Chapter Text
Scout was no small deal. From an outside perspective, he was loud, pesky, and liked to get on everyone's nerves. But whenever he finally became silent, he loved to draw. Whenever he couldn't focus, he'd take out his notepad and sketch something. Anything that would come to mind.
Scout thought about a lot of things very quickly. Sometimes, it became too much. So he'd run. Running cleared his mind. He was a very fast runner at that, having learnt it during his childhood to get away from his brothers whenever they wanted trouble.
Spy often sat alone, in that dark room that smelled of cigarette smoke and newspapers, brooding and drinking whiskey and reading the latest magazines which Sniper would bring back to the base whenever he drove to town to buy groceries.
The room, although filled with expensive furniture and fancy paintings, was dark and dismal. It reflected his mind. Most of the time, it was devoid of everyone but himself.
He and Scout were opposites. No person who wanted peace and quiet even thought about the two interacting. The men would start off with a simple conversation but it would almost always end up with them cursing each other out. Due to Scout's nature, it was mostly his fault. Spy was his favourite person to annoy.
From the outside, it definitely looked like they hated each other. Yes, Scout sometimes wanted Spy dead. Jokingly, at least. He loved to bother him because he found it funny, usually making fun of his age or his smoking or the fact that he was French.
Spy, on the other hand, had mixed feelings about the other man. Whenever Scout walked into his smoking room, he wanted him gone. Not dead, just gone. It wasn't only Scout; he didn't want anyone pestering him, even though Scout was particularly annoying.
Sometimes he watched Scout from a distance. Not because of hate. Scout stood out to him among the other team members.
Sometimes, he watched for whether he did well in battle. Still, most of the time, the younger merc would do something stupid and impulsive and get himself injured.
And when he ended up in the infirmary, Spy would watch from afar as he healed.
Deep inside, hoping his son will be okay in the end.
The son he left 23 years ago, when Jeremy was only a little boy.
He was proud of his son.
He hated thinking about it. He was ashamed of himself. Ashamed of abandoning his only child, leaving the boy with 7 older siblings and an exhausted mother with little time to spare for each child.
When Ma didn't have time for Jeremy, Spy was there for him. Singing him a French lullaby and cradling him to sleep late at night while his older brothers were out of the house or fighting each other downstairs.
Looking back at it, he doesn't know why he left. Maybe the realization of having a child caught up to him. Initially, he didn't really want things to go this far, as much as he loved little Jeremy.
But alas, that was years ago. Things were different now.
Scout was no longer a kid.
He was Scout. A mercenary. A trained killer. A man in no need of parenting anymore.
He grew up not knowing who his father was; his Ma had told him about a man who left 3 years after he was born. She never mentioned his name. Scout didn't know who he was, and didn't need to know who he was.
Scout saw Spy as merely a coworker.
Spy still saw him as his little boy.