Sorry I'm late! Thank you all for your patience 💕 There was just something about this chapter that was really difficult to tie together, so I wanted to spend a bit more time smoothing out the kinks instead of giving you guys a half-baked chapter.

Yuri's back, and so is the drama lol. Enjoy! x

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The door shut behind Anya, and the resounding click resonated in the suddenly-stuffy air of the Forger apartment.

No-one knew who should speak first.

Yor stared at the empty space where her daughter had been just a second ago, before she vanished, following Damian Desmond into the stairwell after their horrendous family explosion. Her assassin's instincts kicked into gear, and Yor took a quick glance around the remaining figures, assessing for immediate risk.

Luckily, Yuri had been dumbstruck since the moment his gun went off, as if he had just seen a ghost, while Adrian wrung his own hands behind Yuri's back, uncomfortable and afraid, and clearly wondering the same thing as all of them.

What now?

"What the fuck just happened?" Yuri gasped, and crumbled onto his hands and knees. "Did we just get saved by a kid?"

"He's legally an adult," Yor said stoically, "but yes. We owe him a great debt right now."

"Assuming he keeps everything to himself," Yuri growled, and thumped his fist on the floorboards. "That little brat. I should have never let him leave the building, knowing that my sister is a-" And then Yuri remembered everything that had happened in the last twenty minutes, and he paled all over again. "Oh my god."

He raised his eyes to his sister, pleading, and got to his feet once again. "It's true isn't it? Please tell me it's not true."

Yor opened her mouth, about to confirm it for him, when a thin voice piped up instead.

"It's true," said Adrian, surprising them both. "What?" Adrian shrugged at Yuri's genuinely surprised expression. "Didn't you want me to tell you when a person was lying?"

Yuri reddened completely and slapped his palm to his forehead. Did this boy not understand social cues at all? "Oh yeah, sure, just broadcast that, why don't you!"

Yor shook her head in disappointment. "Oh, Yuri. Was this another one of your ploys to get dirt on my husband?"

"Well it would have worked if the chihuahua girl didn't interrupt me," Yuri pouted.

"You gave yourself away, Yuri. Don't blame Anya for your mistake!"

"Yes, yes, fine!" Yuri held up his hands in mock-surrender. "But dont we need to run after the kid? We don't know what that Desmond kid is going to do to my lovely sister now that he knows the truth about her."

"We're going to let Anya handle it," Yor decided firmly, knowing in her blood that it was the right decision. "She knows him better than any of us, and whatever would convince him would be best coming from her."

Yor took a deep breath and turned to her husband - her reliable, dependable husband, who almost always had a strategy for a way out - only to be met with the most shocked expression that she had ever seen on his face. He stared blankly at nothing in particular, his mouth hanging open in frozen shock.

She waved a hand in front of him to try to snap him out of it.

"Dear?"

Finally, Loid swivelled his gaze to her, and with a voice like sandpaper said: "He drank my whisky."

Yor stopped in her tracks. "What?" she said, hoping that she had misheard, but after a moment she threw her hands into the air. "Oh for crying out loud! Is that the bit that shocked you? After everything we've already heard?"

And then Yor's eyes widened as she realised something else. "Did you know that Yuri was in the SSS?"

"Er-" said Loid, and she had seen his 'calculating an excuse' face enough times that she knew her intuition was right.

"I can't believe this!" she cried out. "You knew the whole time, and you never told me?"

It was very rare that Loid had no idea what to say, and that was one such moment, especially as he knew that her rage was only just starting to rise.

"Well talk about this later," she huffed. "As for you," Yor whirled to face her surprised brother, and extended her leg in a full kick upwards, expertly kicking the gun out of Yuri's hands, and it arced through the air before landing artfully in her hand. "I'll keep a hold of that," she said seriously, her voice low and reminiscent of impending doom. "Since we wouldn't want it to go off again, would we?"

