Author's notes: The fourth commissioned story for my Fanfiction Fundraiser, and we have espionnerouge to thank for this one as well! It's another fem!Spy/Scout story, a much more romantic and happier one than Font S'évaporer Les Soleils / Make the Suns Evaporate. The soundtrack I listened to while writing this is from the Road to Perdition OST, the Title Theme. I recommend listening to it while reading the story. The title of the story is from L'amoureuse, a poem by Paul Eluard.
"We know what you've done."
The revolver in her hand still smokes. Her target is clearly dead, his left ear blown out by the first shot, his left temple graced with a small, bloody hole by the second one. The suitcase he'd been carrying remains propped against the wall perpendicular to the hotel room door, a mute witness stuffed with skeletons from the government's closets meant to be locked away forever. His life was over when he chose treason.
But for her, it is only starting.
"And?" she asks nonchalantly to the three suited men standing behind her. Her mask is impeccable, inscrutable. The technology frightens them, frightens their superiors at the SDECE. They want it. And she knows it.
"We know what you're doing," the one in the middle says, his face a blank slate.
"So here you are." She sheathes her gun back in its holster and turns to face them, staring each of them in the eye. "All I am asking for is a chance."
"And you have it."
The sole window of the room is partially open. The branches of a clipped horse-chestnut tree scrape its glass. A nightingale perches on one of the branches. It's warbling but she doesn't hear its song over the tide of red in her ears and her mirthless smile.
In time, she forgets what its song sounds like. In time, she forgets that its splendor exists at all.
"C'mon, take off the mask. What, you afraid a' the world seein' yer real face?"
It isn't the first time Scout makes a blatant pass at her. It certainly won't be the last.
"C'mon, sweetcheeks, this is a handsome man askin' ya, here!"
It isn't the first time Scout has referred to himself as such, either. Spy scoffs like she always does, and like he always does, he lights up like a firecracker and hops in tandem with her steady footsteps back to base after their victorious battle with BLU. She is grateful for her mask. It hides the crinkle of her eyes. It hides the fleeting skip in her chest.
"Oooh, maybe you're just scared you ain't as beautiful as me, huh? 'Cause I know I'm beautiful, man, I –"
She almost laughs aloud at Scout stumbling back when she abruptly halts and thrusts herself into his personal space, thrusts her face at his like she would with her balisong. She feels his surprise rippling through him like ocean waves. She feels the heat of his blush.
"My face would devastate you."
She strides away before he can reply.
That night, she lies awake in bed, and thinks about how Scout's lips had curved into that coy, endearing smile as she spun away from him.
The first time she discovers the pile of dense, bluish-purple flowers in her room, she chortles to herself. She recognizes them as Brodiaea flowers, known by another more common name that will no doubt amuse the boy who'd picked them for her. Indeed, when she mentions that they're also called Blue Dicks, Scout bursts into an irrepressible guffaw in the mess hall during lunch.
He turns beetroot-red beneath her outwardly casual gaze.
The first time she discovers the bundle of fresh bandages on her pillow after a particularly ferocious skirmish, she sits on the bed and quietly clasps it in her hands. She'd dodged treatment at the Infirmary as she had no bleeding wounds. Just contusions and scratches on her legs and hands from a hard fall. She brings the bundle of bandages to her nose. It smells like Scout.
She sleeps a dreamless sleep with the bundle in her grasp.
The first time she discovers Scout picking the lock of her room's door, she's cloaked and amused. He's doing a decent job of it, leaving no marks on the knob, disengaging the lock in under ten seconds. She follows him in. She watches him place a garland of Desert Globemallows on the bed, watches the softening of his face as he does. Something hard lodges in her throat. Something warm and overwhelming.
She stands by the bed long after Scout is gone, stroking orange petals of desire and bravery, of friendship and new beginnings.
And the first time she discovers the pliancy of Scout's lips, they've lost the battle with BLU but won something else, something that sparks in their bellies and chests, that undoes them and the walls between them. Scout looks happy, so happy. He's blushing, grinning, holding her tightly, running bandaged fingers through her hair as he kisses her in the shade of the courtyard. He kisses her as if she is all there is in the universe, and she falls. She falls.
And the first time they make love, she removes her masks – all of them – at his whispered, humble behest.
