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Entry tags:
fic: An Innocent
Title: An Innocent
Series: Team Fortress 2
Character/pairing: Spy, young!Miss Pauling, Engineer
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 2483
Author's note: according to Old Wounds, Miss Pauling says she's "worked for the Administrator for her entire life." Xerox goes back to the '40s
Follows Playing House. Precedes Last Call, Trace and The Ghost Family.
1951.
For Sarah.
He'd taken on an employer which usually kept him in the states, even as he told himself to drift as far away as he could. The only place he ended up was the west coast. No further. A boisterous shop owner, and an organization that dipped darker than usually even he would touch--it paid the bills. After the war, things had settled down. And he could no longer pretend that he was doing it for the greater good, as it had been with The Resistance, the place where he'd become a nameless ghost.
There were a few other mercenaries there, though he kept to himself. The bases were falling apart at every corner, complete entropy in motion, and the employer seemed to keep them close more to glean more blackmailing opportunity and prevent leaks of information more than anything else. However, he was awaiting a message at the moment, so this bullet-hole ridden room of crush beer cans, sand and creaking floors was where he stayed.
He didn't look up from his magazine as the door opened. He had read the same page fifty times, and the words never came close. The advertisment's model wore blue, her dark beehive like a shadow of a memory. The angles weren't right. She was too tall, not curvy enough, but that didn't stop the memories. He had seen Colleen in a thousand other women, half who looked nothing like her. The scent of Evening in Paris, a certain shade of dress and he'd have shifted five years ago, to a place where he tasted happiness for that fleeting moment.
Before him, someone cleared their throat and the dreams disappeared like mist.
"Mister Spy, I have a delivery for you."
Her hair was tied back, which made her look almost severe, despite the fact that she couldn't have been more than five. There was no trace of childishness in her clean purple dress, absent of frills or stains. She held no toys, only a clipboard tight to her chest.
What on earth could a child be doing in a place like this? Had Saxton Hale had himself a lovechild and had to raise her?
He closed the magazine, set it aside and bent to her level.
"Are you lost?" Spy said.
"I belong here. I work for the Administrator," she said.
Hiring children now? He wouldn't put it past his employer. Though, given that he'd been face to face with the Voice before, he saw the similarities. He'd never thought her for the motherly type, but accidents happened.
There was no innocence or wonder in her green eyes, only suspicion. She should've been playing tag and jump rope, not hiding a weapon under her skirts.
She reached into her little shoulder bag and pulled out something he couldn't quite see.
"I was told to give you this, mister Spy."
He took the manila envelope and opened up for his next assault. Here, at least, it was like clockwork.. They would ask for someone killed, some bit of data stolen, or someone impersonated. It was quite predictable--another killing. He scanned his eyes across the details, and put it to memory. Spy pulled out the lighter from his pocket and set the evidence aflame.
Her green eyes were wary. Her hand hovered about that bag. It must contain something else, some kind of weapon, he thought.
She needed to learn to have a better poker face. Her draw was far too obvious.
Coin tricks had always amused Liam. He'd twice taken the guise of a clown simply to have an excuse to bring some sort of magic and see his son's smile just once more. The memory caused a pang, like arrhythmia, in his chest. He couldn't do it as himself, but he was well versed in the art of masks. He'd been a thousand unknown faces in Liam's life, but never a father.
He leaned forward, and the wariness in her eyes increased. But she didn't fire as he reached out towards her ear, and then pulled back to show her something shiny.
"Look, a coin," he said. He flipped it into the air and caught it. "Your hair must be very valuable to have pennies in it."
For just a moment, he saw a hint of innocence and wonder in her face. She blinked as it disappeared, and that suspicion came again. "Where did it go?"
"Ahh, but a magician never reveals his secrets."
He pulled out a quarter from a pouch hidden in his sleeve, right next to the cyanide pills. "Do you have a bank back there?"
