Chapter Text
— 1 —
You wouldn’t break.
No matter how hard they beat you, how deep they pressed dull blades into your skin, or how much they deprived you of sleep – you didn’t budge. Resilient to any traditional methods in their arsenal. Stayed silent throughout the long hours of interrogation; stayed still in the face of aggressive questioning. You didn’t even blink at their threats, or didn’t falter at their dealings and their promises. Mistrustful, staunch, and unwavering; unbroken. You gave them nothing. All in the name of one organization, for one man. Perseus – who you would willingly die for and whose secrets you would take to the grave.
There was no denial that your loyalty was admirable and your sturdiness impressive even for a person betrayed by your own. Not just for a Russki loyalist so high on the totem pole but as a detainee. But to say that it wasn’t aggravating would be an understatement. You were the key to everything yet refused to open any doors for them. Time was running out … and they were getting desperate. A sort of desperation that didn’t go unnoticed by you. The tell-tale sign of perceived weakness, a droplet of blood on snow. Honed in on it like a patient predator, unassuming and forbearing. Who bided their time for the slightest misstep, a hint of an opportunity.
(They needed you – alive. Half-dead more like. But such noteworthiness wasn’t lost on you.)
And for the first time since your capture, the tables have turned ever in your favor.
Or so you thought.
◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼
You were being watched.
From the hallway, behind a tinted, one-way windowed wall that divided the white room. Even now as you slept, slumped forward in the metal chair you were strapped to – overtired from being forced to stay awake for days.
(But there was never really a time where you weren't constantly under surveillance. Was there?)
Like an apparition on the other side of a mirror, a figure stood patiently behind the window as he monitored you. A cup of old coffee in hand, aviators hung on the collar of his wool sweater vest. Listening intently to the timer on his wristwatch that ticked away – a countdown that was almost near completion. Time was going and going without a hitch or a hurdle. And who was he to ask it to change its nature; Deadlines were right on the horizon and progress had to be made. No matter the means. Morals and ethics were off the table now more than ever.
The figure rubbed at his temples as he heaved out a deep sigh. Eyes painfully dry as he squeezed them shut. Stress and fatigue had slowly eaten away at him over the past few weeks. But it wasn’t anything he wasn’t used to. Sleep deprivation was an expectation, just part of the job. Perseverance, an unrelenting stubbornness and heaps of bottomless cups of caffeine were a hell of a combo to combat it, let alone to function with; unhealthy but effective. The after effects, however, were not as ideal. And being underneath the bright fluorescent lighting only made it all that much worse. It made his head throb, his teeth ache. His shoulders fell as he let out a soft sigh.
He ran a hand down his face, past the bridge of his nose, then lingered over a scarred cheek. Calloused fingers ghosted over the plunging grooves of the lichtenberg-like scar. Jagged and complex. Starting from his chin, the rough terrain of his scars branched through his lips and across the buccal plane. A reminder carved deep into the skin.
A failure that he would not repeat twice.
His eyes shot up as you suddenly twitched. Shuffling in the metal chair in the throes of your troubled sleep, moving as much as you could from your restraints. Your head eventually lolled against your shoulder, using the junction there to rest your cheek on, nestling yourself more into one side of the chair. Sharp eyes narrowed, you were getting too comfortable for his liking. He checked his watch again. Six more minutes were still left on the timer. And he grimaced, lips pressed tightly together.
Clicking footsteps echoed across the cold linoleum of the long hallway. But he didn’t turn toward the sound even as they slowly got closer. Only stood up straighter, more composed. And continued to watch over you for any other of your sudden movements. The smell of freshly brewed coffee hit his nose before anything else as the person settled next to him. Wordlessly, another mug was offered out to him, white porcelain in the edge of his vision. He lifted his own mug up to show he still hadn’t finished the one he had. But the woman next to him only took it from his hand, replacing it with the one she brought. He didn’t protest however, the warmth of the mug in hand was calming as was the waft of the fresh dark roast. He lifted the new mug and took a careful sip. The bitter taste permeated on his tongue.
