I've been sitting on this one for a while, an alternate ending where these two beautiful women are safe and alive and happy together, but you know what, there's not enough lady love out in the world to justify sitting on this fic any longer. So spies and sex are on the way ~
Atomic Blonde/The Coldest City and associated characters © Antony Johnston & Sam Hart.
story © RenaRoo
The Hottest City
She was on her eighth cigarette. The cramped interrogation room was heavy with the smoke, the smell of it nearly as pungent as was on the tips of her fingers. She fought the quiver of nerves under her bruised and bandaged knuckles in a battle of willpower, of control, as she stared straight into the face of Mister Gray.
His steady eyes were nothing less than what would have been expected of a senior staff at MI6. They were not telling of anything, or at lest did their best to seem as much.
Lorraine had read his file before and knew full well that Agent Eric Gray had spent more years behind a desk than in the field by that point. He was getting rusty at the spy work and was too telling as a handler.
The idea that she could ever reach such a point herself was enough to give Lorraine heartburn. She preemptively ended her cigarette, digging it into the ashtray.
"What the French operative gave you were not just evidence of Percival working against you to retrieve the watch from Bremovych," Mister Gray finally announced, turning the manilla file over from his side of the table and sliding its contents out in front of Lorraine for her to see. "It seems that they even predate your arrival to Berlin, let alone the quest for any agency to even be aware of Spyglass' turn for the West."
"Yes, well, it's my understanding that the Western Allies weren't all located in Berlin to the amount of force they could have been," Lorraine replied, a meaningful glance toward the CIA's representative, Kurzfeld, playing so close and friendly with MI6 in some attempt to save face in it all. She did not get a reaction and instead turned back toward Mister Gray. Another glance toward the oneway mirror where she was certain of Chief's location, and she continued. "So if Percival was making contact with the Soviets prior to my arrival, what are we supposed to take from that?" she asked.
"What do you take from that, Miss Broughton?" Kurzfeld asked meaningfully.
"Apparently not as much as I should," she answered.
"Percival was a good agent, but went native in the East, went rogue on MI6, and was operating Comrade Satchel behind Gasciogne's back, as well as behind all of United Kingdom," Gray surmised. "You knew that, of course, when you made the decision to kill him in Berlin."
"Of course," Lorraine answered. "And because the cost we paid was too high for my tastes."
"You mean the death of Gasciogne," Kurzfeld interjected.
Lorraine's piercing gaze shifted to the CIA agent, her finger tapping against the edge of the ashtray. "Among others," she said simply.
"Well, without the watch and without Spyglass, we hardly have anything more to speak on," Gray sighed, reaching for the recorder.
"I suppose we don't," Lorraine replied, continuing to watch with bloodshot eyes and bruised lips.
"Thank you for your time, Miss Broughton," Gray said, clicking off the recorder. "That was an intensive session. Take some time off, recover. We will contact you."
She watched as the room of men all left, chairs scooting, the door opening for the first time in hours. Fresh air entered and stifled her, she bit the inside of her cheek, hoping it would give her that coppery taste in her mouth that it felt strange without after the last week of chaos.
She was numb, getting to her feet and gathering her coat and purse. She began to walk toward the door with only one concern — seeing to it that her time off was extended far longer than anyone heading MI6 could be aware of.
The start of Lorraine's recovery began where the end of her Berlin excursion had left her — the bottom of a a bottle of vodka. The passenger flight to Paris was filled with smoke and wondering eyes, especially toward a single brunette wearing all red.
Beneath her furs and layers, Lorraine's bruises and scars burned as vividly as her throat as she threw back another shot. The plane ride was going to be short regardless, but every moment building up to the moment made her filled with nerves and concern that were quite unbecoming of her.
Quite unbecoming.
Despite her looks, Lorraine didn't really intend on drawing attention to her parting with her native country. Quite the opposite, really, she did not go through the trouble of an all new disguise for nothing after all. But as she leaned back into her seat and looked out into the dark night's sky she began to question her decisions.
