au headcanon meme: the examplars, but they're the villains
OH? OH! my god do you ever feed me well. damien valentine as an assassin for hire; master of stealth, subterfuge and destabilization and tango as a feral beast that the initiative uses for wide-scale terror and decimation of several capital establishments. the exemplar initiative is a cabal of assassins and rogues that specialize in dealing with special problems.
damien and tango are still close within the initiative; he doesn’t like the idea of tango leashed or mistreated, telling everyone it’s going to be hell if he ever gets out of the chains, but honestly? he has a soft spot for him—damien will stab you if you ever say that out loud, but he does.
tango has often taken trophies from several places he was dropped, and damien has to keep telling him that, no, heads and torsos are not decoration, and that they will rot weeks after they get to the hideout. if he wants, he can eat them but that’s that. damien does get him a1 for it, though, whenever he asks (which is often).
they both get paired up with each other secondly. (usually, damien’s paired with laura whenever they’re going to assassinate some high ranking politician, and tango’s with price or addy depending on the amount of mayhem they want.) but when they do, it’s usually hectic, since they both learned to take out people different ways; it’s glorious, though.
tango and damien, when together communicate through an intricate series of grunts and hmms that they’ve devised when damien’s undercover or behind the scenes. it’s a marvel to behold, and grants them near-perfect synchronization.
when the initiative is dissolved, damien dies thinking about his best friend, still in chains underneath the earth. his heart doesn’t beat anymore, but it still bleeds for tango. he hopes that he has all the barbeque sauce that his heart wants. he deserves it, of course.
