OOM: Khabarovsk, Siberia, USSR, 1955

[redintheledger]

Outside the KGB field office in Khabarovsk, the September weather is turning towards winter with a vengeance. Inside, well. Given it's after six on a Saturday, Natasha doesn't quite care what the temperature is doing. The oven's heat will last until she feels up to go back to her apartment. But Izmaylov is back from China, and had stomped around pointedly until she let him fire up the oven.

(He'd wanted her to do it; she had stared at him coolly, taping a letter-opener casually against her fingers until the agent backed off.)

Mostly, the office is nearly silent. Izmaylov is typing up a report at the other end, Natasha is sorting through (and fixing) the filing system, and occasionally Chigrakov the guard pokes his head in from the foyer.

It's much, much better than being in her apartment.

Comments

[nerves_of_ice]

Now he does glance sideways at her, looking for hints of her thoughts in her expression.

"Thanks."

A beat.

"That's not what I'd need a partner for, though. I also collect intelligence, when it's needed. That's ... more complicated, for anything that goes beyond a simple in-and-out mission."

[redintheledger]

Unfortunately for him, she'd been perfecting the art of hiding her thoughts long before she tried to brain him with a copy of Sherlock Holmes.

Natasha looks a tad amused. "So you are a thief...or you require the services of one. Is that what you want me for?"

[nerves_of_ice]

He snorts.

"No, like I said before, I'm not much of a thief. But I am a spy. And I think, I still think, that you could be a good one, too."

"I don't want your services, Natasha. I want a partner. I want you."

[redintheledger]

At his vehemence, she looks a little startled. The surprise runs much, much deeper than her expression suggests.

It's been a long time since anyone actually respected her, and what she could do. Her husband adored her, but he didn't count, not in this sense - he flew planes, he didn't translate or know how to shift his accent. He had thought her brilliant, but her superiors have had her filing more often than not.

She could leave. Leave and go back to...

(Please, how do I turn them off? Comrade Doctor, please. Help.)

"Who would I be reporting? In Moscow?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"As a team, we'd be reporting to our handlers. Sometimes in Moscow, sometimes in the field."

He slows his steps as they approach the lights of what must be the restaurant, which is still a little ways off yet.

"Reports go up the chain from there, the same as before. Procedure, you know."

[redintheledger]

"Procedure," she echoes, a slightly cynical note in her voice.

"Did they tell you why their little academy was shut down? Because, I don't want..." She starts again.

"Did they tell you what I had to do, before everyone was assigned elsewhere?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"... no," he says, very quietly. "No. They didn't."

"Will you?"

[redintheledger]

Natasha nods.

"I had to kill Kaminskaya," she says, and looks at his face. "Dear Comrade Doctor K had fucked up, and Kaminskaysa, and Zharkova became...very paranoid, heightened aggression. They turned on us. On everyone. And they were...altered, physically, more then we are already. Kaminskaya killed Bogolomova, I moved in. It nearly killed me. But," she stops, shakes her head. "That's not the point.

Do you understand my point? I do not want to go back if those kinds of things are going to still happen."

[nerves_of_ice]

"I'm sorry," he murmurs, and falls silent for what feels like a very, very long time.




"I can't promise they won't." He shrugs his left shoulder; deliberately awkward in a way that's intended to draw her eye.

"All I can say is that ... "

A pause, a breath, and then --

" ... I hate the experiments, too."

[redintheledger]

Her eyes do flick towards his shoulder, and the corner of her mouth lifts a little.

"Well, it's something," she says, honestly. And then, voice pitched a little smoother with amusement, "You might want to work on your recruiting speech, a little.

So, tell me. Why should I go back?"

[nerves_of_ice]

Temper flashes in his glance, just for an instant, before he buries it.

"If I were a recruiter, I'd just lie."


"Why go back? Because they won't leave you alone, Natasha. You're too good for that. You know it, too."

This time his shrug is impatient.

"Why not come back -- on your terms? Do what you want, as much as any of us can?"

