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…Really, Loid hadn’t thought about it till he got home. Not until he’d locked the front door behind him and the adrenaline had worn off and…Anya was there, wide-eyed, pointing at him.
“Papa, what’s happened to your hand!”
Only then had he looked down, thought about it, and said very simply, “Oh this? Just an accident. My patient today was very difficult. You know how it is.”
“I don’t,” Anya retorted, staring at him bemusedly. To her credit, Loid thought, she really didn’t. And anyway, his patient had been, well, a foreign mercenary in a warehouse.
“Besides, it’s just a scratch,” he found himself saying. “Just a flesh wound. It’s nothing to worry about.”
“But it is !” Anya insisted and without waiting for his answer, she turned around.
“What do you think, Mama?” she called out, as Yor emerged from the kitchenette.
“What— Oh, yes, you should get that seen to, Loid!” she said, nodding rather vehemently.
Loid just sighed, thoroughly exasperated and exhausted. It had been a long day — a long week, as his handler kept piling missions on him — and he was in no mood, frankly, to entertain Anya’s questions or Yor’s concerns. He wanted to just deal with it himself.
But then again… he suddenly thought: he hardly ever got tended to and had always had to treat his own injuries himself, regardless of how…minor or major they were. So perhaps it would be nice for a change to have someone else like Anya do it, despite her sheer lack of experience. Children had to learn these things at some point, right? And maybe if she learned first aid, she would have another way of getting more Stella stars.
…From the corner of his eye, Anya was regarding him with great intensity.
“W-what is it?” he asked.
“Nothing!” she said, grinning widely. “Except that I’m gonna fix Papa!”
And she bolted off down the hallway. She returned immediately with a huge wad of bandages that she’d procured from goodness knows where. And Loid, well, he readily resigned himself to his fate.
“Follow me please, Papa!” Anya practically commanded, as she grabbed his hand and ushered — more like dragged — him into the living room. He only managed to throw a pleading backwards glance at Yor, but she just giggled and waved him off.
…So much for support , he thought.
“Sit down, please!” Anya ordered, plonking him down on the sofa. She scrunched up her eyebrows, looking deathly serious now. “And where does it hurt, Papa?”
“Er–” Loid gestured vaguely at the minor cuts on his forearm. “Here.”
“Ah, I see, I see!” she said, in the same nonchalant manner as a dismissive and overconfident doctor. “Anywhere else?”
Loid shook his head.
“Hm, well then, that should be fine!” she said.
“If you say so…” he said unconfidently, watching her begin to untangle the wad of bandages in her hands; there was no way she’d get a Stella star with her first-aid skills at this rate.
“Ah, but don’t worry, Papa!” Anya suddenly cut in as if she’d read his mind. “I saw this being done in last week’s episode of Bondman!”
Then she tore a strip off with her teeth and tottered closer to him. “Hand out your…hand!”
Loid did. Then he frowned. “Don’t you need to dress the wound, though?”
“Dress— Huh? What, you mean give it clothes?”
“No, no, I mean, don’t you need to put antiseptic or something on? Didn’t Doctor Droid do that in last week’s episode?”
“Oh! No, no!” Anya said, violently shaking her head. “In fact! Princess Honey blessed Bondman’s wounds when he got shot in the shoulder by the League of Evil people so—”
Anya stepped back from him, turning to face the kitchenette.
“ Mama !” she screeched.
There was a loud clatter, a bang and a crash .
“Y-yes, dear?” Yor called out from under a landslide of pots and pans.
“Come here, Mama — Papa needs his wounds blessed, if you please!”
“As soon as I’ve put these pots away!”
Anya stomped her foot. “No, Mama, I’m afraid it’s urgent !”
Yor immediately came over, always attentive to her daughter’s needs and wishes.
“Now then,” Anya resumed. “I shall bandage Papa and then you must…Oh! I’ll just show you afterwards!”
So she bandaged Loid up.
“Not too much tape,” he protested. “We need some for another time.”
“Oh, but we can always get more!” she countered.
The end result was a series of bandages that looked more like a bandage bracelet covering his entire wrist.
Oh well , he thought to himself: it was better than nothing. She’d learn in due course.
Somehow Anya managed to ignore that thought; just turned to Yor and announced, “It’s time for the blessing!”
“I-it is?”
“Yes!”
