vitali dobrynin

appearance

Vitali has a lean build with broad shoulders and a defined upper body. He has tanned skin and dull blue-ish gray eyes, and his hair is shaved on the sides and slicked back on top. His natural hair color is a dull dark brown, though he bleaches his hair, leaving only his roots in their natural state. He can always be seen with neatly trimmed facial hair and rarely shaves it all off.

He has two tattoos, one on his upper right arm (a heart with a dagger stuck into it) and one on his chest (the hands of the Creation of Adam). Remarkable scars include, but are not limited to: thin top surgery scars lined with very thin cyberware that seems to light up golden, a bullet wound right between the hands of the tattoo on his chest, and deep scarring surrounding his left mantis blade on his forearm. His mantis blades cyberware is nearly invisible until the blades are deployed, at which the cyberware lights up in similar fashion to the cyberware on his top surgery scars. The cyberware on his left forearm is reinforced with matte black plating and lining.

Vitali can most often be seen wearing suits of all varieties. He wears a black and gold hearing aid in his right ear, and can be found walking with a cane on some days after the events of late 2077 and early 2078; in combat, he instead wears a heavy leg brace on his right leg for support. Despite initially believing he would eventually no longer need these aids, he continues to need the support for his leg for the rest of his life.

biography

childhood

Vitali was born to Matvey Dobrynin and Nadya Dobrynina in Wellsprings, Heywood, where he lived for most of his early childhood in one of the luxury suites of the Megabuilding on the pier. He was the oldest of three, his younger siblings Daniil and Roksana born three and five years after him respectively.

He was a popular kid in school, though was well aware this was entirely because of his parents’ fortune; in fact, a lot of the kids did not like him at all, talking about him behind his back when they thought he couldn’t hear them. The only person he considered to be his friend at the time was Jackie Welles, who he had known essentially since birth because of their mothers being childhood friends; and later on Vitali befriended Mikhail Koshechkin, a rather shy kid who he met in middle school and grew close with very quickly in the years to come.

Vitali was considered to be a troublemaker by his teachers, on account of the amount of times he would get himself in fights with other kids. However, what they never seemed to take into account was the fact that Vitali never hit first, only ever standing up for himself or for others and defending himself as necessary; he rarely made the effort to explain himself and his actions to his teachers and parents, knowing they wouldn’t listen to him anyway and not wanting to waste his energy on that.

Despite his reputation he was a smart kid and didn’t mind studying at all, often finishing all his schoolwork at school so he was left with little homework throughout most of elementary school. In his free time he mostly hung out with what little friends he had on the pier of Wellsprings, or sneaking around basketball courts and alleyways with no clear purpose other than just looking for adventure.

teen years

In middle and high school, Vitali’s grades gradually climbed up and he initially showed interest in history, languages, and cultural studies. This, however, changed drastically when Vitali’s home situation turned even worse than it had been before.

Both Vitali’s parents worked for Arasaka, his father as a banker and high-ranked executive and his mother as a security officer. His mother had been pushing his father to work toward a promotion, and following said promotion they had been forced to move to one of Velvet Harbor’s gated communities, in City Center. His mother hated it there and she became an even more bitter woman than she had already been before. Her horrible mood swings, bad temper, and unfair outbursts– mostly directed at her oldest son– took its toll on all three of her children, as well as her husband.

That is why Vitali would rather not be at home anymore in his teen years and spent a lot of time over at his new friend Mikhail’s place. The two met in middle school and grew closer quickly– Vitali taking a liking to the quiet kid and Mikhail the only one not intimidated by Vitali’s distant demeanor– and bonded over their similar backgrounds and the fact they shared the same mother tongue. Vitali often stood up for Mikhail at school too, which soon made them inseparable; the latter was bullied a lot, and Vitali would regularly pick fights with his bullies.

While often assumed to be in a romantic relationship, the two actually never had anything like that though still loved each other to pieces. Vitali was still a good student, despite the minimal effort he put in; he used this to help Mikhail with studying to the best of his abilities, and helped him through a rough patch when he was diagnosed with Tourette’s. Mikhail in return fully supported Vitali when he came out as transgender at age fifteen, and even helped him pick his name.

However, Vitali coming out made his home situation even worse, with his mother refusing to accept Vitali’s identity. She continued to push all sorts of extra work on him, to the point he could barely focus on school and he would much rather spend his time out of the house entirely; it also caused friction between him and his younger siblings, as they never had to do the work that was expected of him and whenever he asked for help they would outright refuse to do so.

