Chapter Text
IV. PERHAPS IT ISN'T LOVE WHEN I SAY YOU ARE WHAT I LOVE MOST— YOU ARE THE KNIFE I TURN INSIDE MYSELF, THAT IS LOVE.
The CIA reinvented you Bell.
Adler stares at the blank dossier in front of him; his fingers gripping the pen with unprovoked vice as he struggles to fill in the details of the page. He presses his lips once more, periodically glancing from the paper to Bell's unconscious form on the other side of the window.
If you believed you were someone else, we could lead you to a place where you'd give everything up.
He's struggling. This should've been the most simplest part of the whole ordeal– coming up with a plain name, choosing a random continent of origin, which branch she belonged to, et cetera. But nothing was popping up. All Adler could do was stare into the dossier, then look back at Bell, then back to the dossier. Over and over.
He doesn't hear the door open, but he feels Sims presence with him, something he'd grown accustomed to during their time in Vietnam. That bond– a hivemind between the two.
Sims was also Adler's most trusted confidante. Been a mainstay on Adler's various teams ever since.
Sims could see Adler's shoulders tensed, his back hunched over the desk and his leg bouncing anxiously. Sims huffed, folding his arms as he leaned against the desk, looking at the constipated man.
"Struggling?" He quipped, analyzing the sheet.
Adler sighs, leaning back and dropping the pen from his hand in frustration. He looks at the indents of his fingers, scowling to himself at his absent mindedness.
"Yup."
Sims chuckles, sliding the paper into his hands and scanning the details.
"Well, for starters. You should just make her CIA. We all served MACV together, it makes sense to make her CIA if we are. Known each other for years, right?"
Adler hums.
"You can put something like… Bell joined the Marines, has some connections from there, then joined your unit during '68."
"What about her psych eval?"
"I don't know, you tell me. You've spent the most time around her."
Adler considers for a moment, eyes flickering to Bell.
He thinks about how she tried to kill herself, her feral aggression towards him during their sessions. How she kept her mouth shut about Perseus, even when she was threatened with the most horrid torture device, she was quiet. Fearless.
"Overly reactive. Will handle things by physical means. But will also disregard threats in the face of immediate danger."
"Hm. Got it. Place of origin? She's Russian, isn't she? Sounds American too. Probably a mix."
"Mm. Just make it simple. North America."
"Yup. Now we just need a name."
Now we just need to give the subject a name.
Adler shifts in his seat, raising his hand to his forehead while sulking.
"I don't know. Just make it American. Like Jane Smith or Tammy Lynn Baker, some shit like that."
"Jesus, Adler, Tammy Lynn? Baker I'll agree with, but let's change it to Becker. Someone I knew at Camp Haskins, good guy."
"Becker..alright."
Sims groans, looking at Adler as if he were a petulant child refusing to do their homework.
"Man, have you slept at all? You're actin’ like a crab apple." He puts the paper down on Adler's desk, sparing a glance to Bell.
"When you're done moping I'll be back, I can't work with you like this man. Take a nap."
Sims walks out of the room, the door shutting solemnly to Adler's ears. He runs his hands over his face, removing his shades as he exhales, finally letting the stress of the whole situation weigh in on him in the quiet moment. Adler lowers his head into his arms, staring blankly into the darkness of his isolated vision, slowly feeling them flutter closed. He lets his body rest for the first time in weeks, whimpering to himself as he feels his bones crack and rest, a pressure in his tail bone relieving itself from the new angle.
Yes, it was still uncomfortable to be leant over, but being able to finally rest his head was doing wonders he couldn't exaggerate.
While he had his eyes shut, he started to really take in the situation. He thought about names for Bell, real names, then thought about the name Bell itself.
Maybe it was from the poster he saw of the Bell Sound Machine in the 60’s.
Bell has it!
Yeah, she does. She has what he needs to get to Perseus. She has it all. All the information he couldn't get because she'd keep her mouth shut. No matter how many times he threatened her.
The sleek, slim silhouette in high fidelity is here.
Or maybe it was like how masters would summon their butlers.
The Aristocrats ring that small bell to summon their servants so they can satiate their every need and want and commands without so much as blinking an eye or a plea or protest. Just a silent obligation to fulfill their duties, with a ring of a bell.