He handed her the coin, and she looked down, flipping it over, as if checking for tricks. Even in her moment of innocence, there was cynicism. How much blood had already stained her hands?
He pulled open his case. Behind the divider Fake IDs, fake credit cards, a whole family tree of twisted identities. Next to his cigarettes was a wrinkled photo that he could never bring himself to throw away.
As he reached for another coin, she reached for his case. He'd kept a picture there, sewn in deep.
"Who is that?" she said. She came closer, like a startled deer. Or was it like a moth coming closer and closer to a flame? Me too, ma petite.
He closed the case. "Someone I almost knew."
His recklessness wasn't in going behind enemy lines or dodging fire, but in pictures kept in a hidden pocket. He'd had to take this one unaware. Her apron was gingham and stained, and Liam pulled on the strings, his gaze up. That day he'd been asking for more milk. His hair was mussed and everywhere from sleep. All these expensive devices his employers loaned him, and he used them to take pictures of his family unaware.
He'd left a twenty dollar bill underneath her pillowcase, and new groceries in the refrigerator. Too much and the hitmen might suspect he was back.
In the second, Liam's light tawny hair was obscured by the batting helmet. His wide smile was filled with gaps, with hints of white new teeth peeking through the gums. He smiled so much, that at times Spy could assuage himself. Even without a father, he'd lived on. He was happy, perhaps happier without him around.
He wouldn't remember French lullabies, or the year of Spy's foolishness. But he'd remember small windfalls. The new baseball which had simply fallen out of a tree in front of him. Bills and presents which always fell to his
He believed God loved him best. He was half right.
She drew back quickly and clutched the clipboard so tight, he was surprised it didn't break into pieces. For that moment she had stared in at that picture of a family like the Little Matchstick girl dreaming of warmth.
So then, ma petite, you are lonely, despite the facade.
"What's his name?" she said.
The professionality of a killer had fallen away. She almost looked like a girl again now, as opposed to the automaton the Administrator was shaping her into.
"Liam," Spy said.
"Liam," she said softly.
Spy started to close it. A door opened down the hall. The little girl glanced quickly back, as if something had startled her.
In her haste, she knocked the wallet clean out of his fingers. But she bent quickly and plucked it up from the ground.
"I have to get back to work--I have more envelopes to give."
Something no child should ever say. She rushed away, towards the sound of the door. The laborer bent down.
"Aww, look. Ain't you the Bee's knees."
From the first sight, there'd been a mutual dislike between him and the laborer. He'd stripped down his name and title to a mere insult.
"You want to see pictures of my prize cows?"
She nodded eagerly.
Unlike Spy, the laborer had worked for the company for generations. He was too valuable to blackmail, and thus could make such allowances. He had a family, even a child. (Sometimes, when he smoked alone at night with nothing to fill his hours but memories, Spy felt the ache of jealousy.)
If he truly wanted to twist the knife in, Spy could've called the laborer by his real name:
Dell Conagher. But even he knew not to cross a man too much. Barbs and insults were one thing, but to use his life against him was another.
So Spy did what he did best: he disappeared.
*
Spy always chose red as his decor. Much easier to hide the blood.
Setting up traps in his space was as thoughtless as breathing. The hair had been broken, and the things on his desk were just slightly askew. Though this employer paid him well, he couldn't say he was fond of her habits of threatening every aspect of his life every few weeks.
Hired goons were disposed of soon enough, and he expected extra to clean and replace the suits stained by their blood. But, they were clumsy. Spilled ink left small footprints. Too small to be any proper set of hitmen. He followed them, all the way to a place he knew too well. His very own dark room for developing pictures.
His safe hadn't been touched. He did a double check of fingerprints powder upon the keys, and even opened up to make sure that it was gone. After that, he checked each spot of value. None of his suits were missing, the few caches of cash, and identities were untouched.
At first, he wondered if it was a practical joke. Perhaps the laborer had finally decided to get his revenge for all Spy's sharp comments.