Yuri recognised the scary look on his sister's face, and he shook his head quickly in a hurry to agree with her. His mind suddenly flashed to when he was a child - not that Yuri was ever the target of her rage, but there was a reason that school bullies left him alone, and ran away whenever his sister appeared like an apparition.

"I think we all agree that we need to talk about what just happened," said Loid carefully. He didn't want to accidentally set off either of the Briar siblings, or potentially start another argument.

"I agree," Yuri snarled, and he raised his fist, about to shake it in Loid's face when Yor interrupted him.

"I also agree, but Yuri, you are not allowed to overreact anymore!" Yor burst out, much to no-one's surprise, except for her brother. "Damian wouldn't have had to protect us if you had just controlled yourself, so for all our sakes you need to stay calm!"

Yuri humphed, embarrassed from being called out by his sister, and said nothing, while Yor grabbed an ice pack from the freezer, and handed it to Adrian.

"Here," said Yor gently. "You just hold on to that for a while."

Adrian nodded, and pressed it tenderly against this swelling cheek. Anya's punches hurt, and he was keen not to repeat the experience if he could.

"Oh, and one more thing," added Yor, genuinely puzzled. "What are you doing with Adrian?"

At that moment, Loid finally regarded the teenager in the room. With no gun barrel pointed at his face, and no immediate disaster on the way, he could finally direct his attention to the mysterious stranger who had entered his home. He looked familiar. Those ice blue, drooping eyes… Even the shade of blond looked familiar, and if he imagined that his hair was longer -

It took less than a second for Loid to make the connection. "So you must be Adrian Kuning," he said, remembering the additional file that Sylvia added to the investigation only a week ago. "Test Subject 009, I presume?"

"How do you guys know each other?" Yuri cried out, nearly tearing his own hair out. "This wasn't supposed to happen!"

"Just answer the question!" Yor groaned. "Are you taking advantage of him?"

"What! No-"

"Mr Briar took me in after the lab was destroyed," Adrian piped up, and Yuri did a double take, like he had forgotten he was there and able to speak for himself.

Yor softened. She couldn't imagine what it must have been like for Adrian to lose his home so suddenly, even if it was a place like that, and although Yor had tried to raise Yuri to be kind to others, she wasn't actually sure if the lessons took. Yuri had always been intense, and very passionate about his work, and twice Yor had halfheartedly tried to set him up with someone in a romantic sense, but both attempts had ended explosively, and Yor had wondered if her brother would ever settle down and be happy. But if Yuri was happy, then what right did she have to interfere?

So, the fact that Yuri had apparently adopted a child was a huge surprise, but it warmed her heart that after all her teachings, he had finally learned to be charitable -

"Also, he's my boss."

- or not.

"Are you joking?!" Yor gasped. "Yuri, he's a child! He's-"

And then she stopped and gaped at Adrian. "Actually, how old are you?"

"Er," said Adrian nervously, sweating under the discerning stares of the three adults in the room. "I'm sixteen…"

"Still not old enough to get mixed up whatever he's plotting," Loid muttered under his breath, but unfortunately, an assassin's hearing was second-to-none.

"You're one to talk!" she seethed. "You have no right to judge Yuri when you're the one getting Anya mixed up in your-"

She was about to say 'spy business', but Yor just managed to stop herself from finishing the sentence before she accidentally revealed Loid's identity to Yuri: the one secret that had not yet been blown in the altercation, the only one left to protect.

And then she remembered the telepath in the room.

"Shit," Yor muttered under her breath. Was it salvageable? Was she going to be able to save the situation, like Damian did?

Yor turned to Adrian with a smile frozen on her face, and in a very small voice she said: "You didn't hear that, right?"

Time seemed to freeze for a moment: Yor, momentarily panicked from what she had accidentally revealed, Loid concerned for the inner thoughts of his wife's mind and what she could have given away, and Yuri feeling a touch of glee that Adrian would finally have something to report back to him, after he had been suspicious of his sister's husband for over twelve years.

