You, Adler, and Tims had spent the last few hours going over Vietnam. Memories Adler actually had, actually had to relive, recalling them alongside someone who probably never stepped foot in the country but believes with the absolute certainty of some kind of a machine, that you survived the terror just as vividly as he. It was hard not to feel a sense of disdain towards you, an enemy, recalling the horrid memories that he, himself, actually lived.

Adler rarely spoke of his time in Vietnam, and on the occasions he did, he took particular care to consider whose ears his words went into. He had just spent the last few hours sharing trauma with an enemy, a complete stranger he holds zero trust in. So, yes. It’s been a long night, and you being here, attempting to have some kind of late-night talk, is not doing the man any favors.

There is a brief alteration in your expression, a minute fracture that passes almost as soon as it forms, your features gathering themselves with a diligence before you step nearer, closing a distance he had not granted you. He never granted it to you, yet you always took it.

Your hand lifts, and when you speak again, your voice has softened. “Well, I was just wondering if I could bum a cigarette.”

Adler’s brow inclines, his gaze settling upon you with a scrutiny that feels less like observation and more like recalibration. “You don’t smoke.”

Anymore.

It isn’t phrased as a question; he has no need of confirmation. Your habits, your inclinations, the carefully assembled fragments that constitute you are all known quantities to him, created with precision so that it exceeds your own understanding of yourself. To him, it left his lips like a cautious reminder rather than anything else.

You respond with a slight elevation of the shoulders, that small, almost self-conscious smile drawing faintly at your mouth, an expression that’s been learned rather than lived. “I know. I’m oddly craving one.”

He regards you for a moment longer than is necessary before he draws once more upon the cigarette. When he exhales and points to the door, the gesture carries less patience.

“You have a job to do, Bell,” he says, your name rendered with a firmness that anchors it, that insists upon your reality. “So go inside and do it.”

You begin to protest, a faint “But,” scarcely formed before it’s interrupted.

“Now.”

There’s hesitation in you, that familiar and fleeting pause, something beneath the surface strains to assemble itself into coherence, yet it dissolves as swiftly as it arises. You nod, subdued, compliant, and turn back toward the safe house.

Adler doesn’t watch as you retreat back into the safe house. He turns back to look at the light pollution in the sky above, listening to the muted cadence of your footsteps, the slight resistance of the door as it yields, the soft closure that follows, sealing you once more within the constructed confines of a reality that must not, under any circumstance, be allowed to fracture.

Finding Perseus better go by quick.

“You shouldn’t speak to her like that.”

He turns again, more slowly now, irritation already taking shape before recognition follows.

Park stands partially veiled in the shadow, her attention fixed upon him with judgment.

He gives a quiet scoff and looks away before her scrutiny can settle too deeply. “Why’s that?”

“She’s anchored to you,” Park replies, stepping forward, “Her reality is grounded in the belief that you are her friend. More than her friend. She loves you, Adler.”

A subtle shift passes through him, scarcely perceptible, his jaw tightening as he flicks the ash from his cigarette, choosing to observe its descent rather than meet her gaze.

“Appreciate the fucking insight.”

Park exhales, patience thinning. “You can’t treat her as if she were a stranger. If you do, she will begin to question the inconsistencies of the memories.”

He lets the cigarette fall, extinguishing it beneath his boot with more pressure than needed, a small act of controlled destruction, something he wish mercy would inflict upon you.

“Duly noted.” He moves past her, intent on concluding the exchange before it can extend further.

“I mean it, Adler.”

He halts just before the door, his hand hovering near the handle.

“For this to work,” Park continues, “you need to play your part.”

Without acknowledgment, he turns the handle and steps inside, and the illusion, as fragile as it is, endures.

-

Volkov heads the Russian mob that moved into East Berlin once the wall went up in ‘61. This guy has connections throughout Europe and the Americas. Neutralizing him will not only hurt Perseus, but the global syndicate. He’s a big fish.”

“And here’s our little fish: Franz Kraus. According to MI6, he’s one of Volkov’s information couriers. He has a drop scheduled with Volkov for tomorrow night.”

“We’ll infiltrate East Berlin via the U-Bahn. A ghost station on the other side of the wall has the access point we need. From there, we’ll watch Kraus as he enters the city. Once Volkov shows his face, it’s kill or capture.”

The train shudders as it carves its way through the tunnel, iron grinding against iron in a rhythm that grates your nerves. The carriage sways with a weary insistence, its dim interior thick with the low murmur of civilians returning to their respective corners of the city, their voices blending into a dull hum. Across the aisle sits Adler.

He hasn’t looked at you, not once since you boarded, and though you might, under different circumstances, attribute such indifference to the maintenance of a cover that demands distance, there is something within it that resists that simple explanation, something too deliberate. It’s not that he ignores you, it’s that he seems to refrain.

You’re not stupid or blind; you’ve noticed the pattern. In the safe house, in those in-between hours when the air grows stagnant and time seems to stretch, you find yourself wandering, your hands grazing along surfaces you have no business acquainting yourself with, your attention straying toward objects that are not yours to examine, and each time, without fail, there comes that subtle and unmistakable shift in the room.

He watches you, and when you turn, when instinct compels you to catch him in the act, there is nothing but the studied vacancy of a man who has already looked away. It would be easier if he dismissed you outright, reduced you to a function and nothing more, but he doesn’t. He speaks when required, gives orders, and then, just as swiftly, he recedes again into that peculiar silence, leaving behind the faint and irritating impression that there is something being withheld just beyond your reach.

You have begun to suspect that something is wrong with him.

It should be shrugged off as a distraction you can’t afford (you can’t, so why are you hyper-fixating on it?), because the operation demands focus, demands that you do not indulge in curiosities that serve no tactical purpose. To pursue it would be to introduce unnecessary risk, to disturb a balance that, however strange, has thus far remained intact. You are perfectly aware of this.

You are also aware that you are going to ignore those demands.

By the time the train slows and the brakes begin their long, complaining descent into stillness, you’ve come to a decision: confrontation.

When you and Adler disembark, there will be no one else. Only the two of you moving through those abandoned tunnels, the silence unbroken by anything but your own footfalls. There will be no convenient interruption, no external presence for him to defer to, no easy means of escape that he can dress up as duty.

You suspect, with certainty that borders on amusement, that if given the opportunity elsewhere, he would practically run off, slipping from the conversation before it can take shape, dismissing you with a word, a glance, or nothing at all. He won’t have that luxury tonight.

You’re well aware your primary objective tonight is Volkov, it sits at the forefront of your mind, a fixed point around which everything else must orbit. You are a soldier, and you perform accordingly, following Adler’s direction without question, because that is what you have always done. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a second consideration now, one that lingers just behind the first, less official: Adler himself.

You intend to understand this, whatever it is, this distance that is not distance, this attention that refuses to be seen. There is something in you that resists being handled in half-glances and unfinished interactions, something that bristles at the idea of being observed without being addressed, known without being acknowledged. You want an answer.

You move to the back of the train, barely listening to what Adler has to say before you both jump off.

You strike the ground with a force that drives the breath from you in an involuntary exhale, your shoulder colliding against the tracks, the shock of it reverberating through bone and sinew alike. The gravel shifts beneath you with a grating protest as you groan and move to stand. Adler doesn’t so much as offer you a hand.

“Careful.” He says, the word landed late and useless. Adler must have gotten off on mocking you.

