A/N: Heads up warning for period-era homophobic language and a rating alert for another explicit smut scene. Also, translations for Spanish dialogue appear at the bottom of the chapter.
CÓRDOBA
Late October, 1944
Five weeks passed before Logan would see Agent V again.
He thought he caught a glimpse of her in Malaga a week after their encounter, smoking with some Republic types on the fire escape of an apartment complex opposite his hotel. He'd been drinking Pims on the back terrace with a British diplomat when he saw her their eyes had met. But, the afternoon sun inauspiciously burst through the clouds like a ripe marigold, blinding his vision, and by the time his vision cleared she was gone.
Though Logan was most comfortable living the high life, there was something to be said about spending a week in an anonymous bedsit; doing recon and whiling away his downtime playing poker with the agent assigned to babysit him. It was a welcome respite from the energy it took to keep up his repugnant alter ego.
The man assigned to protect him was known to the OSS simply as 'the Weevil', for his ability to worm his way into any secure location. Mac claimed he was the best 'black bag job' man in the business. Not too surprising, considering it took the federal police nearly five years and sixty heists to catch up to the guy.
With a talent like that, it seemed a waste for him to spend the rest of his life rotting away in jail. The OSS seemed to agree - much to the FBI's chagrin - and gave him a choice between stealing for the government or breaking stones up at Sing Sing. Weevil traded in his prison stripes for a jacket and tie the very next day.
Logan sat barefoot, smoking in the windowsill, one leg dangling over the edge onto the fire escape. The last, fleeting moments of dusk cast its indigo light against the roof of the moorish mosque in the distance. With Autumn coming, the days were growing shorter, but the palm fronds were still a dark, verdant green, exactly how he'd imagined they still looked back at home in Hollywood. Those trees were the only thing that reminded him of his old life.
Weevil was cooking dinner for them on the stove, the scent of burnt cheese drifted over to his side of the room, pulling Logan's attention. "That smells—"
"—if you say ''like shit', you can starve tonight, Gibson," Weevil growled, not even bothering to look up from the pan.
Cooking was the other man's contribution to their living arrangement, and he was admittedly fairly good at it.
It was a deal they'd struck early on. Logan paid for their groceries and upgraded the quality of their booze from the pittance the government gave them to survive. And in exchange, Weevil kept them alive and well fed. Logan was pretty sure he had the better end of the deal.
Logan took one last drag off his cigarette and flicked it out the window. "I was going to say - familiar. That smells familiar." His brow creased in thought as he tried to place where he'd smelled it before.
A low chuckle echoed through the room. "That's because you've had it before, asshole. I was wondering how long it was going to take you to figure it out."
Logan stood up, padded across to the stove and peered into the pan. "Are those arepas? I don't get it."
The corners of Weevil's mouth turned up. "I told those idiots you wouldn't remember. They thought they were so clever putting us together, thought we'd be a love match. They don't get rich people at all. You guys could look at a person every day of your miserable, pampered lives and still not know them from Adam unless they got 50 grand in the bank." He added a dash of olive oil and flipped the arepas to brown the other sides.
A flash of sense memory filled Logan's mind - he was ten and had been crying all afternoon, hiding in the walk-in pantry. His father had taken a belt to him earlier for spilling a soda on the rug. His mother was passed out in the bedroom, courtesy a cocktail of pills and booze. It was dark by the time the family housekeeper found him, but she wiped his tears, held him through the last of his tremors and make him dinner. Arepas.
"Lettie." Logan stared at the pan, mesmerized. "She had a grandson about my age. I remember her always talking about him. That was you?"
Weevil nodded and turned off the gas. "That was me."
"I — I'm sorry. I don't remember your real name of if we've ever met, but I do remember her, of course. She was very kind to me during some times when I really needed it." Logan was suddenly embarrassed that he never looked into what happened to her after his mother died. Things had just been so fraught back then that he was barely able to make it out of bed.
"Yeah, that's her way." Weevil angled the pan so the arepas slid out - one on each plate - and handed one to him.
"Thank you." Logan stared at the plate. "Is she —" he cleared his throat and tugged nervously at his hair, "she's doing well, I hope? Was she able to find another job? I could—"
"—it's all okay." Weevil reached for two sets of silverware in the drying rack and gestured toward the small kitchen table. "Your mother, when she - you know - well, she took good care of abuela in her will. Left her enough that she could retire and buy our house. Your mom was a good lady." He paused for a small genuflect, punctuating the act with a kiss to the gold cross hanging from his chain.
Though a dyed in the wool atheist, Logan had always admired the religious. He figured it must be nice to still have the capacity to place so much faith in something. He'd been disappointed by way too many things in life to ever feel that way about anything anymore.
He smiled tightly, taking his seat. "I'm very happy to hear that." It was never easy to talk about his mother with anybody, particularly with somebody who had actually known what she was really like, beyond the public image. "Please send Lettie my regards next time you're able to organize a call home."
"Oh, hell no," Weevil said, choking on his first bite of food. "That ain't gonna play with her and you know it. You're gonna have to send those regards yourself or not at all. She already threatened my ass about you, wanted me to make sure you didn't get yourself killed. So, I'm gonna need some kind of proof of life or she's gonna have my head. She said it was our responsibility to keep an eye on you for your mother."