That's exactly what this was. She was his Bell.
He shifts in his spot, moving his head to the side now and readjusting his head on the hard leather on his sleeve, shutting his eyes tighter as he tries to rid his mind of every intrusive thought.
He tries to block out every flashing memory of Bell's face, contorted and bloodied, drenched in sweat and flaring eyes.
The images of the tapes he would put on, the gushing of blood from her wrist; her gaping mouth and dry lips, the bobbing of her throat. He tightens his fist, feeling the skin on his knuckles stretch, thinking about how they dripped with blood from skimming them on Bell's teeth. He sucks in a breath, his mind filling in the sight of Bell's big black eyes, her head tilting to the side as blood runs from her forehead, a droplet getting caught in her eyelash and her blinking it away.
He can still feel the wetness of bloody spit on his face.
Adler feels a warmth radiate over his body, one that he can recall as a bonfire. Trying to warm up during those cold nights in Vietnam, sitting by the fire with his fellow soldiers. The ones he had lost to Perseus. A comfort turned sour; ashes and ghosts. A fire that flickered its last embers before finally dying out. Cold again.
The warmth only grows and his leather starts to heat up, the sweat from his face clinging to the leather. Behind his eyelids he sees red leaks trickle into the starry darkness. This temperature is unbearable. It only grows, until his vision is a bright red.
Have I died and gone to Hell?
Hell Sucks.
He groans as he lifts his head up, peeling away from his jacket and his eyes squinting from the sudden brightness that overtakes him. He gapes at the sight before him.
At first, he sees fire. He thinks that the world has been nuked and now burning to eternal hell. But within those flames is Bell. Behind the glass, his only protection, Bell stands staring at him with solemn eyes, her eyelashes covering most of her dark iris’. She raises her hand against the window, planting it firmly. The hand that belonged to the arm she had sliced open, hoping to escape from Adler once and for all.
Her skin doesn’t burn, but her body is on fire. Engulfed in flames of immolation. He can hear the crackling.
Adler stares at her hand, then hesitantly, lifts his own to place his against it. The size difference engulfing Bell's hand. She stares deep into his exposed eyes, consuming the cobalt blues that battled against her orange aura.
Something deep inside him begs to melt with her, to become the wax to her wick, to thaw and reform. Maybe their candle would smell nice, and the burn was worth the closeness. He wants to smooth himself from her hot wax; burning away the grit he had built up for years.
What are you?
Your worst nightmare.
“Adler?”
Adler’s body shoots up from his hunched position, alarmed by the sudden intrusion in his half conscious state.
Park laughs nervously, not meaning to scare him out of his nap.
“Catch forty winks?” She jokes, an attempt to ease the man. She preferred to see him as his stoic self rather than his panicked one.
Adler reaches for his glasses, placing them back on and looking to Bell, who still rested comfortably on the gurney.
“I must’ve dozed off. You need something?”
“Sims said you were having some trouble creating Bell’s dossier. Thought I could help?”
He hums, stretching his neck from side to side and wiping his jaw.
“It’s alright, Park. I’ve thought of a name.”
“And that is?”
He stands up, placing his hand to the window.
“Joan.”
“Joan? As in the martyr?”
“Yes. She's going to help us find Perseus, she only needs a voice to push her to do so.”
And her embers would flicker out.
Park dabs a damp cloth onto Bell's face, gently wiping away the dried blood. She takes the antiseptic and places it onto the small cuts, earning a wince in response to the stinging sensation.
“I know..” She whispers softly, offering a tender smile as she continues to clean Bell’s wounds.
Her eyes were crestfallen; puffy, holding nothing but shame. But even now, knowing the truth, she still leans into Park’s touch. Submitting to her warm nature she’s grown accustomed to.
The entire time Park knew, and she still cared enough to hold her through her panic attacks, to check in on her during her hours isolated in front of the terminal.
It was that missing piece. During it all Bell always felt she was missing something, something familiar yet so far away.
A maternal heart.
“You should… re-bandage yourself. You're bleeding through.” She says, looking over Park's equally broken body.
Park breathes softly, placing down the bloody cotton balls and replacing them with fresher ones, dabbing at the last remaining chips that stuck to her cuts.
“Don’t worry, you’re my main concern.”
Bell shifts uncomfortably.