"You were right," he rasps, his eyes wide with veneration, his lips wet with a thousand kisses. "You devastate me."
Her hand is over his heart. She feels its rapid, strong beat in the cradle of her palm. She feels him sliding into her, slow and unstoppable. Feels him bury himself deep into her stoic, wintry heart again and again, brilliant like lightning, revitalizing as spring rain. She feels his hot breath against her cheek, a wordless vow more powerful than a tornado.
She gazes up through hazy eyes at him as they come in unison. She sees the man he will become. The man she will never, could never meet.
"You ain't leavin' 'til you hear everythin' I gotta say."
Farther down the railway platform, Spy sees Heavy and Medic boarding the train that will take them all out of this New Mexico desert now that their contract with RED is over. The two men stand scarcely a hair's breadth apart. Heavy's enormous hand rests on Medic's lower back. When Medic glances up at Heavy, Heavy's eyes gleam with something that reverberates itself in Scout's calm demand.
Her hands compress into fists at her sides.
"You order me?" she says as calmly, her back towards Scout.
"No. I'm beggin' you."
The invisible force in Scout's voice pivots her to face him. Her fists quiver and loosen from it. A halo of sunlight rims Scout's bare head and sets his golden hair alit. He's wearing a black bomber jacket, red t-shirt, jeans and sneakers. She sees his bandaged hands motionless at his sides. She sees that groove between his eyebrows, the one he gets when he knows he can't win a battle with his fists or baseball bat and fights anyway. She sees the sun in his eyes.
She sees the man he has become.
"I know ya see me as a dumb kid. A boy. I know I ain't the man you're hopin' for … but I'm gettin' there. All I'm askin' for is, lemme run beside you. Lemme bat a thousand for ya. Lemme fight for you when ya can't. Even when ya can. Lemme be there." Scout sucks in a shuddering breath. "All I'm askin' for is a chance."
They are in a sweltering desert spanning thousands of square miles and yet, she hears the coursing of the Seine nearby. She hears the melodious chirruping of a bird that silences the noise of war with its magnificence.
"Yeah, I ain't experienced like you, I know. Never left the States, never left Boston 'til I came here. Never finished high school, so fuckin' obviously I never went to college," Scout says in this calm, new voice she's never heard from him before. "God knows I can't speak a damn word a' French."
He gazes up at the sky, his jaws clenched.
She gazes at him, and has never seen him so courageous.
"You could learn," she murmurs, the words rising out of her like a song. The song makes itself at home in Scout, in his glistening eyes that stare at her in glorious disbelief, in his growing, tremulous smile. The Adam's apple in his throat bobs once, hard.
"Yeah," he replies eventually, smirking and looking so handsome. "Yeah. I'll speak it better than any French man."
She knows, somehow, in her heart that he will.
When they board the train, there's scarcely a hair's breadth of space between them. Scout's hand rests on her lower back.
"Is that all you have?" she asks, gesturing at the scruffy rucksack slung around his left shoulder.
"Yeah. Got everythin' I need right here."
He gazes at her as he says this. She leans back into his touch, feeling a spring breeze brush her hair and cool river water lap at her feet.
There are greys and whites in Scout's hair now. His body has filled out over time, though it is still trim and muscular. He doesn't run as fast as he used to anymore, but oh, still faster than wind, even in a tuxedo, a bouquet of roses in hand, on bended knee. From their first floor bedroom window, she watches him greet the postman at their front door, listens to him speak fluently and with none of his American accent in her home language. She sees him grin and hears him laugh. She beams to herself.
When the postman leaves, she goes to the dressing table to prepare herself for the day. In the mirror, she sees the greys and whites of her hair, much more than dark brown. She sees the lines, spots and sagging skin. She reaches for her metallic box of masks on the table. She could easily don one and conceal the ravages of time. She could.
A large hand, calloused with labor, time and love, enfolds hers over the box.
"Hey. Ya don't need them. Not with me."
Outside their apartment, the Seine flows past them. Its vitality glimmers in Scout's crinkled eyes, in his warm smile.
"I'm glad," she murmurs, as they gaze at each other in the morning sunshine.
I'm glad you're here. I'm glad I said yes.
I'm glad you stayed.
And as the nightingale within her sings once more, Scout says into her lips, "So am I."
Fin