Chapter Text
Spy didn’t ask to be a father. At no point in Spy’s life did he ever think he would want to be a father, or that he'd be a good one at that. But if he was being truly honest, this wasn’t the first time Spy had no control over his future.
He had fallen for her in the spring, among all the flowers and sunlight she seemed to shine the brightest. Spy remembers her laugh more than anything, it was confident, and loud, and adventurous, and it was everything Spy thought he could ever want in an action so simple. When he approaches her, he’s suave and charming with the sweetest words to sweep her off her feet, and she calls him out immediately on his romantic bullshit-- and he loves it.
He remembers she quite liked his laugh as well. She had called it silly, and even though it had made him embarrassed at the time, he found that her face would light up even more when he would laugh his hardest, and it made it more than worth it. She was bright and beautiful, and Spy had willingly left everything behind for her.
She already had seven rowdy boys whose names Spy had trouble remembering at times, but got along with well enough. One of the younger boys had looked at him in the eyes one night asking if he would leave like the rest of their fathers. Spy had promised the boy that he would stay by their mother's side as long as she would want him to be there too.
Spy had been there was Jeremy was born. He remembers panicking when she had told him about the pregnancy months earlier, but he finally finds solace when he holds his son for the first time. He was on the smaller side as newborns go, and he had his mother’s rounder features. Spy had his doubts, but looking down at their son he thinks maybe he can do this as long as she was right there beside him.
But life doesn’t usually work out like that. She falls ill, and when Jeremy is only six months old Spy holds her hand in the hospital as she starts to pass away. All of her boys are there too, Spy tries to stay strong for them, but he doesn’t feel very strong at all right now. In her last moments, she tells each and every one of her boys how much she loves them, and then turns to Spy and uses his fake name to tell him how much she loved him too, and it stings. He was never able to give her his real name, and he hates it. He hates everything. He holds her cold hand and cries along with her eight other children that just lost their mother.
Some of the boys fathers turn up to take custody of them, others don’t. The two eldest boys end up getting a small apartment to take care of the rest of their brothers, but Spy knows they can’t take care of a baby. They already have so much on their plates, and they all are still so young themselves. He ends up taking Jeremy and makes sure to send money for the other boys and helps when he can, but it's hard. This isn’t exactly what he had in mind when he had dreamily talked of the future with her over the many dinners they had shared together.
He feels selfish, he feels gross, and most of all he feels guilty. It's a hard first few months, and everything reminds him of her. As much as he hates to admit it, he doesn’t love his son. He feels horribly guilty, of course he should love his son, but Jeremy cries and doesn’t him sleep, doesn’t let him grieve for a moment. Of course there are moments of happiness, like when Jeremy finally starts to learn how to walk, but most of the time Spy is frustrated and tired. He tries to be the best father he can be, but without her, he can’t help but feel like he already failed.
With time, it gets slowly better. Spy still has troubles during the spring, when he remembers the days they used to walk together in the park amongst the newly bloomed blossoms. Later, he makes new memories there with his five year old as they play catch in the sun. He grows up with a lot of his mother mannerisms without realising it. Jeremy is loud, and confident, and his smile looks just hers when he laughs. Its bittersweet, but Spy finds himself laughing alongside what's left of her and it feels like that first spring all over again.
He starts to see Jeremy for who he is, and by god does he love his son. Those long nights where he would doubt being fit for a father all seem so silly now that things are better. He holds his son in a tight embrace wishing him good luck at school on his first day of the second grade. He’s scared for Jeremy, but he knows he’ll be alright, if he’s anything like his parents he’ll be more than alright in fact.
Jeremy gets a lot from his mother, but Spy starts to see himself in his son as well. Despite having a hard time in his academics, he’s deceptively clever and good with his words. Some things are uniquely Jeremy, in fact he's one hell of a talker, Spy doesn’t think he’s ever stopped talking since he put a coherent sentence together.
One day when Jeremy asks him what he does for work, he lies. When Jeremy’s mother died, he picked up small tasks with his old job, but not with the same boss. He’s good at what he does, but he would rather not be a spy anymore. He’s proud of the fact they’ve only had to move about three times now, he makes sure to keep a low profile for him and his son so for the future maybe he really can retire.