“Can’t believe you wanted to finish that, Adler.” The British woman, Agent Park, said in undisguised disgust. From the corner of his eye, he noticed the way she held the mug away from her as if it was disease-ridden. “Two day old coffee, and in a mug you haven't washed since. How very uncouth of you.”
He heard Park place it somewhere next to her. But Adler didn’t reply right away and took another sip of his coffee. “It’s my favorite mug.”
“You could’ve rinsed it out at least.” Park countered, an arm thrown around her abdomen, the other holding up her cup of tea as she settled next to Adler. Blowing on the surface of her drink to cool it. “Anything new?”
“No. Some movement while sleeping, that’s about it. Nothing worth noting down.”
Park nodded, drinking her tea idly. They grew silent then, both staring into the room for any little movement, any little sign. Something interesting to be jotted down in your prisoner records. It reminded Adler of the zoo somewhat. Standing behind the glass of an animal enclosure, lingering around and waiting for the animal to do something, anything worthwhile. And there you slept and slept, way too peacefully than he liked, than you deserved.
Park peeked at her watch. Seemingly under the same mindset as she hummed.
“We’re being too gracious, don’t you think?” He said. “Twenty minutes is overdoing it in my books. I should go and get started.”
Park titled her arm, letting Adler see the timer on its face. Numbers in bold font still ticking away, right on the end of hitting zero. Just like his watch was displaying.
“It makes waking up far more terrible.” Park let her arm fall to her side. “Pluck someone right before hitting REM then they’re worse for wear and far more malleable. It’ll make all that effort of resting all for nothing. Lack of proper sleep and you’re bound to make mistakes.”
Adler didn’t say much more, nursing his coffee as the concentrated dose of caffeine coursed through his body. It gave Adler the energy he would need in a few minutes.
“Almost three weeks of nothing, Park. Not sure this angle is worth it, might be a waste of time that we don’t have.”
Park clicked her tongue at him in that sort of smugness akin to thinking you’re smarter than someone. That you know better than them. Another person might’ve been offended, slighted by Park. But Adler has worked with the MI6 agent long enough to look past it. He looked at her just as she turned to him with pursed lips.
“I think it's an angle we haven’t truly utilized. Like you said before, normal forms of interrogation aren't working. It's a good sort of tension to continue whittling down the subject with. It paves the perfect path for the second phase as well.”
Adler’s eyebrows knitted together. “Second phase?”
“Yes. The gloves are officially off.”
“They always have been, Park.” He reminded her.
“We got the greenlight, Adler.”
Adler’s eyebrows shot up, turning his head to face her now. “Hudson approved it?”
Park nodded. “Quite eagerly I might add.”
“He knows what’s at stake.”
“We all do.” Park sighed softly. “Well, I suppose it's a good thing we aren’t bound by the Hippocratic Oath.”
“Sometimes morals and ethics are not in our line of work.”
“Quite so.”
But before more can be discussed between them, a shrill cry from both of their analog watches. Indicating that their stopwatches had ended. That time was up. Both agents shared a look.
“Do your worst.” Park said over the brim of her tea mug.
Adler gave her a nod, handing her his coffee mug, and turned the corner, to the side door there. The turn of the knob and the squeak of the door opening didn’t wake you however, not that Adler was being quiet about it. Still you slept, too tired to process anything in your surroundings or the threat right in your vicinity. The room was cold when he had entered, even a bit cold for someone like Adler. Another little touch to make sure you were never truly comfortable here in your confinement. He supposed you were used to the cold given that you’re a Soviet associate and all. Yet the way you were shivering in your sleep spoke otherwise.
