#cod swagger

Quick translation for those interested:

Polska gurom - jokingly misspelling “Polska górą” which means “Poland on top”

Bolszewika goń -chase the Bolsheviks - fragment of an old Polish cavalry song

She slowly positions her pistol, quietly aiming as her finger brushes the trigger. Once, to prepare herself for more blood on her hands. Twice, to make peace with his creator in his stead— he wouldn't have the time nor the delicate nature for it. Thrice, because she likes the feel of the cold metal against her fingertip; it grounds her, tethers her to the reality of what she’s here to do. Lucky numbers be damned, it was all for the thrill of it.

She pulls the trigger and the bullet rips from the barrel as she bites her lip.

To her chagrin, it buries itself in the wall behind her target. To her relief, it definitely struck. The man buckles to the dirtied floor with a groan, gloved hands reaching out to apply pressure to the gash in his calf. It's not enough to kill, they both knew it, but it would put the buck down long enough for her to reload and fire a shot right into his brain. She wonders if she could tell what his face actually looked like when his mask was blown off and gray matter spackled  the floor behind him.

"Knew you were in here, you slimy bastard."

The voice pulls her from her thoughts, and if she were forced to have any sort of virtue left she could be honest and embrace the fact she isn't the most coordinated mercenary out there. Her pistol clatters to the floor. She quickly slips further into the dark, not bothering with her lost weapon for the time being as she positions herself behind a crate to hide.

"Your aim is shit. Your hands must be shaking."

The man's voice continues to rasp. He's taunting her, wants to lure her out. There's something playful about his voice that sends a swell of unease from her chest to the pit of her stomach. The man had just been shot, and that surge of confidence couldn't stem from a wounded man unless he had some sort of a plan. She's been here so many times with so many different flavors of prey that the warning signs aren't lost on her.

She swears she hears the click of him replacing his magazine, the static of his radio, the sound of ripped fabric and a lightening quick application of a makeshift tourniquet. The thought that the gunfire gave out her position crosses her mind.

"Come out, fucking coward."

She's been here so many times, in the dead of night, playing this one-sided game of cat and mouse. She's seen blood, felt the sting of a bullet carving it's way through her, and she's never been afraid. Not until tonight.

This isn't a night to die, yet she's pissed off the fucking grim reaper.

A church bell rings out in the distance, some small mercy. It plants the seed of an idea and she follows the path her mind carves with her hand grasping for a knife at her belt. The knife rips through the quiet air of the warehouse, coming to a clatter some three meters behind him after she tosses it. The man takes the bait, fires several shots in the direction of the noise as she quietly finds her escape. Delivered from death by the heavenly portal of a broken window.

But when it comes to the intricacies of being victimized, it's very rare that things play out so simply. Hunting is a messy task, and one slip up can so quickly prove that prey often have fangs, too.

Her target, some Polish elite soldier, Roland Kaminski, isn't a buck at all. Bucks are easy, they're skittish and stupid. You fire off a shot at one of them, they buckle or prance back into the plush foliage of the forest for cover. When thundering footsteps can be heard in the dark, just past the safety of the broken window, she realises she's not dealing with another deer. Shes got a frenzied boar at her heels.

She's defenseless, her arms scattered in the darkness of the warehouse the boar is charging from, and she finds she lacks the will to break her ankle jumping down onto the pavement below. This is the line where the hunt becomes a proper fight. Her pulse beats like the thunder tearing apart the sky above her, every muscle in her body pulled tight like a spring waiting to maul her impending threat.

The fight never comes.

One moment, he's charging through the wreckage inside like a behemoth with a taste for human flesh, and the next he's simply staring at her while he's shrouded by the dark. It's almost comical, really, her thoughts flood with pictures of horror mascots as she teeters on the windowsill, staring right back into the wide, dark eyes of his mask. They remain in a stasis for a moment, both breathing shallow, both watching the other. Then, he does something that surprises her. Surprises and infuriates her.

He pulls his radio up to his mask, breathes out a heavy sigh as the sound of static cuts through this pair's silence. The grim reaper has the audacity to pretend his frustration over arches her own, and she's gritting her teeth wondering how likely it was she could free his esophagus from the column of his neck with her mouth alone.

She feels his gaze rove over her, lingering along the empty holster at her hip and the garter on her thigh.

"Target's down."

He's lying to his team, lying because he pities her, and she can't think of a thing more insulting. A mercenary is no different than a prostitute, money for flesh, pain or pleasure. She's aware of it, she's seen her fellow mercs gunned down without a second thought from their enemies. She's heard the men in her company boast of ravaging paid women without thought. For some time, she's considered they may all be beasts, but the grim reaper is sparing her. Sparing her, because he doesn't see her as a threat at all. A defenseless woman clinging to a broken window like it's the only tether she has to the world at all. He's no boar, no blood-stained reaper, just a person. He doesn't see her as pounds of flesh to march into battle before him. She sees humanity, and he sees an insect unworthy of his bullet.