It was only when he went to get a cigarette that he realized just what had gone, and what the thief could have been looking for.
*
The whirring of machinery filled the claustrophobic, mettalic room. She had to put up a stool to reach the copy machine. There was just a little bit of lace at her socks, flecked with red. The first hint of childhood worn down already, and she wasn't even ten yet.
"What do you think you're doing?"
A mask of innoence, and already the skills of a grifter. He'd fallen for the easiest trick in the book. Distract the attention of the target with a sudden action, and make a quick move. Surely, she'd already been taught to use her seeming innocence as a ruse.
But she hadn't taken merely cash. No, she had gone for something far more precious.
She turned back, startled by his entrance. The picture she held fluttered to the floor. She reached for it, almost tipping over in the process. He quickly held her up. She looked at him with wariness as he set her down.
He couldn't bring himself to burn them. He'd tried, many times. When he'd actually seen her, he'd kept no evidence. But in the distance, he would tell himself not today.
He had grown even more reckless as he lost them. Now pictures and memories were all he had left.
Tomorrow I will erase every trace. Tomorrow I'll stop watching over them. .
Of course, that tomorrow never came.
Had she ever even met a child her age? Did she know what playing even was, had she ever been shown any kindness? To think, The Voice having a child of her own. But to be raised on a base, and already expected to work. Even the thought of a child in this place was unthinkable, but as a child soldier, and surely her own daughter...it was perhaps the cruelest thing the Voice had ever done.
Then again, what could he say against her? He was no model father. When he was judged at death, it would be the holidays he missed, not the bodies he'd left in his wake that weighed upon his soul most heavily.
"Was this the Voice's doing?"
"No--please don't tell her. I'll get in so much trouble. Please," she said. Her voice blended together in her desperation. She rubbed at her eyes, pushing her glasses up. He couldn't tell if it was another ploy. The fact that he even had to question that of a child left a bitter taste in his mouth.
She drew back, wary and cautious, like a feral animal as he approached. He realized right off that she was reaching for a weapon hidden from view. Not even ten, and she had already known death. Perhaps many times. Like a little wolf child, wild and free from humanity.
He bent down and opened up his hands. "Give them over."
She clutched them a little closer. Perhaps she hadn't quite lost all her precociousness yet.
"Do you have a family?" Spy said.
"I have the Administrator," she said.
He had copies--he always had copies--but they were hidden far away. And the thought of this little one destroying any of the remains of his family filled him with dread.
He held out his hand. What would he say to this little wolf child? He couldn't simply demand she give it over by the time he counted to five, she likely outranked him. So he decided to use the one thing she feared.
"Does the Administrator know you are here?"
She instantly dropped the pictures and stepped back. "You won't tell her, will you?" There was fear in her voice. What had the Voice done to make this little feral child so afraid?
He picked up the photos, one by one returning his treasures, his weaknesses. The girl dared to come closer, her little purple ruffled dress fluttering with every step. She stared down at that picture of Liam in the batting helmet. She looked at him, drinking up the details of every picture, and smiled. A crush? He hadn't foreseen that.
"How about this: I'll give you one of these if you keep my secret. Which one do you want?" Spy said.
Her small hand hovered above them. She finally settled on the one of Liam, grinning gap-toothed towards the camera with his mother's hand upon his shoulder, and a group photo, where of all her rowdy sons, Liam managed to steal the show. His arms were up, blocking two of his brother's faces. Then, she plucked up that gap-toothed batting grin picture that she had been so captivated by.
"Two?" Spy said.
"I can't choose," she said.
"A good choice," he said.
She held the picture to her chest.
"Remember. Tell no one. We have a deal now."
She made an image of zipping up her lips. It came to mind that she'd been entrenched in blackmail before. Had he just given the blade to stab himself in the back? No, he thought as she stared down at the picture one last time, with such wistfulness. These pictures had shown the first sign of true wonder and happiness in her.