Adrian blinked, confused by her apparent distress.

"What, that Dr Forger is Twilight?" said Adrian, unconcerned, and jolted when there was a slam of a fist on the table.

"I FUCKING KNEW IT!"

Yuri's lips split into a manic smile, and he pointed an accusing finger at Loid, who was torn between holding his ground and backing away slowly.

"I KNEW YOU WERE A SPY! I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!" Yuri reached into his pocket, but his face fell when he realised that Yor had taken his gun off of him, so he did the next best thing.

He charged.

"Yuri, stop!" Yor screamed, but it was too late.

"YOU CAPITALIST BOOT-LICKING BASTAAAARD!" Yuri roared as if possessed by a bear, and launched himself at Loid with such force that they both toppled to the ground.

Yor could barely see what was going on, as suddenly fists flew in every direction, until they had each other by the throat, wheezing and spluttering, but neither made any inclination to loosen their hold on the other.

Yuri's skin was starting to turn dangerously purple but it did nothing to make him let go, and if anything, it only made him more determined to finish off his oldest enemy.

"GRRRK!" he spluttered, trying to use the last of his oxygen to send a well-delivered insult. "YURR GGGRRK HURRG!"

That is, until Yor kicked him in the face, and sent his body spinning through the air.

"GET OFF MY HUSBAND!"

CRASH!

Yuri broke through the dinner table and landed among the splintered remains of the dining chairs, blood dripping down his face and staining his shirt.

"Urrrghh," he groaned and his head lolled to the side as he started coughing.

Yor quickly turned her attention to her husband.

"Loid?" she patted his cheek. "Loid? Can you hear me?"

"Urrrghh," Loid's groan joined Yuri's like a wounded, existential harmony, and he, too, started coughing.

Yor sagged in relief. That was promising. At least they were both breathing.

Yor slowly helped Loid up to a sitting position, and while she hauled him up, Yor indicated for Adrian to do the same thing for Yuri. Soon enough, they had managed to haul both men to the opposite ends of the sofa, while Yor stood back, and surveyed the damage.

Yor cringed inwardly at the broken dining table and chairs. In all of the panic, Yor had forgotten to hold back her full strength, and she had accidentally flung Yuri like a bowling ball. The table had split in half, and the legs of the chairs had snapped, crushing under the weight of Yuri's flying body. They would definitely have to get new furniture.

Loid coughed and massaged his neck, all the while trying to hold his composure - unlike Yuri, who glared at Loid with a death stare, even though a wheeze like a whistle escaped him along with every breath. (Not only did the whistling noise make him sound like a tea kettle, but it made him look significantly less threatening.)

Yor cleared her throat, crossed her arms, and took a commanding stance in front of them both, hands on her hips.

"Okay, here's how it's going to go," Yor seethed, barely able to suppress her anger. She kept her voice low and even, but that was enough to gain (and keep) everyone's attention. Even though Loid and Yuri had been strangling each other only minutes ago, they both managed to gulp at the same time.

Yor glared first at her husband. "You are going to stop judging Yuri for his actions. I think we can both agree that there's more going on here that we have yet to learn, and it really is very hypocritical of you."

Then she turned to Yuri, and while she had been merely annoyed at Loid, the word 'annoyed' wasn't enough to even begin to cover how she felt about Yuri's actions.

"And you!" she roared. "You are going to refrain from attacking my husband, and anyone else in this room! You are going to let people speak, and you are going to be civil while you remain under my roof. Do I make myself clear?"

Yuri hmphed and grumbled under his breath something that sounded a lot like "arsehole husband" and "traitorous bastard".

"I said: Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes," Yuri agreed begrudgingly, although he couldn't resist firing a red-eyed scowl at Loid for good measure.

He jolted when Yor took a threatening step forward, fist raised to strike.

"Yes, ma'am," said Yuri through his teeth.

"Good," breathed Yor. Even though her heart hammered in her chest, she tried to use her breath to keep herself calm. In and out, until finally, the dust settled in the Forger apartment.