Was Kurzfeld trustworthy? Were any Americans, really? Was she actually walking into a trap or into a new life the moment she reached Paris. She had no way of knowing.
Which, itself, was not entirely true. She had gotten Merkel's message before she dared to leave her flat and continued on with the plans. And she trusted Merkel more than Kurzfeld or Mister Gray, or especially C.
But a wise spy had once said that telling the truth would get someone killed. And Lorraine believed that with all of her heart and mind. It was a certainty she couldn't deny. In the circumstances, though, precarious as they were, she had to have faith in the truth to survive, for the first time in her life.
So she landed in Paris, went through customs under the alias she had built and made only for her eyes to see before then, completely unknown to any others than her at that moment. And she went on her way to an agreed upon hotel, giving the staff under Merkel's careful watch the number of the room she needed a key to without further explanation or payment.
They did not lead her to the room, did not ask about her lack of bags, and Lorraine attempted to keep to the plan. Believe against her jaded cynicism that she could continue forward and that she lived in a world crafted by poets and rockstars. Not one molded by the icy and inhuman conduct she so often took part in herself.
Reaching her floor, reaching the room, Lorraine hesitated for maybe the first time in her life since becoming a spy, her fingers, cut and bandaged as they were, tracing the doorknob's touch with a delicacy very much unlike her.
There were several options for what lied behind the door. Only one of them was what she wanted, and it was the least likely.
Head lowered, hair still stiff and unnatural from its fresh dye job reluctantly cresting around her brow. There was an agonizing pain in the moment for Lorraine.
What little humanity she still grasped, she was putting on the line first. Her last shield to be broken if she opened that door and found anything other than what Kurzfeld promised her back in Berlin. And the idea of it being anything other than what Kurzfeld promised…
Well, the truth was the deadliest weapon for a spy.
Taking a breath, Lorraine used her key, unlocked the door, and watched as it swung open to the suite.
It was large, a presidential suite, fit for the Queen herself should she desire it. Gold, ornate, overly extravagant. Something to be expected from the French. And that view — it was the most difficult part to take in at all.
Not the Parisian cityscape, still glowing and full of lights well past midnight. Cities held no treasures for Lorraine anymore. She'd seen nearly them all west of the Wall. Not even the city of love held her captivated anymore.
The view that truly took Lorraine's breath away was who was standing in front of the view, arms wrapped around herself, black shear nightgown draped over a body too soft and too gentle for their line of work. Cuts and bruises still discoloring and misusing her beautiful skin in ways that would have enraged Lorraine if she wasn't simply just floored at the moment before her. The truth, as it turned out, was the possibility that Lorraine was least prepared for.
Even if Lorraine had wanted to preserve that moment eternally, freeze it like in one of her pictures, she didn't get to. Reality caught up with her.
Delphine swirled around, a gun that had been kept close by her garter, aimed for Lorraine and the door. She had learned some things since Berlin.
Normally, Lorraine would have already met Delphine's action with a gun draw of her own, would have made her from the second she touched the door knob, or at the very least have brought her hands up over her head to show Delphine that there was nothing to be worried about. Normally.
Nothing, even for the world of spies and monsters clothed in the skins of men, was normal anymore, though.
They were in the world of poem, a romantic ballad. And Lorraine's hurting, bloodshot eyes swelled more with water, glazing over her vision, wandering up and down Delphine's body for some sign that the truth wasn't what it seemed after all. That she was misled, that it was a dream.
Instead, Delphine lowered her gun and let out some shuttering breaths of her own.
"Lorraine," Delphine whispered in a rasp, a throaty painful sound came out with the roll of her r's. And, given the bruising and lacerations around her neck, it was no wonder. The fact that she was breathing was nothing short of a miracle itself.
And yet, even with the ugliness of their field and their recent encounters in Berlin laid before them so nakedly, Lorraine felt like she had never heard a word said so beautifully in her life.
