While there are many, many lessons taught at Barden University's covert training facility, there has only ever been only one main lesson taught to up-and-coming operatives: in this world, nothing is ever what it seems to be. Nothing.
Plans change. People change. Things happen if for no other reason than the fact that truth is stranger than fiction. And there is no stranger truth than the enigma that is the non-relationship of one Jesse Swanson and Beca Mitchell, covert operatives for the Triplus and The Bellatorum.
.:.
THE BELLATORUM HQ, MONDAY: 0508
That Rebeca Mitchell is in the armory is already rather strange, but that she's in the armory, practicing at the shooting range, is cause for concern. Couple that fact with the fact that it's five am in the morning, and there is reason to believe that the world is about to end.
Beca doesn't do mornings. Then again, she doesn't do failed operations either. In fact, Beca doesn't do. She finishes. So when the op three days ago had gone haywire and they found out the drive was empty, Beca had to excuse herself from the room, because otherwise, she might break something. Like the building, for instance.
But it's been three days, and operatives know that mistakes are mistakes. You move on, you don't let them cripple you. It's a fact of life. It's also a fact of life that Beca Mitchell doesn't just settle. She is a closer, and she will close this fucking drive or she will die trying.
The sound of two sharp gunshots ring through the empty basement that is the armory for the Bellatorum, as the flimsy paper, holding up the black and white target, receives a blow.
"Beca..."
She hears Aubrey walking towards her, but she doesn't stop and pulls the trigger three more times, each hit perfectly aligned with the others. She's not wearing the proper headgear, because at her delicate state, if she is forced to follow a single rule, even as sensible as wearing hearing protection, she will blow up and shoot something she shouldn't. And that will not do for anybody's life insurance, no sir.
Aubrey comes up to her from around the corner.
"Beca..."
"You keep saying my name. Why."
She turns to Aubrey and the look she gets is one of sympathy. She is here as a friend, not a boss and not a spy. A friend.
"I'm not going to give you some crap speech about letting it go—"
"Good."
"—because I know how it feels," Aubrey says, and Beca can tell that she had been thinking about what to say on the way down, "but like you once told me, shit happens. If you let it get to you, you will eventually tire... And you won't be able to avoid staleness and the—"
"—the sensual bluntness that breeds mistake," Beca finishes, eyes closed in an effort to recall Ian Fleming's second paragraph. "Wow. Only you would have the presence of mind to quote a James Bond right now."
They return smiles, and Beca is so grateful for her friend. Sure, Aubrey is such an anal bitch, and Beca is an explosive bitch, which means the two of them can get a little at each others nerves at times. But at end of the day, they are still the same kind of woman, deep down.
And bitches get stuff done.
"You missed a spot," Aubrey comments, looking at the paper target.
"No I didn't," Beca replies, as the paper target gives, and falls plainly to the floor. Because Beca doesn't miss anything. Not details, and not people. That one instance, with the drive, had been her first.
She tells herself that he had every right to do what she had done to him, double cross them both. And okay, he was better at it than she had been. He got the fucking drive, she didn't.
But what she cannot understand, the one thing that she cannot wrap her mind around, was how he had so feigned innocence around her, and how she had fallen for it. His kiss, that kiss, was...
(She cocks her gun again and shoots violently into the armory after Aubrey has left, punctuating each thought with a bullet to a dummy's head.)
That. fucking. kiss.
She had been played by that one kiss. What drives her mad is that, for a second there, she had lost focus. She must have. That second had probably cost her the entire mission, because he was so good that she didn't see it coming. When she thought she had him, it was the other way around. And the drama with his ex, and that stupid time she thought he had actually died... The irony is just so perfect.
She lets her frustration ring through the place, shooting the poor dummy's head until its face reduced into a mesh of smoking bullet holes.
...
TRIPLUS HQ, MONDAY: 2056
"What!?"
Bumper storms out of the room, royally pissed. But unlike any other day when he's being a jerk, this time, he actually has grounds.
"Bumper..." Donald uses the exasperated, slightly-pleading voice he reserves for when Bumper loses his shit and there needs to be some mediator.
"Where is Jesse? I swear to almighty god..."
...
(ONE WEEK LATER)
COLOMBIA, MONDAY: 0634
The fleeting thought that crosses Beca's mind whilst running from killer hounds on the rooftops of Colombia is a big fat Why. Why is she not yet getting a raise for this?
