// Request Fill for Cosmic//
Oh yeah… I was going to write something like this for you, based on all that brainstorming…
((I’ve seen a lot of tentaspy fics where the tentaspy in question was made out of an adult human, rather than born a hybrid - do you think you could do something with a caring-mad-scientist Medic with his genetically engineered progeny?))
“Do you want to see them?” The Medic asked.
The Spy wasn’t sure. He remembered being approached, after the war, told that his genes were excellent, for a project that the Medic had in mind, would he be all right donating a few ‘building blocks’ for a new species. He’d agreed, in the end. Both of the Medics from the war were working on it, having put aside any sourness that their rivalry might have engendered, the two of them putting together a team of geneticists, biologists, behavioral scientists… The Spy was rather surprised by the group of them, especially as he learned their diverse specialties, but he’d agreed…
But did he really want to see the result?
In the end, he agreed— it was an excuse, after all, to make his way through the Mediterranean again, to get to the remote little island lab. And the Medic had never really been clear about what his ‘ideal genetic material’ was being used for.
He wasn’t prepared for the answer. No one could have been prepared for that… There were several of them, little half-octopus children playing in large pools. Some of the scientists that the Spy had met were gone— not their shift, perhaps, or maybe their phase of the project was just over— but others were there, feeding or teaching the little creatures— he saw one struggling to make her charge understand and respond to some simple hand signs. It was the man who’d once been BLU’s Medic— his Medic— who oversaw all of it, and he greeted the Spy enthusiastically, bringing him over to one of the pools.
The Spy could see that most of them were interconnected, though some of the passages were blocked off, and some of the pools were empty. The Medic lifted one of the little aquatic— amphibious?— children out of the pool, showing it off, unconcerned as little tentacles wound about his arms.
“Marvelous, isn’t he? This one is Kurt, but some of them have French names as well. Should— should I have introduced you to Etienne instead?”
“That… that’s fine, Doctor.” The Spy shook his head. The child’s face could have been his own, at age two, the same hair, but there were little differences. Too much blue in the complexion, the gills, one little fang when the thing laughed. “What is he?”
“Your children, in a way. All of ours, really. The whole team has worked on bringing them to fruition, or raising them. Genetically, though, you are the father— Ah, the boys’ father.”
“There are girls?”
“Yes. They won’t look it— the body for the females has to be larger, the human half is not important when it comes to sex, so… Well, see for yourself.” He released the squirming Kurt back into his pool, where it chirped to its fellows, the lot of them darting about together. The Medic led the Spy to another pool, lifting a larger little octopus boy from the water. Well, at least, the human part looked more like a boy, but apparently, this one was an octopus girl. “This is Laurent— ah, one of the others named her, apparently there is some gender confusion going around…”
“I am sure it won’t matter… will it? Are they… Are they human or animal?”
“Both. Neither. Transcendent.” The Medic beamed, giving the little creature in his arms an affectionate hair-ruffle before releasing it. “They are smart. They invent games and they respond well to their teachers, they understand a few words— usually words for food.” He laughed.
The Spy reached out, but withdrew his hand before a tentacle could touch it. “That… That is… Interesting.”
Laurent squirmed and chirped, little spots of colour lighting up along his— her?— tentacles.
“Oh dear. Looks like someone heard me say F-O-O-D. Do you want to do the honours?”
“Oh, no, I…” He looked at the little smiling face, and tried to block the waving tentacles out. This one didn’t look like him, but still… cute. “What do they eat?”
“Over in the fridge, there are some little pieces of fish— just a small one, we don’t want to spoil anyone’s supper!”
The Spy pulled a latex glove from a box near the fridge on over his own glove, before taking a little piece of whitefish. He brought it back over, holding it out to the little infant in the Medic’s arms, a little surprised laugh as a chubby fist reached out to take it.
Maybe they were disturbing… and this one wasn’t even his. But the Medic seemed to love them. And maybe… maybe even gobbling down fish with little needle-sharp milk teeth, they were cute, also.
“You can come and visit the facility whenever you like. Everyone who works for us here knows you are welcome. If you ever want to check their progress.”
“Does the other father come?” This time he touched the wriggling child’s hair.
“Not yet, but my colleague has talked to him. He said he was going to be coming through next month and would take a look at the project. I hope to be here when he does, I am the full-time project head now, the other Medic splits his time, semi-retired, you know, and married or something. I hope he doesn’t mind if it is me… I mean, with the war.”
“This… this is the offspring of one of RED’s old mercenaries? This little angel?” He laughed.
“The RED Sniper.” The Medic smirked.
“I’ll come visit the children again.” The Spy nodded, with a smile. “If I am busy for a time, then… then next month.”