By the time you push yourself upright, his attention is elsewhere, his pistol drawn. His voice carries low through the tunnel, threaded with caution. “East German guards still patrol these abandoned stations.”

And then he’s moving. A curse slips from you under your breath as you retrieve your own weapon, the metal cold and familiar in your grasp, and you move to follow, quickening your pace to close the distance he has already begun to create.

“Adler,” you whisper.

He doesn’t respond, focus remains fixed ahead.

The irritation rises faster than you can temper it. You press forward again, quicker now, until the space between you nearly closes and without allowing yourself the courtesy of reconsideration, you reach for him, your fingers closing around his arm. The gravel shrieks beneath his boots as he halts and his body whips around as he wrenches himself back toward you, the look he gives you makes you want to curl in on yourself.

“Bell, what the—”

“No.” The interruption cuts across his voice with a force you didn’t intended, your grip tightening on his arm. “Stop this.”

His eyes narrow behind his sunglasses in scrutiny. “Stop what?” He demands, the scar along his jaw twitching. You notice it’s done that whenever he’s mad.

You release him only to gesture, an imprecise and frustrated motion that encompasses him entirely, as if the problem were too complicated to be isolated into any single point.

“This,” you insist, your voice lowering, “you’ve completely been ignoring me. Acting like I’m some stranger you got stuck with. Why?” The words hang there in the musty air between you, ill-timed, and ill-placed but you couldn’t care less in this moment.

Adler exhales through his nose, and for a moment you think he might answer, might grant you something, even if only to dismiss you properly, but instead, he shakes his head and turns away, already resuming his path as if indulging you was beneath him. Maybe it was.

“Not now, Bell.”

You catch him again, more forcefully this time, your hand closing around him and pulling him back. “Yes,” you press, the word landing with a firmness that surprises even you. “Now.”

“Bell—”

“Russell.”

Something in him stills, you feel it in the subtle tension beneath your hand, in the way his posture shifts just enough to register the name as something unwelcome. You were unwelcome. Slowly, you drop your hand.

He steps closer, closing what little space remains between you, and when he speaks, his voice is strained, clipped even, each word spilling from his lips like a bullet leaves a gun.

“We have a job to do.”

You falter. It is not fear that you feel, not exactly, nor is it obedience in the clean, unquestioning sense you are accustomed to. It is stranger than that, a sensation that slips beneath your skin and settles along your spine, a quiet and disorienting pull on your mind, as though some part of you recognizes the authority in his tone and seeks to yield to it, even as another part resists.

You blink. Awareness returns in a rush, the impropriety of your actions settling in with sudden clarity. What are you doing? This is not how you operate. This is not how you conduct yourself in the field, not how you engage with a commanding officer, not how you behave when the success of the mission depends upon your discipline and restraint.

You have a job to do but even as the thought takes hold, something coils tight beneath the surface, unwilling to be dismissed as easily as it should be.

Adler doesn’t look back when he resumes his course. He simply moves like the soldier he is, and like the groomed puppy you should be, you follow.

After getting good, proper use of your gun, you make it to the ladder that leads to a back alley in East Berlin. Adler lets you go first. As you climb, you can feel his eyes staring up at you, and for a second, you think of clocking him in the head with your heel, but you seem to think better of it. You fully intend to get to the bottom of his recent behavior, though for now, Adler was right. You have a job to do. Unfortunately.

You turn back to him, pausing only briefly before extending your hand, the gesture practical in intent, or at least it should be.

When his hand meets yours, the contact is unexpectedly grounding, a sudden lucidity after the suffocating press of the tunnels below, like you have stepped into open air without realizing how deprived of it you had been. There is kinship in it, an inescapability that settles into your palm like a blooming flower, and as you brace and pull him upward, you become acutely aware of every detail, the roughness of his skin, the strength in his grip, the faint adjustment of his fingers against yours.

By the time the purpose of the gesture has long since passed, your hand has not released his, your fingers still wrapped around his as your gaze drops to where they remain joined. It isn’t appropriate of you, yet you do not care.

Adler draws in an uneven breath, and you feel it more than you hear it as his attention shifts downward to where your hands remain, something in him faltering for the briefest moment. His hand tightens around yours hesitantly as if he’s testing the waters of something that transcends camaraderie.

“For fuck’s sake…Bell—”

“Hey!”

The voice bounces through the alley, and you drop his hand at once.

“Was ist hier los?”

Adler’s jaw tightens, his scar twitching. “Shit,” he mutters, already lifting his hands, palms open, posture shifting into compliance. “Follow my lead.”

You mirror him without thinking, hands raised as the patrol rounds the corner, flashlights slicing through the dim, catching dust.

“Ich arbeite bei der Eisenbahn,” Adler begins smoothly, seeming cooperative, “darf ich Ihnen meinen Ausweis zeigen—”

Light floods his face. “Dieser Bereich ist Sperrgebiet. Sie sind verhaftet. Legen Sie sich auf den Boden!”

One of them lifts his weapon, aiming straight at you. You give the German a ludicrous look. What did you do? Adler’s the one talking.

“Warte. Warte. Warte—beruhige dich,” Adler says, easing back a fraction, shifting just enough to place himself between you and the muzzle. “Ich bin sicher, wir finden eine Lösung—“

Your hand drops, fingers closing around the grip tucked at his waistband, and the shot cracks through the alley. The officer jerks, collapses, and the sound of him hitting the ground is swallowed by Adler as he surges forward, tackling the second officer before the man can process what just happened. They hit the ground hard, a brief, brutal struggle, then a small thud as Adler knocks him unconscious. Or maybe he killed him. You couldn’t tell and didn’t care too much to ask.

“Nice work,” Adler mutters, already dragging the first body toward the deeper shadow. Was that praise? Recognition? Not really, it more so felt like passive aggressiveness. Whoa, is you.

You grab the other, hauling him up with a strained exhale. He’s heavier than expected, dead weight always is, and you adjust your grip with a grunt before dropping him beside his partner.

“If you’re going to speak German,” you say, brushing your hands off as you turn back to him, irritation slipping easily into your voice, “do it convincingly. Your accent is terrible.”

Adler pauses mid-motion, gives you a look. “My German is just fine.”

You roll your eyes, already moving past him toward the door. “For a toddler.”

He grumbles something passive aggressive under his breath, irritation trailing behind him as he follows.

When you emerge onto the street, the city receives you with the voices of more patrols spilling faintly from open doorways, civilians arguing back and the soft pat of light rain against asphalt. Across the way sits the café, the sort of place chosen specifically because it will not be remembered.

You move toward it, but Adler’s hand closes around your arm before you can take more than a few steps.

“Wait,” he says softly.

Before you can answer, he steps closer, drawing you closer. You lean in, meeting him in that narrow, compromised space behind the bricked wall of the alley. His gaze fixes on you behind the dark concealment of his lenses, and though you cannot see his eyes, there is no ambiguity in the attention itself; it settles on you the way you wished his praise would.

“It’s kill or capture,” he says at last, his voice kept low, “you know that, right?”

You nod.

“Good,” he murmurs, quieter now, almost absorbed into the space between you. “Park wants him alive.” His head tilts slightly, considering, and as he speaks his hand shifts, sliding down your arm with a slow and unhurried pace. “I don’t.”

You draw in a small breath at his touch, the air catching faintly in your chest as your gaze betrays you for the briefest moment, flicking downward to his mouth, before you force yourself back to the place where his eyes should be, hoping the lapse has dissolved before he could notice it.