The early-morning, South American sun is hitting her blind spot in just the right intensity for her to almost trip and get eaten by the Rottweilers on her tail, as she tries to maintain a steady speed ahead of them, her feet clanging rhythmically against the tattered, shingled rooftops of the derelict buildings at the side of town that is no man's land. In fact, if fate had had this operation on any other day, she would have most certainly tripped by now, and she would have reached the inevitable and sudden end that operatives are famous for having, had they been famous at all.
Lucky for her, she had met Jesse.
And because she had met Jesse, and he had bested her not last week, every single operation that she had been on ever since had been a grotesque success, it's overkill.
"I need.. that air support now... Amy," she says to her comms, panting against the intense legwork as the Rottweilers are getting closer impossibly fast, because they are dogs, and Beca is human. She's not built for this kind of cardio.
"Hang on, flatbutt. Still learning to drive stick."
"Oh my god... that is not funny."
She can almost feel the hot, canine breaths against her thighs, can almost feel their saliva sputtering. She imagines how their teeth might feel sinking into her flesh, just so she could convince her muscles that they can do this. They can finish this. The drop is almost there, she can see it, right where the cluster of buildings end at the cliff. She can feel the vague pounding of blood on her arm, where a huge gash is still wet and bleeding. But she presses on.
She tells herself that if she is going to be a failure at the single most important mission that she had been assigned for her team, she will not fail anything else. Ever. Certainly not today, at least.
"Amy, any time now!" she says, the drop getting nearer, and she can't very well just sprout wings, now can she?
"Working on it!"
After last week's shenanigan at Beca's op, Amy had visited The Bellatorum, and has since become a working, honorary member, having been trained with the rest of the Bellas anyway at Barden University's covert training facility.
The four of them, including Aubrey and Chloe, had graduated from Barden, (non)legendary cover school that trains candidates for the CIA. Of course, Barden was also a recruitment center for... other, less legal organizations. The average graduates get a good education and proceed with their lives. The great graduates get into the CIA. But for the few who are a cut above the rest, they get to have a pick at the finest elite organizations of their choice. The Bellatorum is one such organization.
Beca wonders if her life would flash before her eyes once she dies from running off into a cliff and falling down the sharp, ocean side rocks. Or being eaten by dogs. Damnit, Amy.
Just when she finds herself choosing between a mangled body and a dismembered one, a helicopter sharply comes into view, and the next seconds are spent picking up what little speed she could in order to launch herself at the aircraft's landing skids.
She barely wraps her small arms around it. Amy's driving is a bitch.
...
THE BELLATORUM HQ: 1542
But that was hours ago.
And as Beca walks the halls of her lovely headquarters, her top priority is getting a shower. And then giving the retrieved documents to Aubrey, who's anal tendencies are more suited for handling paper work. Shower first, though.
"Ei, where you going?" Amy calls after her, as soon as the elevators open to reveal the third floor of the Bellas Headquarters, a gorgeous, neo-classical building at no less than LA's upper east side. But Beca is stinky and sweaty and reeks of international cannabis and South American wet dog and she does not match her surroundings one bit.
"I need a shower."
"Um, shouldn't you go to the infirmary first?"
Whoops. It slipped her mind that, during her little trip to the Colombian Cartel, she had had a less-than-pleasant social encounter with one of the boss's dogs. And it wasn't a chihuahua, either. The memory reminds her that her forearm actually needs medical attention, and she winces as she touches it, damned reverse placebo effect.
But because surprises are a prerequisite in Beca's life, before before she can even weigh the two options of shower or stitches, she gets the surprise of her life when a certain Triplus operative appears out of nowhere on their floor. He stops when he sees her right then and there.
...
Operatives are usually trained to distance themselves from their feelings, take a step back, and analyze what is going on with the chemicals in their brain in order to form a logical analysis of their emotional state.
Jesse has been preparing himself for this possibility the moment he had come down from his flight and stepped on Los Angeles soil. He had been distancing himself all throughout the car ride, going up the elevator, and stepping onto the third floor. He is fucking prepared for this.
But he sees her, and nope. No, he is not.
Against his will, he feels himself swallow, and he has to force himself to distance, focus, for just five seconds, and understand, but all he can think of is how Beca looks like a deer in the headlights. He doesn't even get the chance to worry about her rankled state because she's suddenly walking away, and she disappears into the corridors.