She stepped inside, cautiously, disbelieving.
Lorraine was walking carefully through a fever dream, one she wouldn't turn back after she shut the door behind her.
Which she did.
There were still no words forming in Lorraine's mouth as she attempted to process what was happening. That things were real.
Mechanically, she locked the door behind her, swallowing back the emotion that was tainting her rational thought at the moment. Then she looked back at Delphine, the living and breathing. The magnificently real Delphine.
Just like Kurzfeld promised.
"I have the watch," Lorraine said, brain still fuzzy. She wasn't sure if it was what she needed to say, if it was going to change the dynamics of the moment. Probably. Maybe. She didn't know.
Delphine looked at her, a little disbelieving herself before she shook her head and let out a huff of air. Her gun dropped down to her side as she shook her head. "Mon dieu," she said, raspy and breathless. "I don't care about de watch."
Despite herself, despite the obscuring of her vision, Lorraine laughed and shook her head. "I don't either," she admitted.
After that, it happened so quickly, so passionately, that Lorraine could hardly retrace her memories of the moment.
Once the space between them was lost, they surged together, arms locked at each other's faces, lips openly exploring the other's mouth, bodies flushed together until ones bruised skin only ended where the other's bloodied flesh began.
There was more passion in those first seconds, those moments frozen in time, than Lorraine had felt in decades of life.
Their breaths were hot, mixing in the short gasps between kisses. Everything was mixing, everything was coming together, clicking along, steady and uniform as clockwork.
Lorraine took control, her hands splaying across Delphine's body, reaching through fabric, searching for purchase against supple curves and landing on the small of her back. When she had a hold of her love, she spun them around, changing position to protectively turn her own back to the window overlooking Paris. It was a gesture without words. And Delphine understood it.
The moment took the Frenchwoman by surprise, her flushed lips gapped slightly, still wet from the recent attack. Her eyes shined, so dark Lorraine lost herself in them. Which almost made the touch of Delphine reaching up, taking hold of Lorraine's furs and layers, and slowly dropping them from their position over Lorraine's shoulders surprising.
Not too surprising however, because Lorraine followed, tearing the shear gown away from Delphine and keeping as steady of a control over her breath as she could while her heart raced so quickly it could almost stop.
"You look horrible," Lorraine commented, delicately running her fingers over Delphine's blued and purpled flesh.
"And you?" Delphine questioned almost sarcastically. Her throat, it was so bad that Lorraine almost didn't want to reach for it. But she did. And Delphine caught her hand, slowly dragging it up along the curve of her own jaw and pressing Lorraine's palm against Delphine's cheek, letting her nuzzle into the guided caress. "Does your body have a place to accept my bruises? My, what is it? Suçon?"
"Not today," Lorraine said. "Another day."
Slowly, Delphine's eyes shifted to look directly back into Lorraine's. Still so wide and brown and beautiful. It was the first time either of them had spoke of another day. The first time they spoke of having it together. And the enormity of it was not lost on Lorraine.
But she couldn't force herself to obsess on it for long, she pushed against Delphine's shoulders, gently sending her back until her knees buckled over the love seat behind her and she was collapsed into the chair.
Not letting up, Lorraine straddled Delphine and passionately kissed her, mindful to not tilt her neck back too far, not to cut off her air for long. Then, just as Delphine was pressing for more, she lifted back and slowly slid down Delphine's body.
She kissed Delphine's collarbone gingerly, then kissed the exposed flesh just above her corset. Lorraine's hands held to the sides of Delphine's body, thumbs strumming the fabric over her beautiful breasts, feeling the nipples through it growing cautiously hard beneath the motion.
But Lorraine, as always, was a woman of action, and she did not waste so much time on the foreplay as she did dropping over the edge of the love seat , between the curves of Delphine's thighs, and spread her open.
"Over eager, mon amour," Delphine tried to laugh, but Lorraine didn't give her enough time.