"I tried to kill you," she breathes out, enunciates each word careful and slow as she tries to get a read on him, praying her assumption isn't true. There's the creaking of broken glass beneath the toes of her boots as she pivots herself to fully face him, standing in the window with the backdrop of a dark sky threatening violence. The man shrugs his broad shoulders, turns away, as though nothing has even happened. Her stare drifts to the tourniquet on his calf, and it dawns on her that he isn't even limping.

"I wouldn't even need a minute with you." He sounds bored. The pity stung enough. She wasn't just a hapless rabbit in his eyes, she was a gnat. A nuisance to top it all off. "Who are you working for?"

She falls silent, teetering on the ledge of the windowsill in silent debate. The jump would end in injury, but the darkened sky and the rain could cover her. There’s a building less than half a mile away and if she just made it there then—

“Answer.” Roland’s gruff voice sounds out in the quiet warehouse again, and she hazards a glance up just in time to catch those dead eyes of his peering at her from over his shoulder.

“I don’t know.”

“No?”

“I don’t have a name.”

Roland merely huffs at that, rolls his shoulders a little. He’s confident, a bit too arrogant for a man that’s been shot. She may have seen a boar, and he may have seen an ange, because he has the audacity to give her a comforting pat on the shoulder with a gentle swipe of his thumb along her neck.

Tells her, “Get lost.”

Follows it up with, “Let us never meet again.”

She doesn’t die on this frigid, rainy night, but a part of her is lost with him. Lost with a man that looks at her as though she had tiny angel’s wing, buzzing at her back. Lost with a man who’s entire existence is an enigma to her. Shoot to kill, and she hadn’t. Shoot to kill and not ever would she again, not to him, not to the man who gave her mercy when she deserved none.

— — —

She finds herself working alongside the Polish GROM. Realistically, she had returned sopping wet to her shabby hotel and spent hours researching how to work her way in. She doesn’t know why, but she’s found herself enthralled in a shadow, worshipping him in her own way. All for a chance to see her should-be reaper. And she’s no elite, can barely keep her trigger finger steady, but supplementing for a fallen soldier is the standard and she’s got enough falsified experience under her belt to look the part of a proper gunman.

It pays enough to keep her afloat until the next thing piques her interest or her contract ends, whichever comes first. Her room is simple, a barren mattress and dark walls, a concrete floor. It doesn’t feel homey, but no place ever does nowadays. Small blessings are found in the fact she doesn’t have to share the space, it’s hers and hers alone.

She spends her first few hours inspecting the place for bugs, then takes to staring up at the ceiling, listless, because what the hell had made her so impulsive? Roland could have already had his head blown clean off by anyone else by now. Did she even want to see him? To choke him with his own words or thank him for his kindness?

All of this uprooting driven by impulsivity for a man who told her not to meet him again and yet she’s here, walking about the compound like she truly belongs.

She should have cut her hair, tried to make herself look different from the trembling mouse on the ledge that night, but a part of her wants him to see her. Recognize her, bring him down from that gilded throne of his where women like her are just nuisances instead of a proper challenge.

Only, she’s not a challenge. Not at all, because the second she meets him in the stairwell her mind starts swimming and all she can do is stare. He looks a bit tired, likely having just returned from some dreadful mission, even wearing all black he’s covered in sprays of dust, the denim of his trousers painted darker in some places, blood.

“Ja jebię.”

He hadn’t forgotten.

His breath sounds shaky, and she’s not sure if it’s because the gas mask in its proper place or if he’s actually surprised, startled. If anything could shake him down from his pedestal she imagined meeting the woman who tried to kill him once again would do it.

“How’s your leg?”

“Better than your aim, pizda.”

She imagines that he would probably like nothing better than to put a bullet through her right then. The man merely laughs, something breathy and low. She’s surprised him, probably both startled and impressed that she even had the balls to face him again. She likes that, likes that little laugh, that his voice isn’t angry, that he’s playing with fire just as much as she is.

“What are you doing here?”

“Contract,” she states simply, not bothering to hide the way her gaze rakes over his body in the yellow haze of fluorescent lighting. “Just a few months, filling in a gap.”

He mutters something under his breath, a string of Polish and French that she doesn’t quite catch. She knows that he knows she’s infatuated, taking to follow after a wild coyote like a house pet.

It’s a dirty word, infatuated; dangerous in a way that scares her more than facing down the barrel of a gun.

Roland takes a step towards her, brushes her hair from her face with a touch too rough and leans in close to look at her, inspect her as though she’s not even really here, some figment of his vile imagination. She just… lets him. Despite her better judgement she lets him grip at her face like she’s nothing but putty in his hands.

“Here to kill me?” He asks his question as he retreats from her and drops his hands to his sides, staring at her as though she’s not an implant in his force, but an implant on the planet itself.

“Not this time.”

He gives her a tilt of the head and a grunt in response before brushing past in a hurry.

— — —

The following morning, she wakes to several rapid knocks at her door. Sounding just impatient enough to pull her from her sleep with her heart fluttering like a small bird in her rib cage. She readily hops out of bed and dresses before turning the knob to reveal something she didn’t expect— Roland. It’s the first times she’s seen him without his gas mask, but she recognizes him immediately. He’s more handsome when he doesn’t look the part of a famished buzzard seeking out carrion.

