#daniel cross

And I'm not talking just Ezio, Altair or the other historical protagonists, but the modern day and lesser-known side characters too: Clay, Lucy, Rebecca, Shaun, Daniel Cross, Layla, Elijah and many others.

And here's the controversial part: don't have Desmond in it. The guy didn't travel in back with them, barely even have him come up in the characters' thoughts. (for the people that knew him he'd be a sore subject so they'd avoid it, and those that never got to know or meet him have no reason to think of him.)

You can have it be a solo journey, just a duo or a dnd party situation. You can explore the characters deeply in either very familiar or unknown for them environments. You can have so many new ships! Arghh

But for all of you Desmond boot lickers (me) here's something additional: He kinda haunts the narrative. For the people that knew him it's obvious why he'd stick out in their mind's eye, but through the other group my other idea for him is much clearer; some Reader and Calculations bs. Nothing too indulgent bc I am a little sick of multiverse-type stuff, but some kind of weird dreams, weirdly marked things in their eagle vision or strange coincidences thrown their way. Almost like quiet divine intervention. huh.

Anyway the big twist is Desmond also time travelled and this isn't revealed until, like, the climax or even after it. He was either. just. hanging around far away or secretly helping things along in the shadows. Probably the latter.

Ideas for these fics include: Lucy going to the late 1400s, wowing people by being an "unnaturally smart woman, mamma mia!" and eventually getting with Claudia,

Clay and Cross time travelling TOGETHER to the 1920s near where Nikolai and his family lived at the time (ft. a Lydia Frye cameo bc I love her),

Rebecca and Shaun getting separated in the time stream so one ends up in Revolutionary Paris while the other is in the Americas where the brotherhood is growing well under Connor's wing. They eventually find each other, but not before causing a whole lot of chaos because they couldn't help themselves but be total smartasses by inventing technology or speaking about stuff that haven't happened yet.

Layla doesn't know where she ended up, but says 'fuck it' and becomes a messy lone mercenary like Kassandra with the underlying goal of finding her. She doesn't realize that she is around during Al Mualim's tenure and the guy is...interested in this suspiciously assassin-like person. Also she has an eagle of her own that she has trouble getting along with. Idk.

Yeah. I wrote it. It's REAL. It's ALIVE.

It's UNIONIZING.

READ THIS SHIT HERE ON AO3

Summary: Everything was going fine for Desmond—until he got fired from the Bad Weather bar.

So when a strangely opportune internship listing popped up in his inbox—weird sender name, shady NDA, zero contact info—he clicked apply.

Was it a scam? Probably.

Did he get the job? Absolutely.

What Desmond DOESN'T know:

The job is at TEMPLAR HQ

He's unintentionally turning his fellow interns into baby assassins through charisma and spite

Daniel Cross has started following him around like a trigger happy Roomba with abandonment issues

What Abstergo DOES know:

Daniel Cross—famously unhinged—has stopped trying to stab people in the elevators

He's SMILING now

He holds DOORS OPEN

He hasn't murdered anyone in WEEKS

Naturally, upper management is curious and all signs point to one cause: The Intern.

Francisco Randez (aka Desmond Miles)

So they think Desmond is promising. Potentially Templar material. They even suggest pairing him up with with Daniel on field missions to 'keep morale high'.

Daniel has Opinions about that. (Loud. Violent. And also weirdly flustered ones.)

In which Desmond:

gets fired from the Bad Weather one year before the solar flare hits

lies his way into a corporate cult

becomes Daniel Cross' emotional support intern

accidentally trains a squad of weaponized interns using nothing but passive-aggressive life advice

just wants a paycheck and maybe a 401K

still has no idea what the company actually does

Some future quotes—THE OFFICE STYLE:

"Honestly, I didn't think I'd get this far." – Desmond Miles, intern and runaway Assassin novice, freshly promoted to 'oh no.'

"Daniel's been… smiling. Like, a lot. I think he has a crush. Or a kill list. Possibly both." – Sarah Jones, Abstergo HR, updating the emergency protocol binder

"It's not like I LIKE him or anything. I just... function better when he's nearby. Shut up." – Daniel Cross, Master Templar and once Assassin Sleeper Agent, reloading his gun and blushing aggressively

"He did what. In where. With WHO?!" – William Miles, reading an intercepted Abstergo memo and having an audible crisis during a debrief

"I pulled the fire alarm so Francisco wouldn't have to present to Mr. Vidic." – Caleb Larson, intern, loyal and proudly wagging his metaphorical tail

"He said I shouldn't let fear control me, so I submitted a vacation request that just said 'no.'" – Andrea Lin, intern, everyone's problem now

"He has no clearance. No training. No agenda. And yet everyone listens to him. It's either divine intervention or managerial negligence." – Shaun Hastings, solo historian and part time barista, probably both right and wrong

There's even a group chat somewhere called 'Rendezvous with Randez'.