Especially in high school Vitali could most often be found spending his time with Mikhail over at his place, after school and on the weekends. They would do homework, but also smoked and got drunk on a regular basis and would then fall asleep in each other’s arms listening to loud music or watching a bad horror movie. In their last summer together before setting off for college and university, Vitali even gifted a necklace he had gotten from his mother, which was meant for his significant other one day; though Vitali believed he would never end up in a relationship and thus gave it to Mikhail instead, who still wears it to this day.

early adult years

Vitali and Mikhail’s plans to always be together soon changed after they went their separate ways after high school. Mikhail moved to Charter Hill to study Medicine at Night City’s university while Vitali himself moved to the Glen to study Business & Management in college. He reunited with Jackie, who by then he had not seen in years– but it also caused him to lose contact with Mikhail a little bit, to the point they barely found the time to talk to each other.

Jackie introduced Vitali to Viktor Vektor, an old ripperdoc and boxer operating in Watson. Vitali often hung out with the two of them on Sundays, picking up boxing as a hobby to deal with his anger issues in a healthy manner; it also helped him build up muscle and strength, and it honed his fighting skills which would come in handy later in his life. Vitali needed some time, but eventually took a liking to Viktor; the man ended up becoming a parental figure to him, despite neither of them being willing to admit it.

Vitali went completely off the rails in college, having lost contact with his family after moving out; despite his best efforts to reconnect, his parents did not deem him welcome in the family anymore. He went to parties and despite having made a promise to Mikhail to stop smoking, soon enough found himself in a downward spiral of alcohol, sex and drugs. To make everything worse, one of Vitali’s exes unbeknownst to him took his phone and wrecked it, causing Vitali to believe he had lost it; with that, he had lost Mikhail’s number and without knowing where his friend lived, he was unable to reconnect with him either.

Vitali quickly spiraled further, not being able to hold a job for longer than two months at most on account of his employers not taking his disabilities seriously and providing zero accommodations for them. His financial troubles soon had him turning to sex work to make ends meet, which only worsened his addictions, but at least gave him the money he needed for his medication, maintenance on his hearing aid, and later on his top surgery. He did not have many friends or support systems, and instead kept coming back to Nick Vossler, one of his classmates who he had an on-and-off relationship with for a couple of years; every other relationship he tried to have in those years failed because of one thing or another, and the few shallow friendships he had often ended with them.

Following an unexpected surgery on his right leg in his third year of college, Vitali picked up smoking again; though in an attempt to keep his promise to Mikhail– ignoring the weed he had been smoking over the past years– he only smoked fake cigarettes, not longing for the nicotine itself but simply the action, the habit of having something in his hand and being preoccupied with it for some minutes– and the feeling of nostalgia and the memories of Mikhail that came with it.

Vitali’s college years were a very lonely time for him, but despite all his hardships he managed to graduate cum laude, with a major in analytics and a minor in psychology. When he had started studying he hadn’t had many ideas for the future yet, believing it would become clear for him a few years into his education; but all of it simply led him back on the path of Arasaka, something he had once sworn he would never do.

arasaka

After successfully graduating from college, Vitali joined an Arasaka training program, hoping to be able to work for the corporation at some point– he made it through with ease and started working for them at the age of 24. He was well aware of the corporation’s corrupt agenda and its horrible working conditions, but none of that stopped him; perhaps he was hoping to be able to reconnect with his family if he showed them he could follow in his parents’ footsteps, or perhaps he simply saw no other future for himself anymore.

Vitali’s goal was to get himself into a powerful position in the corporation, to hopefully be able to fundamentally change something about its ways from the inside; though everyone in his life at the time knew it wasn’t going to work out the way he wanted it to and he would end up selling his soul for nothing. Especially Jackie and Viktor voiced their concerns; though despite Vitali ignoring them and disagreeing with Vitali’s life choices they still stayed with him, knowing his dreams would come to collapse at Arasaka and they didn’t want Vitali to be alone for that.

Vitali quickly moved himself up in Arasaka’s ranks, his excellent analytical and observational skills quickly proving to be of great use to them. He soon enough ended up landing a high-ranking job at Arasaka’s Counterintelligence division, working directly under Arthur Jenkins, who trusted him with many important offensive operations as well as inside jobs.

Despite Vitali’s much more professional attitude, he still had the wild side from his college years stuck under his skin and could still be found sleeping with nearly every man who came close to him, making as much extra cash as he could outside work hours. Though this changed when he was assigned a bodyguard following a job gone wrong at age 25– as the bodyguard in question turned out to be Mikhail.

Finally reunited after give or take six years, Vitali and Mikhail were incredibly relieved to see each other alive and well and it was as if they hadn’t been apart for a second; they were once again as close as before, though were also forced to be professional with each other for their respective jobs. It helped Vitali settle down a little and though he still did his sex work on the side, it was significantly less than before and a lot healthier for him too. The two made an excellent team together and worked on various cases, such as field work concerning Kang Tao and insider research on Arasaka’s very own Special Programs division.