“I don’t need cleaning up anymore, Adler has what he wants, doesn’t he? I’m useless now, no need to patch me up.”
Park places her hands on Bell's shoulders, leaning her head forward.
“Look at me, Bell.”
Bell bites her lip, trying to hold back tears, her head hanging with indignity.
“Please, Bell.”
A sickly contrast.
She lifts her head to meet Parks' gaze, pressing their foreheads together. Park runs her hands up Bell's arms, delicate enough to avoid the wounds on her arms, and rests them on her lower jaw.
“Listen to me. I am not Adler. Just because he’s gotten what he wants doesn’t mean I have. Back there I said I need you, and I need you again still. You’re going to save the world.”
Park scans Bell's face, still retaining its solemnity, her eyes swimming with resentment. She uses her hands to gently push Bell's face to the side, planting a kiss on her now clean cheek, a long and meaningful gesture, a one-sided farewell.
Park knows she won’t see her again.
She guides Bell's face into her neck, wrapping their arms around each other. They embrace, and Park can feel Bell cry into her shoulder. It turns into heavy sobs, a hush falling onto the safehouse as Adler tries to block out her cries while Sims leaves the safehouse to have a smoke.
Bell cries as she remembers the rice paddies covered in cadavers of Adler, his blood is everywhere. The water isn’t even water anymore, it's just his ichor. Thick and dry, sticking and spreading to everything it can reach. Like a disease. What she had thought was the last VC remaining as she plunged her knife deep into his chest, was Adler. It was him. It's always been him. She gags as she realizes what she's done, straddling his lap in a shallow lake of blood, holding on to the knife as she tries to break through the lenses covering his eyes. Around her she is surrounded by his lifeless body, each contorted in different positions, his face remaining still. Emotionless. Her hand shakes as she removes the plunged blade, sheathing it as she hovers it over his gaping hole. She bites the inside of her cheek hard enough to draw blood, her fingers dance around the gash and she thrusts wrist deep into the cleft. Inside he feels warm; she wishes to make space, to fit herself inside, like how a man would seek warmth inside of a horse carcass. He got inside her mind, it's only fair she gets inside his stomach.
She slowly removes her hand from the hole, sucking in a breath as reality continues to break around her.
Behind her, she can feel him. She can feel his coldness bask over her, like moonlight. She turns, and is blinded by his beaming eyes that cast a shining light over her. She raises her bloody hand to shield her eyes from his light, vulnerable in his spotlight.
He reaches out for her hand and pulls her forward into the blood, moving over her and grasping her neck to submerge her in his gore.
His hands would find her neck, hers his wrists, one way or another, someone was going to be put down.
She coughs and chokes as she struggles against his vice, her hands scraping up his arms and digging into his shoulders, her eyes shut tightly and burning from the plasma. All she can feel is Adler; all she can touch, smell, hear, and see is Adler.
Bell feels herself become engulfed in his searchlight. His baptismal font.
Bell reaches for the knife she had sheathed away and, instead of stabbing Adler, she stabs herself. She continues to perforate every inch of her skin. She stabs her stomach repeatedly, then her chest.
She wishes she had died in the womb– long before she were even a thought. To be birthed as her mothers ichor.
Bell is curled in a fetal position inside of the dark room, trying to emulate one of her earliest memories with her mother. She tries to remember her name, her touch, her smell, the cavern she had spent nine months inside. A warm sanctuary, only to be pulled out of her prisonic fairytale. Her eternal rest.
Let me back inside, I am not yet complete. Uneternal sleep.
She didn’t even cry when she was born.
There is something wrong with you– there is something wrong with you that is also wrong with me.
Bell wishes that her mother took her newborn form and swallowed her back up; to plant herself inside her once more.
Please love me… once more.
She named you Lorelei.
Joan “Bell” Becker.
It means: from the rocky cliff. The name of a siren who would lure fishermen to their death.
Joan, like the martyr?
I don’t want to be here anymore. I can feel the holes engraved in my body pulse– I can taste only you.
This painful endure: I never wanted it.
The Final Countdown.
This was it. Bell’s swan song– the beginning of her end. She hadn’t said a single word to Adler.
