The Greeks have a saying: οὔ με πείσεις, κἂν με πείσῃς
"You will not convince me even if you do convince me."
The literal meaning of this basic concept is quite apt for individuals who have the need to master the art of professional skepticism. Individuals such as politicians, or philosophers. Or spies.
Beca Mitchell is one such spy. Beca Mitchell will not take your shit.
And even when presented with all evidence, she will be cynical of you.
Even when the evidence comes from her own cynical self.
..:..
COTE D'AZUR INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT (NICE, FRANCE): 0745
The busiest airport this corner of the country, and Beca has yet to savor the smell of cafes, lovemaking, and the French Riviera in the air. She's too busy clacking her heels in a brisk walk to board her flight.
"Billet, s'il vous plaît."
Beca hands the nice lady her ticket. The one she had swiped from the unassuming blond American woman three passengers down the line from herself. Sunglasses covering her eyes (douchebaggy as it is indoors), she glances all over the busy boarding area, trying to glimpse any interested parties, anyone who might cause her some unwelcome... Treble.
She catches herself smirk at the pun, immediately accusing her traitorous brain for coming up with that one.
She gives the lady a tight-lipped smile, and walks on, about to take her seat in first class, next to one Daniel Rivers.
...
The Play (Expectations):
"We know that the Trebles have the exact same information that we have about this lead, and they know our playbook just like we know theirs. This isn't going to be by the books, ladies. We'll have to go step-by-step on this one..."
Aubrey briefs her Bellas on the upcoming mission, and what has to be done in order to take the Trebles down. With the help of Beca's knack for the unexpected, they just might have this in the bag.
...
The Operation (Reality):
A nice-enough young man sips his airplane champaign in first class, mindlessly busying himself with a little light reading, when a he hears a strangely familiar voice, that same Saxony-German accent reminding him of Las Vegas.
"Hey," she says. The mouth on that chiseled jawline quirks upward before he even puts down his book to look up at her.
"Hey yourself."
With a practiced air of charm, Beca glides herself to the seat next to Daniel Rivers, (deemed Target of the Day), not once breaking his stare, every inch of her flirting in every way. "Whatcha got there," she says, angling her head ever-so-slightly to make a show of trying to glimpse the book he'd just put down, and showing off the curve of her neck in effect.
"Excuse me, miss, but do I know you?"
Of course, he would play the flirting game. The tilted smile he has is only too obvious. In reply, she allows a very slow, very steady smile to creep on her lips.
"I don't know. Do you?"
He puts on a troubled look, as though trying to remember a vague memory. "Now, I would normally say 'no' because how can I forget such a beautiful face, but in your case, I would have to make an exception. Especially because if there's one thing I tend to remember more than beautiful faces, it's the ones that leave me high and dry." His tone is casual and joking, and still very much interested, but she knows he's playing at the guilty card. She bites her lips and bashfully looks away.
But of course, Beca is a living, walking magnet for trouble. Or, more accurately...
"Hey, Lara, sweetheart, are you sure these are our—Oh, well now."
Sonofabitch.
While smooth sailing has never really been Beca's style, as she's very much adept at handling most anything that would be so unfortunate as to disrupt her operations, for once, just once, she'd like to be able to get her flirt on without a certain Jesse goddamn Swanson popping out of nowhere.
"Would you look at that!" he says, putting on a surprised face at their "unexpected" seatmate. Since the seats are grouped by fours, Jesse takes his sassy gay ass over to the seat, right across Beca. Because she is an operative, she only lets on a fraction of the internal ambush he just commenced.
"I know you!" Jesse comments, flicking a womanly gesture at the Target while crossing his legs and harassing Beca's ever-decreasing levels of calm. "Well, isn't this funny? Lara, sweetheart, it's our friend from Las Vegas!"
"I know." The words come out nicely enough. She hopes the Target doesn't notice how much it's forced through the screw-on smile and gritted teeth.
"Yeah, well, Mr. Rivers, right? You remember us, Jesse and Lara, from the Rocky Hotel."