No one knows who started it.

What if the rest of the modern day gang got sent back in time, Yew Branches style? Shaun, Rebecca, Lucy, Clay, maybe even William, Cross or Layla. I was specifically thinking about Ezio's era, around the 1480s and 1490s.

Just individually I have a few ideas for each character:

Shaun and Beccs kind of come as a pair to me naturally. For the brit I think it's absolutely mandatory to keep him insufferable in every timeline and time period, so he's reborn in the late 1470s as the bastard of an English diplomat or merchant. Despite growing up in either a bordello or just a very poor home, he was absolutely stubborn in getting his grubby hands to any books around, especially heavy reading like philosophy and history. Oh, and you absolutely KNOW that this child is complaining about not having glasses and absolutely steals (or attempts to) a pair as a teen.

I don't think it matters how or into what life Beccs is born into. At some point she dresses up as a boy and lands a blacksmith apprenticeship and drives her Mentor up the wall about actually learning something instead of just cleaning the forge for the first two years. If she's in Florence (or even if she's not, let's be honest) she probably sends something to Leonardo - blueprints for something that shouldn't exist for the next 150 years or simple letters talking about how he should "kiss any handsome assassin that comes his way."

The two are 99% a duo and reborn together (after some mission involving an Isu Temple, post-Valhalla, or they refused to leave Des at the Grand Temple and got reincarnated with him). Shaun just about tears his hairs every time Rebecca "has some fun" and adds a smooth corner to a machine, remaking human history for the next 500 years (according to him). But also, he definitely doesn't say anything about the teasing letters she sends Leonardo. She and Shaun leave town (whatever it is) for Rome before the blacksmith mentor realizes what 16 year old boys ACTUALLY look like or before Shaun's father can claim this rebellious little scholar as his son. Cue a weird duo (or couple if they traveled back post-Valhalla? Idk how I feel about that, actually) traveling across renaissance Italy, ruining shit in pursuit of books, BLOODY GLASSES, metal and scrap parts and pieces of Eden. But, problem: they run into the brothers that attacked Forli, knocked em out Tangled style, took the apple from them and skedaddled. Their goal? Uhhhhh get it back to Ezio? To Leo? Uh oh, Ezio's after them now lol.

Lucy would be interesting, especially if she's not actually reborn, but went back in time after being stabbed in Juno's Temple, 24 y/o body and all. She's like ??wtf?? and pretty traumatized, though she doesn't quite realize why. Problem: the time travel didn't quite fix her little stabbed in the abdomen problem, so while it won't kill her quickly, she's bleeding out of her stomach in bum fuck nowhere (also hey why does it look like Italy from Desmond's Ezio sessions-- bam! Back on the ground from bloodloss!)

Remember Machiavelli helping Ezio get to Rome and healing after Monteriggioni's fall? Well, he finds a weirdly-dressed, BLEEDING woman not too far from the city after just finding Ezio, so he makes more space on his horse and rides off, doubly worried. Our fave girlfailure wakes up being tended to by the same NPC as Ezio, with the woman offering her some "local clothes". (It's clear Lucy doesn't fully understand the language, and while living in Rome for a couple of years helped her in learning Italian, being on constant house arrest under Abstergo and knowing only Italian from 500 years into the future doesn't help in renaissance times). Surprisingly, Lucy strikes a conversation with the nurse (oh the stab? Uhhh I got mugged..?) And then Ezio wakes up. Lucy properly has a breakdown internally, because...well, everything has settled in now. We can go with the idea that she's gray in Ezio's vision, but leaves behind a clear red trail. I know that "eagle vision of an ancestor acting up" is often a romance trope in ac fanfics, and I am not into her and Ezio getting it down, BUT consider: Lucy and Claudia.

:)

Also, major identity crisis for Lucy, as always, and her volunteering to temporarily spy for the brotherhood, blending in with the Borgias, despite clearly not wanting to and her being mysteriously scared of the apple. Also, she accidentally (or not?) drops Desmond's name around Ezio.

