flooded through her. "What?"

"We know that he is linked to certain companies," Twilight said, and pushed a list of names across to Anya, "all under the umbrella of a company that he controls, but we have yet to make a link from them directly to Project Apple. We need solid proof that he provided the funding."

Anya held the list with shaking hands, trying to absorb the information on it. "But Dr Parker, he told us…"

"We have a visual confirmation now, but that's all. It's not concrete enough to forward to the appropriate authorities. We still need more "

Tears stung Anya's eyes, and the awful realisation crushed her: she was utterly powerless to change the course of Operation Strix. There was nothing that could be done. Who was she, to think that she could conveniently forget about the mission just enough that she could dare to be happy? It was selfish of her.

Donovan Desmond was always the target of Operation Strix, and through the mission Damian Desmond was always the target of Plan B. Donovan Desmond was the Investor, the man who funded the project that tortured her and experimented on her as a child, and Damian Desmond was her boyfriend, and the love of her life.

Donovan Desmond, the man who ruined her life.

Damian Desmond, the boy who saved it.

Anya gritted her teeth. Her entire heart conflicted with her entire brain, and it became harder and harder to reconcile the war that raged within her, to balance the scales that could so easily tip her over the edge and into hopelessness. How much did Twilight know of her inner turmoil? Did he think that her finding out about Donovan Desmond would make her love Damian any less? Did he think that her feelings for Damian would hold her back from giving herself to the mission?

The worst thing was, Anya had been privy to the mind of a spy for twelve years. She understood why the Handler arranged this as her 'test', she understood why Twilight would agree to make her take part. They had a mission to complete, a country to save - but it didn't make her feel any better, and it did nothing to lessen the pain.

"I'm going to sleep at Becky's tonight," Anya announced quietly, and forced herself to remain calm against all odds. Getting even angrier at her father wouldn't change anything.

It wouldn't change the fact that she had failed the test, failed him, failed Damian, failed at everything.

She focused her mind, and looked up at her father, pleading at him with her eyes.

Can I tell Damian about his father? Please can I tell him what's going to happen?

Twilight stepped back in surprise. Even though Anya had told him before about her changing powers, experiencing it was still a bit of a shock.

The muscle in his jaw tensed, and Loid gave her a hard look that no doubt said: 'Absolutely not'.

She knew he would refuse, but it didn't hurt any less. Despair dragged at her eyes, her shoulders, her chest, rooted her to the spot. Thick as tar it drenched her, suffocated her, until finally, it brought her to her knees.

Damian could barely move.

By some miracle, after Yor Forger's insane self-defence lesson, he did manage to fit a bit more studying into his day, but every part of him ached and all he wanted to do was to sleep for a thousand years. If he had the luxury, he would just lie in bed and wait for the pain to pass - but Imperial Scholar Damian Desmond had a reputation to maintain, so he brought his books over to his bed and did what he could while making a concerted effort to be horizontal.

Hours passed like that, and when dinnertime came, he waved Emile and Ewen away to go without him, even though his stomach growled loudly - but the protests of his muscles were louder. Always good friends, they left with promises of bringing something back for him.

Outside, rain lashed at the window, and even though the sun had already set, the combination of darkness and rain was somewhat comforting to Damian. A bookworm at heart, he loved the combination of storms and darkness, paired with being warm inside with a good book. If only he didn't have to study.

A tree knocked against his window, once, twice, and Damian frowned from the sound of its harshness on the glass panel. If the wind was much stronger, the branch could break through the glass.

Damian frowned as something else came to him. He didn't remember there being a tree in front of his window.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

He could just be hearing things. Or maybe he had a terrible memory and there had been a tree there the whole time, he just didn't notice it. Either way, something was trying to get his attention.

With an exaggerated huff, Damian rolled out of his bed and planted his feet on the floor, leaning against the mattress for support, and shuffled towards his window, his heart thunderous in his chest, anxious at what he might find.

The tremor in his hand was just from how hard he trained that day, that's all, and he pushed away the curtain to see -

A pale face stared at him through the window, illuminated against the darkness of the sky by the light of his room, and Damian's heart leapt in his throat.

He didn't even need to think. Damian swiped at the latch automatically, and Anya tumbled from his window and landed on his floor on all fours. Raindrops tumbled from her and puddled on the carpet.

"You nearly gave me a heart attack!" he hissed at her, trying to keep his volume down. Some of the rain shoved its way through the opening, spattering on Damian's arm and windowsill, and he shoved the latch shut before he whirled to face her. "You cannot be here! Do you have any idea how much trouble we'll be in if you-"

He stopped. Stared at her.

"If you…"

The words fell weakly by the wayside as he took in the sight of her. Soaking wet hair plastered against her neck and shoulders, skin so pale he could see the faint blue of her veins, red-rimmed eyes betraying the fact that she had obviously been crying. Never mind that her dress clung to her curves in ways he tried not to think about, never mind that her huge green eyes looked up at him like she couldn't look away.

Suddenly it didn't matter that she had snuck into his dorm room, that they could both get into huge trouble if she was found. It didn't matter at all.

"N-nice to s-see you t-too, Sy-on…" she smiled weakly, but her breath came in shallow gasps, each word broken by her shivering body.

The red eyes. Her trembling lips and hands. Her ever-present smile crumpling before him, with not even the strength to push herself up from the floor.

"Anya, what happened?" he breathed, and fell to his knees, his mind spinning at the speed of light from wondering what had got her so worked up, why did she look so desperate, why did she climb up his window in the middle of a storm just to sneak into his room and why was she crying?

Who did he have to be angry at? Who did this to her? What did they do to her? What caused her to become so overwhelmed that she would climb up the walls to find comfort from him, of all people?

Tears mixed with the raindrops on her face, and soaked through her hair, her clothes, her eyelashes.

"Anya," Damian growled, and he forced himself to keep his anger to a simmer, but the rage leaked into his voice.

"What. Happened?"

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I'm sorry! I didn't want to end it there, but the chapter is 2x too long already 😭 Over 5k words wtfff

Also GUYS. This chapter was so hard to write. This story is complex as hell and at times I think I've bitten off more than I can chew, but damn it is so much fun and it is a wild ride. ANYWAY - next chapter will definitely be a banana smoothie blend of fluff and angst, and it is *kind of* written but I still need to finalise a lot of it, so sorry if i am late next week

UPDATE ANNOUNCEMENT: I have now run low on my chapter cache, so unfortunately will only be able to update once a week now on Fridays!