FFC 2025: Day 7 - Spy/Secret Agent/Assassin AU
Cold War AU Eris (/? &?) Toland! More about this setting in the fic author notes.
Toland arrives, Eris thinks, with a waft of cigarette smoke and musty paper and the tang of hot electronics. Eris thinks but isn't quite certain — maybe his presence merely ignited a web of associations in her brain. Real or imagined, she catches his scent before his form resolves in her blurred vision, a dark silhouette in the bright interior of her office in the top floor of the Defense Intelligence Agency headquarters.
"Major Morn," he greets, voice thin. He moves close enough that she can make out the detail of his overcoat, his smart black suit, dark hair grayer and longer than she remembers. A suggestion of a smile tugs at the lines of his face.
"It's been ten years since I was called that." She's as sure as she is of anything that he doesn't speak with malice but deference, a former subordinate's lingering respect for his superior. Still, she's mocked by the reminder — her crew, her wings, years of her life, much of her sight, all ripped violently from her. Toland, too, nearly lost, spared only by an act of selfish happenstance.
He sinks into the armchair opposite her desk. Eris does not receive friendly visitors. Most in the agency avoid her unless her expertise is needed, and even then, her advice is regarded with skepticism if not suspicion. Conspiracy theories abound that the crash was an attempt at defection, that she didn't escape, but was brainwashed and allowed to return stateside as a spy. There are a few who trust her — the only one who really matters, the director, Ikora Rey — but everyone else falls into a spectrum of conditionality.
She wonders on what condition Toland has come. RAND must want something big if they've sent him of all people.
True to his nature, he declares abruptly, as though continuing a thought mid-sentence: "Speed and altitude. With enough speed and altitude, the bomber can evade any Soviet countermeasure. This is the doctrine of bomber superiority."
"I thought you'd have been disabused of that notion when our plane was shot from the sky," she pauses then adds, "Not that you were there to see it."
"How was I supposed to know how fateful that day would prove?"
"You couldn't. But you should have known better than calling out sick to —" she lowers her voice to not draw notice from the eavesdroppers she imagines on the other side of the door, " — leap into such a stupid honeytrap."
He matches her, leaning in closer. "I resent the implication that a beautiful woman would only be interested in me to extract information —"
"Irina Yutshenkov? Toland, how much more obvious could it have been?!"
"I shouldn't have done it. I should have been flying that mission, so I could have died like the rest of our team." Through his typical detached aloofness, a tone of actual hurt. It's enough to stir up some old pang of loyalty, not enough for sympathy, but a yearning for the bond they'd once had. Still, she wonders if it would have been better that way, for all his mad ideas about war and logic and human nature to be forever sealed away in death than fall into the hands of the truly ruthless.
He relaxes back into the chair, his gaze not quite meeting her own as his hands grip the arms.
"Eris, I came to tell you there are elements of correctness to your philosophy. Too long have I clung to old doctrines. Too long have I ignored the threat posed by missiles; what happened to our team — to you — should have been the wakeup call. I'm ashamed that it took Cuba, and Powers, for me to see."
To force Toland's acquiescence on anything — much less one of his most cherished ideas — put a glow of satisfaction in Eris' chest. Her mood was tempered by the grimness of the situation, but a sense of personal triumph remained. Smiling despite herself, she leans back in her chair and asks: "You admit I'm right?"
Toland nods. "I only regret that it took me so long to."