Following the Frankfurt Incident in early 2075, Vitali was tasked by Jenkins to kill his superior. Unsure how to approach the task, Vitali called Jackie to ask for his help– however, when the two met, they were attacked by Arasaka agents who stripped Vitali of his corporate status and almost killed him. Vitali lost everything in the span of a few days, and was forced to move in with Jackie for the time being; Mikhail quit his job as well, loyal to Vitali and not wanting to leave him behind.

fixer career

Determined to get some of his status back, Vitali began working in the criminal underworld, first starting at the bottom as a mercenary, but later presenting himself as a fixer, unhappy with how most of the gigs he had taken on himself had gone. His gigs were mostly a high risk, high reward deal, which is why most mercenaries did not stick around for long at first. Those who did stay, ended up becoming close friends to Vitali and what is referred to as his inner mercenary circle. Mikhail soon enough became Vitali’s Head of Security, after he had managed to get himself an office building as HQ in Wellsprings, better known as the Crest.

Vitali met Vincent Mayer in late 2076, in the height of his fixer days. Vincent, introduced to him as V by Jackie, began taking easy gigs from Vitali to ease himself into the mercenary life; Vitali instantly took a liking to him and the two of them became friends relatively quickly, to the point where Vincent could often be found over at Vitali’s place on the weekends. With how rarely Vitali made friends with others that fast, it was only a matter of time before he would start developing feelings for Vincent; though he left most of it unmentioned for a very long time, unsure if Vincent would feel the same and scared to possibly ruin their friendship, worrying his status as a fixer would get in the way.

the relic

Vitali was part of the team put together by Dexter DeShawn to launch a heist on Konpeki Plaza, to steal the Relic from Yorinobu Arasaka. Following the disastrous events of the heist, he found himself separated from Vincent and upon returning to the No-Tell Motel, only found his blood; this prompted Vitali to look for Vincent’s body on the landfill he had been dropped on for fourteen consecutive hours, before giving up and driving to the nearest bar to get blackout drunk.

Following Vincent’s recovery at Viktor’s clinic, Vitali tried to help his friend to the best of his abilities; he attempted striking a deal with Rogue Amendiares to get her help, unsuccessfully so, and often sent mercenaries with Vincent on gigs to keep him safe. He also provided him with all the financial aid he needed, and would check up on him regularly to make sure he was doing well– or as well as he could be, given the circumstances. Vitali and Vincent got together romantically in early June 2077, on Vincent’s birthday.

Vitali assisted Vincent with the attack on Mikoshi in late June 2077, and afterwards left Night City with him to try and get help for him in Tucson, Arizona. Following Vincent’s surgeries and recovery, the two were forced to return to Night City to try and find the rest of the cure at Arasaka itself, remnants of Soulkiller still active in Vincent’s system and slowly but surely killing him.

death

Upon Vincent and Vitali’s return to Night City in August 2077 and after reuniting with their friends, they began launching heists on Arasaka facilities to gather more information on Soulkiller and how to stop its effects. During one of these raids, Vitali was shot in the chest and his friends were forced to leave him behind, which is how he ended up in Arasaka’s hands.

In secret, Arasaka’s Special Programs branch had begun test trials for what would later become known as the APEX program; a software actively run in live test subjects meant to control their memories, skills, and behavior, to turn them into brainwashed soldiers for Arasaka.

Vitali was officially dead for a few minutes, leaving his friends to believe he had died and his body had been recovered by Arasaka; however, the corporation was successful in reviving him, and after a short recovery period he was added to their lineup of test subjects for the program.

Due to the complications of the APEX program, Arasaka was forced to develop a stabilizer to turn Soulkiller dormant within a host. Vitali received this stabilizer– which would later be used to stabilize Vincent too– as well, and he ended up fighting off the program’s brainwashing effects sometime in late 2077. Before that moment, however, he had been continuously used by Arasaka to hunt down Vincent and his friends, and in his brainwashed state had even stabbed Mikhail at some point, nearly killing him. Vitali continued to pretend to still be with the corporation for another time, but in one final attack of his friends on a facility he joined their side and helped them get the stabilizer for Vincent.

the broker

Information pending. Read the fic here in the meantime, or check out the timeline (part 1 + part 2) for a quick overview of events.

future

Following the events of 2078, Vitali gets his nightclub Dysnomia in the basement of the Crest. He continues his work as a fixer and later on in 2083 starts an alliance with Club Bodytalk and fixer Aubrey Valentine.

personality

Vitali is professional, hard-working and a little stoic, caring about how he presents himself as a fixer while simultaneously not caring too much about what other people think of him. He is a firm believer of the mentality that he has control over how he presents himself to the world and does his best to do this in the way he wants people to see him, but he does not control other people’s perceptions of him, and he knows it’s of little use to try and change anything about that or concern himself with it.

