(no subject)
Backstory Headcanon
His real name is Anthony D'Evreux. He was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1930--after the great mafia years of the Prohibition but not before the mafia influence had died down in the city. His parents were immigrants fresh from France, living in a poor mostly-Italian neighborhood, and they Americanized his father's name for their son: Antoine to Anthony. Spy picked up English and French at home and Italian by living in his neighborhood; he pretended to be Italian for most of his childhood, hanging around with the other mafia children. It was better than being "the French kid with the parents with the funny accents." To them, he was known as "Tony"--his parents called him that too, except when angry. Then he was "Anton." If someone should shout either of those names today, he would still look up.
As a child, he was an average lower-lower-class city kid--nothing like the way he looks or acts now, at least in public. He was dark, scrawny, a bit short until his middle school years, a little bit grubby at most times, most of his clothes were second-hand or ten years out of fashion. He'd get laughed at in school sometimes, but he learned to ignore it--and to take his vengeance where he could, quietly and effectively until there was no more mocking, capisce? He was that strange, quiet, deadly serious and intelligent but somehow feral boy that never acted out unnecessarily but that the teachers knew they could never quite control. But for the most part, he didn't see other kids his age much until high school, preferring to stay at home.
His parents were good ones, or tried to be. He didn't see his father much, as his father had to hold two jobs to support the family, but he was a good man when Spy did see him, during the few stolen minutes coming from and going to work. His mother was sick as long as he'd known her and he grew up knowing that he could lose her at any moment--and so Spy would often spend his days after school with her at home. She would tutor him, and he would learn, eagerly. Or they would read--his love of comic books comes from her. Or play card or board games, and she would teach him all the fun ways to cheat. It forced Spy to separate himself from the other children to spend so much time with her, but that was a price he was willing to pay. And for all the inevitability of sickness and debt and work and death, his father was very in love with his mother and his mother with his father, and that made a deep impression on Spy.
Most of Spy's extremely cynical and fatalistic outlook on life comes from his early years, only compounded by his later ones. His way of thinking about it is this: non esiste, la cosa chiamata sacrificio. He and his father would talk about it sometimes, and even when young, Spy understood. It was never a sacrifice for his father, to work himself to exhaustion to support the people he loved--it was what he wanted to do. In turn, it was never a sacrifice for Spy, to stay at home with his mother--if it meant he was giving up friendships and socializing, then giving up friendships and socializing was what he wanted to do. His father could leave. Spy could run around with the neighborhood kids. But they chose to stay. Life is always a choice--whatever you do is what you want to do, choose to do, and the consequences are things you asked for. Simple, n'est-ce pas?
Maybe not so simple. Sometimes the choices would be between a shit choice and a shittier one, take less hours or find another job, pay the heating or pay the electric, one or the other--and Spy watched his father go through that kind of situation over and over. And with each one his father struggled through, Spy's respect for him grew. The man never complained about his circumstances, only dealt with them as best he could, and always took responsibility for his choices--reminding his son again and again that he was here because he wanted to be here. That when Spy came down with a serious flu and the family had to sell their house to pay off the hospital bills, reminding him that they wanted to move, because better moving than risking the life of his son. He was never a burden, the ones he loved were never a burden--that was the wrong way to think. Everything in life had a price, and if you wanted it, you paid for it; only idiots then turned around and complained about making the purchase.
Spy grew up wanting to be that kind of man--the kind that could say, "Je ne regrette rien."
His mother died when he was thirteen, just before Spy entered high school--quietly, in the hospital, in her sleep. Spy had been expecting it, of course, and while he mourned her death, he didn't mourn her life, or his in relation to it. He had spent all the time he could have spent with her, done all he could for her--il ne regrette rien. He began growing taller after that--maybe it was puberty, maybe it was the healthier lifestyle he and his father could afford, now that half their income wasn't going to medical fees.