“I understand,” you say.

He lifts a brow, the motion slight but edged with something probing. “Do you? Spell it out for your old friend.”

You could answer differently. You could give him something procedural, something that sits comfortably within the lines drawn for you. Instead, you choose to be honest with him because you trust him with every bone in your body.

“If the opportunity presents itself,” you say slowly, each word measured as though it must pass inspection before it is allowed to be said, “I’ll kill him.”

“Is that what you want?”

There is a distinction there, one that has nothing to do with the mission and everything to do with you, with what you will claim as your own rather than what is told of you.

(Do not trust Adler).

“It’s what you want,” you reply, your voice softer now, “So yes, Russell. It’s what I want.”

There it is again, that odd tightness in his body when you say his name like it’s something he’s never heard before or not used to, like you don’t sparingly use that name in the private moments you share with him, as seldom as they come these days.

For a moment, he studies you, as if he were searching for fracture lines beneath the surface of what you have just offered him, testing for weakness, for hesitation, for anything that might betray the statement as anything less than honest.

What he finds, whatever it is, satisfies him, but it doesn’t exactly feel like the approval of a superior toward a subordinate. It’s more unique, you have aligned yourself not with the mission, but with him, and he has chosen, for at least in this moment, to accept that alignment without question.

When he finally withdraws, it’s with a small adjustment of posture, a faint clearing of his throat that restores the distance he seems so adamant on, some illusion of normalcy.

“Good,” he says, the word returned to its proper edge. “Hudson’s contact is inside. She has a blue umbrella.”

From that point on, as was always expected (though never encouraged), everything went south. One moment you were seated beneath the café lights, pretending at normalcy, speaking to the contact and eavesdropping on another conversation, and the next you were forcing your way through a narrow bathroom window.

Then you were moving through East Berlin’s back arteries, slipping between shadow and light, your movements bordered on reverence whenever you had to silently take out a patrol officer, because this was what Russell Adler had taught you, what he had carved into you piece by piece until survival itself was a language you spoke. It was almost exhilarating, that thin line between being seen and not, that quiet thrill of knowing you were where you should not be and yet remained untouched by consequence.

So when you finally reached Lazar and Park, who were watching Kraus’ apartment, there was relief, yes, but it immediately soured. Of course, it was you who would go in, you who would move through a stranger’s home while he stood in the next room, while his wife and child existed just beyond the thin walls.

It went as expected. You were good but you weren’t invisible.

And that is how you found yourself here, bound to a chair. The room smelled faintly of something metallic and something stale, and beside you sat Hudson’s contact, her body in the final, graceless stages of dying. You watched her with detachment as she was murdered. You did not feel as terrible as you perhaps should have. She had known the risks. This was the work, this was the cost. You would not break for strangers, you would not rat under pressure, and above all, you would not betray Adler. The thought of him came easily, naturally (you think of him more than you do your surroundings), and you found yourself imagining, like a daydreaming child, that he would be proud of you for this, that he would look at what you had endured, what you had chosen not to say, and find it worthy. And really, was that not the point of all of it?

Volkov’s boot struck the chair, careening your mind back to the present as you’re sent backward, the impact knocking the breath from you. The world narrowed, your lungs struggling to remember their purpose, and when your vision cleared, it did so upward, toward the ceiling, where figures had gathered behind the glass of the conveniently placed windows. Adler. He’s come to rescue you.

Perhaps you’re a little delusion but what the hell.

“You think you will die with dignity here?” Volkov’s voice intruded. He stepped into your vision, “you are damaged goods,” he continued, “only a grave can cure a hunchback.”

The scoff came out of you petulant in its refusal to be cowed, your face twisting with a flash of indignation. “Excuse—” you began, but you were cut short as Volkov’s hand moved for his pistol.

But he never gets the chance to fire because the ceiling gives way before he can.

Chaos does not unfold so much as rupture, tearing through the room with explosive violence, voices collapsing into shouts, bodies scrambling, the strangely comfortable concussive rhythm of gunfire. You are untied in the middle of it, and before you have the time to register its absence, a weapon is pressed into your hand with the same efficiency with which you are expected to use it. You do, because that is what Adler expects of you, because there has never been a moment in which you have not known your place within the sequence of chaos. Just as Adler is your heart, chaos is your home.

The world simplifies itself around you, shedding excess detail like faces and humanity, until only motion and animals remain.

By the time Volkov comes into view, already retreating, you don’t grant him the favor of consideration, and you fire into him. Not once, not a couple of times, not cautiously or carefully, not in any way, should someone in your position kill an enemy of your country, but completely emptying the magazine into him with relentlessness until there were no bullets left to spit out at him. You savaged Volkov, ruined him beyond recognition, and by the end, you thought for just a second, how his children or grandchildren might feel looking down at the bloody smear you’ve just made of him. The image of it doesn’t affect you that much because you’re already washing that thought away and replacing it with another. Is Adler going to be happy with you?

Blood spreads outward in a dark, saturating puddle, thick as it seeps across the floor, reaching your boots, and you remain where you are, your breathing even, your grip still tight around the random weapon you were given that has fulfilled its purpose.

“You did the right thing.”

Adler’s voice melts over your shoulder like butter, close enough to feel, low enough to belong to you and you alone, “one of Perseus’ men off the board.”

You turn toward him before you can stop yourself, your smile comes without your full consent, brought on by his presence, small first, then fuller, something that warms as it threads through your chest.

“Is it?” Park’s voice ruins the moment, laced with disapproval, her gaze cutting between you and Adler with open frustration. “I wanted him alive. MI6 could have gotten far more out of him.”

Your smile falters, then disappears as you turn toward her, irritation rising in its place, sudden and defensive, almost like your body jumped to Adler’s defence before logic intervened.

“And risk him escaping?” you counter, “running back to Perseus?”

It feels right to say it, feels like the correct thing to do, like a child saying please and thank you for the first time not understanding gratitude just yet.

Adler shifts slightly at your side, offering a small, dismissive shrug to Park that seems to settle the matter with an ease that a father might have. “Can’t win them all.”

Park exhales and turns away with a shake of her head, muttering something beneath her breath that dissipates before it reaches you, though its intent is clear enough without translation.

You look back at Adler and the smile returns, more contained this time, shaped by the awareness of his gaze as it rests on you. Oh, how you basked in his attention.

He steps closer, his gaze traveling over you, his attention drifting where others might turn away, the dark spread of blood pooling at your feet, the subtle evidence of what you have done, and there is something unsettling in the absence of his reaction, in the way he neither recoils or remarks on it, as though this, in some unspoken way, is precisely what he had anticipated all along. And for once, that expectation was not a bad one, moreover, it was one you exceeded.

“Good job, kid.”

The words move through you with an obligation that surpasses its simplicity, fitting neatly into place as if they had been earnestly waiting for you to finally do that forgotten puzzle in the corner of your room. You smile again, unable not to, your head dipping in a small acknowledgment that is absolutely necessary. You need to make sure Adler knows you appreciate his praise. Who wouldn’t?

He closes the distance further, tilting his head at you. “You’re something else, aren’t you?” he muses.

The world, in that perfect second, narrows to that, to him. You knew in that moment that what you did, killing Volkov before you allowed logic to intervene, was necessary because he said it, because he affirmed it, and shaped it into being. You’d do anything for him, anything, so long as you got to experience his praise just once more. Even the most horrendous crime would be worth it.

(America’s monster).