Logan swallowed down the lump forming in his throat and forced an eye roll. "Good to know everybody thinks I'm doomed for failure."
He finally bit into the arepa, closing his eyes to the first taste and the warm memories it brought with it.
Weevil stopped eating, held his fork mid-air, pointing it at Logan. "You haven't gotten anybody killed yet - at least, nobody that wasn't supposed to get killed - I'll give you that. But, if you know what's good for you, you'll stay far the hell away from Little Miss Bang-Bang."
"Little Miss Bang-Bang sounds like an off-Broadway musical about a Siamese hooker." Logan kicked open the ice box with his foot and leaned over to pull two bottles of beer from the unit, then slid one across to Weevil. "Should I assume that warning wasn't just a theater recommendation?"
"Don't play dumb, puta." Weevil popped the top off the beer with the edge of the table and brought it to his lips before it foamed over. "Agent V asked to see your personnel file."
"So? Maybe she wanted to wanted to know a little about the person she'd be working with? She's a professional, could be she just likes to do a thorough prep."
"She asked for your file after the job." Weevil smirked at him before bringing the bottle to his lips again. "Her prep sounds real thorough, ese. And hey - no judgement. Once upon a time, I might've been down for some of that sweet, sweet prep, myself, but now that I know how looney she is, I can't say I'm mad I dodged that bullet."
A number of possibilities blurred through Logan's mind, which he tried to wash away with alcohol. "Doubt you could dodge one of her bullets, but that's cute."
Weevil stared at him, expression halfway between horrified and repulsed. "Making a punny joke? Trying to distract me? No lie, that's exactly something she'd do. Maybe you two are a match made in hell?"
"I met her for dinner, gave her the take, she insulted my masculinity and that was pretty much the extent of the evening's entertainment." Logan shrugged, hoping that would put and end to the interrogation.
Weevil looked thoroughly unconvinced. "Whatever you say, chief. Just take my advice and don't get attached. Girl's got a one track mind - and I'm talking about the job."
"What makes you think I'm even interested?"
"You ain't ask me a thing about her in a full month. Nobody has dinner with somebody like her and doesn't walk out of it with at least a few questions." Weevil scrubbed a hand over his smoothly shaved head. "That's a good lesson for you, Gibson. Acting like you don't give a shit is just as much of a tell as looking like you care a lot. No wonder you're shit at poker."
"I beat your ass last night."
"Lucky hand."
Logan flicked Weevil off, sending him into a fit of laughter.
"Listen man," Weevil started, lowering his voice into something uncharacteristically soft. "This can't end well for you. She's good people, but she is also the loaf of bread that didn't rise right."
"I'm not exactly the Baker's Pride, myself…"
"Agent V is on a mission, not just the one we're on. She's looking for something, maybe someone - I don't know what - but she'll keep at it until she finds it, even if it gets her killed in the process. Don't let her take you down with her." Weevil leaned forward on the table, expression grave. "I'm just trying to honor my promise to my abuela. I told her I'd keep you alive, okay?"
"I appreciate the effort, but I've got it covered." Half of him was outraged at the notion that this man assumed he needed such sheltering, but he couldn't deny that it felt good to know there was a person left on Earth who cared whether he lived or died.
"That's nice, but you've met my grandma, so you know this is happening whether either of us wants it to." Weevil shrugged and leaned back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest, smugly resolute. "Just don't make my job harder and stay away from the small, crazy spy."
"How can something so tiny be so dangerous?" Logan asked, completely serious.
Weevil thought about it for a moment, then took a long pull of beer before answering. "All it takes is a few drops of cyanide to poison an entire well."
Logan was having al fresco drinks with Lanzo Castillo, a prominent Andalucian composer. The man was still quite dashing for his mid-40's, and incongruently glamorous in his crisp white suit and matching Panama hat for an afternoon sitting in a small town cafe in the aggressively plebeian Plaza de la Corredera square.
With its ancient mosques, Roman architecture and Byzantine mosaics, Cordoba had always been one of Spain's great centers of tourism. Post-Civi War, it was all but empty. Not hard to see how the senseless slaughter of 10,000 people might put visitors off a place.
A week after the untimely death of Bertolt Pfannmüller, a man by the name of Henrik Gehrhart, from the German Ministry of Culture, contacted Logan with a proposition. Apparently, before he'd died, Pfannmüller managed to get a call in to his department, where he sang Logan's praises, ironically anointing him a true friend of the Reich.
Gehrhart, sensing an opportunity, offered Logan a chance to join the cause, to use his contacts and influence as an international movie star to bring other glitterati into the fold. He apparently admired the military marches of Lanzo Castillo - interpreting his themes of Spanish unification as a similar call to unite all Aryans, much like Hitler's love of Wagner's Siegfried.
His desire was for Logan to persuade Castillo to donate some original work to the NSDAP. This was a war of culture - as he'd mentioned ad nauseum - just as much as it was a war of of steel and might.
Logan's real mission, however, had been to find out which other artists had been approached by the Nazis and who remained loyal to the Allied cause.
Castillo glanced around the room and took a sip of Tempranillo. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to decline, Mr. Echolls. And just so you don't think I'm playing favorites, I would say the same if the British had asked."