“Kaminski.”

“Swagger,” he corrects and she can’t help but laugh at the usage of his callsign. She wants to know how he got stuck with that, something so embarrassing it makes him sound as though he’s some teenage boy desperate to fit in or perhaps even a pirate, not the man she sees before her.

“We aren’t on the field.”

“Today we will pretend.”

He grabs her arm in the very same boorish way he had grabbed at her face just yesterday, and leads her down an empty hallway in silence. Each step seems to echo louder than the last. She wonders for half a moment if he does intend to kill her, hazards a look up at him expecting to see some flame of gruesome determination in his eyes only to be met with a calmness that makes her reconsider.

Today isn’t a day to die, either, it seemed.

He leads her to a room of bulletproof glass and well-placed targets. Pulls his gun from his holster after inspecting that she hadn’t thought to bring her own. She feels silly when his touch goes to prod at her hip, dips along the waistband of her trousers to seek out a weapon that just isn’t there. She’s ill-prepared and now her face feels hot all while Roland didn’t seem to have so much as a care.

“I’ll teach you to shoot,” he huffs as he steps behind her and places his gun in her hands, an ugly thing she recognizes to be a SIG P226. The metal feels cold and heavy in her hands, but she handles it well enough. It doesn’t particularly help that one of his arms curls around her middle to keep her steady. It’s even worse that one hand remains splayed over hers as she holds the gun.

Shooting when you’re in a desperate situation is difficult enough. The thought that death could be approaching doesn’t keep most grounded, not her at least. It makes her shaky. This is far worse. The man is so close she can smell him, gunpowder and something pungent and clean like mint. She feels his warmth cover her back, his fingers digging a bit into her side.

“I’m ready.”

He grunts in response, maneuvering her a bit closer to a small window carved out in the glass.

“Then shoot.”

So, she does. She misses, of course, and she feels even more silly when he mutters something into her shoulder and deliberately moves and angles her arm properly. The only thing good is that the gun’s recoil is soft, because if she were pushed any further against him she may very well melt down into putty.

Again and again she takes aim and fires at the brightly colored target through the window. After what feels like hours she’s finally hit some place that makes Roland give her an appreciative pat to her tummy.

“I’m improving.” She feigns his confidence, puffing out her chest a little in pride.

“Are you?”

He steals the gun from her hand and draws away to face her properly. There’s a tension she can’t place, something strange in the flicker of his eye.

“You saw—“

Her words are cut off when the man tackles her to the floor, covering her entirely as he pins her from either side. A sharp intake of oxygen is stolen as her spine tingles in pain from the sudden force. She yelps, he laughs, and none of it is funny because he’s still holding a loaded fucking gun. Only, worse, when he presses the muzzle against her cheek and uses his free hand to fix her wrists to the cold floor beneath her.

He tuts at her when she doesn’t try to fight him off, only looks up at him with wide-eyes and parted lips, a face too warm to only depict fear. If he didn’t know before, he knows now. She catches a mischievous glimmer in his eyes right before she tilts her head to kiss the cold steel clutched tightly in his fingers.

Roland stiffens above her for a moment, every muscle in his body pulled taut, jaw clenched and eyes fluttering.

“Not pizda,” he whispers as he clicks the safety back on and shifts to holster the weapon. “You are like a…”

“Ange?”

“Non,” he laughs. “Aniołku.”

If she didn’t know before, she knows now.

— — —

Any training session is spent with Roland.

Every mission they’re tethered to one another.

Any free time she finds yourself having is spent with him, even seeking him out herself just as often as he comes pounding at her door.

It feels both natural and absurd, sharing meals with the man she almost murdered, covering him as he covers her, both finding themselves less and less willing to be on their own as the days pass by. The progression just doesn’t halt, a train plowing off track, the man has his blunt talons curled into her and she just doesn’t have the sense to beat him back because she knows she’s got her teeth embedded just as deeply into him.

It doesn’t even come as a surprise when she starts her mornings peeling herself away from him, still sleeping peacefully in her bed. His room lacks taste— too barren, too bogged down with well-oiled metal and violence. She’s spruced hers up in the free time she has with small items, things she can pack up and carry with her to whichever side she finds herself pulled to next.

The thing she keeps most sacred, however, is a little photograph of him, one he had insisted on her keeping on the bedside table, despite being in flesh, wrapped tightly around her each and every night.

She picks it up, turns it over in her hands a few times before the weight of a heavy hand splays itself out across her middle, languidly tugging her back down.

“Stay,” he murmurs, someplace lost between dreaming and waking.

“Just for a bit,” she whispers in reply, nestling close, curling against his chest.

“Forever, aniołku.”

With a soft inhale, she falls back against him in a tangle of limbs and warmth, a part of her lost to the fantasy of permanence.

.・゜゜・　　・゜゜・．

ange: angel (French)

Ja jebię: fuck me

pizda: cunt

non: no (French)