Lorraine was already beneath the satan fabric of Delphine's underwear, her middle finger guiding along the lips of Delphine's secret mouth. Slow, stringing along casually as Delphine's breath hitched and her legs squirmed outward, opening further, opening more to Lorraine so that she could find that growing moisture and glide it along just the brushing surface of Delphine's throbbing and welcoming skin.
When Delphine's breath hitched more, when toes on the floor curled, Lorraine sunk her hand in deeper, middle finger easily reaching through Delphine's welcoming vagina, allowing the pulse and pull of muscles to guide her inside as Delphine withered beneath her touch.
Without wasting words between them, Lorraine wanted to share her own truth with Delphine. That the night — their night — was all about Delphine. All about the joy and passion and new lease Lorraine felt with Delphine being alive and there. That they were together. It wasn't about Lorraine, as much as her own muscles between her thighs grew tight, clenching achingly as she saw her love moan and gasp beneath her.
In control of herself, Lorraine used her second hand to join her first, stretching Delphine's underwear further to the side rather than touching herself. She stretched Delphine before the ring finger of her first hand joined her middle, slipping into Delphine's vagina and picking up the pace that Delphine's body was already beating to.
Looking over Delphine's wet and puckered skin, Lorraine took the thumb of her second hand, pressed against the pubis Lorraine's body and followed the line of its crest down into the pinkish flesh. Delphine moaned a long, musky sound as Lorraine's thumb pressed against the hardened bead of flesh that was her clit. If the sound had caused her injured throat any pain, she didn't let it on.
Still, Lorraine was cautious as ever, even as her fingers quickened, slick with Delphine's own wetness, they surged into her and out, into her and out, until the fleshy sound of it was a small whisper compared to the grains and stiffened gasps coming from Delphine.
And then, as Lorraine watched her perfect face, Delphine's cheeks began to grow as rosy as her labia. She was so close. Brought all the way by Lorraine's steady strokes.
Like with Delphine's nipples, Lorraine used her thumb to strum the bone hard clitoris over and over, watching the jerk of Delphine's body with each motion. Then she pressed into the flesh with her thumb and kept her fingers purchased deep inside of Delphine, lazily scratching and massaging the muscle within as her second hand quickened the pace on Delphine's throbbing clit. She swirled around it with her thumb, watching Delphine's head roll back and her shoulders jerk as her hands found themselves in Lorraine's hair.
"I love you," Lorraine said, hiding the confession beneath the cries of Delphine's orgasm as it came. As her body tightened around Lorraine's hands, as her knees trembled against the sides of Lorraine's shoulders.
She tried to hide the truth, but the truth was in the change of her eyes.
And as Delphine came down from her high, slumped into the love seat with the stars still shining in her eyes, Lorraine could already tell.
Delphine could see the truth in Lorraine's eyes, whether she heard it in her ecstasy or not.
And Lorraine was more than happy with that.
They spend hours together, but they're not enough to make up for the pain of the weeks spent separated during the chaos of Berlin and the destruction of the Wall. No contact. Only a promise from a man who was supposed to make everything work out in the end.
For a price.
For Lorraine's honor. For her country. For her only chance at redemption.
Neither of them have bags, only disguises and new clothes Merkel had delivered to their room before they were on their way out. No one notices them as they walk, arm in arm, through the streets of Paris and on to airport, then to the private airfield. A lone United States plane is marked in it, pristine and well guarded.
"I prefer blondes," Delphine jokes about Lorraine's hair, affectionately curling the fingers of her free hand into Lorraine's stringy locks.
She wondered a bit idly how the water pressure would be in the States.
"Maybe I'll go back some day," Lorraine said dryly, showing her credentials to the men in black suits at the stairs of the plane while Delphine offered hers.
There was a scarf wrapped around Delphine's neck that she worried at a bit timidly while the CIA operatives patted them down. But if they noticed anything off about her neck they didn't say it.
Really, the agents didn't say much of anything. It didn't help Delphine's nerves, but Lorraine preferred it.