As she went about directing Yor this way and that, Loid felt his ears burning. This was ridiculous, he thought to himself. He’d found himself in plenty of embarrassing, humiliating and somewhat compromising situations before in his long career as a spy and, more recently, his very short career as a father. Like the time he’d had to hide in the broom closet as the military attaché of some irrelevant third country and his mistress ‘got it on’ in the office. Or when he’d travelled to the far west and dressed up as stupid animal mascots and dunked ice on stupid football coaches. And, more recently, when Anya had him dress up in a ballerina tutu and dance en pointe with her in the park on a Sunday afternoon.
…But this ? Having Yor kneel down before him with his hand clasped between hers as she whispered sweet nothings?
It was mortifying . Made worse by Anya’s gleeful — almost cheeky — expression as she then pronounced in a very loud voice, “And now, Mama, you must kiss it better!”
Yor looked up at him. “If that’s alright with you, Loid…”
Loid cleared his throat. “Er, yes.”
It was all for the sake of the mission, he told himself as Yor leaned in and… she kissed his hand. It was rather anticlimactic, really. But she’d kissed it anyway once, twice and three times; her lips felt soft and warm even though they’d barely touched him and both of them were blushing deeply as she pulled back, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
Anya, meanwhile, was clapping like a circus monkey. “Well done! Now Papa will get very well soon! And my job is done!”
“Ah…Thank you, Anya,” Loid managed to say.
“Yes, well done, Anya!” Yor added, smiling easily; it really amazed Loid how quickly she slipped back into her ‘motherly’ role. “I’m sure it will do the trick!”
Anya just curtsied, giggling. Then she jumped up, grabbed what remained of the wad of bandages and her little Chimera from where he’d got stranded by the TV and said, “Now this one needs patching up!”
So she tottered off to her room and slammed the door behind her. Loid was almost about to go after her, but the loud sounds coming from her room of…a toy hammer being bashed against something and the yells of “ I need an infusion, stat, Mr Penguin !” were…oddly reassuring, in fact.
He exchanged glances with Yor before they burst out into giggles between them.
“Oh, she’ll be fine,” Yor said. “Children usually are.”
“Yes…” Loid murmured, smiling. “They usually are.”
He hadn’t been fine in his childhood, but… what did that matter here and now? Here and now he had…his own family. A fake one, yes, constructed for the purposes of his mission, but he could let himself indulge in it a little. For the sake of the mission, of course.
“...Is everything alright?” Yor asked, looking at him curiously.
“Yes…Yes…” he trailed off, bringing a hand to his forehead. “Do you know, I suddenly feel very tired.”
“Ah, then I’ll make you some tea and— oh, wait, you’ve grazed your temple as well.”
Loid pulled his hand back and examined it. There was dirt but no blood. “Oh, so I have.”
“Let me help you with that one,” Yor said immediately, over the sounds of Anya still bashing away and now making explosion noises in the background. Loid was about to protest — he could manage fine by himself — only for Yor to push him back against the sofa cushions.
“I’ll do it,” she reiterated, determined to see this through. "The tea can wait."
So Loid let her; watched as she disappeared down the hallway and came back with the first aid kit, rummaging through its contents to find cotton pads and antiseptic. Then she pulled up a chair and sat opposite him.
Their knees bumped together.
“S-sorry, do you want me to—”
“No, it’s quite alright,” Loid answered, clearing his throat. “If it helps you get closer, then it’s...”
“A-ah, yes,” she said.
He watched now as she rested the first aid kit on her lap, before unscrewing the top off the antiseptic bottle. She pressed a cotton pad to the top and then tipped the bottle, so that some of the liquid got soaked in. With one hand she screwed the lid back onto the bottle.
“I’m— I’m going to dab this solution onto the grazed parts, okay?”
Loid nodded; Yor leaned in, pressing the cotton against his skin. He inhaled sharply and she pulled back a little.
“Does it hurt?”
“Not really. Just stings,” he answered, exhaling slowly; he never did like tending to his wounds.
“It’s the alcohol,” Yor said, dabbing a little more on as Loid was suddenly struck by just how…delicate her touch was. Yor could be awkward and clumsy at the best of times (like just now with those pots in the kitchen). And bloody powerful at other times, with her penchant for striking down fully grown men…
Loid let his thoughts wander as Yor repeated this a couple more times, treating any open cuts on his face and arms, and his free hand that Anya hadn’t bandaged up.
“...I used to do this with Yuri,” she began conversationally, her dark thin eyebrows scrunched up in concentration. “He’d come home hurt after getting into fights. Used to scare me, it did.”
“Because you were worried for him?”
“Yes… But it turns out I needn’t have worried. He told me he got into fights because people picked on him and they used to say nasty things about me.”