It was gratifying for him to see it, your physical discomfort. It was ironic that a spy who came in from the cold wasn't as cold-resistant as implied. That notion made Adler pull his leather jacket closer around himself and sat down on the chair opposite of you. Far more supportive than the one you were tied down to. He rested his elbows on the metal table, untucking the manila folder from underneath his left arm and set it on the tabletop. Adjacent to a paper cup from the water dispenser he also brought with him.
Adler flicked his shades open, settling them on his face where they rightfully belonged. As if on cue, the lighting inside the room grew brighter. A sudden surge of brilliance that made you fidget. You crushed your eyelids together, squinting hard. Arms flexed underneath your restraints, wanting to shield your eyes from the bright lights. Your head lolled about until it fell forward, hanging down, chin meeting your chest. Your face is shrouded in the shadow you created, away from the brightness.
With a curl of his mouth, Adler kicked the leg of your chair, scooting it back an inch. The sudden force of it made you bolt awake. Your slouching instantly corrected into an upright position. But you cringed instantly at the lighting above you, turning your chin to the side and away, blinking rapidly to adjust your eyes. Noticeably drowsy still as you groaned and shifted up. But as the sight of Adler in front of you grew clearer, you visibly started to tense up. Greeted him with a pointed glare and a twisted grimace.
“Morning.” Adler said so casually that it made your glare sharpen at him in response.
Your eyes never left his shaded face even as he began to take out papers from the manila folder on the table in front of him. And shuffled them into a neat pile on top of it, right beside his forearm. You were having trouble though, keeping your eyes on him. Too tired to keep your impassive composure, your neutral face. Your posture staggered as you were trying not to nod off again. Adler intertwined his hands on the tabletop as he leaned forward. The warmth of his hands being sapped away by the cool surface.
He couldn't help but take in the mess that was you. Grubby and unshowered, hair greasy and stuck to your scalp. The only reason you didn’t start to stink rancid was the occasional bucket splashes of water to rinse you off, wake you up or waterboard you. Soiled clothes, stained in dry blood, spit and vomit, hung a bit looser on you now. Muscles withered away from your sedentary confinement. It wasn’t surprising given your circumstance; being deliberately underfed and the first week of detainment – after your surprisingly fast recovery – where you refused to eat or drink. Your sorry state was nothing more than a means to an end. A necessity.
But those eyes. Those damned eyes of yours. Incandescent and intense. Striking against the newly hollow look of your cheeks and the wanness of your skin. The fire in your eyes hasn't been snuffed out just yet, even now as they stared right through his aviators and into his own.
“Where’s Perseus?”
He took a sip of water from his small paper cup. Noticing how your eyes flitted intently to the motion, mouth dry as you licked your cracked lips. You sat there, not answering. But your silence wasn’t surprising. He expected it. Adler made a show of himself pulling something from his pocket, making sure you saw the shine of the familiar lamented label. A cigarette carton, your cigarette carton. Stained dark with a bloodstain, cardboard creased and partially crushed.
You watched as he plucked a cigarette from inside, one that wasn’t ruined by blood spatter. He thumbed his lighter, puffing as the cigarette caught the flame. He inhaled deeply, before blowing it straight towards you. Your nostrils flared as you took in the smell of it. Nicotine withdrawal flaring up as your jaw grinded against your molars. Adler looked the carton over in interest as he took another drag, reading over the Cyrillic letters that were somewhat legible. With an exhale of smoke, he tossed it on your side of the table, right in front of you, just out of reach.
“You know the drill. Tell me what I want to know or thing’s will escalate.” Behind the aviators, his eyes flicked down to your hands where your fingernails were starting to grow back. You flexed them into tight fists.
Yet still, you were quiet, unfazed. Staring straight into his reflective aviators to his eyes. Adler stood up and you shifted upright, tracking the man as he slowly rounded the table, cigarette in hand. But your eyes couldn't follow as he walked behind you. Out of your line of sight, at your flank. You went rigid, the pungent smell of cigarette smoke filling your senses.
