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They call it Russian roulette. There’s one round in the cylinder of Bell’s revolver. She sits on the ledge of the roof of the safehouse, Adler would grill her if he knew she was out here playing with a firearm. It jeopardises their cover, he would claim. It’s raining, again. The streets are drenched, the few people who are outside clutch onto their umbrellas tightly, the wind whipping the synthetic water-resistant fabric around.
Most people are likely warm, inside and dry with their families, people who care about them. Or perhaps they’re at the bar, drinking among friends and comrades, sorry, colleagues.
She’s a little jealous, maybe. Nobody likes her. Not Sims with their shared past in Vietnam, nor Adler with his occasional flirting. All the conversations she has with them seems forced. More like an interrogation, actually. She asks questions, they answer. It’s never the other way around, nor does anybody approach her for conversation instead.
Bell’s not stupid, in fact, she gets the memo rather quickly.
She bats her eyelashes back at Adler because he’s attractive. He’s her superior, fraternising with him is forbidden - exciting - and yet still it’s not enough for her to want to live. She’s known him since… since her defection, surely for over a decade now, and yet she feels like she doesn’t know him at all. Or rather she doesn’t seem to know anybody at the safehouse. Sims had said as much when she’d made the mistake of trying to talk to him, proclaiming to the room that ‘Bell’s lonely.’ Everyone had laughed at that. She joined in, rather awkwardly forcing a false mirth despite the awful realisation that he was right.
Is right. She’s lonely.
So, rather than socialising, she focuses on her work. When she’s not working, she’s in her assigned room pretending to be busy, content. It’s easier in there, staring at the wall in existential despair, than it is overhearing everyone else getting along in spite of her clearly unwanted presence.
She doesn’t care half as much as she should, anymore. Maybe she’s a fatalist, maybe the west will burn with or without their intervention. There’s a pounding in her head, a deafening rush of voices that she cannot begin to comprehend overwhelm her. It’ll all go away if she loses this little game she plays.
It’s a six-shot revolver. If she shoots six times consecutively, she will die. It’s not much of a game if the outcome is predetermined, is it? No, she spins the cylinder after every pull of the trigger with the barrel to her temple. She’s suicidal, sure, but it’s much easier if the choice is less hers and more up to pure chance. She’s done the math; 100 divided by 6 is 16.66 reoccurring, and those are odds she can live with… or rather, well… you get the point.
Sims and Lazar get along so easily, Adler and Park often discuss things privately over coffee in places where Bell can’t disturb them, and Park and Lazar seem to be building up a rapport despite only having known each other for days, at most.
Wholly and emphatically, the truth is that Bell doesn’t have any family and she doesn’t have any friends. The former is because of her defection to the USA, whereas the latter… is entirely on her.
Worse yet is she doesn’t know why. There’s an underlying reason everyone is disinterested in her attempts at building a rapport, stemming from something inexplicably her. Did she do something wrong? Is it something she can fix? She can ‘keep it professional,’ sure, but there’s only so much she can take when even those who’d been through hell with her can’t stand her feeble attempts at conversation.
Click. The hammer of the revolver flies back up, the metallic noise hardly heard over the patter of the rain. She brings the revolver back down, spinning the chamber and priming it for another shot.
Nobody had reached out to her between now and Vietnam, either. Is she really that awful for her presence to burden them so? Adler had been a bachelor in Vietnam… and now, meeting him again, she finds that he’d been married and divorced since then. Sims was invited to the wedding.
Click. She’s still alive. She’s not even sure why Adler called her specifically for this operation; she’s been out of field work for five years, now. There’s not much expertise she’s offering here. Sims and Adler were in Vietnam, same as her, and the CIA has enough decoders that they shouldn’t have to defer to her.
Bell has no idea what she’s doing here. The chamber spins again, the trigger is pulled and the hammer swings back up with another click.
She falters. If anybody were to come up to the roof and witness the revolver in her hand, they’d bench her quick, send her back home if needed. Is that what she wants? Her lease is up, so there’s not really anywhere to send her, but… the principle remains. If she thinks she’s lonely now… going back to before Adler reached out to her would be worse.
Vietnam is compilation of horrific memories, most of which she struggles to remember. Trauma-suppression, she’s told. Adler assured her it isn’t anything irregular, but she’s nearly certain he'd only said that to make her feel better. Sims seems to remember everything clearly enough that even bringing up Vietnam pisses him off; he gets a weird look about him when she dares to talk about events for which they were both present for.
She hears the metal of the stairs creak and shoves the gun behind the waistband of her pants, pulling her sweater over to cover the handle.
His hair, light brown on the cusp of being blond, is visible before he is.
Adler joins her on the roof, purposefully sliding onto the ledge next to her, both of their legs dangling over the edge. He’s mostly dry, likely hasn’t been out in the rain for long. Was he looking for her? Unlikely. Maybe he smokes here, sometimes, and she’s unknowingly coveted a spot of his.
“What are you doing up here?” Adler raises his voice over the rain, not quite yelling but definitely loud.