"Have they?" Logan sat forward in his chair.
"It's not in my best interest to divulge any conversation I may or may not have had with anyone from any country, wouldn't you agree?" Castillo leaned back and crossed his legs. "There's a reason Spain chose to stay neutral."
Spain was hedging their bets, which Logan could respect as a general concept, but not when American lives were on the line. "Well, the way this war is playing out, you may not have that luxury much longer, Mr. Castillo."
"Well," Castillo smoothed down the lapels of his suit and smiled bitterly. "With Franco in command, I won't be safe here much longer anyway. Spain's peace has proven more dangerous for me than her war, and I must soon find new home, irrespective of what happens between the Allied and Axis nations. There are some kind of men who are not welcome in this new regime." He raised a perfectly manicured eyebrow. "Do you understand what I'm saying?"
"I'm not sure I do. Are you saying you were a Republican?" Logan rapped his finger against his glass twice - in three beat increments - a signal over the wire to Weevil that the asset was potentially sympathetic to the allied cause. "Half the country was."
Still, this was good news. The British, French and American governments opposed Franco's Nationalist party, while Hitler and Mussolini supported it. If this man was a Republican, he would never work with the Nazis.
Castillo released a harsh laugh as a dark expression clouded his features. "Were it so simple, Mr. Echolls. I'm afraid it's much worse than that. It's more the company I choose to keep, and the company of one I kept, in particular."
Ah. So, Castillo was a homosexual.
The man smiled, genuinely this time, a faraway thing. "It's not what you're thinking…well, it's not only what you're thinking." He leaned forward and lowered his voice to a faint whisper. "I was friends with the playwright."
The playwright.
He could only be speaking of one person: Federico García Lorca. Famously executed in Grenada in 1936 for vocally opposing the Nationalist party, his body never recovered.
It was forbidden to even mention his name under Franco's regime, much less own a copy of his work.
Logan was relieved he could report back to the home office with 100% certainty that Castillo would not be aligning with the Germans. Not in this lifetime.
"I understand." Logan reached into his pocket and pulled out a pen, then scribbled a telephone number onto a spare napkin with the following note.
Call Parker Lee at United Artists.
She is a close friend.
She can get you work quickly.
Tell her I sent you and she will be
especially sensitive to your visa situation.
He slid the napkin across the table and watched as Castillo cautiously picked it up.
The man looked at the small scrap of fabric like it was a lifeline and then slipped it into the inner breast pocket of his linen jacket. "You don't work for the Reich, do you, Mr. Echolls?"
Logan's face fell. This was the kind of stupid, sentimental mistake that men got killed over. He'd fucked this up, and Weevil was catching every word of it.
Tossing a handful of pesos on the table, Logan walked around to Castillo's chair. "Let's take a walk."
Castillo realized his mistake immediately. "I - I won't —"
Logan forced the man from his seat with the weight of his gaze. "It's a beautiful day for a walk, is it not?"
"Yes. Very beautiful." The man rose slowly, eying Logan warily, demeanor contrite.
They walked in silence around the perimeter of the wide, open plaza, pretending to admire the afternoon sunshine.
"Listen, pal," Logan said, in a conversational tone behind a bright smile. "You open your mouth and breath one word of what you think you know about me, and I'll put a bullet in the back of your head myself. Do you understand?"
Castillo took a deep breath and echoed his smile. "On my life, sir."
"That's right. It will be your life." And mine too. Logan scrubbed a hand over his face, mind racing for a way to correct his mistake. Weevil would have his head for this. "You implied earlier I'm not the first man to approach you?"
"There were others, yes."
Good. This was something Logan could work with. "You said before it wasn't in your best interest to tell me who they were, but I think we both know that's no longer true."
Castillo nodded his head, without hesitation. "I'll make a list."
"Names, physical descriptions, affiliations, anything you can remember about them."
"Yes."
"And, a list of your friends as well. Those who are loyal to our side."
This last request stopped the other man mid-stride. "I-I can't do that. With what you do, you must understand the need for protection."
"With what I do, I understand completely." Logan turned to him and leveled him with a glare. "With every name you give, every piece of intel, you keep the people I work with safe. And the more of us who stay safe, the more we can keep your friends safe."
"Between the last war and this one, I've often been disappointed by those I thought I could trust." The Spaniard pressed his fingers to his temple and sighed. "But, you gave me the name of your friend, Mr. Echolls, and if you trust me enough to risk your safety to do that, I think I can risk myself to give you mine."
"Good. You can call me Logan, by the way." Logan clapped the man on the shoulder. "And, I need you to laugh like I just said something hilarious."
The Spaniard tipped his head back and released a surprisingly convincing chuckle. This was clearly not his first rodeo.
"I don't suppose any of those friends of yours have an 'in' with the German government?" Logan joked, as he reached for his cigarette case and offered one to Castillo.
"Oh please," Castillo said, lighting both of their cigarettes. "Yes, we have allies. And do you think there are no fairies in the SS? You'd be shocked at the lengths some men would go to throw off suspicion. And anyway, if they aren't sympathetic to the cause, they can always be blackmailed into it."