His hand finds your lower back, and you melt into easily. “Come on,” he whispers to your ear, already steering you forward, “I’m gonna keep a good fucking leash on you for now on. You okay with that, Bell?”

You nod, still smiling because he’s still touching you. He could say anything to you in that moment and you would just blindly agree. “Uh huh.”

He chuckles quietly. “Yeah, I knew you would be. Let’s get the hell out of East Berlin.”

-

“Information from Volkov confirms our worst fears. Perseus smuggled a nuclear device through East Berlin.”

“We can’t be certain of that yet.”

“He has it. I’m sure of it.”

“We found encrypted geocoordinates with Volkov’s nuclear intel: an unpopulated region within the Soviet republic of Ukraine.”

“An areal recon run revealed this.”

“I want to know everything going on inside this building. We’ll need the other ones for this one. Mason and Woods will join us from Kyiv. Bell, you’ll infil here with Woods. Mason and I will be standing by for an extract. Park will handle comms. We have no idea how large or prepared their forces will be, so use discretion if you have to engage. It’s time we took a peek behind the iron curtain.”

You shove through the back door of the safe house with more force than necessary, the old metal striking shut behind. The gravel crunches beneath your boots as you cross the short distance to him, each step carrying that simmering frustration you haven’t yet decided what to do with.

Adler stands there like he always does (nothing bothers him), cigarette balanced between his fingers, smoke curling lazily upward into the stagnant night air. It’s that stillness that gets to you, that infuriating composure of his, the way he exists so effortlessly while you feel like you’re coming apart at the seams.

“Long night?” he asks, almost idly. You try to ignore the mockery of his words. Or maybe it’s irony.

You bite your tongue hard enough to ground yourself, the response rising before you force it back down. There’s a version of this moment where you let it loose, where you give him exactly the reaction he’s baiting out of you, but you refuse to give him what he wants. That hot-headed woman who doesn’t think before she starts screaming.

Instead, you move to stand beside him, your gaze turning outward toward the city lights that stretch in the not-so-distant. The smoke still hangs low in the still air, refusing to disperse, swirling lazily around you until it settles on your tongue. It floats there, clinging, as if the silence itself has decided not to leave. You turn to him, stubborn in that quiet, insistent way that only Adler can draw out of you.

“Why Woods?” you ask, the question slipping out before you can dress it up into something less… obvious.

Adler flicks ash to the ground absently, watching it fall. “Woods is good,” he dismisses. Then he takes another drag.

You huff under your breath. Yes, Woods was good. That wasn’t the problem. You shift your weight, arms folding tight across your chest. “Why not you?”

He exhales slowly, eyes closing for just a second, like he’s stepping somewhere else, some quiet place where you aren’t asking questions he doesn’t want to answer, before he looks back at you. “Not this, Bell,” he tries, exhausted.

“But just—why—”

“Because.”

You scoff, louder this time. “You said you were going to keep a leash on me,” you snap, gesturing vaguely outward, “and now you’re sending me to Ukraine with Woods?” It was ludicrous.

“I’m going too,” he replies, and there’s something softer in it now, like he’s trying to meet you halfway. “I’ll just be—”

“Be away from me?” you cut in, stepping forward, arms still crossed. “Because that’s what you want?”

Adler actually recoils at your words, a rare break in his smoothness. His expression catches before he shakes his head as if he’s brushing something off that shouldn’t have been there in the first place.

“It’s not about what I want,” he says, firmer now. “It’s about Perseus. Our job.”

“Well then—” you start, and stop, and try again, the words tangling in your mouth that makes you feel embarrassingly juvenile, “I—It’s about you too.” You gesture at him, pointing at whatever you can’t articulate.

That seems to offend him.

“What about me?” he asks, brows pulling together beneath his shades.

“I mean, you’re…” You shift, kicking lightly at the ground, gesturing again, uselessly, at all of him. “And I…” Your hands fold in on themselves, the thought collapsing before it can form. You groan under your breath, abandoning it entirely as you step closer instead, pleading, “don’t send me to Ukraine with Woods!”

“You’re going,” Adler says, and this time there’s no give you can tug on. “That’s final, Bell.”

If there’s one thing you know about yourself, one thing you’ve never quite managed to outgrow, it’s that you pout. Petty and childish enough that if you saw it on anyone else, you’d probably hate them.

Your face turns down into a small, frazzled frown, shoulders slumping (just enough to sell it), and you start back toward the safe house with dragging steps that nearly drown out Adlers sigh—nearly.

“I’ll make it up to you.”

You turn apace, and cursed yourself in your head for doing it embarrassingly eager. “How?”

He’s already holding it out, a fresh cigarette, clean and unlit, offered to you. Your eyes betray you immediately, lighting up as you move toward him, hand reaching but he pulls it back.

His brow lifts. “No more pouting?”

You nod. “No more pouting.”

He exhales softly, amusement brushing the end of it, and hands it over. Your fingers close around it but before you can pull away, his other hand comes up, thumb brushing along your cheek in a methodical stroke. The cigarette burns loosely in his fingers, threatening to singe your hair but you don’t care, it barely phases you.

He’s touching you.

“It’s not permanent,” he says, voice low again, quieter now, something that’s just for you. “Only for the mission.”

You bite the inside of your cheek, eyes dropping, the doubt still there even if you don’t admit it.

“Come on,” he murmurs, angling his head enough to catch your gaze and pull it back up to him. “You know I wouldn’t lie to you, sweetheart.”

(Do not trust Adler.)

Sweetheart. The pet name settles over everything else, like fresh snowflakes overtop dead leaves. Whatever resistance you had dissolves as easily as the cancer-inducing smoke in the air, and you want to hate how quickly it works. You knew there was no point in fighting your smile, but you try anyways. You were too easy to please, it’s probably pitiful through Adler’s gaze.

“Okay,” you murmur, quieter now. “Okay… I’ll go.”

“Oh, I know you will,” Adler says, “now have your smoke, and get to packing. You have a job to do.”

-

“So,” Woods mutters, rifle steady in his hands as you both move down the empty hall, clearing corners, “what’s with you and Adler?”

You flick him an unimpressed look, before pivoting into a doorway—clear—and stepping back out to continue forward. “Is now really the time?” you shoot back in a low voice, eyes scanning ahead.

“Sue me for being curious,” he says, peering through his scope, voice half-muffled by it. “Ain’t ever seen him act like that.” A beat runs between you. “You two got history, huh?”

You shrug, keeping your weapon trained as you move. “I guess. No more than you.”

Woods lets out a quiet huff of a laugh. “Yeah? Then how come he ain’t all over me?” he mutters. “Guy practically rubs up against you,” he pauses, searching for it, then lands on something he clearly enjoys too much, “like a bitch in heat.”

You grimace. “Woods—”

“I’m just saying.” He shifts, checking another angle before moving up beside you again. “Seriously…you two never…?”

You let out a subdued bark of laughter, shaking your head. “No. Of course not.” You answer, hiding your faint disappointment quite well (or maybe Woods just isn’t really that smart enough to catch it), “Adler wouldn’t jeopardize the mission like that.” You explain.

Woods hums at that, you can’t tell if he’s in agreement or not, “but you would?”

You glance at him sidelong, just for a second. “I’m not exactly known for turning down a good time.”

That gets a chuckle out of him. “Well, shit,” he mutters. “I like you already, Bell.”