In her twelve years of marriage to Loid - 'real' marriage or not - there was always a certain level of animosity between her husband and her brother. At first she had chalked it up to Yuri being protective in a brotherly way, but as the years went on she came to understand that not only did Yuri hate Loid with a passion, but the reverse was also true. Loid just did a better job at hiding it.

(At least she now knew why they seemed to be at each other's throats.)

So, it was part of the normal family routine to expect a bit of abrasiveness, even a bit of confrontation between the two, but she had never expected that Yuri and Loid would have a physical altercation in her own home.

At least Loid hadn't started it, although he did make some thinly-veiled antagonistic comments to his brother-in-law - but Yuri wasn't a child anymore. In her eyes, he had no excuse.

After a final deep breath, Yor pulled back her shoulders, and addressed the room once more.

"Now that that's over," she began. "I believe we have more important things to talk about."

"More important than your husband being a Westalian spy?" Yuri spat.

"That's old news," said Yor coolly. She couldn't let Yuri derail the conversation again.

"Old news-!" Yuri spluttered. "Did you… don't tell me you-"

"Yes, I knew," said Yor with conviction. "Just like I know that he's a good man doing a good thing, and you are exploiting a survivor of human experimentation, and you just tried to kill my husband - twice! So maybe take a look at yourself before you criticise someone else!"

Yuri grumbled once again, but said nothing, and Yor's mind whirred while she tried to think of what to say, but it was Adrian that spoke up next.

"Mrs Forger is right. We have more important things to talk about."

"What are you…?" Yuri turned to Adrian, and then his eyes widened, as if he knew what Adrian was about to do. "Don't you dare!"

He leapt from the sofa, his hand outstretched and reached to cover Adrian's mouth, but Adrian grabbed his wrist and grappled with Yuri's attack.

"They can help us!" he gasped, pushing against Yuri with all the strength that he had (which wasn't much). "They care about taking down the lab as much as we do!"

Not a moment later, Loid inserted himself in the scrum and separated them. He kept his own hand on Adrian's shoulder while Yor hauled Yuri away and plonked him back on the sofa, her face filled with disappointment.

"What's this about taking down the lab?" said Loid, while Yuri growled in the background.

Loid tried again, doing his best to ignore his unpredictable brother-in-law. "As far as I'm aware, the scientists were all apprehended."

"But the research still exists! It's being held at the SSS HQ!"

"Adrian! What are you doing?! " Yuri hissed, a hair's breadth away from exploding completely. "You can't just give away classified information!"

Loid leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. "Oh no, keep going."

"You're not helping, Loid!" Yor reprimanded her husband, but then she turned to Adrian sweetly. "But yes, please keep going."

"Adrian, if you dare say another word-" Yuri growled threateningly, but Adrian bravely ignored his boss and kept going.

"They're going to rebuild the lab!"

"What?!" Yor and Loid gasped at the same time and exchanged a glance, and the same thought passed between them: If the lab was going to be rebuilt, then how long would Anya be safe? How much time did they have before the threat would become real again?

"Adrian, I'm warning you-" Yuri hissed, but Adrian had had enough.

"We're all on the same side here!" Adrian exploded. "If you would just listen to me-!"

"THAT'S ENOUGH!" Yuri grabbed Adrian by the shirt, much in the same way that Yor had done only a few months ago, but Adrian was determined to make his voice heard.

"I'LL QUIT!" he yelled. "I'LL RESIGN AS YOUR ASSISTANT AND I'LL NEVER HELP YOU AGAIN!"

And out of everything, that was what gave Yuri pause, but he soon smoothed over his shocked expression back into his natural snarl.

"YOU WON'T QUIT! I'LL FIRE YOU!"

"OH YEAH? AND THEN WHAT? ARE YOU GONNA STOP THEM ON YOUR OWN?" Adrian bellowed, but the anger quickly leaked out of his voice, and in its wake was the relentless desperation that he had been suppressing for far too long.