Series: Team Fortress 2
Character/pairing: Spy, young!Miss Pauling, Engineer
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 2483
Author's note: according to Old Wounds, Miss Pauling says she's "worked for the Administrator for her entire life." Xerox goes back to the '40s
Follows Playing House. Precedes Last Call, Trace and The Ghost Family.
1951.
For Sarah.
He'd taken on an employer which usually kept him in the states, even as he told himself to drift as far away as he could. The only place he ended up was the west coast. No further. A boisterous shop owner, and an organization that dipped darker than usually even he would touch--it paid the bills. After the war, things had settled down. And he could no longer pretend that he was doing it for the greater good, as it had been with The Resistance, the place where he'd become a nameless ghost.
There were a few other mercenaries there, though he kept to himself. The bases were falling apart at every corner, complete entropy in motion, and the employer seemed to keep them close more to glean more blackmailing opportunity and prevent leaks of information more than anything else. However, he was awaiting a message at the moment, so this bullet-hole ridden room of crush beer cans, sand and creaking floors was where he stayed.
He didn't look up from his magazine as the door opened. He had read the same page fifty times, and the words never came close. The advertisment's model wore blue, her dark beehive like a shadow of a memory. The angles weren't right. She was too tall, not curvy enough, but that didn't stop the memories. He had seen Colleen in a thousand other women, half who looked nothing like her. The scent of Evening in Paris, a certain shade of dress and he'd have shifted five years ago, to a place where he tasted happiness for that fleeting moment.
Before him, someone cleared their throat and the dreams disappeared like mist.
"Mister Spy, I have a delivery for you."
Her hair was tied back, which made her look almost severe, despite the fact that she couldn't have been more than five. There was no trace of childishness in her clean purple dress, absent of frills or stains. She held no toys, only a clipboard tight to her chest.
What on earth could a child be doing in a place like this? Had Saxton Hale had himself a lovechild and had to raise her?
He closed the magazine, set it aside and bent to her level.
"Are you lost?" Spy said.
"I belong here. I work for the Administrator," she said.
Hiring children now? He wouldn't put it past his employer. Though, given that he'd been face to face with the Voice before, he saw the similarities. He'd never thought her for the motherly type, but accidents happened.
There was no innocence or wonder in her green eyes, only suspicion. She should've been playing tag and jump rope, not hiding a weapon under her skirts.
She reached into her little shoulder bag and pulled out something he couldn't quite see.
"I was told to give you this, mister Spy."
He took the manila envelope and opened up for his next assault. Here, at least, it was like clockwork.. They would ask for someone killed, some bit of data stolen, or someone impersonated. It was quite predictable--another killing. He scanned his eyes across the details, and put it to memory. Spy pulled out the lighter from his pocket and set the evidence aflame.
Her green eyes were wary. Her hand hovered about that bag. It must contain something else, some kind of weapon, he thought.
She needed to learn to have a better poker face. Her draw was far too obvious.
Coin tricks had always amused Liam. He'd twice taken the guise of a clown simply to have an excuse to bring some sort of magic and see his son's smile just once more. The memory caused a pang, like arrhythmia, in his chest. He couldn't do it as himself, but he was well versed in the art of masks. He'd been a thousand unknown faces in Liam's life, but never a father.
He leaned forward, and the wariness in her eyes increased. But she didn't fire as he reached out towards her ear, and then pulled back to show her something shiny.
"Look, a coin," he said. He flipped it into the air and caught it. "Your hair must be very valuable to have pennies in it."
For just a moment, he saw a hint of innocence and wonder in her face. She blinked as it disappeared, and that suspicion came again. "Where did it go?"
"Ahh, but a magician never reveals his secrets."
He pulled out a quarter from a pouch hidden in his sleeve, right next to the cyanide pills. "Do you have a bank back there?"