Academically, Spy was always an extremely smart kid, especially with his mother's constant home tutoring while she was alive, but also one that lacked motivation. When he did his schoolwork and paid attention in class, he could ace everything easily, especially foreign languages. But after the death of his mother, there was little to keep his attention there. The afternoons he once spent with her, he now spent watching the mafia activity happening outside of school. He was too young and already too distanced from the other children to take any active part in it, of course, but he learned at a young age how to quietly observe everyone around him--and quickly figured out who the big players were, what they were like, how to pick up hints as to what was going on in the neighborhood, to decipher the secret codes they used to talk to each other. When one of them finally offered him official inclusion as a sort of messenger boy, Spy took it. Because even without having to pay for his mother's medical bills any more, his family was poor; he was never going to college; better to keep an eye out and an ear to the ground for mafia connections he could use than dream of a university and job he'd never have.
Except he did get the chance to make some leaps up the social ladder eventually, with the coming of World War II. His father enlisted into the army, and though Spy was several years too young to enlist with him, the army did find a use for the kid, once a recruiter had gone through his high school and spotted him: he was damn good at breaking codes and working with machines. They helped him to lie about his age and put him to work with other cryptographers trying to break the messages intercepted from Japan--which is how he learned his basic Asian languages. By the time the war and its aftermath of trials and evidence collection and whatnot had ended, Spy was 16 with nowhere to go--his mother was long dead and his father had died the year before, fighting in the Pacific; he had no friends from home, never having been able to make more than acquaintances with anyone. He was in the military for a few years; when the US government noticed his background and offered him a place training as a agent for them, he went, readily.
And they found him extremely well suited to his job in temperament, philosophy, and skills. The strange, quiet, deadly serious and intelligent but somehow feral boy had grown into a strange, quiet, deadly serious and intelligent but somehow feral man, and that was exactly what they were looking for. Someone level-headed, clever, efficient, and detached from all the world, who was able to kill without conscience. And like with most things Spy decided he wanted to learn, he did learn, quickly and efficiently--acting, lying, backstabbing, taking advantage of every opportunity. But he found there wasn't much there that was all that new to him, other than how to use the new technology.
And just when his life was looking up--a nice, secure job, good pay, what did it matter if he had to hurt a few people, he came from the poor parts of fuckin' Chicago, this happened every day--along came Scout's mother to throw a wrench in his life plans again. And you know that story and how the next years went, with Spy supporting her and her kids like his father had done for him and never getting that nice, comfortable middle class life he'd wanted, going instead back to capitalizing on every opportunity out of necessity and taking jobs for the money again like all the rest of his life had been. That drove his life and career for 18 years, at which point he broke ties with Scout's mother and was finally free again to pursue... whatever he wanted to pursue.
Except that turned out to be harder to figure out than he'd thought. Here he was, mid-thirties getting late-thirties, and where was he going with his life? He had his job and his reputation for being damn good at his job, but that was all. He wasn't unhappy with it--in fact he'd grown to love most things about his job and could find a lot of fun messing with the rest of the team on the base--but he knows he can't go on forever like this. And that he has no real plans besides to go on and try to save money for some vague idea of the future, like retirement, at which point he supposes he'll retire and then... what? He's a Spy, he's supposed to have everything planned and under control, but with something like life, that's impossible to do.
So he simply doesn't think about it. Acts as though he's completely secure--which he is, minus that one small area--and as though he has everything under control--which he does, except that bit of his future. He keeps everyone at a distance because of his job but also because getting close to people and forming attachments means--well, look what happened with Scout's mother. Unnecessary liabilities--why find someone that you would give your arm for, if you rather enjoy your arm being where it is? And knowing that he's someone who would be willing to do something like that, he would rather not get attached at all than run the risk of it happening again. He would much rather his teammates remain acquaintances and nothing more, expendable people that he can dump for a better opportunity.
He would much rather the entire world stay like that.
If that makes people think he's a selfish asshole, then let it.
He is one.