Grimacing, Bell begrudgingly removes a pocket bottle of vodka from her pocket and he frowns when he notices the still sealed cap. Unopened. She sighs, the sound coming out perhaps a little tireder than she intends. “Can’t I enjoy the atmosphere?”
“Drinking… alone in the rain at night?” He sounds doubtful. “Not to mention the fact that you haven’t even started.”
“Maybe I want a moment alone with sober thoughts before I start.” Not that her drunk ones will be any better. Maybe inebriation will remove whatever it is causing her cowardice. She might actually shoot consecutively until the bullet takes. Or worse, she might overshare.
“What are you, depressed?” Adler asks, tone edging serious and sarcastic. The sound of it is cruel, and it hits her exactly where she’s sorest, her stomach twisting painfully.
“Something like that,” she mutters quietly. A flash of lightning brightens the side of his face, the texture of his scar casting an irregular shadow across his skin. A terrible deja vu hits her and for a moment she can hardly breathe. The sensation is washed away with a roll of thunder.
She twists the cap of the vodka, breaking the seal and taking a quick swig, throwing her head back. It’s low quality and the taste reflects it. The soaked cloth of her clothes stick to her skin, and while her hands are close to her face she pushes back the wet hair that clings to her forehead.
A couple leaves a bar down the street, the man wears a brown leather jacket and the girl holds onto his arm, her laugh inaudible from Bell’s position on the roof but envy still roots in her gut all the same. There’s no resemblance, other than the jacket, to her and Adler, so she must be awfully lonely to be projecting this much. Maybe she’ll mosey on down to the bar herself one day, sleep with somebody unmemorable and forget all her qualms with being lonely.
The rain dies down, somewhat. In spite of that, the wind picks up, chilling her wet skin. Fuck, it’s cold. The couple from the bar pull each other closer together for warmth.
Neither her nor Adler move.
“City won’t look like this when it’s nuked.” Bell’s voice carries a lot further now that the rain doesn’t beat down as hard. The city would turn into a ghost town within the blink of an eye. She's studied the nukes that came before, the ones dropped in the second World War, plus those tested when she used to be red. Weapons developed these days are far worse than any of those conceivable just forty years ago.
“Nuked?” Adler pulls a face and turns to look at her critically. She realises her mistake. “Do you have reason to believe Perseus is in possession of a nuke?”
He stares at her, expectant. His gaze is piercing. There’s a part of her that feels contradictorily hollow and heavy, like the place the answer is meant to be has been scooped out and filled with a meaningless cement instead.
Bell looks at him earnestly, suddenly questioning where the thought had even come from. Traitorously her mind goes blank and she forgets her line of thought. How had she even come to that conclusion…? Perhaps the evidence… no, that can’t be it. “I guess not…”
Adler looks doubtful at that but he doesn’t press the issue.
Bell takes another sip of the vodka. She must have a sullen look on her face because Adler nudges her. “What’s the pathetic look for?”
She burns with embarrassment. I’m going to kill myself, she vows, avoiding his eyes. “Just missing some things,” Bell vaguely lies, aware that it probably makes her look even worse now. Pulled out of retirement for the first time in half a decade and she’s already moping around as if she hasn’t been home in twice that time. The barrel of the gun she’s stowed away in the waistband of her pants dig into her thigh and she wonders if the hammer is still cocked. What if it goes off now? Would it hit a major artery in her leg? She doesn’t imagine so, the placement’s off for that.
“Mm hm,” Adler hums in a way that conveys his skepticism. His doubt. She doesn’t know why she expected him to trust her, to take her answer at face value.
Bell decides to throw him a bone. Something a little closer to the truth, but still a lie. Kind of. In their line of work, manipulating the truth and ensuring deniability is paramount to success. So what if the truth she’s manipulating is that maybe she’s suicidal. As long as the job gets done, right?
“I’m a gambler.” It’s not a lie, she reasons. She does gamble, the stakes being her life rather than money. The game played with her gun rather than in a casino.
Adler doesn’t bother to hide his mild surprise, his eyebrows twitching upwards at her reveal. “You miss the game, Bell? That’s what’s got you down?”
“Hate the game.” Lie. “Can't stop playing.” True.
“Poker?” Adler guesses and Bell chews her bottom lip in contemplation. Does she seem like the type to play poker? Interesting assertion. She can play, she can play well, but prefers not to. Poker’s for business. She ‘gambles’ for leisure.
Bell corrects him, nearly snorting at the incredulity of it. “Roulette.”
He hums neutrally. The rain starts to weigh on his hair, flattening the volume somewhat. She’s not surprised when he pulls out his pack of cigarettes, the action affirming her earlier theory that nobody had even been looking for her, perhaps hadn’t even noticed she’d left. He just wants a smoke, and coming to the roof suggests he wants to be alone; here Bell is again, burdening those around her with her mere presence.
He doesn’t offer her a cigarette, which is fine by her since she doesn’t smoke. Anymore.
“We don’t do roulette here, but Lazar and Sims host blackjack over beer every other night. I don’t play on the job, but I'm sure they won’t mind if you join them.”
Right. He’s got a one-track-mind like that, of course he wouldn’t play as long as there’s something he could be doing to continue the hunt for Perseus, even if that is just staring at the evidence they’ve accumulated until something starts to click.