Once cleared, Lorraine led the way up the stairs and into Kurzfeld's private jet, the man himself sitting at the back, looking like he had a full night's rest since helping Mister Gray give Lorraine the longest, most hard fought interrogations of her life. It would have impressed Lorraine if it didn't annoy her so much.
"Miss Broughton…" Kurzfeld acknowledged her as they took the seats in front of him. He offered a smile that was too gentle for a man of his position and with the dirt that his hands so clearly had and took Delphine's hands into his, patting them. "Mademoiselle Lasalle."
Delphine offered her own too sweet smile back before settling in a seat beside Lorraine, shoulders touching, given a certain ease around the man that Lorraine could not dare have.
Kurzfeld leaned forward, chewing over his words for a moment before nodding to Delphine's scarf. "How is it?"
Still raspy — perhaps more raspy in thanks to the night Lorraine had given her — Delphine offered a small, "Better." But when Kurzfeld didn't drop his gaze, she got the intention and pulled down the scarf, revealing the scars of her encounter with Percival.
Leaning back in his chair with a deep breath, Kurzfeld shook his head. "What a son of a bitch," he said, glancing toward Lorraine. "I'm sure those extra shots had nothing to do with this, though, of course."
Lorraine stared evenly back at him. "What extra shots?" she played dumb, watching in the periphery as an attendant came by with glasses of ice and bourbon.
"If that's how you want to play it, sure," Kurzfeld said, nodding his thanks to the attendant as he took his glass. "The watch?" he asked.
For a moment, Lorraine didn't react. She stared back at Kurzfeld and thought about all of her life before that point. She thought of herself, of England, of her life's work, of the sacrifices she had made and the friends she had buried, sometimes with her own hands, along the way. It was a long, twisted path of misdeeds and misguided aggression that made it hard to look at a flag she once loved without feeling a dull hate settling into her bones. And it all was for what? The moment where she passed it all away by putting the most powerful artifact in the world in the hands of someone other than the Crown itself?
No, it wasn't for that.
When she glanced to her side, she saw Delphine looking at her, a bit worriedly. As if she wasn't certain either. But that uncertainty was a subset of emotion that shined through those ever deep eyes. Eyes of a poet, of a rockstar. She was uncertain about everything but Lorraine herself.
And that made Lorraine certain about the only thing that mattered anymore after a crooked, broken life.
Delphine. And the home they made with each other going forward.
Not hesitating any more, Lorraine reached into her brassiere and began to pull out the watch in question. It was a tacky thing, she was glad to be rid of it. The thing had caused enough misery. Maybe, for once, it would do something good.
"And that will be it?" she asked, holding the watch just out of Kurzfeld's reach. "For this we will get a home? A new life? A little piece of America?"
Kurzfeld's eyebrow raised. "And each other. I'm making that happen behind both of your agencies' backs. Don't forget that," he reminded her. "A deal, after all, is a deal."
Lorraine glanced toward Delphine, Delphine was already glancing her way.
She dropped the watch into Kurzfeld's awaiting hand.
"You'll be relocated to San Francisco. We have a house for you and two jobs lined up. San Francisco's a loose city, full of liberal values, whatever that means anymore these days," he said, looking over the watch. "We'll brainstorm ideas for your covers and names on the flight over. It'll be fun. Until we get to the paperwork part. But I shouldn't have to explain that to you two, professional women. You've been around this block before."
With the watch gone from her possession, Lorraine turned her full gaze and full attention squarely on to Delphine. Her love coyly smiled and gently reached to put a hand over Lorraine's hand in between them.
"No, I don't think either of us have been around this block before," she said with a smile. "That makes it exciting."
Kurzfeld wasn't looking their way, concerned with the watch. "If that's how you want to roll it, sure." He then looked up over the rims of his glasses and shook his head at Lorraine. "By the way…. cocksucker? Really?"
Lorraine smirked. "Made it believable, didn't I?"
And, for the first time in her life, believable was the only part that mattered.