Chapter Text
When Militaires Sans Frontieres burned down, every member of the Patriots distinctively remembered where they were, and what they were doing. For Sigint, or Anderson as he would like to be professionally referred to as, he had been contacting a certain Strangelove to get her assistance in constructing the GW A.I.; for Ocelot, he had been tailing a rogue KGB agent to get information on some discrete project or the other; for Eva, she had been seducing a prominent member of the CCP to ascertain funds stolen from the Philosopher's Legacy as not all of the monetary cache's had been entirely secure; for Doctor Clark, she had been overseeing the developmental stages of the Les Enfantes Terribles Project, she was still deciding on the proper candidate to serve as the donor mother and the surrogate mother; for Zero, he had been in a secure hospital for his recent poisoning.
All of them had instantly dropped what they had been doing as soon as they had heard the news. Zero had, as her reports said, jumped out of his hospital bed and quickly went to go grab a telephone to cover up the incident and to make sure that the world believed that Big Boss had died. In less than half an hour, Zero had contacted Eva and secured her a form of transport to go to the Carribean and retrieve Snake from the local hospital and move him somewhere secure. Where? Clark didn't know. There was radio silent after that, Zero was always good in covering up his tracks, but then again it was Zero's fault for this incident and not a single Patriot will ever forget that.
Then came the month after the incident, Zero had called them, not for pleasantries, but so as to enact the later stages of his plan to fully divert Snake's attention away from the world's eyes. That phone call had also given her the news that Snake had underwent a coma, and it wasn't looking to be a short one either. Zero had directed her to carry on with the Les Enfantes Terribles project, so as to assure the West that even with Snake's 'death' that there will be a suitable replacement for him, in truth it was just a smoke screen. She didn't know what he'd told Sigint nor what he had told Clark. However, Eva came forth, she practically barged into Clark's lab and demanded that she be the surrogate mother. After some hesitation and persuasion, Clark had agreed.
The project had been revolutionary and it was a success, all things considered. The only flaw was in the superior product, as he had inherited from his surrogate mother a blond hair. Doctor Clark wasn't really sure how that had happened, really. Though at least the inferior product had retained Snake's hair color. After a year after their birth, and after testing them, she had designated the superior product as 'Liquid Snake' and the inferior product as 'Solid Snake'. Eva had stayed with her children and raised them until the third year, where the products had to be raised 'Free-range', with the inferior child staying in the states and the superior child moving to Zero's homeland. After that, there was to be as little contact as possible with the terrible children, except for when there were threats to their persons, and even that had extended so far. After departing from the Les Enfantes Terribles project, Eva had told her one thing. Snake was in a Cyprus Hospital.
Doctor Clark immediately departed for the region, she had packed only the essentials, and she only wore a single set for her apparel. She had officially entered the hospital as a gesture of charity, offering modernized medical equipment for the staff as well as vaccines and curatives, she shouldn't have been surprised when she had met a certain russian feline at the lobby.
"Doctor Clark. It's been a while." Ocelot calmly
said. He pulled back the sleeves of his scrubs, less questions that way from ongoing and outgoing patients. "Why are you here?"
"He's been in a coma for nearly four years, Ocelot." Doctor Clark evenly said, "And I feel that I can lend my hands to his early awakening."
"You can check in on him, but, no funny business." Ocelot glared, "Zero's rogue unit, XOF is still looking for him and your presence might disturb his anonymity in the hospital. If your presence concerns his life then you'll be in the garbage disposal in an hour, got it?"
"I'll not take threats from a man who ate every food from Snake's pockets when he was captured in Grozny Grad." Doctor Clark narrowed her eyes, "Nor from a man who took out his eye-"
"Don't say his name. The walls have ears." Ocelot warned, "Don't say my codename either, just call me Clint. Doctor Clint."
He grinned, "Well, allegedly Doctor Clint anyway."
"That's your disguise then?" She straightened her posture. "Very well, where is he?"
"Right this way." They passed by the lounge, then after a certain flight of stairs and some way down the halls, they had entered Snake's room. It was a semi-private room, she noticed as there was another bed with another patient parallel to that of Snake, though it was covered by a curtain.
Snake. She muttered out a theistic curse as she saw the damage on his body, a shrapnel was lodged deep on his skull and surgical scars laid across his face in a disturbing manner. Bandages covered his injured eye and she supposed that would've been for the best. And look at his atrophied body.
"Back in '74, Venom Snake suffered from an RPG blast which resulted in sharpnel lodged in his head and also for the helicopter that he was in to fall. He took in not a lot of the impact when the helicopter impacted the ground. When the Doctors got to him, they quickly went to work." Ocelot explained.
"John." Clark reached out her hand to brushed it into the cheek of John. "What do you mean Venom Snake?"
Ocelot explained, not even blinking once. "Back in '74, Big Boss was saved from an RPG blast from an MSF medic. Though he came out, relatively unscathed as the medic had absorbed most of the burn damage. When the helicopter that he was on impacted the ground, his body took in the full force of the fall and cause him to under go a coma. The Doctors quickly went to work, but they came too late, and so he underwent a coma. The medic saved Big Boss from the RPG blast, and Big Boss indirectly saved the Medic from taking in the full
kinetic impact of the helicopter fall so you could say that both the Medic and Big Boss saved each other."
"Explain Ocelot." She looked at him and commanded him. "I don't have time for your games."
Ocelot didn't say a word, he instead pulled the curtain from the side to reveal that the other patient in the room was also John. "Though the world isn't big enough for two Big Boss', there is room for a Big Boss and his shadow."
"You-" She didn't have the words.
"This was all Zero's idea, by the time I got here. The plastic surgery was already done. My role then was to protect the both of them and to ensure that Venom Snake could fill in Big Boss' shoes. Venom Snake is going to be in the spotlight for the world to see so that John can walk through the shadows unmolested."
She laughed, though it was an expression bereft of joy or happiness and only made her feel three decades older. "So while I was creating his genetic clone-"
Ocelot finished for her, "I was also creating the memetic clone."
Through their conversation, they never noticed that Venom Snake had opened his eyes not a moment later.