"You don't understand what's at stake!" Adrian cried out, and to his absolute mortification, his eyes started to sting with threatening tears, and he had to blink hard to keep them at bay. "You - you don't - don't know what it's like in there!"

And then suddenly Adrian's breath was coming hard and fast, and his vision became horribly blurry.

"I can't go back," he wheezed, and his breath scraped through his throat. "I can't, I can't, I can't-"

Yuri immediately dropped his grip on Adrian's collar and took a defensive step back. "Whoa, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like-"

But Adrian had stopped hearing him over the sound of his own hyperventilating breaths, and the pounding heartbeat in his ears. "I can't go back, I can't, I can't do it, I can't go back-"

Yuri glanced around desperately, unsure how to comfort the crying boy, when he met Yor's eyes. She glanced meaningfully at Adrian, then back at him, and made a sort of circle with her arms, miming a patting motion.

"Oh, right," Yuri flushed, and then with an embarrassed cough, he tentatively put his arms around Adrian's shaking shoulders, and gave him an awkward pat. "Uh, there, there."

His gaze flicked back to Yor questioningly. Did I do it right?

Yor rewarded him with a thumbs-up, and then made a keep going gesture with her hand.

Yuri held back from groaning, and instead cleared his throat, conscious that both his sister and her traitor husband watched his every move very quietly.

"You're not going to go back," said Yuri gruffly. "I'll - er - make sure of it."

Adrian drew in a shuddering breath.

"You p-promise?"

"Yes, yes, fine," Yuri sighed. "I promise."

He had said it casually, almost unthinkingly, but unknown to Yor and Twilight, Adrian knew that Yuri's promise ran deeper than that. He had saved Adrian from the streets, and gave him a reason to use his power for good, for a purpose that he knew was important and useful to the world.

The entire time that Yuri had Adrian, he had been working towards the goal of making sure that the facility would never be rebuilt. It was an understanding that Yuri and Adrian shared, even without having to say the words aloud, and it drove them through their waking days. They had fallen into an easy partnership, where Adrian knew that he could trust Yuri's word and his intentions, and Yuri understood that Adrian was more than useful beyond his power and his lack of knowledge about the world.

Adrian liked to work, and he liked having Yuri as his mentor and his guardian, and with time, Yuri grew to learn that working with someone else could have some merit after all, even if that someone was many years his junior. And in many ways, Yuri rather liked having someone to mentor, having someone to teach and give his accumulated wisdom and knowledge to.

(Was this what people referred to as parenting? He wasn't sure, but he didn't hate it.)

And while they didn't have an emotional connection as such, like a parent and a child would, seeing Adrian so visibly upset was… unpleasant. Yuri hadn't quite realised how much Adrian had held back his true fear for the last few months, but it made sense in hindsight. Adrian's anxiety, and his eagerness to get tasks done - of course his work ethic was due to the fear of being forced to return to the lab.

In any case, Adrian was now Yuri's responsibility, and he always took his responsibilities seriously.

After some time, Adrian cleared his throat, and made to speak again. And this time, Yuri let him.

"The SSS have all the information on all the other Subjects. They know exactly who they are, and where to find them, the higher ups have contacts with the shadow board members-"

Loid pricked up.

"-and they have all the papers describing the research and the methods and the results, even step-by-step instructions!"

"So if they wanted to, they could just start it up tomorrow?" wondered Loid.

"Not tomorrow, but they're working on it right now."

"But that's awful!" cried Yor. "They can't just do that!"

"So we don't have much time," Twilight surmised. "They will need a new base of operations, a new set of staff, and replacement equipment, but they have the instructions for a new lab for human experimentation almost oven-ready."

"It's not just about shutting it down this time," said Adrian, and he forced himself to breathe, even though his voice wobbled dangerously. He clenched his shaking fists by his sides. "We need to destroy everything. Make it so that no-one can use it ever again."

