Chapter Text
One day on a random office at Shinra company building.
The door to some old dusty room opens and two men enter, one is wearing a lab coat and the other just a white shirt. The scientist gives a tour of the place to the young man before moving to a corner.
"And here, inside this door, is all the paperwork you have to copy and update on the company's database, any questions?"
Standing in front of the scientist is a new nervous intern who jumps in place and quickly nods his head, "ah- yes yes! Update the database, understood..."
The scientist merely raises an eyebrow at the intern and says "Okay, I'll be on my way then", once he's at the exit door he whispers, "It's not like he can fuck up this job anyway..."
Once he's alone the new science department intern starts to freak out, "shit shit shit, where did he say the papers were? Ugh, this is bad, why did I have to dissociate in the middle of this...". The young man starts to walk and look around until finds a staircase at the dark end of the room, ignoring the door that's clearly next to his desk computer he quickly descends the steps until he's under a dimly lit and covered in dust room.
Moving around and quickly grabbing as many folders as he can he walks back to the stairs and returns to his office.
"Now let's see..." he opens the oldest folder and looks inside, "uh, 'confidential', this must be the information for sure". He scans a couple of pages and gets to work.
Hours later he's still adding information to the database when a yawn escapes him, "Okay..., that's it for this 'Project Jenova', my brain is getting fried", he grabs the papers and starts looking for something more interesting to write.
The new intern completely ignores all the other weird alien experiment stuff he finds and instead decides to take a peek at the other separated folders, "Uh? 'Project S'..., wait...,", he quickly skims the pages, "Sephiroth? No way!", he starts to read the information and check the photos, "awww look at him, even as a baby he had silver hair, I was sure he dyed it... uh?", he takes out a yellowed certificate hidden between the pages, "date of birth? Oh, he's a winter baby!, birth parents... Lucrecia Crescent and Vincent Valentine...".
The intern puts the paper down and looks at his computer, shrugging he starts to type mumbling absently, "and here I thought the silver haired prodigy was an orphan"
A knock on the door breaks Veld's concentration from his work, with a frown he grunts, "come in"
One of his subordinates warily enters the room, this one is a new recruit who has recently been promoted.
"What is it?", Veld snaps, sadly for this particular subordinate he's in a very bad mood right now. That's what happens when the target you chased for months suddenly escapes your grasp.
"There's some... uh, new information on our database, apparently one of our old Turks had a child years ago that has been recently legally recognised"
The information makes Veld's eye twitch "you interrupted me just for that? Child support management? Seriously?"
The young subordinate gulps, he remembers the piece of advice the other Turks gave him, 'do not mention the Director's old partner carelessly', he stammers, voice high, "that's not- it's because-, that Turk-, he was, well-"
Veld quickly clicks his tongue, slapping his folder on the table he interrupts his subordinate, "I don't care who he is", he pinches the bridge of his nose. "Look, if this is about the money just approve the paperwork to send some child support to the kid until we can do the proper assessment and all that bureaucratic bullshit", Veld's gaze turns back to his work, "I don't care or have time for that right now"
"But Boss the Turk is now d-"
"Get out", having lost the little patience he had Veld quickly dismisses his subordinate and ignores him in favour of the papers on his desk.
The young Turk gulps and quickly vows before leaving, "Yes sir". As he closes the door behind him the Turk sighs, he doesn't think child support is the exact right method of monetary support for a child of a deceased parent but he doesn't think he can reason with the director right now.
He just hopes the decision of sending child support instead of working on the inheritance and assets first doesn't come back to bite them in the ass.
Inside the room Veld grunts and mumbles, "Stupid idiots who can't keep it in their pants and their messes interrupting my work, what a joke", with those words he returns to work.
A week later, on a random Tuesday, Sephiroth is sitting on his office filling paperwork as usual when a notification ping startles him.
Grabbing his PHS he looks at the screen only to freeze, "New payment received? Odd, it's not pay day yet"
Another ping, this time from his computer has him putting down the PHS to check his email. He calmly looks for the recent activity hoping to find the reason for the new payment, only to freeze once again at the absurdity of the new email title, "Child support payment received...? ...What?..."