You eventually make down to a different room. Woods reaches the door first, easing it open to get a good peak inside. In front stands the disturbingly still silhouette of man, and before you can get the chance to correct him, Wood’s surges forward, taking it down with oh-so precision. He jerks his gun upright, the butt of it ready to slam hard into the head. Then he freezes, looking down at it as the shape wobbles slightly, realizing too late that it’s a mannequin.

You snicker—

“Not a fucking word, Bell.”

You lift your hands in mock surrender, biting down on the laugh still threatening to spill out as Woods straightens himself out, insulting the poor mannequin under his breath. The room opens up around you as your attention drifts, the shift in scenery catching you off guard.

“Wow,” you murmur, already wandering, boots echoing lightly as you circle the space until something bright catches your eye.

An arcade machine.

“Oooh—” you rush over to it with eagerness, flipping it on with a childlike urgency that you most certainly should not have given the circumstances. The screen flickers to life, colors blooming, and your grin pulls on your face as your hands find the controls.

The engine noise of the little racing game crackles through the worn speaker. Your shoulders dip with each turn of your pixelated car as if you can lean the vehicle into moving. “Come on…” you mutter under your breath as you swerve past another car and push forward, chasing first place.

Woods shoulders in beside you, nudging you out of the way. “Move over,” he grouses, taking your place. “I want a turn.”

“Hey—” you protest, reaching back for the controls, only to have your hands slapped away. “I wasn’t—”

“Piss off—“

“What’s going on?” Park’s voice cuts in over comms.

You and Woods go still. Slowly, you guiltily glance at each other like a pair of kids that got caught red handed doing something they definitely should not be doing.

“Nothing,” Woods answers, “just teaching Bell here the importance of sharing.” He shoots you a look.

You roll your eyes, ready to fire something back, but the words die when your attention shifts, drawn instead to the far end of the room where a large paneled window sits, exposing the street just beyond it. It wasn’t real, not quite, it more so felt like some kind of set meant to show foreign kids what America looks like. Storefronts, a theatre marquee, little fast food restaurants, all arranged just a little too perfectly.

“Creepy…” you move closer, “what the hell is this place…” you mutter, already pulling your camera free, lifting it to snap a quick shot for the others. “It’s like we’re in uncanny valley.”

Woods joins you, less impressed. “It’s a Spetsnaz training course,” he says, voice rough with disdain. “Made to look like fucking Anytown, USA.”

You scoff under your breath, lowering the camera just enough to squint at one of the signs down the street. “Burger Town?” You angle a look at him.

He shrugs. “Guess the Russians are scared of copyright.”

“Ah, shit.” Your voice dips, that tightness in your shoulders returning as movement floods the street outside, Russian soldiers pouring out from doorways and alleys, converging, heading straight for your position. “They’re starting.”

“Fuck.” Woods steps back from the window. “Let’s move.”

You follow him through the nearest door, up a narrow set of stairs that leads to the second level, your pulse kicking up again as you meet him at a crouch behind the railing.

“They want a live-fire drill,” Woods says in a low whisper, turning back to you with an anticipated wolfish grin. “Let’s hook these fuckers up.”

Your fist meets his in a quick, solid bump before you pull back, reloading your rifle.

-

By the time you and Woods claw your way out with what you came for, it’s less of a clean exit so much of a staggering retreat. The fight lingers in your muscles long after it’s over, a dull, creeping exhaustion that settles deep.

“Fucking Russian juggernauts,” you curse, finally slumping back, head resting against Woods shoulder. For a moment, you were so sure you weren’t getting alive.

Woods nods in agreement, his head lolling to the back. “Next time,” he kicks the back of the driver's seat, catching Adler's attention, “you fucking go yourself.”

“Ah,” Adler shrugged, eyes on the road, “you survived.”

“Almost didn’t.” You shoot back, harsher than it sounded in your head. Adler side eyes you through the rearview mirror.

The ride back blurs at the edges, the low rumble of the car folding into something almost hypnotic, coaxing you to near sleep, and you probably would have dozed off if it weren’t for Woods chirping your ear off constantly.

When the car finally rolls to a stop, the world rushes back in. You follow the others out on instinct more than intention, boots finding the ground with a faint stumble, and you hope no one notices. Hudson is already at the door by the time you make it there, waiting. Adler stops behind the driver’s side, one hand braced against the frame, a quiet exhale slipping from him. He glances back at you then.

“Head on inside, Bell. We’ll meet you there.”

Your expression tightens, something uncertain flickering through the fatigue as your gaze moves between him and Hudson, catching the tension threading through all the men. Woods hasn’t cooled off in the slightest, not since finding out about the American nuke.

“Are you sure?” you ask.

Adler nods. “Get some rest. You need it.”

You give in, dipping your head in a small, reluctant nod before moving past Hudson, slipping by him. He gives you a look, cruel and dismissive, but you’ve grown far too used to it at this point. That man really doesn’t like you for whatever reason.

Inside, sleep proves impossible when the noise starts up outside. Woods and Hudson circling each other like they’ve been waiting for the chance to finally butt heads. Adler’s voice cuts in at intervals, Mason not far behind, trying to keep the whole thing from tipping into something worse.

There’s a thud at one point. You don’t see it, but your imagination is quite powerful, and you hope that it was Woods who landed it. You’ve never made a secret of how you feel about Hudson, not to yourself at least. The man grates. Unfortunately, he outranks you, which means your opinions stay exactly where they belong, never spoken.

By the time the door finally opens and they file back inside, whatever storm had been brewing has settled a bit. Mason jerks his head toward the door again, muttering something about a drink, and Woods follows without hesitation, still carrying the last of that restless energy with him as they disappear back out into the night.

Park and Lazar are already asleep in the back, they have been for a while, and you know better than to interrupt that, especially not when they’ve claimed that rare pocket of peace for themselves.

You were still laying in your little makeshift bed when Adler wondered back in eventually, quietly shuffling around until heading into the office area. You turn around, looking at the door contemplatively before ultimately abandoning your decision to sleep and crawling to a stand.

You knock on the door softly before you creak it open and peer your head in. Adler’s standing at the desk, cigarette it hand, looking over all the intel you and Woods collected this evening. His eyes flicker to you.

“You should be sleeping.”

“So should you,” you answer, stepping in anyway, nudging the door shut behind you.

“So, it’s true?” you ask, “Perseus has an American nuke?”

“Appears so,” Adler mutters, flicking ash into an already overflowing tray without bothering to look where it lands, his attention fixed on the documents.

“That’s not good…” you murmur.

“No shit, Sherlock.”

You fight the urge to roll your eyes at him.

“Mason and Woods are taking the next one,” he adds after a moment. “You’ll catch a break.” A pause. Then, almost as an afterthought, he says, “Looks like you need it.”

You can’t tell if that’s concern or a dig. With him, it’s usually the latter.

You press your lips together and move around the desk, closing the distance between you without really thinking about it.

His head dips, a tired breath leaving him, before he turns, finally facing you. “I’m tired, Bell.” It lands like a warning, and at this point, you’ve seemed to make a game of testing him when he doesn’t have the energy to tolerate you.

“Then relax,” you offer anyway, a small smile tugging at your mouth, “want anything? A drink?”

“How about some peace and quiet?” he shoots back.

Your expression falters, the smile slipping away. “Okay,” you murmur, already stepping back. “Sorry.”

You’re halfway to the door when Adler’s voice comes round over your shoulder, “you and Woods seemed pretty cozy tonight.”

The words catch you mid-step.