“You’re a true-blue patriot. Well, true-red . We're not so different when it comes to what we'll do for our country. How far we’ll go to keep it safe. I know you understand why you’re here. You have information we want. So, I’ll ask again: Where. Is. Perseus ?”
You sat still, unwavering. Mouth closed shut in the telltale sign that you weren’t going to speak. Before you knew it, you were falling, eyes tilted towards the ceiling as Adler yanked your chair back and let it fall. Your arms strained against the straps, automatically wanting to catch yourself but to no avail. And your chair met the hard ground with a gasp and a loud crash. A shadow enfolded over you, and you looked up, head ringing, mouth filling with blood from a bitten tongue.
Then you were suffocating. A boot pressed down into your exposed neck. Blood spluttered out from your choking gasps for breath. Spat it across the floor and onto Adler’s Cuban heeled boot. Your vision went blurry, black dots filled your sight, eclipsing the bright white room. Until all you saw was the scarred face of your tormentor above you. A face carved in the confines of your memory. Lungs burning, blood rushed to your head, pressure crushing down harder on your esophagus. On the cusp of losing consciousness, and the boot moved from your throat. You gasped, going into a fit of bloodied coughs as you gulped down air.
Adler stood over you, letting loose ash from the cigarette fall like snowflakes onto your face. Mixing with the blood that poured out from your mouth. The only taste of a cigarette you’re given. You’re breathing hard and harsh, a burning print of a boot blossomed on the bare column of your throat. Still you met his gaze, the defiance burning within your irises reflected in his lens. Unyielding. Unbreakable. Unshaken by what’s to come next.
Adler dropped the cigarette next to your head. And held your gaze as he crushed it with the twisting of his heel.
◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼
“You want me to tell them about my time in Vietnam?”
He lifted his cigarette to his mouth and inhaled.
“To establish a connection with the subject, yes.” Park took a puff from her own cigarette. She eyed Adler, sensing a shift in his demeanor albeit minuscule. Without an untrained eye, it would be inconspicuous. “Is that an issue?”
“I’m not soft like Sims. It won’t be an issue.”
Park smiled like a viper. All teeth and curled maroon lips. “Good. You have the debrief and our course of action as well as the scripts. All we need is your narration.”
Adler stood still and silent, smoking casually beside her. But he ultimately nodded.
“The CIA’s mind control program has had a great deal of success with implanted memories.” She continued, tapping her forefinger on her cigarette to flick the ash away. “In due time, we’ll have what we need from the subject.”
Park turned to leave but stopped herself, turning on her heel as she looked at the man quietly smoking. “Happy Birthday by the way, Adler.”
And with that, she turned and walked away.
◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼
You were screaming.
Fighting against the restraints of the gurney you were strapped down to. Teeth gnashing, grown back nails digging into the flesh of your own palms until they bled. Tried desperately to escape from the laboratorical personnel surrounding you. In surgical attire, faces covered with surgical masks, features blurred by the flare of the surgical lights above you. They were preparing you. For what you didn’t understand.
(But you knew, deep down. A sacrificial lamb, you were, getting ready for the slaughter. For the company of wolves.)
You were being watched.
From the hallway, behind a tinted, one-way windowed wall. Looking into the surgical room you were in. All white walls and white tiled flooring. Even now as you screamed. Connected to IV fluid drips; barbiturates in one arm and an amphetamine into the other. Other intravenous fluids were being pumped into you simultaneously. You wanted to rip them out of you. Needles above your head, glinting like knives. You rattled the gurney as you struggled in place. Needles were pressed into your arms.
And still you wouldn’t abate. But the high doses of psychoactive drugs would kick in soon enough. He remembered when he found you bleeding out in the back of the hummer on the airfield in Turkey. Even then you had it, that violence underneath your skin. You fought against him then too, refusing to let him stop your bleeding. His hands pressed to your gunshot wounds and you clawed at his arms, trying to die on your own terms before you eventually passed out from blood loss. That same violence that made you rip out your stitches when they patched you up. But your violence didn’t last long then and it didn’t last long now as you stopped fighting, the drugs pacifying you.