“Thanks,” Bell says dryly. It’s a pity-invite and they both know it. Nobody’s going to be impressed if she joins, invited by somebody who doesn’t even play. “I’m quite fine playing alone.” Lie.
“You sure?”
Damn. The alcohol must kick in fast because she laughs. It’s a nasty sound coming from her mouth, void of the mirth she usually fakes. It’s more bitter than anything else, really. “I only play roulette alone.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m Russian,” she whispers loudly, like it’s some faux-secret. Bell notices the moment he realises, his eyes catching the way her sweater sits around her torso, trained to identify armed opponents. He flicks his cigarette over the edge, eyes darkening before his sudden movements almost catch her off guard. The alcohol has her off of her game.
Quicker than she can currently react, Adler pulls up the heavy wet-wool, quickly pulling her back from the ledge whilst simultaneously seizing the the gun. He checks the cylinder; five empty chambers, one bullet. She doesn't usually use revolvers, they both know that. It’s easier and quicker to slide a pre-filled magazine into a pistol than it is to fill each chamber of a revolver. She scrambles back, hoping to covet back her gun but Adler catches her quickly by the throat, immediately pressing her back against the concrete of the roof in a dizzying move. The back of her head slams against the concrete and she sees stars. Not real ones, Berlin’s too polluted for that.
“What the fuck, Bell?” Adler exclaims, emptying the singularly filled chamber with his other hand, straddling her with his larger body to ensure she doesn’t move. The grip around her neck tightens in frustration. She can still breathe, but it isn’t easy.
“God damn,” she wheezes, finding him to be overreacting. Would he really kill her… for joking about killing herself? “I’m joking. Gambling. Roulette. I’m Russian, get it?”
He shakes his head, leans over her enough that water drips from his wet hair onto her face. He’s so disappointed in her, she can tell by the look he’s giving. She knows what he thinks; she’s a coward, selfish. Taking the easy route out when he supposedly needs her, specifically her for his operation.
“This,” Adler stresses, waving around the ammo-less gun. “Isn’t a joke.” He squeezes her neck to emphasise each word and she can slowly feel her lungs start to burn. Her head spinning, a combination of alcohol and restriction of air. Soon, the only noise she can make are squeaks and wheezes.
For a second, she blacks out and everything within her protests it; every cell of her body feels like it’s panicking. She felt like she plummeted for a moment, stomach falling out of her body and she begins to fight Adler’s hand around her neck, clawing at it with her blunt nails.
He lets up, slightly. His weight still pins her to the ground, hand still on her neck, not squeezing but still firm. His gaze is intense.
Perhaps a little stupidly, considering his hand is still around her neck, Bell spits on him. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” She croaks, throat dry and recovering. She tries to move his hand again but it seems locked in place. Pushing her to the brink of death by asphyxiation might’ve knocked a few braincells back into her because that worthless feeling is gone. She only feels a hot simmering rage, now.
She blinks. Was that the purpose of the exercise? Maybe that’s how Adler lives through everything, pushes through every traumatic event life launches at him - fucking spite fuels him. It makes sense, she can't imagine how else he’s pushing through.
“You don’t get to die,” Adler insists, brows furrowed. “We need you for this. I need you for this.”
“Whatever,” she mutters, exhausted. Any argument she’d been building feels inconsequential. They fall apart in her mind like little sandcastles in the wind. Her lack of enthusiasm pisses him off, evidently, because he drops her head back onto the cement again, not hard enough to injure but hard enough to hurt.
“Bell, you have a responsibility, whether you like it or not, to the safety of the free world. We are going to see this mission through. Got it?” He’s got her chin pinched between his fingers, forcing her to look at him.
“Хуй,” she curses, rolling her eyes. “Fine, message received. Oh my god.”
Suddenly, she realises her qualms are meaningless. No friends. No family. Adler can say the same. His meetings with Park? Professional and about work, most likely. He’s on everyone’s ass, not just hers, when it comes to keeping things professional. Seldom does he let Lazar and Sims goof off when there’s work - a job to be done. No family, either. He never speaks of one and he’s divorced.
Bell and him are two peas in a pod, except she’s tried to take the cowards way out and he’s fucking pissed.
Finally, he lets up, pulling Bell to her feet with an offered hand as she rubs her sore neck. It’s going to bruise, she can already tell. Still, he doesn’t let go of her, maintaining a steady grip around her wrist. He pulls her along towards the stairs, jaw set.
“So,” Bell tries, a new emotion resting in the cage of her ribs where despair and loneliness used to sit. Now she’s just pissed. “This stays between us, right?”
Adler pauses, looks back at her momentarily before shaking his head. “And Park.”
“What?” Why would she need to know? She’s not Bell’s fucking handler.
“You’ve lost your privacy privileges, kid. You’re rooming with Park from now on.” Great. Park’s going to like her even less now. “No more drinking unsupervised, either.”
Bell scowls, once again pulling against his hold on her. “I’m not a kid.”
Adler huffs, dragging her towards the entrance of the safehouse. He unlocks the heavy metal-door and it opens with a groan. “That stunt proves otherwise.”