If Gehrhart had any idea how dangerous this man really was to the Nazi cause, he would've asked Logan to put a bullet in him, not ask him out to tea. He exhaled a stream of smoke, absolutely floored by this man's gall. "That's risky."
"Anything worth its salt is risky. If it weren't, any idiot could do it." Castillo flicked his ash on the sidewalk and took another drag. "Shall we organize a dead drop with the man listening in on the other end of your wire?"
"Oh no. I think we need to bring you in. You've got too much intel in that head of yours to write down in a little love note." Logan couldn't stop his own smirk. "You know, I honestly can't decide yet if my birdwatcher is going to love you or hate you."
"Well, maybe you can smooth the way, then. Does he love or hate you?" Castillo dropped his cigarette to the floor and stomped it out.
"Probably a little of both."
"Fantastic." Castillo groaned, then threw his hands in air accompanied by a few Spanish expletives under his breath.
Right then, a loud popping sound caused both men to start.
"It came from the Northwest corner of the square," Castillo rasped out as he pulled them both behind the nearest pillar.
Logan noticed a small figure, dressed in beige with a black beret covering their hair, running across the slanted, sand-colored rooftops surrounding the plaza, as agile as a bobcat. "There."
Those legs. That ass. It was her. It had to be her.
A blood-curdling scream erupted from just through the arch of the next arcade.
His gaze continued to follow the figure as it climbed effortlessly over the terra cotta tiles from building to building until the roof ran out. It then scaled down three sets of terraces and dismounted onto the white stone floor of a thin alley way just across from them, landing with a loud crack. The figure remained motionless, lying there in a heap, a muffled moan escaped out before the body went totally limp.
A police whistle blew from just behind the next wall, pulling the attention of the tourists and townspeople.
"Shit." Logan turned to Castillo, eyes wide, as he ripped the micro-transceiver from under his shirt and placed it into the other man's hand. "I - can you stay in the area? Someone will come find you within the next hour? I need to—" He angled his head toward the body, wincing at the unmoving form.
"Go." Castillo nodded, fully understanding the situation. "We will be in touch soon, my friend."
Without a backward glance, Logan took off running in the direction of the fallen figure, slipping into the alley, mercifully unnoticed.
The person was beginning to regain consciousness, which didn't give him much time. He quickly pulled the scarf from the figure's face, confirming the woman's identity. "V"
There was a grainy, badly bent, black and white photo of a young man wearing an overcoat - it was lying on the floor next to her hand. Logan folded it in half and slipped it into his back pocket.
She stirred into vague consciousness, as he hoisted her into a bridal carry. "Come on. Wrap your arms around my neck."
Instead of what he asked, a firm hand closed around his throat and began to choke him.
"Hey!" He managed to grunt out before she completely cut off his airway.
Her eyes flew open, recognizing his voice, and she released her grip. "The gun," she whispered hoarsely, gesturing to the blood-drenched revolver she had strapped into a thigh holster.
He tugged the entire holster free and shoved it into her messenger bag, just as the cops filled the square. "We have to get out of here. Can you walk?"
She put her left foot onto the ground and gingerly tried to rest her weight on it, then grimaced.
"Okay. We're okay." Logan didn't quite believe it, but he'd figure something out. He'd have to, because a crowd of people were beginning to file into the area. "Smile. Pretend you're glad to see me," he said, lifting her back up into bridal carry and walking back out into the square.
Her fingers dug into his shoulders. "What the hell are you—"
"I said smile." He pressed a long, passionate kiss to her lips.
An old woman with a head scarf made a disappointed clucking sound then turned to a nearby police officer who had also been watching them kiss. "Este no es el momento para el romance, los recién casados. Alguien ha sido herido."
Logan put on his best look of contrition. "Lo siento, señora."
The old woman grumbled a bit, but seemed to soften. "Me acuerdo de este sentimiento."
Despite the intimate nature of their last encounter, this was the first time Logan had actually ever kissed Agent V. He'd thought a lot about it over the last month, wishing he'd taken the chance when he had it last.
"How are you even here?" Agent V looked at him with wonder, palming his cheeks, checking that he was real. "You speak Spanish?"
He pressed his forehead to hers for a faint moment, then pulled away, a teasing smile lighting his face. "You should know that already, since you read my file."
Her mouth dropped open, cheeks flushing with embarrassment, but before she could eek out an excuse, Logan noticed a nearby cop and kissed her again.
"Señor, deberías llevar a tu esposa a casa, ahora." The policeman said, rolling his eyes.
Logan nodded to the man and carried her out of the square as an ambulance passed them in the other direction, sirens blaring. "I hope you have a safehouse somewhere close, because this newlywed routine is only going to play for so long before it starts looking fishy."
They didn't speak a word to each other until they were safely in the confines of Agent V's sparsely furnished bolt hole, down Paseo de Castellana. And even then, remained silent until Logan had swept the room twice for bugs, per the agent's great insistence.
He took one last look out of the window, then drew the blackout shades tightly closed and stood near her feet at the edge of the bare mattress, where he had just finished wrapping her ankle in gauze. "Are you still in much discomfort?"
She lifted her head a few inches, shot him a look of impatience, then fell back onto the pillow, eyes screwed tightly shut. "I think there might be some pain powder in the medicine cabinet."