All Bell had on her mind was to stop Perseus and to save the billions of lives she had helped jeopardize, blinded by spite in her years of associating with Perseus. After everything was over and the world was safe, Bell only had one more thing left to do.
To visit her mother.
On the way to Solovetsky remnants of her old memories came back every now and then, like a sharp pain penetrating her brain at any given moment. She remembered her upbringing, the life she had before. She remembers her father and step-mother, whom she had loved as her own birth mother.
As soon as Bell was born she was already living a life of lies. She could not escape it. It's what led to this very moment, being here by Adler's side, watching the sky light up the same as Adler's eyes did in her broken mind. Had her father never told her the truth she wouldn’t be deeply embedded into a wormhole of deception, entangled in Adler's web of falsity.
However, Bell knew that if she had a chance to do everything she ever did it all over again and not change a single thing, even if she knew what would become of her, she would.
Somewhere along these past months Bell had found herself becoming a sycophant; Adler’s sycophant. As the weeks went by she couldn’t stand to be away from him. Each passing minute not by his side felt like absolute torture, she felt that if he was out of her sight she’d lose him forever and become a stray dog, aimlessly wandering around for a new master to take her leash. But she only wanted him. When she thought of anyone else she felt sick to her stomach and on the verge of throwing up. It had become a disease, one she thought at first she could handle, but just the scent of another man alone that wasn’t him made her go ballistic.
Something had happened to her during those months, something she can’t recall quite yet.
Bell had become his monster. And she hopes by the end of all of this that she can lick his wounds, and return home.
“Coming up on your right!”
Bell turns her head to the side and sees Woods waving at her while Mason nods to her in acknowledgement, the simple acts alone making her stomach hurt in a sweet way.
Butterflies, Bell.
She waves back at him, cheeks red. Wood’s favorite shades of red.
Bell turns back to Adler, looking at the incoming flare in the sky.
“When that baby hits we'll have 12 minutes, max, before the radio towers come back online! Our job is to knock out the AA guns and give our warbirds a clean shot! Let's take Perseus off the air!”
The sky and ground pulse as the flare surrounds itself around the radius, sending a violent gust of air towards their incoming trucks, nearly knocking Bell onto her ass if not for Adler grabbing her at the last minute. She freezes when she feels his arms wrap around her waist, clutching tightly onto her before helping her regain her balance. Her body buzzes from the contact, wishing for more, but stops herself as she grabs the War Machine and starts to take out the roadblocks and towers.
Everything felt like a blur when she’d gotten out of the truck, her hands starting to shake and cataracts swarming her vision. The world started to grow quiet, being overcome by the sheer ringing that haunted her still– the bell. She felt Mason call out to her, to snap her out of her trance, but she remained still, standing vulnerable to be shot down instantly.
All of a sudden, the world's noise drowns back in as Mason pulls her down, his arm wrapped around her neck and covering her to protect her from the shrapnel of the grenade.
“Bell! Get your head in the game!” He screams over the explosions, handing her a smoke grenade.
“Toss it out so we can advance!”
She nods and does so, but before it even goes off she’s running into the field.
“Bell, no!” Woods yells after her, watching as she charges into the firefight and dissipating into the smoke.
They can hear her taking down the reds, their shrills of pain being cut off by her bullets piercing them. The team advances and regains their vision, watching as Bell places the C4 onto the first AA gun.
“Nice work, Bell! Head for the Church!” She hears Adler say, blushing from the praise.
From there on all Bell could comprehend was the zipping of bullets through the air and the ringing in her head, coming in and out of consciousness in places she didn’t remember getting to. When she had pulled the pin of a grenade it had happened, the grenade hot in her hands; it was Adler who had to take it and throw it, asking Bell what the fuck was wrong with her for doing something like that.
That's when he noticed her ears trickling with blood. It was beginning.
“Bell, the bombers will be here any minute!”
Bell blinked back into reality, looking up at Adler while shaking her head.
“I-I’m sorry, what did you say?”
He furrowed his eyebrows.
“Bell, can you hear me!?”
She bares her teeth in confusion, the corner of her lip twitching.
“What?”
Adler curses to himself as he moves to shoot down the incoming reinforcements, his eyes set on the last remaining AA gun. It was all or nothing now.
Before he could mentally prepare himself he catches a glimpse of Bell in his peripheral, who again charged into action with her RPD to the last remaining AA gun.