But again, life doesn’t usually work out like that. His old boss is pissed Spy just up and left for some domesticated daydream, and even more pissed he didn’t come back after. He knows too much, and they know he knows it. So they send a hitman to finish the job.
He goes by Sniper, but his name is Micky Mundy. A long, lanky man hardened from the Australian outback, but a professional through and through. He spent years in the outback as an animal tracker, and can shoot a rifle better than any other man they got. They’ve already sent three other hitmen after Spy in the past, and all three lost their trail on him, and soon after lost their lives. But the boss has a good feeling about this one, Sniper knows how to get a job done, he doesn’t hesitate to take the shot, and he could track Spy across the world if he needed to.
Fortunately for him, Sniper doesn’t need to. The agency had already tracked Spy down to small town in Ohio, they just need Sniper to follow him for a time and get his daily route, then take him out with the least amount of eye witnesses as possible. He’s already been collecting data for the past few days, and today’s the first day Sniper spends his afternoon at the corner of a small park waiting for Spy after he gets a tip from an oblivious store owner stationed across the street.
Sniper tips his hat over his face as he sits on the park bench waiting for the French bastard to walk by, he’s not taking him out today, but he might be able to follow him home if he’s careful. Killing him in his own house quietly is ideal, from what the boss told him, the man lives alone so it could be weeks before anyone finds the body.
The moment he notices that there are an awful lot of people around this one corner is when a bright yellow school bus rolls up and opens its doors. Elementary school children exit from the bus noisily and run to their respective parents, while others mingle around in the park till theirs arrive.
Sniper notices out of the corner of his eyes the small boy being pushed on the ground by three other boys, and they start to dump out all the contents of his backpack. The small boy on the ground, who looks at least two years younger than the rest, voice cracks when he yells at them, “Hey that's not yours! Give it back!”
The biggest of the bunch holds a baseball in hands and sneers at the smaller boy, “And just what are you gonna do about it bucktooth?”
“That’s my brothers’! I said give it back!” He practically wails. Sniper can hear the tears in his voice.
Despite being paid to kill men for money, Sniper isn’t exactly heartless. Truthfully, he loves children and he remembers just how much he was bullied as a kid himself. Kids are cruel, and in that moment Sniper sees himself in the little boy on the ground. He remembers being weaker than the other kids when he was growing up, and just how bitter it had made him. Looking around, it seems like most the parents in the park are either leaving with their own children or just don’t care enough to do anything. Typical.
Sniper curses under his breath as he raises from his bench and walks over towards the young boys in long strides. As he approaches, one of the big kid’s friends notices Sniper heading towards them with a large scowl on his face and he nervously tries to get the big kid’s attention, but it's too late. Sniper stands right behind the smaller kid on the ground, looking down at the other kids intimidatingly. Sniper thinks maybe if he spooks them a bit, they’ll leave their classmate alone for a time.
“What’s going on over here?” Is all Sniper asks, his accent and gravely voice very apparent.
The three other boys look at him stumbling over their words, they’ve been caught, and what’s worse, this very scary man was the one that caught them. They stay silent and frozen, including the smallest kid at his feet.
“Now don’t go on and piss yourself kiddos, I’m just here to tell ya’ it ain’t very polite to go throwing people's stuff around like that.”
“Sorry sir.” One boy manages to squeak out after a small silence.
“Don’t apologize to me.” Sniper starts and points down to the kid below him, “Apologize to him.”
The kids look to Jeremy and each mumble out their apologies one by one, clearly embarrassed. Sniper seems satisfied by their meek apologies and shoos them away, “Run along now then.”
The boys turn tail and run from the intimidating man, leaving him all alone with the smaller boy. Jeremy picks himself off the ground and wipes at his eyes with his sleeve and sniffles. He throws up a fist in the air at the other boys running away, “That's right ya’ dorks! Go ahead and run!”
Sniper puts his hands on his hips and laughs lightly at the small child in front of him placing his belongings back into backpack still sniffling loudly. “Need help?” he asks.