Without delay, Logan closed the short distance to the bathroom, rummaged through the medicine cabinet for the bottle of aspirin, and reappeared through the doorway. "Do you have a glass?"
She shook her head and reached blindly for a bottle of sherry on the nightstand. "Don't need one. Just get me that bottle."
He grabbed the other bottle on the way to the bed, then perched on the side of the mattress next to her and handed her the open bottle of aspirin, which she tipped generously into her mouth.
"Woah! You'll overdose at that rate." He forcefully removed it from her grip, switching it out for the sherry.
She swished the liquor around in her mouth with the powder before swallowing both down with a full body shudder. Taking another swig for good measure, she handed the bottle back before wiping the powder residue off her lips with the back of her hand. "Thank you."
"Very lady like."
She cut him a stern glance then began to laugh through it. "That's your line? The killing people, climbing across rooftops, being covered in blood…that's all Lana Turner territory, but chugging painkillers with cooking sherry is a turnoff for you?"
"I'm beginning to think nothing you could do could be a turnoff for me," he said, very seriously, and pulled his legs up on the bed next to her so they were lying side by side. "It's very disconcerting."
"How unfortunate for you." She tried her best to look nonchalant about the compliment, but her shy smile betrayed her. Her fingers hesitated midair before reaching for his hand. "I would've been toast if you hadn't gotten me out of there when you did."
"True. And you're welcome."
"Logan?" A brief, frustrated expression alighted Agent V's face, before she carefully flipped onto her side toward his direction. "How did you know I'd be there?"
He shook his head, still staring at the crown moldings above them. "I didn't."
"Nobody sent you?"
"No. I was in the right place at the right time….or wrong place, depending on what your perspective is." He cautioned a glance at her through the corner of his eye.
Her skin was ashen and streaked with dirt, but the most troubling thing about her was the look of mistrust that was brewing.
"You were right where I fell." She paused mid-breath, before continuing her thought. "Seems like an awfully big coincidence though, don't you think?"
He turned on his side to face her, still holding her hand. "Maybe it wasn't a coincidence?"
She rolled her eyes, fingers tensing in his. "You're not going to suggest it was fate, are you?"
"Lord, no." He tucked her hand under his cheek for safe keeping. "I've had way too much taken from me in my life to believe in some kind of pre-ordained, grand design. No God has that sick of a sense of humor."
It couldn't be a coincidence they were both in the same square in Córdoba at the same time on separate missions. Two members in one intelligence unit didn't accidentally blunder into each other's jobs like that for no reason.
And though Logan had never met the man in person, Big Daddy never struck him as the sloppy type.
It was obviously planned that they should meet up, but then why not just assign him to her case in the first place?
Something wasn't adding up, which Agent V sensed as well, though her mind was obviously going to darker places than his. "This just all seems very pat, no?"
"Who was your target?" Logan ran his index fingertip along the arch of her eyebrow, just under the ridge of her beret. There was a shallow scrape there he reminded himself to tend to later.
"You know I can't tell you that." Her eyes searched his face for signs of…something.
"Come on," he goaded. "I'll show you mine if you show me yours?" It was obvious she would refuse, but he was morbidly curious to discover just how deep her suspicion of him really ran. "Or are you worried I'm a turncoat? Is that it?"
"No." Something very close to panic leeched into her tone as she struggled to sit up. "Of course not."
"Tell me your first name then?" He sat up to meet her. "How about just the first letter? Haven't I earned that much from you?"
"Logan." She shook her head 'no', like she was talking herself out of it. "Stop it."
He fisted the thin bedspread they were sitting on. "You don't trust me and we're on the same team!"
"I don't trust anybody and I have good reason not to. Frankly, I'm surprised you're still so free with your own trust, given what I've read about you."
"….and what have you read about me that the whole world doesn't already know?" The cruel set of her jaw set off alarm bells inside of him, and he reflexively braced himself for what he assumed would come next.
"That Lilly Kane wasn't exactly the doting fiancée she presented to her public. That she may have been dedicated to you, but that didn't prevent her from showing half of Hollywood a good time, including your father." V looked like she regretted it the moment the words left her mouth, but she'd already begun and she wasn't the kind of woman to change horses mid-stream. "She was quite the accomplished liar. And you're obviously a soft touch."
Logan's world went off-kilter for a second, ice water suddenly circulating through his veins instead of blood. He turned his head, pinching the muscle between his eyes and took a deep breath to calm his temper. "Yes, well, at least she told me her real name. At least I knew who's parents to tell the coroner to call when they came around. If you had been killed today, I would have had to just make something up."
The sound of V's ragged breathing grew louder, filling the room.
By the time Logan was able to stomach looking at her again, her face was wet with tears.
"I'm horrible. I'm sorry," she whispered, choking on a silent sob. "Sometimes I think I've been doing this so long, I've forgotten what it's like to be a real person - or how to talk to one."
He swallowed down the swell of empathy blooming in his chest. He'd always been too quick to forgive, too desperate to be loved. The tone of V's implication may have been caustic, but it wasn't wrong. "No, you were right. I am too trusting, I made that same mistake again today on my mission. I almost blew the entire thing because, like you said, I'm a soft touch."