Sephiroth checks the contents of the notification on his PHS and the email title on his computer over and over again. He then opens and checks his bank account. Seeing the now higher number and the new payment to his name, he gives a call to management that all but confirms that he did, in fact, receive a payment right now.
After leaning back on his chair and staring unblinking at the computer screen for what feels like ages he finally reaches with shaking hands for his mouse and clicks to open the email.
Realising that the title 'Child support payment received' doesn't change no matter how much he blinks he finally starts to read the rest of the email.
"A deposit of $ XXXXXX was made into your account today XX/XX/XXX..." he ignores the numbers and instead his eyes quickly and impatiently move to the 'child support details' at the end of the page, "Support recipient: Sephiroth. Support provider: parent Vincent Valentine..."
"Parent... Vincent Valentine..." Sephiroth reads the words softly, his eyes running over the words over and over again.
Parent...?
Parent Vincent Valentine...?
"I... I have a father?" Sephiroth whispers before leaning back into his chair again and staring at the computer in silence.
That's how Genesis finds him an hour later.
"Sephiroth are you done yet?", Genesis steps into the office only to pause at the sight of his stoic friend looking completely lost, posture rigid. The red head pauses at the door before walking towards Sephiroth's side and asking casually but with a careful intonation, "What's wrong?"
Sephiroth doesn't move at first before he merely points at the computer screen in silence.
Genesis looks at the screen and blinks, once, then twice, then he rubs his eyes. He slowly turns and looks down at Sephiroth, "am I going crazy or does that say child support payment received?"
Sephiroth looks at him, this time his expression is carefully blank, and his voice is flat, "it does"
Genesis opens his mouth to make a joke and then decides against it, he merely whispers, "Infinite in mystery is the gift of the goddess". Leaning down he goes back to look at the screen and starts to read, after a while he carefully asks, "do you think it's legit?"
The silver haired man whispers softly, "it seems to be, it has the company logo"
Genesis hums then looks at him and waits patiently, eventually Sephiroth speaks again, voice soft then rising in volume. "It doesn't make sense, why would the company do this? Who is this man? Why child support? Why now?", he sounds frustrated but there's an edge of something else on his voice, a crack of something that Genesis can't identify.
The red head hums and straightens himself, crossing his arms he looks down at Sephiroth and asks, "What are you going to do about this?", like they're talking about the weather and not the fact that someone has legally acknowledged Sephiroth as family.
The silver haired man in question frowns then also crosses his arms mimicking Genesis posture, his voice is flat, "Nothing"
The answer makes Genesis's eyes widen in surprise before he raises an eyebrow, from what he knows of his friend from all their years of knowing each other he would have expected him to jump at the opportunity of having a family of some kind.
"Nothing?"
"Nothing", Sephiroth speaks monotonously, "I don't need this money", he closes the email on his computer, "if this man wants to call himself my father he should speak to me first instead of trying to rid himself of responsibility by merely giving me money". The silver haired man stands and moves to leave, yet, his eyes flicker to the computer against his will, "I don't care otherwise".
Genesis looks at Sephiroth's face carefully then nods slowly, "if you say so", he follows Sephiroth out the office in silence.
As they walk towards the training grounds there's only one thought running through Genesis's mind.
He's absolutely going to tell Angeal all about this the first chance he gets.
On another place, in a dimly lit room, a man is woken up from his slumber by the constant ping of a device inside the room.
The man, a shadow of his former self, gets up from his coffin and moves towards the place where a blue screen flickers to life.
"An intruder?", he checks the security of the building, finding nothing of notice until something else catches his attention.
There's a lot of new notifications and none of them are related to the building, instead they all seem to be about his personal profile. He quickly checks any inconsistencies and his eyes widen in surprise at the amount of entries and recent access to his personal account that has been done from outside the mansion's network.
The red eyed man decides to check the contents of the notifications then, only to freeze in shock at the words he finds. His eyes widening more and more with every word until he finds the title that make his stomach drop.
"...'Child support payment confirmed'..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"...what..."