You pause, turning back slowly, caught somewhere between confusion and disbelief as he continues, almost idly, “all cuddled up in that back seat. Bickering back and forth.”

A laugh slips out of you before you can stop it, light and incredulous. The idea itself is ridiculous. “We get along,” you shrug, stepping back toward him. “We had a good time…given the hellish circumstances towards the end.”

Adler’s mouth twists faintly, something unreadable passing behind the lenses of his glasses as he looks back down at the papers, though it’s obvious he’s just using it as an excuse not to look at you. “Yeah,” he mutters, almost to himself, “I bet. Nothing like killing commies to bring people together.”

You blink, stepping closer. “Russell,” you gently scold him, new ground for you, “you’re the one who sent me with him.”

“I’m aware, sweetheart.” He says bitterly.

You through your hands out in a frustrated gesture, “then what’s the problem?”

“There’s no fucking problem, Bell.” He snaps, head jerking back to you, irritation flashing through his expression, “I’m just tired, like I just told you two fucking minutes ago.”

“Woods and I just went through hell for you,” your voice rises, face growing hot, “we almost died—“

“Congratulations,” Adler’s voice matches your volume, probably louder, “you’ve made yourself useful for a change.”

You draw in a slow breath, holding it for a second, searching for something steady and calm to anchor yourself to. “I’m going back to bed,” you say instead of fighting with him, your voice quieter.

“Yeah,” he fires back, “maybe you should.”

You open the door, but pause there and turn to say something, something harsh or passive aggressive that only adds fuel to the raging fire that is Russell Adler, but then you think better of it and leave, gently closing the door behind you.

-

4 days later:

Hudson storms up to you and Adler as you come back inside from a small break. When he plants himself in front of you and Adler, you’re caught there by default, the three of you boxed in by the walls that seem to narrow by the second.

He points a harsh, nasty finger at you as he turns to Adler. “Are you taking her into the KGB with you?”

Adler doesn’t say anything He just stands there, shoulders loose, posture calm, but he always knew how to handle Hudson. You’ve seen it before, the way he lets the storm burn itself out rather than stepping into it.

You stay quiet. That much, you’ve learned. Around Hudson, silence is survival. So you stand there, awkwardly wedged between them, the doorway behind Adler blocking any easy escape, leaving you with a front-row seat to your own evaluation.

“Are you crazy?” Hudson presses, his voice rising, you don’t think he’s expecting a response, “wait for Mason or Woods to return.”

“I don’t need Mason or Woods,” Adler explains gently, talking Hudson down rather than simply pushing back (you do not want to push back against the likes of Hudson, that’s for damn sure). “I need Bell. She’s got the skill we need.”

Hudson’s jaw tightens, something darker settling into his expression as he reins his voice in, something you assume is only meant for Adler’s ears. “Are you enjoying this?” He asks, his tone for more accusing to just suggest he’s talking about the mission itself. His eyes roll towards you, scouring, then returning, “you’re risking the entire operation unnecessarily.” Again, he points to you, “You’ve been risking it. Playing these damn games.”

You can’t help but feel singled out and insulted, a liability he, and by extension, the CIA, are forced to tolerate.

“It’s not unnecessary,” Adler shakes his head, calm as ever, then offers a small shrug, “It’s calculated.”

“Just understand,” Hudson steps closer, “that if you botch this, we can’t get those names. It’s over.” He waits for a response that Adler doesn’t offer until he shakes his head and storms off.

There’s a beat as you listening to his receding footsteps before Adler angles his body back to you, “I know you can do this,” he reassures, “Hudson doesn’t trust anyone he can’t control.”

Your gaze drifts past Adler’s shoulder to where Hudson had disappeared, as if the man might still be standing there, waiting to throw another accusation your way. He isn’t, but the feeling doesn’t leave. An involuntary shiver runs through you, and you fold your arms across yourself.

“Do you think we’ll actually get inside the KGB?” you ask, something uncertain threading through the question.

Adlers a bragger, you should have known better to ask. “This isn’t the first government agency I’ve broken into,” he explains (does that speak to the broader problem the US has? Maybe but you don’t dwell on it), “the best are virtually impenetrable but there’s always a weakness.”

“And what’s the weakness in this case?”

“The KGB placing too much trust in one of their own.”

Your eyes move subtly, scanning the space around you, looking for anything that might suggest Park and the others are watching you. Satisfied enough, you step closer than is what expected within appropriate work relationships.

“So I’m the right person for the mission?” you ask, lifting a brow, “That’s… high praise, coming from you.”

“Well,” he shrugs, almost dismissive, “if there was ever an operation suited to your skill set, it’s this one. You speak perfect Russian.”

Something in your brain jolts at his words, confusion or maybe caution, a winding warning at the back of your head. How did Adler know that?

“Why do you ask?” He wonders, “You don’t trust yourself?”

You hesitate, not understanding the mockery in his voice. “You really have no concerns?” Your voice dips, prying in a way you know you probably shouldn’t, in a way you know aggravates Adler. “Is that the truth?”

A gentle simper curves over his lip until it’s gone before you can fully read into it, then his hand comes up, fingers closing gently around your arm. “I wouldn’t tell you if it wasn’t.”

(Do not trust Adler).

You draw in a breath, letting it out slowly as your own hand slips free to cover his, your gaze dropping to where your skin meets his. You stay in that position, thinking. “I…” You falter.

He knows best. He always does. You’ve built yourself around that certainty.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea, Russell,” you manage, the name coming out steadier than the rest of you feels. “Hudson’s right. You should wait for Mason or Woods. You’re…” You trail off. Your hand drops, arms uncrossing as you take a small step back, forcing space between you. “We’re…” You swallow. “I’m too involved with…” Your voice lowers again, almost conspiratorial now, saying it out loud carries a risk. “With you…it’s an unnecessary risk.”

Adler’s expression shifts, his patience now run dry. There’s tension in his eyes, a tightening that pulls faintly at the scar. “You were mad when I sent you to Ukraine with Woods,” he begins, voice hardening, “and now you’re pitching another fucking fit because I’m sending you to Russia with me?”

(America’s monster).

You scoff, irritation rising fast and hot in your chest. “I’m not pitching a fit,” you insist, trying and very much failing to keep your voice low. It carries, drawing a brief glance from Park before she returns to her work like she didn’t hear a thing.

You notice it and your teeth bite down on your lower lip, a grounding pressure as you blink and rein yourself back in. “I just…” Your breath falters, then steadies, “Hudson—”

“Don’t listen to Hudson.” Adler cuts in, stepping closer. His face twists, frustration bleeding through the edges of his perfect control. “Jesus Christ—“ Park glances over again, more pointed this time, “—how many fucking times do I have to tell you that?”

“I don’t think—”

“I’m so fucking sick of you!” The interruption is absolute, slicing through whatever you were about to say.

Silence descends in the entire safe house for that long, long, moment. You don’t even know how to react, so you just stand there, pitiful, embarrassed, humiliated.

“You have a job to do, Bell.” He orders, “So shut that mouth of yours, stop acting like brat, and do it.”

He turns and storms off, leaving you to deal with the awareness as it creeps in, that uncomfortable clarity that always seems to arrive too late. You should be listening to him. You know that. You’ve always known that. So why can’t you just do it?

“Adler,” Park pushes up from her seat with a subtle urgency. She gestures toward the empty office. “Can I have a word—?”

“Can I have a minute?” he snaps back, the irritation still digging its claws into him.