Jeremy shakes his head silently and then picks up his baseball to inspect it. Finding it to not to have any scuff marks, he places it back into his backpack gently. He looks to Sniper and Jeremy knows he isn’t supposed to talk to strangers, his dad has been very strict on this rule, but he slowly puts out his hand to shake, “Thanks…”
Sniper smiles and shakes the boy's hand, “The name is Micky.”
“Jeremy.”
“Well Jeremy,” Sniper starts, covering his eyes from the sun, “Where’s ya’ parents kiddo?”
Jeremy stays silent for a moment, again he hears his father’s voice in his head telling him to absolutely stay away from all strangers, but he figures that this man seems nice enough. “My dad will be here, sometimes he runs late at work is all.”
“Ah.” Sniper responds, “Then I’ll leave ya’ to it then.” He starts to walk away from the boy, but he stops and turns around, “And from me to you kiddo, just a bit of advice: If you know ya’ can’t beat them, run away. Ain’t no shame in running away to fight another day.”
Scout looks to him slightly angry, “They had my baseball, I can’t just run.”
“I guess that's true.” Sniper reasons, “But do you think you would’ve gotten it back if I wasn’t there?”
“But you were there.” He sniffles.
“That’s also true.” Sniper thinks a moment, “All I’m saying is, that ball ain’t worth whatever it is they wanted to do to ya’ kid.”
Jeremy thinks this over, his hands on the straps of his backpack solemnly. I could’ve taken them, he thinks bitterly, but he knows deep down he couldn’t have. He knows that he’s scrawny and small and those boys would’ve beaten the snot out of him if Micky hadn’t been there. He watches the tall man walk over to the bench off to his right and sit down, tipping his hat over his face.
The next thing Sniper knows, he hears the sounds of small footsteps up to his bench. He raises his hat up slightly to find Jeremy climbing up on the bench to sit next to him. Jeremy gets comfortable and starts inspecting the items in his backpack again, “Is it ok if I sit here Mr. Micky?”
Sniper laughs lightly, “Fine by me.”
Sniper likes the kid’s attitude, but decides to stay silent. He doesn’t want to be considered some freak preying on kids; that causes attention, and the least amount of people being able to recognize him the better. So he stay silent for a moment looking around for his target. From his data, Sniper’s found the spy is going by the name Davet, but he knows that this could change at any moment. Nothing is permanent to a spy, and he would rather just kill him here than track him all over again under a different name.
Jeremy breaks the silence, “Do you watch any baseball Mr. Micky?”
“Nah, not really.” He answers honestly.
“I don’t either.” Jeremy says with his baseball back in his hand, “But my brothers in Boston do. I dunno the rules.”
Sniper looks to him and smiles, “Sorry kid, me neither.”
Jeremy mulls this over before thinking of another question, “Are you waiting for someone?”
Sniper doesn’t answer right away, staying silent for a few seconds, “I guess so.”
“Who are ya waiting for?”
Sniper turns back from looking for the spy to Jeremy’s curious face; he doesn’t look any older than six or seven. Where the hell are his parents anyway? What kind of parents leave an elementary school child all alone in a park? Sniper is a hitman, but imagine if he was a kidnapper? This kid would be as good as gone. Sniper decides that if he does see this kid’s dad, he was going to give him a piece of his mind.
He decides to be vague with his answer, “Just waiting for a friend.”
Before Jeremy can ask about this friend of Sniper’s, he sees his dad jogging up behind Sniper, and he immediately perks up and shoves himself off the bench to run to his father. Spy bends down to hug his son as he he meets him halfway, and he’s clearly out of breath from running.
Spy hugs his son even tighter, “I’m so sorry Jeremy, work ran late and I couldn’t get in touch with anyone to come here. I didn’t mean to leave you here so long.”
Jeremy smiles at his father, “It’s ok! I was just hanging out with Mr. Micky!
Spy keeps his expression of exhausted happiness on his face, but his voice gives away just how not ok he is with this development. “Who’s Mr. Micky?” He asks, masking his concern.