She frowned at him quoting her own words back at her. "What happened?"
Logan thought back to the reckless overture he made to Castillo - giving him Parker Lee's number - and how that had been the difference between a dry lead and the agency gaining one of their most valuable assets over the last six months.
"I showed him my hand first. Not as a tactic, just…out of concern for him. I blew my cover." He'd gambled on Castillo - a stranger, who could have been the architect of his demise - and because of that trust, Castillo gambled right back on him. "It turned out to be the only reason I secured the asset today. I guess sometimes it pays to be stupidly trusting."
She smiled at him faintly, though made no move to wipe the tears from her face, almost leaving them as a show of penance. "Why did you do it?"
"I don't know." He ran a hand through his hair and exhaled a nervous laugh. "I wasn't lying when I said I wasn't a good person back in Lisbon. I haven't always made the most humane choices. But, I'm trying to be better. I don't — I don't want to be him, you know?" He shrugged, trying hard not to picture Aaron's face the last time they shared the same air, when his father smirked at him victoriously from across a crowded courtroom. "I think the best way I could get back at my dad is to be the kind of person he could never be."
V grabbed Logan's hand and took a deep breath before speaking. "I can't tell you my real name, but when I was little, my mother used to call me Ron. I don't - I haven't seen her in years, she - left us. But, you could call me that, when we're alone. If you want. I'd like that."
Logan cupped her face and kissed her, the bitter taste of aspirin and sweet sherry still lingering on her lips. "It's really nice to meet you, Ron."
"You are a soft touch," she whispered, lips still pursed as he pulled back, her pupils unfocused as she opened her eyes. "So, do you movie stars go to special schools for this kissing thing or is this more that you're selected on the basis of natural talent?"
The muscles in his shoulders relaxed at her change of mood. "Bit of a chicken and egg riddle, I'm afraid, but I'm sure if we really work hard at it, we could probably figure out which - came - first?" He reached over and gently pulled down the beret that had been covering her hair. A flaxen mane spilled out from underneath. "You're a blonde?"
Her brow creased, truly confused. "You do realize spies wear costumes sometimes, right?"
The hat was now crushed in his hand, but he was too dumbfounded to care. It seemed like every time he thought he had a good read on her, he learned something entirely new. She was endlessly fascinating.
An amused twitch lifted the corners of her mouth. "Oh, I get it. You have a thing ."
"That depends." He tossed her hat to the floor, uncaring where it landed, and lowered his gaze. "Are you a natural blonde?"
"Wouldn't you like to know?" She teased, letting her thighs fall open.
"I think we've already established that." Logan was mindful of her injury as he pressed her down onto the mattress and stripped her khakis from her legs in one motion. "Does it still hurt?"
Her eyes were half lidded and heavy as she watched him strip her bare. "The booze makes the powder work faster."
"I know."
He didn't want to think about how he knew that medical tidbit. Nobody wants to think about their mother when they're in bed with a beautiful woman.
Lifting her sprained ankle to his lips, he pressed a gentle kiss there, earning him a soft moan. "Was that a good noise or—?"
"It doesn't hurt." Ron lifted her shirt over her head - revealing a white brassiere underneath - and threw it to the floor next to her hat. "Please continue."
"Are you ever not bossy?" He kissed his way past the bend of her knee toward the crease of her thigh, barely pausing before dragging his tongue past her opening.
"Holy fu—!" she bit back a shout as she began to writhe on the bed. "They teach you this at movie school, too?"
"Guess you're not an expert in everything, huh?" Logan murmured against her warm center, revelling in the shiver it elicited from her. He draped her legs over his shoulders and pulled her closer by her ass to get a better angle.
Her fingers tangled painfully in his hair as he alternated between sucking and licking her. "Oh my…fuck!"
He laughed out loud at her reaction, and she responded to the slight by grinding herself into his face. "If you think that's a punishment, you're sorely mista—"
"Get up here now," she hissed, pulling him up by his hair, nearly taking a chunk out in the process, "and get inside of me."
She kissed him messily, licking the last traces of herself from his lips. He wasn't sure he'd ever been this turned on in his life.
Logan fumbled for his zipper like a schoolboy, not even bothering to take his trousers down. He pulled himself out and eagerly pushed inside of her, willing himself not to come right away.
They gasped into each other's mouths at the contact, exchanging the same air.
Ron's eyes glowed almost supernaturally blue in the dim light of the room. She kept them open, watching him, as he thrust up into her.
Her legs curled around his thighs, pulling him closer, but she still kept him at arms length. She was cautious and hungry, like a cornered animal who hadn't eaten in weeks. That same want from the first night they met was still present, but this time there was fear there, too.
"I'm not going to last long," he panted into her hair.
Her teeth scraped the underside of his jaw, sending a jolt of electricity directly to his cock. "Me either."
His control was on a knife's edge, the telltale quickening beginning to tighten his balls. "I - God, I'm going to—"
Logan pulled out just in time, spending himself on her bare stomach with a curse. "Fuck!"
She kissed the side of his head, holding him as he shook through his climax. "It's okay. It's okay."
"Not yet, it's not." He lowered himself back down between her legs, then flicked his tongue against her as slipped two of his fingers inside, curling them back and forth until she started to quiver in his hands.