"Of course, how can I forget." Polite as always, but Beca can sense his slight disappointment in the appearance of Jesse the Third Wheel. You and me both, buddy.
The problem isn't so much that Jesse is very present in the middle of her position in this operation (god, why couldn't they have sent anyone else), but that he's chatting up the Target with that effectual charm, and the sad truth is that, with him in the conversation, she can't run her play. She watches him carry the discussion with just so much finesse, despite being effectively gay and supposedly not the object of the target's attraction. Still, his eyes light with a spark, that tiny hint of genuineness that is too natural for her to try to fake. She goes with tidbits of conversation here and there, when she can, but the moment he starts talking about gambling and odds, she knows he's won this round.
So when the toe of his shoe brushes against her ankle just as he elicits a laugh from the target, and then he fucking winks at her, his gloating is a little too much.
"Hey Jesse," she cuts him off mid-sentence, something about king of hearts. "I need to talk to you."
"Now? I think we're about to fly any min—"
"Now." She punctuates this with a kick of her heel to his shin.
"Oh—kay..."
They walk quietly, leaving a somewhat bemused target with nothing but the words of Mickey Rapkin to accompany him. She leads Jesse straight for the comfort rooms, where she pulls him in and locks the door in one swift movement, almost as fast as the words are out of her mouth. Her distaste for small, enclosed spaces is temporarily set aside for her distaste of him.
"The fuck are you doing?!"
"Whoa, calm down—"
"What are you doing here?!"
"What are you talking about, same thing you are." His voice is affronted in a tapering squeak.
"That is not—" she points an accusing finger at him, then cuts herself short, because hell, he is here for the exact same purpose as her: to ensure that the other organization keeps their end up of the deal, and not make a move before the Target is in Britain. "—good enough," she finishes lamely. This earns her an amused quirk of the brow from him.
"Really, Bec? That all you got for me?"
"Oh, shut up."
"No, I should ask you the same question. What the hell are you wearing?" His expression is disconcerted enough, you'd think she was wearing a fur bikini... To be fair, she is wearing a Chanel halter-cut that shows some skin on both sides of her body, and her legs are waxed and she is using Marc Jacobs perfume and her boobs look fantastic, if she says so herself.
"You got a problem with the way I dress?" For the fastest moment, his eyes flick lower than where they were looking at her face, and then he catches himself catching her catching... him. He makes this odd smirk, this visual sarcasm meant to showcase his growing agitation.
"I have a problem with the fact that we made a deal, Bec. No moves until we get to Britain."
"Don't insult me; I haven't made a move." The tone is jarred by only a slight annoyance, which is very generous of her.
"Oh, what, so you expect to just... waltz right in there looking like..." his voice falters when his eyes take her in again, and his face looks like an epic struggle for a proper expression, not quite sure whether to settle for disgusted, annoyed, or kind of slightly admiring. "... like that, and that's not making a move? Seriously?"
He seems to be genuinely upset right now, and then it hits her...
"Oh my god, are you... jealous?"
His face turns sour in one very flat nanosecond. "What?!"
"Is this what this is? You don't want me flirting with the target!"
"Oh, so you are flirting with the target!"
His deflection tells her she's hit the bullseye. But she rolls her eyes anyway, because she was, and she's busted. "Answer the question, Swanson."
"Stay on topic, Bec. Don't counter-accuse me, that's not gonna work."
"So you are, or aren't you? Not even, like, slightly? After giving me all that beer?" The smirk and her taunting are payback for his ruining her play, and she can tell, it has its desired effect. "Don't like the idea that I might take him out for coffee before you—"
"Oh, right, yeah, okay that's could you please stop," he demands from annoyance, voice rising in pitch rather than in volume, when she crosses her arms right beneath her perfect cleavage, giving him a rather comprehensive view. And while he secretly struggles to get it together (she can so tell), the muscles of his forearm taut where he is leaning an arm on the sink for a little support, Beca doesn't even pretend not to enjoy this because oh my god, he is totally jealous.
(For two operatives trained to keep emotional involvement under lockdown until the end of the mission, they are both shit at minimizing the silent, subtextual flirting that is practically fermenting the air.)