...
She's going to kill Aubrey.
She walks the halls of her HQ, spotting several other members of their rival organization, making themselves at home and flirting with her Bellas ("No, Jessica. Stay away from them.") and she needs to find Aubrey or she will lose her shit in a way that would not be beneficial to anyone.
With hell on her mind, while the other Bellas seem to be rather relaxed and cool and fucking professional about having their arch enemies visit for tea this afternoon, Beca feels her blood is about to achieve nuclear fission. She just might break this ceiling, because apparently, someone had forgotten to send her a memo of today's scheduled Treble visit.
She finds Aubrey in her office, behind a few dossiers. She goes straight inside and slaps the shit out of Aubrey's desk, palms down, leaning menacingly.
The sudden sound of Beca's anger makes Aubrey, one of the best spies in the world, visibly jump.
"What the fuck is going on?!" Beca's snarl is dripping acid.
"Calm down, Beca—"
"Don't pull this shit with me, Aubrey! What the fuck is the Triplus doing here?!"
Aubrey takes a moment, hands her the dossier in her hands. Beca looks at it suspiciously, cautiously, because she has a few ideas where this could go, and she hates herself for being right all the time.
Well, almost all the time.
...
As the Trebles get acquainted with the Bellas in sunny LA, a sign of good faith on the part of both groups, Jesse tries to gather his wits into one, organized plan as he steels himself to face Beca. He needs to see her.
That's all he's thinking, now that they are in the conference room, the pantheon of legendary espionage demigods known as the Triplus, gathered round in the headquarters of their arch enemies, The Bellatorum. The air is riddled with such an implicit tension, these two groups in a single place, that it feels like the start of a really bad joke.
"Hey," Unicycle whispers to Donald as they wait for the Bellas to join them, "what did the Bella say to the other Bella when they saw each other at the hospital?"
The Trebles, like the Bellas, specialize in their own respective fields. Each one harnessed from a different part of the world, always, the ultimate best in whatever he is best at, the members of the Triplus aren't fazed in the least by the dazzling elegance of their surroundings. Rather, they sit quietly in the conference room, chilled. Just waiting.
There's Donald, who had been trained in the special forces of so many countries, it's hard to keep track of where he came from. He does, however, happens to be a super genius at anything binary-encrypted (blame his Indian genes). Unicycle takes his name from having been raised in the circus, utilizing his physical skills (and not ashamed of baring his chest every three minutes as proof) in complex operations. Ever since achieving worldwide acclaim as Interpol's most wanted, for ten years now, Bumper's nickname has stuck. His royal cockiness has made a name for himself by not making a name for himself, leading the Triplus into success everywhere they turn, while still managing to keep their official existence all but a blur to almost every legal entity in the world. Benji, who is "the single most useless Treble ever" as nicknamed by Bumper, is anything but. Heading operations, his genius brain is impeccable at remembering everything. Literally. Because he has a photographic memory. The rest of the Triplus are as deadly as they are skilled, if not more so.
However talented each one of them may be, ask any of them who the best is, and not even Bumper will contest that there is only one Triplus who is a cut above the rest, and has the record to prove it.
Jesse, born and raised as James Swanson. There's not much known about his life before he became an operative, but there are rumors. Rumors that there was this kid, an American, who had conned the French police once, into thinking that he was the son of Steven Spielberg. How this kid was born and raised in a family of only the best con men in the world, and how he had been recruited by none other than the invisible organization that had been responsible for 80% of all international high-stakes theft and undercover operations in the last seven years.
But today, this kid, who is now twenty-five years old, has only one person in mind.
"What?" Donald asks Unicycle back.
But they forget the joke, as the Bellas are now coming in, one by one, poised in every way, and the tension turns from cold to slightly warm. Okay, so it turned from angry to sexual pretty damn fast, especially because, even if the Bellas are suffering a losing streak, they are still women. Hot women, in a room full of men. Equally hot men. There is both intense rivalry and intense hormones. Of course, in such a strange situation, there's not a single one of them who can tell the difference.
The men stand up as the women take their seats around the room. The Trebles might be dirty little thieves, but they gotta have some form of decency.
Jesse looks around. No Beca.
No Aubrey either, so Chloe takes the lead. The first Bellatorum-Triplus meeting starts.
AN: Part 1 of 2
Up Next: Beca, Jesse, and bathtub...