"Oh." Her breathing picked up, it didn't take much to bring her back to the edge when she'd barely left it.
"Come in my mouth," he demanded, leaving no room for argument. "Do it."
As if following orders, she almost immediately did - loudly - with a cry that petered off into a distressing whimper.
Logan wiped his chin with the back of his hand and collapsed next to her on the bed as they both struggled to catch their breath.
A sudden wave of embarrassment fell over him for coming so early, he threw his forearm over his eyes. "I'm sorry about...you know."
He felt the mattress shift, she had turned to face him. "Sorry for what? Giving me the best sex I've ever had?"
He raised his arm a bit and peeked out from under it at her, perplexed. "But, I—"
"You realize most men don't notice if a woman enjoys it, right?" Ron pressed her thumb to his bottom lip before dropping a chaste kiss there. "You notice a lot of things most men don't."
He'd wanted to ask her what she had meant by it, but he never got the chance.
By the time he woke up she was gone.
The sound of the front door slamming shut woke Logan from a dreamless slumber. He was disoriented at first, unsure of where he was, but that wasn't an unusual feeling nowadays.
His pants were still halfway down his thighs, dried cum still on the sheets, but he couldn't bring himself to be embarrassed, not even with the unimpressed way Weevil was looking at him.
"You are a goddamn idiot. You know that, right?" Weevil stood over him, hands fisted at his waist, razing him with the weight of his disappointment.
Logan tucked himself back into his boxers and sat up, determined to present an unashamed front. "I don't know, I thought it was a pretty smart move at the time."
"Yeah, you would." Noticing the open bottle of sherry, Weevil grabbed it and took a swig, wincing instantly at the taste. "Too bad she doesn't have a sugar daddy to keep her in the good shit like I do."
"I assume she pulled an Irish goodbye on me?" Logan looked around the room, unable to find a trace of her, other than the leftover liquor and a blank pad of paper from a Dutch hotel. He was disappointed, but not remotely surprised.
"That's her way." Weevil handed the bottle to Logan and then plopped on the bed next to him, elbows leaning on his knees. "Are you Irish? Because you are one lucky motherfucker. Castillo turned out to be a goldmine."
"Did he? I'll drink to that." He lifted the bottle of sherry in a toast and took a long drag off the bottle, body clenching from the cloying aftertaste. "I know what I did was…unorthodox."
Weevil cut him a look and grabbed the bottle back. "I think the word you're looking for is suicidal. But man, did it pay off in spades. Got a good name of somebody with an in to the SS. A great name. You're not going to believe the name he gave us, she's world fucking famous."
Logan blinked his eyes impatiently. "You're going to actually have to give me the name, Weevil, in order for me to be impressed."
Weevil licked his lips like he was about to tuck into a juicy steak. "In Germany, they still call her Karolina Bischof."
"Carrie Bishop?" The sinking feeling in the pit of Logan's stomach began to rise into his throat. He grabbed the bottle of booze roughly back from his friend.
"She's a legend, right? Wait - you actually know her?" That little tidbit earned Logan a raised eyebrow.
Logan tipped the sherry down his throat, finishing it off with a stifled belch. "You might say that."
Weevil's eyebrow fell, quickly getting the message. "Well, shit."
The trees that flew past the windows stretched taller and leaner the further North Logan and Weevil traveled, as the ground became more elevated and rocky.
They'd switched trains at Madrid - stopping for a quick bite to eat - and then once again at La Concha, for the direct train to Paris along the Northern corridor of the Pyrenees.
By the time they'd finally located their private passenger car, there was already somebody sitting there.
"Hey!" Weevil bobbed his head in her direction, clearly pleased with the surprise. "I was wondering when you were going to pop up."
"Mac." Logan grinned as he followed Weevil over the threshold, sliding the door closed behind them.
She was one of the few people Logan knew from the agency and was genuinely happy to see another friendly face after so long out in the field.
"Moneybags," she drawled, her usual sarcastic expression screwed into place as she took in his disheveled appearance. "Hmm, yesterday's hero is looking a little worse for wear."
"Well, as F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, 'Show me a hero and I'll write you a tragedy'. My tragedy was a really cheap bottle of cooking sherry and a mattress with a broken spring." He flopped ungracefully onto the wooden bench across from her.
"However do you cope?" Her expression was droll, but there was fondness beneath it, then turned to their other compatriot, head already back in the game. "Weevil, I brought your Bona fide. How do you feel about being Catalan this time?"
Weevil stroked his early five o'clock shadow. "Pretty fucking bad, seeing as I don't speak the language."
"Great, because you're from Zaragoza." From the small suitcase open on the seat next to her, she pulled a brown, leather pouch and handed it to him. "I assume you speak Spanish?
Ignoring the rhetorical question, Weevil flipped open his new passport and waggled his eyebrows at what he read there. "Enrique Coronado Gonzales. I like it. I sound classy. You got some pocket litter for me, too?"
"Not yet, but I've got some pocket litter for him." Mac gestured to Logan, then dug through her suitcase again and produced a white paper bag with a Red Cross symbol on the front.
Logan was confused, there was no way he could possibly go undercover. Not in Paris, of all places. "I thought I was going in naked?"