"We need to make it like it never existed," added Yor, and her eyes darkened. "I won't just destroy them. I'll annihilate them."

All turned to Yuri, expecting him to say something, or at least express his opinion too, but he looked taken aback by their sudden attention.

"What?" he gasped. "You can't seriously expect me to collaborate with a Westalian spy!"

"I'm not happy with it, either," said Twilight stoically, "but it might be the only way."

"Exactly! We can take down the lab for good if we work together!" Adrian exclaimed.

"Are you insane?!" Yuri scoffed. "Me? Work with him? I'd rather dive into a volcano!"

"Be my guest - hurk!" Loid muttered, and then wheezed when Yor elbowed him in the ribs.

She stepped in front of Loid, trying to appeal to her younger brother with open arms.

"Yuri, please," Yor begged him. "Adrian's right. There's so much at stake here, and not just for him. We have to think about Anya's safety, as well as the other children from the lab, and any other child that they could target as new Subjects." She raised her gaze to her brother's, imploring him to do the right thing. "Don't you want to make sure that this tragedy never happens again? That Adrian and Anya are protected?"

Yuri hmphed. "I still don't like this."

Twilight barely held back from rolling his eyes. "I'm sure we could reschedule our dispute."

Yuri wanted nothing more than to just tear into that man and rip him to shreds. After twelve years, he was finally face-to-face with the elusive Twilight - but not only was he Yor's husband, he was also Anya's father. If he actually killed Twilight, Yor would never forgive him. Plus, she was right - if they failed to prevent another lab from being built, then there would be catastrophic consequences for the children that they were trying to protect.

He didn't want to do it, but he was afraid that he had to put his own feelings aside for the bigger picture.

And for the first time, Yuri wondered if that was what it meant to be responsible for a child. Putting one's feelings aside, and trying to think of the bigger picture. How many times did Yor have to do something that she didn't want to, just to make sure that she could keep him safe? That she could keep them both fed, clothed, and with a roof over their head?

And now she was doing it all over again for Anya. She had known for a long time what Yuri was only starting to figure out.

And then something else came to Yuri: he didn't have to finish Twilight off now. He could bide his time, waiting until the right moment to strike. Until then, he would agree to this farce of an alliance. At least until they eliminated the facility and everyone that was invested in its' success, once and for all.

Yuri growled again, baring his teeth at his brother-in-law. "Mark my words, Twilight. If you make one wrong move against Adrian or my sister, I will not hesitate to have you executed."

"I don't doubt it, " said Twilight, and although it pained him to do so, he held his hand out to Yuri.

Yuri's entire face flamed red with barely-suppressed anger, and he felt as though he could have blown steam from his nostrils from how incensed he was, but his sister's warning rang through his head.

You are not allowed to overreact anymore!

For all our sakes you need to stay calm!

Sparks flew from his eyes in every direction as he forced himself to hold still, except for his outstretched hand grinding through the air, like a knife being dragged along a whetstone. It felt very much wrong, like it went against his very identity.

And finally, Yuri's palm met Twilight's in the most reluctant and painful handshake in the history of the universe. Yuri honestly thought that he would vomit, or boil alive from rage, and he gripped Twilight's hand with such spitting animosity that his nails scraped against skin.

They shook once, and then Yuri dropped Twilight's hand like it had burned him.

He breathed in, trying to calm himself. And then he breathed again, repeating the action until the nausea had subsided enough for him to speak.

"Don't make me regret this," he hissed through gritted teeth, his entire body vibrating from adrenaline as he regarded his oldest enemy - turned loathsome (yet temporary, and definitely forced) ally.

Yuri closed his eyes, and swallowed back the bile rising in his throat.

He hoped that he wouldn't be hanged for treason.

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Writing this was... interesting 😅 I think I'm beginning to like Yuri. I thought I would find him really annoying but once I toned down the sister complex, I actually think he's pretty fun to write.

Next update on Saturday!