"Right, okay, fine. So, ground rules." His sudden change of topic cuts the tension in half. "A 'move' is defined as anything that anyone does that would affect the outcome of this mission. Fair for you, or is that too hard?"
Is it too hard, he asks... there is a pause where there shouldn't be as she tries to bit a retort off her lower lip, rolling it painfully slow as though that would erase the very obvious smirk that is making this moment uncomfortable for him. Tempting though it may be, get your head out of the gutter, Mitchell. Now's not the time for a dirty joke...
Damn, she's enjoying this way too much.
"Fine," comes out garbled in a half-attempt to keep her amusement in check.
"Fine," he replies, too stoic. He steps closer to her, determined to regain control of the situation.
"Fine." She reacts to his non-verbal challenge just the same.
When neither make a move to unlock the door, she has to move closer, until her body is pressed right up to his, and his eyes are still daring her to be the first one to back off, trademark smugness returning firmly on his expression. She reaches behind him and unlocks the door without breaking eye contact, and she can just feel his need to swallow the lump of tension from the proximity of the air space they are both breathing in.
She steps out to one slightly surprised stewardess, whose eyes take in the sight of the two of them, leaving the same stall.
"He's gay," Beca quickly amends.
(Yeah, right. As if that would rectify the way her heart is slightly off its regular beating pace.)
...
"Trebles, listen up. What we have here is priority zero.. The Bellas won't be doing any of their usual bullshit, so it will be slightly complicated... but come on, gents. Nothing those women can throw at us, that we won't be able to handle. So, without further ado, take it home, Swanson. What's the gameplan?"
"Alright. First of all, we cannot break the rules. That is official, and I don't wanna lose this because of a technicality... of course, that doesn't mean we can't win this because of a technicality, either. Benji, you're with me. The rest of you... well, you know what to do."
...
Once the seatbelt sign lights up, Jesse and Beca strap themselves in, comfortable. Given the new clarification from their bathroom meeting, Beca had kept mostly to herself for the duration of the two-hour flight. Now that they are about to land, though, it's game time.
"Hey, so um..." Restricted by her seatbelt, Beca uses her incapacitation as an excuse to angle her neck as she tries to whisper something to Daniel, who is all too eager to get a chance to peek down her neckline. "You wanna get coffee, or something?"
"I'm sorry, what was that?" comes out as a growl, with eyes trained on not her face.
"Coffee... or something."
She brushes the words across the shell of his ear before she pulls back. His pupils are blown away from the promise of "or something", just as she had intended. (She ignores looking at Jesse altogether.)
"Absolutely."
That is all she needs to hear. She chances a look at Jesse and she's a little bitch for liking how his jaw clenches from her display. But what the hell, this is what he gets for embarrassing her by being transnationally weird in the last weeks. She's earned this one.
So she gives him a playful wink, and she gets a smirk in return.
...
"The Trebles would likely have a lot of people on the ground. You can expect that they will have counter measures for us. So we'll just have to expect them at every turn."
...
It was a piece of cake, really.
His leather carry-on is with him under his chair, of course. But so was hers. All it took was a little distraction from the blond American woman, who was having a bad day, and voila. Target is off the plane with a promise of "coffee or something", and her part of the operation is one half complete.
However, the fact that Jesse is busy looking at a brochure and not caring about the target walking out is hellishly annoying.
"You going after him?" she asks, as passengers all around them are preparing to leave the plane.
"Are you?" he asks her back.
"That's not my part of the operation."
"Then there you go."
Her eyes squint naturally as she tries to think about where he's been since the plane landed, but she can't think of anywhere. He was just... there.
Oh well. His loss.
When the passengers have trickled down to almost nothing, Beca stands up, pulling the target's small leather bag from under her chair. Jesse's eyes bug out.
"What the fuck—"
"Yeah," Beca scrunches her face, if only to annoy him as she looks down at her prize, "I have it. Got the other one from e-bay."
"You already made a switch?! I did not see that."
"That's the point," she says, standing up and making her way towards him. He can't grab the bag from her now and expect to make a run for it. So she casually uses it just like she would any other purse; slings it over her shoulder like the proverbial carrot that he's meant to follow, but is never gonna get.