"Yeah, Romeo. That's the point." She forced the sack into his hands. "You go in naked a little too often."
Inside the bag were dozens of small, round tins with 'pro-kit' printed in military block letters on the front. "I thought there was a latex shortage."
She stared at him, humorless, like she hadn't just casually handed him several months worth of rubbers. "I'm willing to make an exception for you."
Weevil, who was sitting next to Logan, peered into the bag and immediately lost his composure.
"Shut the fuck up, man," Logan warned, through a tense smile.
The other man tried to school his featured into neutral expression, but instead ended up looking like he was suffering from bad gas.
Logan shook the bag with a clatter, exasperated. "Am I being watched?"
Mac leaned forward, elbows on her knees. "You're an asset. Of course you're being watched. But that's not what this is about."
"I'm a grown man. When I signed up for this gig, nobody mentioned anything about the OSS being a bunch of Peeping Toms."
She ruffled her hand through her hair, obviously frustrated. "Look, Agent V isn't just a coworker, she's my closest friend. She already takes too many risks, I don't need you to be another one of them."
Logan wasn't sure what he was supposed to do with that new piece of information. Mac said each mission was 'eyes only', said nobody knew the team's final objective, but both Weevil and Mac knew things about Ron that made Logan think his presence there might be a piece of something bigger. He suddenly felt like the only one not in on a private joke.
"I had a medical workup before I came here. You know I'm," he glanced at Weevil, who was trying and failing not to laugh into his hands, "clean."
Mac clicked her tongue at Logan like an old school marm. "Please tell me I don't have to embarrass all three of us by giving you the birds and bees talk in the middle of this passenger car?"
Snickering erupted next to Logan, which Logan silenced with a swift body check. "I am willing to give you all the cash I have on me for this conversation to end right now. Besides, I don't even know when or if I'm going to see her again."
"You will," Mac said, not looking too thrilled about it. "Tomorrow night, at 'Le Beau Rêve'. 2100 hours."
"She's coming with me to meet with Carrie Bishop?" The prospect of being with both women in the same room sent Logan into a choking fit.
When Logan was 12, his best friend Dick broke his mother's Ming vase playing baseball in the house, and then Logan tried to bury it in the backyard to cover up his friend's 'crime'.
The fact that Logan never actually dated either woman didn't stop the irrational guilt from creeping in. He still felt disloyal somehow, like some kind of cad.
Mac's forehead wrinkled with concern until the coughing ceased. "No. you're meeting Miss Bishop alone. Agent V has, uh, other commitments."
"At the same club? Who?"
"That's classified."
Logan slammed his hand against the seat with a curse. "This is bullshit. I'm sorry, but it is. I know you know more than you're telling me. And considering I'm putting my ass on the line for this, I think I deserve to know what I'm walking into."
Mac gestured to Weevil. "You're not walking in alone. You'll have backup."
"You're unbelievable." Logan's hand throbbed from where it made contact with the wood. He focused on his external pain to distract from what he was feeling inside. An old tactic, but one he knew worked. "At least tell me what happened yesterday, then. What was Agent V doing at the the Plaza de la Corredera?"
Mac took a deep breath, then acquiesced with a curt nod. "We received last minute intel from one of our floaters that you and Lanzo were being followed. Agent V got in just this morning from Gibraltar, so we sent her over to check things out."
"Did she know what my mission was or that I would even be there?"
"There wasn't time to explain. The man's room turned up an arsenal, we didn't know what he had planned. We just gave her a description and pointed her in the right direction."
Well, that explained Ron's paranoid suspicion at Logan's seemingly random presence there. "Do you know now what he had planned?"
"The identification the man had on him said he was Swiss, but the papers - they're close, but not exactly the right card stock, inelegant work." Her nose wrinkled in distaste. "So, all that really tells us is that he's anything but Swiss. The coroner might have something for me to go off later today."
"Like what?"
"Stomach contents. Scars. Body rituals like circumcision or tattoos. Fillings, preferably. The composition of dental amalgam differs from country to country. Once we get a nationality, that narrows the field quite a bit as far as what the objective might have been."
With a hiss of air and the high-pitched scraping of metal, the train rattled to a slow stop at the first station over the border into France.
Mac clicked her briefcase shut and rose from her seat. "Logan, I know you're worried you've been made, but if Gehrhart suspected you were working with us, it would be far more efficient just to cut you out of the loop - or better yet - keep you for purposes of spreading disinformation to the OSS. You're much too high profile to just kill off on a hunch. Probably." She shrugged, reached for the door handle and paused, turning back to him with a soft glimmer in her eye. "Either way. Rest assured, we'll be watching you."
TRANSLATIONS
.
"Este no es el momento para el romance, los recién casados. Alguien ha sido herido."
This is not the time for romance, newlyweds. Somebody has been hurt.
.
"Lo siento, señora."
I'm sorry, madame.
.
"Me acuerdo de este sentimiento."
I remember this feeling.
.
"Señor, deberías llevar a tu esposa a casa, ahora."
Sir, you should take your wife home, now.
A/N: Thank you so much to all of you who left comments – I appreciate every single one.
Are you still with me? If you have the time, please let me know what you think!