He handed her the coin, and she looked down, flipping it over, as if checking for tricks. Even in her moment of innocence, there was cynicism. How much blood had already stained her hands?
He pulled open his case. Behind the divider Fake IDs, fake credit cards, a whole family tree of twisted identities. Next to his cigarettes was a wrinkled photo that he could never bring himself to throw away.
As he reached for another coin, she reached for his case. He'd kept a picture there, sewn in deep.
"Who is that?" she said. She came closer, like a startled deer. Or was it like a moth coming closer and closer to a flame? Me too, ma petite.
He closed the case. "Someone I almost knew."
His recklessness wasn't in going behind enemy lines or dodging fire, but in pictures kept in a hidden pocket. He'd had to take this one unaware. Her apron was gingham and stained, and Liam pulled on the strings, his gaze up. That day he'd been asking for more milk. His hair was mussed and everywhere from sleep. All these expensive devices his employers loaned him, and he used them to take pictures of his family unaware.
He'd left a twenty dollar bill underneath her pillowcase, and new groceries in the refrigerator. Too much and the hitmen might suspect he was back.
In the second, Liam's light tawny hair was obscured by the batting helmet. His wide smile was filled with gaps, with hints of white new teeth peeking through the gums. He smiled so much, that at times Spy could assuage himself. Even without a father, he'd lived on. He was happy, perhaps happier without him around.
He wouldn't remember French lullabies, or the year of Spy's foolishness. But he'd remember small windfalls. The new baseball which had simply fallen out of a tree in front of him. Bills and presents which always fell to his
He believed God loved him best. He was half right.
She drew back quickly and clutched the clipboard so tight, he was surprised it didn't break into pieces. For that moment she had stared in at that picture of a family like the Little Matchstick girl dreaming of warmth.
So then, ma petite, you are lonely, despite the facade.
"What's his name?" she said.
The professionality of a killer had fallen away. She almost looked like a girl again now, as opposed to the automaton the Administrator was shaping her into.
"Liam," Spy said.
"Liam," she said softly.
Spy started to close it. A door opened down the hall. The little girl glanced quickly back, as if something had startled her.
In her haste, she knocked the wallet clean out of his fingers. But she bent quickly and plucked it up from the ground.
"I have to get back to work--I have more envelopes to give."
Something no child should ever say. She rushed away, towards the sound of the door. The laborer bent down.
"Aww, look. Ain't you the Bee's knees."
From the first sight, there'd been a mutual dislike between him and the laborer. He'd stripped down his name and title to a mere insult.
"You want to see pictures of my prize cows?"
She nodded eagerly.
Unlike Spy, the laborer had worked for the company for generations. He was too valuable to blackmail, and thus could make such allowances. He had a family, even a child. (Sometimes, when he smoked alone at night with nothing to fill his hours but memories, Spy felt the ache of jealousy.)
If he truly wanted to twist the knife in, Spy could've called the laborer by his real name:
Dell Conagher. But even he knew not to cross a man too much. Barbs and insults were one thing, but to use his life against him was another.
So Spy did what he did best: he disappeared.
*
Spy always chose red as his decor. Much easier to hide the blood.
Setting up traps in his space was as thoughtless as breathing. The hair had been broken, and the things on his desk were just slightly askew. Though this employer paid him well, he couldn't say he was fond of her habits of threatening every aspect of his life every few weeks.
Hired goons were disposed of soon enough, and he expected extra to clean and replace the suits stained by their blood. But, they were clumsy. Spilled ink left small footprints. Too small to be any proper set of hitmen. He followed them, all the way to a place he knew too well. His very own dark room for developing pictures.
His safe hadn't been touched. He did a double check of fingerprints powder upon the keys, and even opened up to make sure that it was gone. After that, he checked each spot of value. None of his suits were missing, the few caches of cash, and identities were untouched.
At first, he wondered if it was a practical joke. Perhaps the laborer had finally decided to get his revenge for all Spy's sharp comments.