“Bell, wait, fuck!”
He throws a smoke grenade to help cover her, but when he tries to talk to her through comms she doesn't respond.
She can’t hear him.
“This is Adler– Bells comms are down, I repeat, Bells comms are down! ”
“You have one minute Adler, do not let her fuck this up, the fate of the world is in your hands!” He hears Hudson say.
Adler goes after Bell through the smoke, and sees her place the final charge onto the last AA gun.
“Ground team, zone is hot! You are danger close! I repeat danger close!”
He tries to scream for her to turn back as he sights the bombers, his hand motioning her to get down.
“Bell! We gotta go! Now!”
Her world is engulfed in darkness.
“We stopped him. Those towers are history.”
…
“What's your situation down there?”
…
“Come in!”
…
“Woods, have you found her yet?”
“Over here! Give me a hand.”
Bell winces as the metal scraps are removed off of her body, paralyzed with shock as she looks around at the destruction around her. She didn’t remember anything from when she had pulled the pin from the grenade. Her voice is hoarse when she tries to speak and her hearing is still impaired from the ringing.
“Take my hand, Bell.”
She can hear him say faintly, and she weakly reaches up to take it. That same buzz shoots through her body, and she hopes Adler can feel it too. Her hearing is as clear as day now.
“Can you hear me, Bell?” He asks, their hands still together.
She breathes.
“Yes.”
Adler smiles.
“We did it. This is a message to Perseus and those that'll follow him. We don't just sit back and hope for the best… we'll make the best happen. This is how wars are won, Bell.”
Woods and Mason pat Bell on the back, smiling in approval to her before heading to the choppers.
“Bell.”
She turns back to Adler, who’s facing the destruction and fire.
“Yes?”
He looks down at the ground, then back up to the fires.
“Do you think love can bloom on a battlefield?”
She watches as he lights a cigarette, her face heating up at his obscure question. She sucks in a breath, picking at her fingers.
“I think.. I think at any time, any place… people can fall in love with each other.”
He doesn’t respond, instead he turns his head towards her, the cigarette burning between his fingers as he watches the shadows of the fire dance across her face.
A martyr.
“Looks like the sun is rising. C’mon.”
They walk off the broken land and back onto the grassy ground, trying to find the ocean side to watch the sunrise together. While Bell assumes this as their final moments as comrades, and the beginning of her new life, Adler’s mind swims as he tries to process these final moments.
“Arctic air. Clears the head, doesn't it?”
I've never seen a hero like me in a sci-fi.
“Bell, you made two extraordinary sacrifices to stop Perseus. One was without your knowledge. The other, you made that decision of your own accord.”
So I wonder if your needs are even meant for me?
“I just want you to know that this little thing that's happened with you and me…it was always for the greater good.”
I wonder if you think that I could ever raise you up?
“You're a goddamn hero, y’know that, kid?”
I wonder if you think that I could ever help you fly?
“Heroes have to make sacrifices.”
Never seen a hero like me in a sci-fi.
“That's why when I ask you for one more, I hope you understand…”
But I'd save a life if I thought it belonged to you.
“It was never personal.”
All of Bell's senses stop as she stands motionless, her eyes trained on the gun aimed in front of her, in the hand of her own creator. She doesn’t reach for her own gun, frozen in place as the bullet slices through quiet air. This was her last and final act as Adler’s loyal servant, to stand there and accept her fate that was destined from the beginning.
The bullet pierces her stomach, and she lurches back crying out in pain as she plants into the Earth. She breathes erratically now, hands reaching to her stomach and pressing on the wound, feeling her warm blood soak into her nails.
She can't speak, feeling the blood flood her throat and spill from the corners of her lips. She hears Adler’s footsteps approach, and sees him tower above her before standing behind her and kneeling down, lifting her head into his lap. The palm of his hand on the side of her face as his other hand reaches to press the gun to her temple. She lifts one bloody hand to his scarred cheek and the other to his wrist, gripping weakly as she tries to push the gun away.
Adlers eyes focus on her red lips, watching as her life essence drips down her neck and into his lap. He evens his breathing, hoping not to give away his vexation. The grip on his 1911 becomes tighter, and he looks up.
“I’m sorry about the blood in your mouth, I wish it was mine.”