Park doesn’t budge, giving him a look. It holds there for a beat until something in him gives with a sharp exhale, and he turns, brushing past her as she leads the way into the office. The door shuts behind them.

It takes you a second to move, and when you do, it’s reluctant, each step carrying that faint, creeping awkwardness you can’t quite shake, the feeling like you’ve just done something wrong. It’s a walk of shame, kind of.

You make your way over to the table where Hudson sits and take the empty seat beside him. He doesn’t greet you, and you return the favor, your attention drifting instead to the closed office door. You don’t mean to listen, you really don’t, but the voices are right there.

“—you’re… careful… it’s unstable…” Park’s voice filters through. Adler answers, but it’s too low and muffled to make out.

You shift slightly in your seat, eyes flicking sideways. Hudson’s listening, too. That, oddly enough, makes your guilt easier, to let your own attention linger without feeling entirely alone in it.

“—she’s a pain in my fucking side—!”

Adler’s voice cuts through the door, making you flinch. The words land unmistakable, ringing loud enough to draw a reaction from across the room: Lazar glances up, brow creasing, a quiet yikes written plainly across his face before he focuses back on his work.

You slink back into your chair, your posture slouching. “I wish Woods was here,” you mutter. At least then you’d have a friend.

“You and me both, kid.” Hudson says. It was almost kind of nice, some weird camaraderie found in shared irritation and agreement. Maybe Hudson wasn’t so bad after all.

-

“Once we’re in the bunker, we’re on our own.”

After Adler (his Russian slipping from his tongue with a fluency that rivals your own) asks the gatekeeper to let you both pass, you follow him into the main area. The air very quickly undergoes an explosive change then, and the two of you falter almost in unison when a checkpoint comes into view.

“No metal detectors for us,” Adler murmurs, already resuming his movement, voice low, “we’re going around.”

And well, reality has a way of mocking plans.

Because here you are anyway, a bag heavy with assault rifles and enough explosives to rewrite the skyline, stepping straight toward a metal detector like lambs with blood already on their throats. You’re certain, in that second when the little alarm of the detector goes off, that this is it, until Belikov intervenes.

He takes the bag before anyone else can, his gaze sweeping over its contents. Then, just like that, he waves you through, as if you’re nothing more than another pair of bodies passing through an ordinary day.

Thank Christ…

“Пойдём,” Adler tells you, ensuring your following before he pivots back around.

You turn the corner after him, closing the gap at his side and then you see something at the far end of the hall, a familiar face, but your mind seems to recognize it before you have the chance to understand why. It catches you there, sending electricity through your body.

You know him.

You know him.

Your hand finds Adler’s arm, fingers clamping down with something close to desperation, and you drag him with zero explanation through the nearest door.

“What—Bell—” The door slams, and you click the lock, turning to him, your breath fracturing, your mind splintering.

A dull ringing starts up in your ears, or…no…a bell? A dinner bell, ringing over and over and over…

“What the fuck are you doing?” he asks, almost incredulous, “We have to get to the bunker.”

“I—I know,” you stammer, the words tripping uselessly over themselves, those poor inadequate things. “I don’t know how, but I…” You shake your head, trying to rattle clarity loose, but all it does is make that bell louder—

Bell.

Where’s Perseus, Bell?

“I saw someone, and I—I know them. I don’t know how, or—or why, but I know them, and if—if they saw me—“

“Alright, alright.” His hand comes to your arm, “Relax. We’ll stay here until they pass. It’s fine. Don’t think about it.”

But you do think about it. The thought festers, rots, something sweet curling through your skull. How do you know that man? How could you possibly know a Russian general?

“Bell—“

Where’s Perseus, Bell?

How did Adler know you speak perfect Russian? What did Hudson mean when he said Adler was risking the entire operation?

“How did I know him, Russell?”

“Bell.” His voice tightens, a thread drawn too taut. “You need to relax.”

Do not trust Adler.

He is lying to you.

“But how—“

“Don’t think about it.”

Адлер лжёт тебе

Bell. Bell. Bell. Bell.

“Bell?”

Не доверяй ему

“Oh, for fucks—“ Adler yanks you forward, his mouth crashing to yours.

The collision is forceful enough to knock the air from your lungs and the insanity from your mind. The world burns out, collapses inward, devoured by something vast and consuming until there is nothing left but Adler. Not the mission, not the bunker, not the distant, looming threat of nuclear fire, billions of lives flickering out…it’s completely meaningless to you now. There is only Adler. Just as it should be. Adler.

His wet muscle dips into your mouth, tasting the cavern you so willingly open up to him. His mouth is relentless, forcing you open, taking you entirely, his hand sliding to the back of your neck, pulling you closer.

He wants this, just as badly as he wants Perseus, but do you? Yes! Yes, of course…you do? This is making him happy, right? It’s so hard to tell. His fingers dig into your neck, bruising and possessive, punishing, and his mouth moves against yours with a kind of violence that blurs into something you dare not name, as though he’s trying to kill you or maybe even himself with the carnality of it. So, does he want it? Is it that he needs it? Or is it that he must? What’s the difference? Does it even matter?

Before any more of your questions can unfold, he pulls away, grip on the back of your neck loosening. He takes a deep breath, taking a long, careful look at your shocked expression.

Slowly, your thoughts begin to reel themselves back into their rightful place again. Was that a panic attack? Must have been, right?

“You good?” he asks, brow lifting, voice threaded now with something convincing, his thumb brushing your skin gently. “You okay there, sweetheart?” He presses further, “That pretty brain working again? Not going lame on me now, are you?”

You nod, though it feels drastically disconnected. “Y—yeah… yeah, I’m good,” you murmur, swallowing. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what that was about.” But that isn’t entirely true; even if you don’t realize it, you just can’t reach it anymore.

You blink, forcing yourself back into the room, into the walls, into Bell. “He’s probably gone now,” you say, stepping back to let his hand fall away. “We should… probably get back to work.”

You step toward the door but Adler’s hand comes up just as quickly, pressing flat against your chest to stop you.

You blink, looking back at him, confusion knitting your expression as he studies you with that distant, calculating focus like he’s mulling some thought over, something that just occurred to him and he’s deciding whether it’s worth acting on.

“Adler—”

“Would you do me a small favour, Bell?” he asks, cutting you off, his voice casual.

You hesitate, glancing around the small closet. (This is a bit of an odd place to request something but so be it). A small, breathy laugh escapes you, more reflex than amusement. Your brows remain drawn, but you nod anyway. “Yeah, of course.” You say, “I-It’s the least I can do after you straightened out whatever the hell that just was.”

A quiet hum leaves him as he steps back, just enough space to look at you properly again, as though reassessing. His hands drift down the uniform to his belt. The unmissable clink of metal kisses your ears before his words envelop you entirely, “Could you get down on your knees and open that mouth of yours?”

“…what…?”

“Can you get on your knees?” He repeats himself gently, “and open your mouth?”

Surely this was a dream, some test of your obedience, but you do not allow yourself the indulgence of questioning the motives of a man so readily named America’s monster. So you silence it, along with the unease rising in your chest, and instead you obey with the simplicity Adler has taught you to master, lowering yourself to your knees as instructed without so much a single word of insubordination.

Something in Adlers face, at least from this angle, seems to glow as he looks down at you, hands working the belt before he tugs it free and lowers the zipper of his stolen pants.