It was only when he went to get a cigarette that he realized just what had gone, and what the thief could have been looking for.
*
The whirring of machinery filled the claustrophobic, mettalic room. She had to put up a stool to reach the copy machine. There was just a little bit of lace at her socks, flecked with red. The first hint of childhood worn down already, and she wasn't even ten yet.
"What do you think you're doing?"
A mask of innoence, and already the skills of a grifter. He'd fallen for the easiest trick in the book. Distract the attention of the target with a sudden action, and make a quick move. Surely, she'd already been taught to use her seeming innocence as a ruse.
But she hadn't taken merely cash. No, she had gone for something far more precious.
She turned back, startled by his entrance. The picture she held fluttered to the floor. She reached for it, almost tipping over in the process. He quickly held her up. She looked at him with wariness as he set her down.
He couldn't bring himself to burn them. He'd tried, many times. When he'd actually seen her, he'd kept no evidence. But in the distance, he would tell himself not today.
He had grown even more reckless as he lost them. Now pictures and memories were all he had left.
Tomorrow I will erase every trace. Tomorrow I'll stop watching over them. .
Of course, that tomorrow never came.
Had she ever even met a child her age? Did she know what playing even was, had she ever been shown any kindness? To think, The Voice having a child of her own. But to be raised on a base, and already expected to work. Even the thought of a child in this place was unthinkable, but as a child soldier, and surely her own daughter...it was perhaps the cruelest thing the Voice had ever done.
Then again, what could he say against her? He was no model father. When he was judged at death, it would be the holidays he missed, not the bodies he'd left in his wake that weighed upon his soul most heavily.
"Was this the Voice's doing?"
"No--please don't tell her. I'll get in so much trouble. Please," she said. Her voice blended together in her desperation. She rubbed at her eyes, pushing her glasses up. He couldn't tell if it was another ploy. The fact that he even had to question that of a child left a bitter taste in his mouth.
She drew back, wary and cautious, like a feral animal as he approached. He realized right off that she was reaching for a weapon hidden from view. Not even ten, and she had already known death. Perhaps many times. Like a little wolf child, wild and free from humanity.
He bent down and opened up his hands. "Give them over."
She clutched them a little closer. Perhaps she hadn't quite lost all her precociousness yet.
"Do you have a family?" Spy said.
"I have the Administrator," she said.
He had copies--he always had copies--but they were hidden far away. And the thought of this little one destroying any of the remains of his family filled him with dread.
He held out his hand. What would he say to this little wolf child? He couldn't simply demand she give it over by the time he counted to five, she likely outranked him. So he decided to use the one thing she feared.
"Does the Administrator know you are here?"
She instantly dropped the pictures and stepped back. "You won't tell her, will you?" There was fear in her voice. What had the Voice done to make this little feral child so afraid?
He picked up the photos, one by one returning his treasures, his weaknesses. The girl dared to come closer, her little purple ruffled dress fluttering with every step. She stared down at that picture of Liam in the batting helmet. She looked at him, drinking up the details of every picture, and smiled. A crush? He hadn't foreseen that.
"How about this: I'll give you one of these if you keep my secret. Which one do you want?" Spy said.
Her small hand hovered above them. She finally settled on the one of Liam, grinning gap-toothed towards the camera with his mother's hand upon his shoulder, and a group photo, where of all her rowdy sons, Liam managed to steal the show. His arms were up, blocking two of his brother's faces. Then, she plucked up that gap-toothed batting grin picture that she had been so captivated by.
"Two?" Spy said.
"I can't choose," she said.
"A good choice," he said.
She held the picture to her chest.
"Remember. Tell no one. We have a deal now."
She made an image of zipping up her lips. It came to mind that she'd been entrenched in blackmail before. Had he just given the blade to stab himself in the back? No, he thought as she stared down at the picture one last time, with such wistfulness. These pictures had shown the first sign of true wonder and happiness in her.