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"... it was never personal."
The words rang through the air like seagulls flying over the bay. Within seconds, a gun had been drawn from his hands.
It happened so quickly. Bell ducked, the bullet grazing their temple enough to cause light bleeding but not anything they couldn't recover from.
In the seconds it took for them to process what just happened, they weren't just mildly annoyed. They were enraged.
Adler, noticing his own failed assassination attempt, charged towards Bell, gun in hand. He tried to hit Bell on the side of the head with the gun handle, but they grabbed it and threw it on the ground as they wrestled each other.
Bell wins in the end. They're both panting. They pin down Adler with their knees.
"You fucking TRAITOR. After all I've done, all I've SACRIFICED! You can't even IMAGINE how much I had to lose, and I lost it all, lost it all in the feeble hope of being the "good guy" and saving the world. I had EVERYTHING and I threw it away for YOU."
They punched him in the side of his jaw.
"You don't understand sacrifices, Bell. You could never understand it. You wanna talk sacrifices, huh? I've sacrificed more than you could even think of. I've lost people I've known for years, had to flee my own home just to keep this goddamned job in the CIA. And I did it all of my own volition." he sneered.
Another attempted hit from Adler. Bell stops their arm midair, but gets hit on the chest anyway. Not enough to recoil from, but it earns Adler a glare from beneath their balaclava.
"Whereas you, Bell? None of this was truly your choice, and you know it. You were always gonna lead us to Perseus, because I programmed you to do so. Trained you to trust me, follow me around like a dog and take orders without second thought. You never chose to sacrifice anything. I made the choices for you."
An attempted punch from Bell this time. He dodges it.
"I could've fucking lied."
"Could you, Bell? Could you have?"
".. I could've." There's a notable reluctance in their voice. It wouldn't be against them to lie. It wasn't unthinkable to them that they could have, that the option was there and Adler would have no choice but to hope they're telling the truth and act accordingly.
"That's bulls-"
Adler's message is cut off. A sharp, shooting pain in his right femur. He clutches it.
"ACK! Fuck, Bell. What the fuck is wrong with you?!"
He looks up to, as expected, see Bell with an M1911 pointed down in between his eyes. His vision blurs as his eyes shift from focusing on the barrel to Bell's seething, sneering face.
"Now, now. No need to get dramatic." he says, calmly. Panicking shows fear. Weakness. And he has neither of those.
"I will." they said, not to his statement but the unsaid message in the air- "you won't do it."
"Then get it over with."
Flapping of seagull wings. Chills sent through the air by Arctic breeze. The call of some animal in the distance.
Silence.
...
BANG.
They close their eyes tight, not wanting to see who ended up dynig (even if the fear was irrational), before slowly opening their eyes.
A corpse, fresh. A bloody bullet hole in his chest. He's dead. Gone.
"What do I do now. What HAVE I done up to this point?"
With nothing else to do, they sit on the edge of the cliff, dangling their legs off and breathing in the cold air that familiarly stings their lungs, holding firmly the ground beneath them. They feel blood (though smelled it first) dampening their hand. Adler's, slowly leaking towards the very cliff that he'd brought them to die like a dog for euthanasia.
No one else is here. Everything feels still, unnatural and uneasy.
They can't go back to Perseus, because what's done is done at Solovetsky. They can't go back to the CIA, because they just killed Russel Adler.
They tug their own jacket further towards their wrist for warmth. It's cold out here.
All that stuff can be figured out later. For now, let's try to forget it ever happened.