His head tilts, just slightly, and one hand leaves its task to reach for you instead. His fingers find your cheek, guiding your attention back to him whether you intended to look away or not. His thumb brushes your lower lip, plucking gently at the pliant flesh.

“I said open, sweetheart.”

Your heart stumbles in your chest and you swallow, the motion small but noticeable, before your lips part, hesitantly, barely.

Adlers face changes then, quickly, too, at the same speed it took for him to lower his hand. It hardens in a way you have not seen before, the familiar surliness turning cold, something that edges uncomfortably close to disdain, though it is difficult to name with certainty, obscured as it is behind those ever-present shades, leaving you to interpret what little you are given.

“Wider.”

The single word holds an absurd amount of power over you, maddeningly disproportionate; if it were taken with a different context, it might have been studied and dissected for meaning.

Heat rushes to your face at once, and something unbearable hits your heart at the awareness of yourself, in the way you obey without effort like it were in your nature. You force your mouth open further, the movement awkward, the skin at the corner of your mouth stretching painfully.

He mirrors that widening, not literally, but the coldness of his expression disappears with the slow curl of his own mouth as his smile spreads, his expression morphing into something that resembles satisfaction more than amusement. It isn’t cruel. Adler isn’t cruel. He isn’t cruel.

Adler pulls his member out of the dead man’s dress pants, indulging himself with a few pumps, and oh, how he indulges himself, a small breathy groan slipping from his lips as he collects the beads of precum accumulated at the tip, as though it had been years since he’s felt any sort of sexual pleasure, almost like he’s relieved just by starting.

You’re disgusted with yourself by how enchanted you are by the sight, and what a sight to behold, indeed. You are simply ensnared by the reverie, trapped or cradled, you did not care, because, and you’ve said this before, but surely, surely, this was some sort of dream or hallucination. Surely God wasn’t being this kind to you.

His hand comes forward in a fast motion, fingers threading into your hair with an agonizing grip before it tightens and pulls. The gasp coils in your chest, and you nearly choke on the knotted air when he’s shoving his cock inside your mouth without warning. You don’t know what makes your heart stop, the surprise, the god-fearing, lengthy moan Adler lets out, or the clarity of what’s actually happening when it finally hits you. Too little, too late now.

You attempt to move your tongue along his shaft, but the American monster is relentless, the American monster is control. The hand fisted in your hair rocks your head back; meanwhile, his hips snap forward. You are but a means, you are but an object, and so, as such, you go pliant against him, loosen your throat, and ride the violent wave that is Russell Adler.

You gag, and you try, you really do, to stay quiet, to try to remind yourself and him that just outside that concerningly thin door, is a flood of Russian reds who won’t hesitate to kill you if your covers are blown, and not just that (no, no, not just that), but you are Americans breaking and entering into the country of which holds the most volatile relationship with the United States. If you’re caught, you’d be murdered, yes, but it also just might start world war 3.

Does Adler care? Maybe once upon a time, back before he lost all sense of humility and compassion, before he, in moments alone with a whiskey bottle, didn’t pray to God for someone to finally light the fire.

You brace yourself against his thighs, nails digging into the fabric of his uniform, but you weren’t trying to pull away; you would never. Can you imagine how disappointed he would be? Oh, you’d die.

“Ugh, come on, Bell,” he grunts, head lulling back, “where’s that fight in you?” The words leave his lips with an incline, a soft nudging hum at the back of his throat. “Ms. Perfect, never wanting to disagree with big, scary me.”

You don’t know why you bother yourself with trying to speak, but you do, and the only thing that comes out is spit and a gasp of breath turned into yet another gag. You were such a mess, face red and wet from tears and saliva alike. One of the same, a different species (or a big scary monster like Adler) might think.

“You don’t wanna fight?” He probes, angling his head down to you, brow raised above the rim of his sunglasses. “Alright, Bell. I’ll make you fight.”

You don’t understand him, and you barely get it to your ears over the slapping and gagging; you get only fragments, something that barely sounds English to you.

Your confusion grows even further when he pulls back, giving your jaw that rest it’s been begging for, and the hand tangled in your hair loosens, smoothing over the rat's mess he had just made. Adler leans down, angling his head as he gets a nice, long look at you. Then, with a soft simper, he says low and sweet, like a promise only he benefits from, “we have a job to do.”

Something shudders through you, clarity, that ragged, cruel beast, snaps back into your body, straightening you out, mind, muscle, and sinew alike. Horror creeps in at your very own actions, at your surroundings, at your position. What are you doing? Oh, God…in the Lubyanka building?

“No, wait…” you mutter, waving your hand at him like some sort of white flag, “we shouldn’t be doing this, not—not here. This is stupid and—and reckless—“

“Oh, is it?”

That hand finds your hair again and yanks you right back. You gasp. “Adler—!”

Your words do not die silently like they have so often before when he cuts you off, they implode in on themselves this time, a great big gag ripping up and slamming back into your throat by the head of his cock before it ever had a chance to live.

Your reaction is instinctive, immediately trying to pull back and push him away, nails stretching at his arm, feet scattering against the polished floor.

“There we go,” Adler muses, “there’s my Bell.”

And now, this is when you truly meet the American monster, when his true colors (red, white, and that pretty, pretty blue) come to the forefront of the man you’ve known for years. The American monster…the name had been so silly to you once upon a time. Now you understand. Russell Adler was a monster; he was a cold-blooded killer, he was selfish and dangerous.

But he said my Bell…

“God, that’s good,” he breaths, hips jerking more erratically as the seconds go by, your nose practically bouncing off his pubic bone.

You struggle against his hand on your head, trying to muster all the strength you have to get him to stop jerking you, but it’s all fruitless, and you know the harder the fight, the louder you become, and the louder you become, the higher the chances of capture become.

You have a job to do.

“That’s it, kid—“

Where’s Perseus?

“Shit—“

Do not trust Adler.

Liquid spills down into your throat, a hot rush that moves so quick that you almost don’t taste it as Adler cums, his seed sputtering out in the same rhythm as his breaths do. His hold on your hair tightens and pulls, then suddenly loosens in the same degree that the long, hearty sigh leaves the American monster above you.

“Yeah,” he murmurs, and there’s a contemplative aspect to his tone as his hand returns to your hair, smoothing it back into place with a care that feels at odds with how it had been handled only moments ago. His fingers move through the strands methodically, restoring order to what he had just disrupted. “You’re something else.”

It’s confirmation, like when he said it to you all that time ago, he didn’t even mean it.

He clears his throat and steps back, the distance returning all at once. His hands move to his uniform, tucking, adjusting, restoring the stolen image of authority. (America’s monster). “Well,” he mutters, brushing at his cuffs as if nothing of note had occurred, “come on, Bell. Up.”

You obey. Your knees protest as you rise, a dull, winding ache settling into your joints, your body now worn down in ways that have nothing to do with time. You steady yourself, drawing in a breath and begin the process of putting yourself back together, wiping at your face, clearing the evidence you can, swallowing down the rest of his seed. It makes you feel permanently marked, your skin branded with something only you and Adler can see.

When you’re done, he offers you that faint, barely-there simper of his, something that never quite reaches his eyes, his hand already resting on the door handle as though the world beyond it has been waiting patiently for your return.

“Ready?” he asks.

You want to ask him something. You want to push, to demand, to hit him, maybe, or maybe not? Could you really hurt him? Maybe something softer. Regardless, you settle for just nodding. “Of course.”

“That’s good,” he says, “we’ve got a job to do.”