Jeremy points to Sniper who's still at sitting at the bench with the gears in his head turning. That’s his target, that's the spy. Sniper has seen a multitude of pictures of this man, along with a few times he’s seen him in public, and there isn’t a doubt in his mind that it’s him.
Something doesn’t quite click, the boss never said he had a son. Maybe it's a trick, he thinks, my cover is already blown and this guy got some kid to mess with my head. Sniper somehow knows in the back of his mind that this isn’t the case and he doesn’t think the kid was lying or putting on an act, it was all too real. But now he’s trapped, he can’t run, and the spy has already seen his face, so he tries to play it cool.
Spy walks to the man calmly with a clear expression of slight distaste as Jeremy hops beside him holding his hand, “He said he doesn’t like Baseball,” Jeremy starts, “But that’s ok, I think he’s pretty cool anyways.”
“Hm yes.” Spy says lowly, “Very cool.”
Spy reaches Sniper who's now happily sitting on the bench, now trying to play dumb. He knows this man is dangerous and very intelligent, blowing his cover means death. “You got quite the kid there.” He says in the friendliest voice he can muster, “Some other boys were messing with him, so I just scared them off is all. No big deal.”
“Yeah!” Jeremy pulls his father’s attention back to him shaking his hand, “You shoulda' seen him! He made them all say sorry and run away and stuff!”
“I’ll have to thank you then.” Spy says as his eyes make daggers at Sniper, but his keeping expression the same, “I did not know my work would take so long.”
“No worries, mate.” Sniper brushes it off trying to end the conversation quickly.
Spy leans down to his son, “Say goodbye to the nice man, and let’s head for dinner, hm?”
“Ok!” Jeremy says excitedly and waves at the man, “Bye Mr. Micky!”
Sniper doesn’t say anything, but he waves back. Spy makes sure to stare the man down one last time before leaving, the warning to stay away very clear. He watches them disappear from the corner of his eyes and takes some deep breathes trying to slow his heartbeat. He’s a goddamn sniper, if he wanted to be in the field talking to his targets he’d be a bloody spy. Sniper would much rather never met his targets and shoot them through the head from a rooftop two hundred yards away.
On top of all that, the spy has a son. A son he’s now met. He knows this kids personally, about his love of baseball, even his name and this is a huge problem. Sniper does what he’s told, he’s professional and efficient at killing men that deserve to die. These men are usually alone with no one that loves them. He occasionally runs into a lover or two, but in most cases they end up being a target as well. Sniper never signed up for this job to take fathers away from children.
Sniper had told the boss on the first day, no animals and no kids. These are his only conditions, and up to this point they had respected his wishes. He leans his head back and sighs. What the hell is he supposed to do? He knows that if he goes back to the boss, she’ll have his head. No one exactly quits this kind of job, that's the whole reason he’s after this spy in the first place.
And then it hits Sniper that the spy must have left the agency because of his son, and then he feels an incredible amount of guilt. He rubs his face sighing loudly, maybe he can follow them for a time to see if this kid has someone else, anybody else. Maybe then he won’t feel as awful when he has to kill his father he reasons with himself, but Sniper knows this isn’t true. He’ll have to call the boss tonight for sure.
Sniper lifts his body from the park bench feeling much heavier than usual, and something catches his eye. The kid left his goddamn baseball. In spite of it all, Sniper manages to laugh lightly at the ball, and picks it up to inspect it. The poor kid was about to get the beating of his tiny elementary school life over this thing, and he had just left it behind. Sniper holds the baseball in his hand tossing it lightly. There was no way he could just hand the kid his ball back, but he figures it’d be great cover if he ever got found out or got into a pinch with the spy.
Baseball in hand, Sniper heads back to his camper van located on the other side of the park. It’s a Tuesday, so Jeremy and his father will assumably be here tomorrow afternoon as well, but he knows the spy is smarter than that. If there's anything good to come from this horrible situation, it’s the fact that Sniper’s seen the spy up close, and he knows there’s only one shop in the immediate area that sells the kind of vest he was wearing. From past experiences, he knows that if you dress scary enough and show enough fake badges and warrants confidently, people will give you just about anything.
Sniper decides to call the boss that night, but in the meantime, he’ll head to the suit shop.