Clay would be a chaos gremlin. He doesn't give a shit what he stirs, and is kind of like Rebecca but on steroids, after which he crunched on crystal meth. He toys with the idea of reinventing electricity, but ultimately decides to send Leo a letter describing stuff about it. It's all in code, so the maestro has no choice but to engage with the idea. This would technically be Clay's digital avatar, but that means that he can take better control of the countless thoughts in his head and the many, many leftover memories from his ancestors.

I want to pair him up with Daniel (AND MAKE THEM KISS!! omg who said thaaaat??). Cross? He is confused to hell and back, but mostly because his head is...quiet. I like the idea that the bleeding effect is not really a thing once you time travel, sooooo how about the two dudes who went carzy because of it? I think it's too ingrained for both of them to just be alright.

Cross still has Orelov's memories and when mixed with his sleeper agent training it develops into a mild case of PTSD (within his already existing ptsd) because of the lack of an active Bleeding Effect. Like, something would trigger Cross, he would snap like when his Bleeeds took over in the past, but now he doesn't feel like he's taking a back seat in his own brain and is...overwhelmed. He lets his feelings guide him in this place that looks weirdly a lot like 16's latest sessions that he was forced to oversee ("he's a dangerous man now, son. And an example,"). Speaking of 16, the dude is also here, and he's...interested in Daniel Cross? Like, he's also a little loose in the noodle, but he has more experience with the craziness of the Bleeding Effect having second hand consequences on his psyche, what with the digital avatar stuff and all. And currently he's just doing shit all over renaissance Italy, avoiding Ezio because it would probably bring his fun of burning Templar towers to an end. And then He recognizes Cross, whom he knew as a tortured agent of chaos and now has a chance to control himself better.

Absolute chaos ensues when Clay absolutely won't leave Daniel alone and the former Templar starts getting attached.

Layla could be sent back by the Reader, maybe with the goal of stopping Basim/Loki, but oops, the calculations mess up and she's in what looks like one of Abstergo entertainment's games?? Whatever, Kassandra must be around, so our gal goes looking. She figures out she's in renaissance Italy, pretends to be a Greek/Egyptian/Northern traveler, and an eagle starts following her and acting as her personal Senu/Ikaros. The bird's nagging kind of reminds her of Deanna, soooo we add in some flashbacks of the two, cause y not :p She looks for Kassandra but runs into Ezio by going into Rome without warning both the brotherhood and the guilt of mercenaries. Ezio agrees to help her find her wandering greek mercenary as long as she pays off the mess she has made (some side mission for cash gone wrong) by helping out the brotherhood, and Bartolomeo starts hogging her to teach the mercenaries a thing or two or whatevs

I am more into the Lucy and ClayDan aus tbh. BUT what if all of them were in the same universe? Or timeline or whatever. This is awful for Ezio, because in the span of 2 decades he has had to not just deal with assassinations, looking for the Spaniard, looking for the Apple, but he also had to deal with the aftermath of an alleged duo of mad assassins, the aftermath of some lone mercenary with no guild, a different duo of scholars (?) STEALING the apple in the middle of an invasion on Forli, a woman who seems to have some connection to not just the Templars and Assassins but ALSO DESMOND and, when everything seems to have calmed down and these agents of chaos meet, creating even more chaos, but ultimately forming some sort of group, Desmond DOES appear!

Has he been around all this time and FINALLY succeeded in avoiding Ezio in this genre because the rest of the modern day gang ran the time travel circus? Has he been sent back to THIS moment, months or even YEARS after everyone else??

I know this is a fucking mess, and that if the ideas ARE combined the timeline gets too much for everyone involved, but I needed to puke this out :p <3

Except Daniel doesn't get that luxury. He's turned into a sleeper agent from a very young age and that manipulation stays with him until his death. He only starts his "healing" while looking for the assassin grandmaster which he only did because that's what he was trained to do. Find the grandmaster and kill him. It's the first thing he asks for when first coming into contact with the assassins and the one thing he works for the whole time hes there.

We never see his real personality or what he might be like in a better situation because he's never put into a better situation. He's never redeemed, never given peace. He was raised a sleeper agent and died a sleeper agent.

I don't remember what the text was supposed to be so I'll let you guys speculate as to what's happening here.