"I am impressed; that was... pretty good, Beca." He looks up at her towering form (though not by much, because she's a tiny little midget), dimples all too obvious and sincere but she keeps a protective arm around her prize just the same, lest this be some kind of distraction.
(Because she is distracted. By how his eyes light up like he actually means those words.)
Caution still taking priority, she manages to utter a "thanks" as he stands up. She reflexively flinches the package away from him when his body angles closer to hers. He finds her over-cautious and amusing.
"Don't get any ideas," she warns.
"I'm not gonna take anything from you right now, Bec. You've earned that," he chuckles, as he puts up both his hands in surrender and for her peace of mind.
"Besides... the game isn't over yet. Rules are you gotta get that to a safe house."
"I will."
He replies with an even more expansive smile, the kind that would probably be considered romantic, had they been in any other situation. His hands are still ridiculously up, and she wants to tell him to put them down, damnit, you look stupid, but she also wants to keep an eye on him and okay, he's being his silly self and some of the remaining passengers are starting to notice.
"So you just gonna... let me walk away with this?"
In response, still grinning like a fool, he leans closer to press a small kiss to her cheek, hands still up as a white flag of defeat. His lips linger on her skin when she feels his hands move to her arms, while tiny alarm bells form a choir in her brain and start harmonizing to the tune of a suspense soundtrack. A pucker and an arch appear on her brows because, well, this is very awkward. (And kind of... sweet. But still pretty awkward.)
Weirdo.
"What are you doing?"
"Since looks like I'm not gonna see you for that coffee," he whispers before pulling away, regaining his composure and charm enough to walk backwards, tuck his hands in his pockets, a boyish smile being the last thing she sees on him before he turns around and leaves.
Just. like. that.
There are people that have pissed her off in her lifetime, that she would sail halfway around the world just to get away from them...
And then there's this asshole.
Checking to see that the package is intact, she takes a peep inside the bag, and there are the envelopes. She looks up at his exiting form before sticking her tongue in her cheek from sheer annoyance, sarcastic grin spreading slowly over her features as she shakes her head. Even when she wins, even when she goddamn wins...
God, she hates that bastard.
With a sigh the size of Jesse's ego, Beca makes her way off the plane, content that the play is going according to plan. Even if she does hate a certain Treble... for no apparent reason.
(She does. This is hate, and not anything else. Not disappointment... of course not.)
...
"One of the Bellas would most likely grab the documents as soon as the plane lands... Hat, you're on Bella duty number one."
...
"We're playing this one close to the chest, ladies. No mistakes. Expect them at every turn. Also, don't forget to make it look a little hard. We don't want them to suspect anything."
...
And that's how it starts.
AN: Part 1 of 2...
Guys. Guuuys. Gaaaiiiisss...
Where did ya'll go? Is there some secret vacation hideaway I was not invited to? Where are ya'll? :)) In any case, the next chap will be up asap, as soon as it's done with the polishing... As always, please forgive my inaccuracies, and please review! I miss your words! :) I dedicate this chappie to all them hard working Beca/Jesse authors who are working their butts off in school or otherwise. You know who you are. ;) And also, to those who have been consistently reading and reviewing my work... You guys are the light at the end of my weirdly-shaped tunnel. I KNOW YOU. I CAN SEE YOU. YOU ARE ALL IMPORTANT TO ME. *insert mildly-weird but warm hug moment*
This and the next chapter will be light. So that I can set the stage. For, you know, the not light parts.
ps. *cough*shoutout to*cough*BittyAB*cough*and her fic*cough*My Fake Husband*cough*please*cough*update*cough*when you can*cough* :) No but srsly that fic is amazeballs guys if you are 18+ (trigger warning: it's M) that plot is perfect go check it out. :)
EDIT: To Bitty—I love you so much for updating with one of the most heart-tearing chapters yet. YOU GUYS GO READ HER FIC, MY FAKE HUSBAND. SERIOUSLY. READ IT AND WEEP FROM THE PERFECTION.