The personnel adjusted your gurney, putting it in an upright position to let you sit up. And the lighting was lowered until the room grew dim. They moved aside, making way for the figures behind the glass as they walked into the lab room. Familiar faces in your unsteady sight. You blinked groggily at them, trying to keep your head up. They stared down at you, the woman was closer to your bedside than the scarred man. Here, at this angle, you could make out the shape of the man’s eyes behind the sepia shades.
“Breaking a subject’s will and erasing their mind is a difficult and painful process.” The woman told the man next to her. He looked at her then he turned to you.
“That’s a small price to pay.” He said.
In your drugged state, you were eventually moved from the surgical room and into a long, cold, white tiled hallway. You caught glimpses of it as you were wheeled down it. Many rooms with one-way windows like yours lined the walls evenly; too many to count and grasp in your stuporous state. Before you knew it you were in another white tiled room, in another interrogation chair. Your legs and arms tied down to it. Hooked up to an ECG machine and a polygraph. As you came to, there right in front of your face was a television on a metal utility cart. It was turned on, the bright screen only showing static. A contrast to your dark surroundings. But there wasn’t just this one, there were multiple lined up in front of you. All of them were on and showing the same static channel. You tried to move your throbbing head, but found your head strapped back to the chair’s headrest. And then you saw him, at the right edge of your vision. A scarred man with shades underneath a lone lamp, sitting behind a desk in an observation room beside you. Watching and waiting. You squirmed, well as much as you could from how tightly you were strapped down to your chair.
The sound of a tolling bell pealed throughout the room from a source you cannot discern. Colored lights flash before you in a hypnotizing array, like a moth, you are attentive. All the television screens flickered before you, flashing a fuzzy snapshot of a group of soldiers hopping off a landed helicopter. Before a low baritone voice, his low baritone voice filtered through speakers all around the room. Resounded in your ears, echoing in your head. Burrowed deep into your scrambled, befuddled brain.
“We’ve known each other for years. Fought together, bled together. Been through the hell of Vietnam together.”
The screens flickered again, films playing of soldiers saluting their superior. Of recruits training in a mud pit, crawling under barbed wire and jumping over makeshift obstacles. Another screen glitch and you saw an exterior gun range where they practice shooting under the watch of the quartermasters and instructors. Then battlefields, gunfights in the jungles of Vietnam. But you resist. You never knew this man and never will. The voice doesn’t relent, it repeats and repeats.
“We’ve known each other for years. Fought together, bled together. Been through the hell of Vietnam together.”
The narrative it described looped over and over until you heard it in your head. But you never fought in that war. Never stepped foot in Vietnam. It all repeated again. Telling you that you were assigned to his MACV-SOG team sometime in ’67. Fighting VC soldiers, enduring the hellscape of war alongside him.
“We’ve known each other for years. Fought together, bled together. Been through the hell of Vietnam together.”
Together? Together.
The television screens flashed to a grainy video of some encampment somewhere on an excavated and flattened hilltop. A lake below, jungle in the distance. Then to a picture of a man with sandy brown hair with shades on, surrounded by a group of soldiers. And you remembered. Remembered it all. You were there, too. Made your way through a sea of elephant grasses, thorn bushes, and bamboo forests with them, with him. Waded through rice fields and wetlands - black leeches hiding in the dirty, stagnant pools. Shadows darted between the trees and foliage, enemies hiding in plain sight. M16 rifles jammed in gunfights, mud in your mouth. Sweat stung in your eyes, suffocated by the humidity of the jungle. The smell of napalm burning in the back of your throat. Gunsmoke in your lungs, dead bodies rotting in the underbrush. The taste of C-rats and its sweet treats, the only thing you looked forward to each day.
You were always by his side. You endured it all together.
Shared joy and shared suffering.