As a friend, he is loyal and charming, mostly showing affection through acts of service and by lending a listening ear. He is very patient and a lot kinder than people assume him to be, though generally does not show this on the surface due to his professional attitude towards strangers and clients alike.

On the other side of things, Vitali is a workaholic and a very stubborn man. He does not let emotions cloud his judgment often, making him very objective– though to some this may look like he does not care at all, when in reality he cares so much he is making the active decision to treat the situation as objective as possible to get to a preferable outcome as fast as possible.

fixer

Vitali has a very professional and corpo-esque approach to his fixer business. He operates from his 25-floor-high office building the Crest– a place where mercenaries can come together to prepare for gigs, lounge, work out, and work on their weapons, but can also get temporary housing if necessary.

gigs

The most common gigs Vitali offers are high risk, high reward gigs involving corporations. Most of his clients are either corpos themselves looking to blackmail other corporations or even their colleagues, or outsiders who simply want to create chaos within corporations– and Vitali is more than happy to help. He is well aware he’s simply one man in the bigger picture of things and because of this mostly focuses on small portions of corporations; drawing too much attention to himself with bigger operations would just put himself as well as his mercenaries in danger.

Routine gigs involve simple deliveries, escorts, and providing security for regular clients and contacts; Vitali has a network established for himself to keep business up and running even when bigger gigs are sparse and hard to come around, to make sure his regular mercs can still do work and make money.

There is also plenty of work that can be done around the office itself; the Crest has a whole floor dedicated to spying on corporations similar to Vitali’s work back at Arasaka Counterintel, to keep tabs on what’s happening within the corporate world for the sake of the fixer Council but mostly for himself and his mercenaries. Aside from that, there is plenty of on-site security needed to keep the Crest a safe place, as well as maintenance, cleaning, and paperwork duties for those looking for a change of pace.

employment

Vitali runs background checks on all his mercenaries and establishes contracts based on his findings and the merc’s wants and needs. He can provide them with a stable job and income if they so desire and when putting together teams for gigs he focuses on neatly balancing out qualities and experience levels to ensure the mercs will get along and can learn from each other in the process.

Pay rates fall anywhere between 70-100% of the total amount paid by the client, depending on how long the merc has been employed and a combination of other variables Vitali keeps track of, such as medical records and home situation.

Vitali has never lost a mercenary on a job before, and he would feel personally responsible were anyone to die. Gigs tend to take longer and require more planning than with other fixers, which is why joining his office is often a well-informed choice one makes. On the upside, it means that the pay is much better than with other fixers, and all his employees get proper health insurance; Vitali is also known for jumping in when a gig is not going well, providing backup or extra resources if a team requires it.

council involvement

Vitali has been part of the fixer Council from its founding in 2077. Despite his involvement in the Council and the funding he pushes forward each month, he does not like to work together with most other fixers and tends to stay in his own lane. His most notable connections are with Rogue Amendiares and Wakako Okada; in 2083, he also forms an alliance with Aubrey Valentine.

Vitali does not mind jumping in to assist another fixer in need with whatever issue they have and generally expects nothing in return, but if they show him disrespect at any point after that he will hold a grudge that he will take with him to his grave. Not much can be done to change his mind on that.

reputation

Within his own business, Vitali gets along with most if not all of his mercenaries well, simply because he respects them in a way not many other fixers do– his own experience with gigs causes him to be a lot more understanding of the risks and dangers and all the careful decisions mercenaries have to make, which is why he puts in the effort he does to help them as much as he can. While some feel intimidated by him at first, most of his mercenaries admire him a lot.

Outside his own business, Vitali has a mixed reputation. Many see him as a corpo nepo baby and do not trust him because of his previous ties to Arasaka. Vitali’s brief return to the corporation during the APEX program as brainwashed test subject, as well as the mysterious resurfacing of his father, have sparked controversy as well, though with the true identity of the Broker only known by his inner merc circle there is nothing that can be held against him. The rumors circulating around Night City about Vitali are the main reason he is usually not welcome in other fixer establishments, as a way to preserve their own reputation and to not get associated with him.

Within the freelancer world, Vitali keeps tabs on many freelance fixers (the likes of Dexter DeShawn) and regularly updates his blacklist to keep his mercs away from shady contracts and possible death traps. Within the client world, Vitali runs background checks on all his clients too and regularly refuses gigs that feel off to him, usually because of the involvement of a core player in some corporation or unclear origins of the client in question. If a running gig turns out to be shady, he calls back his team and then responds accordingly– sometimes this leads to a dead client, but more than often it leads to blackmail or threats to get more money out of them and then kick them out of Night City for good.

affiliations

factions

• Arasaka; former employee, antagonistic
• Bodytalk; alliance
• Dysnomia; nightclub
• Fixer Council; active member
• Inner Merc Circle; his most trusted mercenaries
• The Crest; his office

relationships

vincent mayer

Information pending.

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