[redintheledger]

And there goes that choice he promised.

She keeps the thought to herself, mostly because she's aware - had been aware since he knocked on the door - that the most they could have done was buy her some time.

Not that she says anything. She just snorts, bites the inside of her cheek, and keeps walking.

Finally, she says, "Do you know how Bruskin recruited me? Initially? He was a commissar during the Siege of Stalingrad, and he'd heard what I'd been getting up to. So, he found me, and he said, 'bring me five Nazi dogtags, and you can have this chocolate bar'. I was fourteen, and starving, but even then I thought that it was a bad idea. NKVD, taking an interest in you?" She shakes her head.

"It's funny what a bar of chocolate gets you. But, you know what," she adds in an abrupt change of tone, voice coming faster. "If you're taking me back, then the least you can do is buy me a decent meal."

[nerves_of_ice]

Something complex passes over his face.

"I won't be the one to take you anywhere you don't want to go, Natasha."

He smiles, a little bit.

"But I'll buy you a meal either way."

[redintheledger]

"Buy me a meal, and I'll make you some tea later," she says.

It's something to say, when she has so many other thoughts that she refuses to give voice to, for one reason or another.

"Assuming we get a table," she adds, as they come up to the restaurant's front door.

[nerves_of_ice]

"Hey, I'm patient," he returns, without hesitation. "Besides, it's late enough; we have to be lucky sometime, don't we?"

[redintheledger]

She snorts at that, her mouth twisting cynically for a moment. Then it's all pleasant neutrality as they walk in, as she requests a table, as she's offered murmured condolences as they are seated at one of the very few tables left.

She says, "Thank you," and her knuckles are briefly white as she curls her hand around the cutlery. Then, slowly, she forces her hand to relax.

The table is against a wall, near the kitchen, and the room is loud, hot, too many people and she knows half of them, and it's hard to breathe, and-

"Any new plays in Moscow?"

[nerves_of_ice]

It's been eight years since he's seen her, long enough to have forgotten any number of things, and yet he finds that the time they spent training together was enough.

He sees the brief tension in her grip, the way she's holding herself, and realizes what she's really asking.

"None that I've seen, sorry," he replies. "But there was a movie I saw, while traveling. You'd have liked it, I think."

[redintheledger]

"Really? We don't often get movies here.


Could you tell me about it?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"Of course."

He smiles at her.

"Although I must warn you, it was an American film, so don't expect too much. For one thing, it involved a bunch of men in a submarine, chasing a sea monster."

He knows perfectly well that the sheer spectacle of such a ridiculous thing will likely help to distract and hopefully entertain her.

[redintheledger]

"That sounds rather like they were copying Jules Vernon..."

Pause.

"Did they? Was it a movie version of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea?




With a Captain Nemo?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"The very same."

[redintheledger]

It's not exactly a smile, but something in her face brightens.

"Once we've ordered? Tell me everything."

[nerves_of_ice]

Something about her expression is balm; for all that he's brought trouble on her, he can do this, too.

He settles a little deeper in his seat, relaxing as much as he ever does, and prepares to follow orders.





Regaling her with the full tale of Hollywood's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea takes some time, and there are other films after that to discuss. Dinner goes smoothly, with light conversation; nothing of import, nothing that reveals them to any listening ears or watching eyes to be anything but old friends chance-met once more.

[redintheledger]

It's the kind of dinner conversation she hasn't had since she left Moscow's university set, and she's missed it.

(She also drinks a bit too much, but in the manner of someone who wishes it'd do anything rather than actually ending up tipsy)

Outside, the rain has settled in, but aside from a muttered curse, she ignores it. Outside, she can breathe easier, and no one is watching them.

"I'll have to go back to Moscow now," she says, lightly, as they set off back to her apartment. "They'll all assume we're having a raging affair, and the gossip might actually drive me to drastic measures."

[nerves_of_ice]

He glances sideways at her face.

"Perhaps they won't," he says, just as lightly. "I didn't bring flowers, after all."