“What– What sort of things?”
Yor looked down, fumbling with the cotton pad between her fingers. “Nasty things like what Camilla said…”
“Ah. Yes.”
“I did tell him I could handle my own — and I can! — but…yes, I didn’t worry so much after that. And…” Yor continued, wiping the last traces of dirt and grime off him. “I know you risk your life everyday to make sure your patients get the absolute best care they deserve.”
“Yes…”
“Even if they don’t know it’s in their best interest at that moment,” she concluded.
They exchanged glances. Some small part of Loid’s brain nagged at him; wanted to read between the lines. But he chose to leave it alone for now. And so did Yor, apparently, as she looked down at the first aid kit.
“There. All done now,” she said quietly.
“Th-thank you,” he said. He glanced down quickly to see that, thankfully, there weren’t too many cuts and grazes on him. They were only surface-level, too, meaning they’d be healed in a few days’ time.
He looked up to see now that she’d put away everything and that the first-aid kit sat on her lap, closed.
“Not at all,” she replied.
They lingered like this for a moment, just looking at each other. Some small part of Loid’s mind screeched at him, trying to find something to say, trying to urge him to lean in, to meet her halfway—
“ There !”
They jolted apart, looking away as Anya barged back into the living room, brandishing a very patched-up (almost mummified) Mr Chimera. “Everyone’s all healed now! So we can watch Bondman’s latest adventures!”
Without waiting on either parents’ instructions, she plonked herself down in front of the TV with Chimera the Mummy and hummed the Spy Wars theme tune.
He caught Yor’s eye again, but she quickly stood up. “I-I’ll put these away. Then I’ll order some dinner for us. You stay here and rest.”
“Yes, Papa, rest!” Anya contributed, eyes glued to the screen.
Loid sighed again. Fine , he thought; he’d let it slide just this once.
For now, as per Doctor Anya’s instructions, he would rest and recuperate…
Loid fell asleep.
He didn’t know he had, not until he felt something warm and soft drape across him. For a brief moment he felt like he’d been transported back to his childhood, to a time before he’d become Twilight, to a time when he’d still known a mother’s warmth and affection. He buried his head further under the—
“Blanket,” he mumbled.
His eyes opened. He wasn’t there anymore. He was here, with a red fleece blanket draped over him and… Yor sitting at the foot of the sofa.
She looked up from her book, smiling gently at him. “Oh, you’re up again. Feeling better? Everything alright?”
Loid sat up; blinked.
“Yes. I— You—”
“I didn’t want to disturb you,” she said. “I figured you needed your rest. I…hope you don’t mind.”
“No…” he looked around. “And Anya?”
“Fast asleep. I read her the story about the three little pigs and the big bad wolf.”
He dropped his shoulders, the tension there melting away.
“Thank you, Yor,” he said, smiling. “Ah, and… thank you again for earlier.”
She looked down again; there was that telltale blush on her cheeks again. Typical, he thought.
“Not at all. A-Anytime. I mean it,” she said.
He watched her fumble with her sweater sleeves.
“And, if I could just say…”
“Y-yes?”
Now she looked at him. “I see the way you take care of Anya and…us; I just think you don’t have to do everything yourself.”
“Oh,” he said. “ Oh .”
“...D-Do you see what I mean?”
“I think so,” he replied.
Suddenly it dawned on him that this wasn’t about the mission — Operation Strix and all the collateral. It was something much more fundamental. Something that Loid or Twilight couldn’t quite place yet.
“You aren’t alone,” Yor continued. “Not…anymore.”
“No,” he said, inhaling sharply. He looked down at his hands; at the well-tended injuries and silly bandages; Anya had apparently drawn a smiley face on them as he’d slept.
He lifted his head; their eyes meeting again.
“...Neither are you,” he added quietly.
Yor swallowed but didn’t say anything.
“If ever you need anything — though I can’t guarantee I’d do as good a job as you at tending wounds — you’ll let me know, won’t you?” he continued.
Yor nodded. “Y-you too,” she managed to answer.
Then she reached out, smoothing down the blanket over him.
“Now get some sleep,” she said. “Else Doctor Anya will be upset with your recovery!”
They shared a gentle laugh between them. Yor patted his leg a couple times reassuringly before rising and bidding him goodnight.
Loid turned around on the sofa, curling up under the blanket. He thought no more about his mission nor his role as he felt himself drift off into sleep. He thought only about…his little family, and the warmth and affection that he sought after for so long.
…He was at peace.