Title: Stratego
Author: Moi!
Rating: Beh, no naughty bits showing no naughty words used...but still some grown up themes so this ain't the Smurfs :-p (Which are back on Fox in the AM! is nostalgic)
Spoilers: General Season 4 I suppose
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em, frankly owning SpyDaddy would scare me to no end. He'd be all glowery and I'd be all quaking in terror. It's best he stays where he is.
Author's Note: I owe scrollgirl and clannadlvr much luv and adoration for providing two very complimentary (to each other I mean G) betas. They smoothed over my booboos, kept my ego from deflating like the overblown balloon that it is and generally made my fic work! snuggles the ladies
This fic was written for yahtzee63's WowWrongBadHot Jack/Nadia ficathon and was written for

violaswamp who asked for:

Must have: Dark UST, with comparisons of Nadia to Irina
Could have: Jack using Nadia to hurt Sloane
Shouldn't have: fluff or Sydney. Somehow I can't think of Sydney in the same breath as J/N.

I didn't go fluffy and she's not mentioned. UST is hard for me to judge but I'm hoping some comes across :-p and the title?

Well isn't everything a game?

"Stratego"
by M.
-------
Neither man can miss it and that was what he was betting on.

With a turn of her head, a lift of her lips, and the graceful motion of her body, Nadia unwittingly made the comparison unmistakable. In so many ways she was Irina reborn. Her appearance, her mannerisms, even the cadence of her voice were all strongly reminiscent of her mother.

There was very little, if anything, of Sloane in her and that made it so much easier. In many ways it is too easy. All Jack saw when he looked at Nadia was the perfect mix of the two sides of her mother. She was Irina's fire and skill tempered by Laura's gentle spirit and soft spoken ways.

She'd grown into being the perfect trap. A trap, Jack knew only too well, could have been tailor made for him. If he did not keep careful watch of himself, he knew he could become so tightly ensnared he would never be free. Caught in a trap from which he would not want to be freed. Willingly lost forever in a world of dark, bewitching eyes and slow, innocently seductive smiles.

Working side by side with her day in and day out, Jack could see quite clearly how Sloane became so caught up with Irina. How he must have as well. In her own way, Nadia was as captivating as her mother and in that captivation a part of Jack saw his opportunity. It was a part of himself he did not often acknowledge but drew on more often than he would be comfortable admitting. From that part of himself, he commanded the ability to view any situation through a cool and analytical eye and settle on the most logical course of action.

Precisely as he did with Nadia.

The admission by Sloane of Irina's infidelity with him so many years before had, interestingly enough, done far more than upset the balance of Jack's life. It had revealed to him an inherent weakness in his position. One he had been further weakened by due to his ignorance of. Jack had little use for weakness and even less tolerance. The news from his sometimes-friend, long-time adversary had sent him into immediate damage control mode. He had to minimize the import of the devastating news while inflicting the very same devastation on Sloane. If possible of course.

Nadia presented the ultimate means of attaining that goal.

To that end, Jack began making subtle and calculated movements. Overtures though no one would see them as such. It was almost too easy for him to elicit the necessary reactions in her. If he had let himself, the ease of his success would have led him to a feeling of guilt. However guilt was an emotion he could ill afford and so Jack settled on reminders of his goal. A goal arrived at through logic...and his own desires.

It was a rare thing for his personal desires to dovetail so elegantly into his strategic goals. The fact they did was both to be celebrated and carefully observed. If he was not careful, if he did not keep close watch, he was aware he could very well find himself hopelessly entangled. A fate which concerned him. There was a good chance that it was, potentially, Sloane's goal.

Jack had long since admitted to himself there was the possibility she might very well be working for her father. He wholly believed Sloane could - and would - easily dispatch Nadia on just such a mission. Seduce his supposed best friend. No doubt he would make mournful comments of the nature of nobility and the need to serve the greater purpose. Perhaps Nadia would even believe them no matter how hollow the words. Appearances were everything to Sloane. Substance was another matter entirely.

For that reason and many others as well, Jack felt absolutely no regret about the end result toward which he was subtly guiding Nadia. If she truly was as hopelessly naive as she appeared to be then he would have to take care. Teach her the things which she would need to know to survive in Sloane's world. The skills that her mentors had been neglectful in not imparting to her. If, however, they'd been more skillful than even he could have anticipated and that naiveté was a artfully created facade...That would level the playing field nicely and if she were not in Sloane's control, there were equally usefully lessons which he could impart and many, many things they could accomplish together. Controlling her father chief among them. Arvin Sloane, Jack knew, was not an enemy one destroyed. He was one to be used.

Ascertaining which Nadia was which would take time. Time and a lot of very careful planning on Jack's part. He had to orchestrate things very precisely. Even if Nadia was not acting as her father's agent, one wrong move by Jack could very well be passed on to Sloane unwittingly. While Jack wished the moment would come when Sloane realized he had lost his daughter to his old 'friend' he had to be careful. If the deepening connection between them came to Sloane's attention too soon then that connection very well could been destroyed. After all, Nadia was Sloane's trophy. A representation of his victory over Jack so many years before. He had known what his friend had not and he had used it to his advantage and seemed to delight in the reminder of such. One thing Sloane hated beyond anything else was to lose and if it came to his attention that his most prized trophy was being stolen away he might very well succeed in stopping the theft. And that, to Jack, was an unacceptable outcome.

Thus, subtlety was the keyword of the day. Conveniently accidental run-ins were always a highly successful and relatively low risk option which Jack deftly employed. With great care he engineered several of them over a staggered period of time. Each was purely accidental and lucky in appearance and that was done through the most detailed of planning, paying off quite satisfactorily. His own natural reticence with conversation unexpectedly proved a benefit as Nadia seemed to rush to 'fill in the blanks' as it were. He found her sympathetic attempts quite endearing and tempting in a rather unforseen way.

Precisely as he expected, even though he used those run-ins sparingly, the awkwardness of the conversations and the visits slowly began to fade. What he had not expected was the discovery that he regretted the loss of her early reactions to a certain degree. The light in her eyes had changed and she was growing more composed and comfortable. The way she now reacted was not the way she had before, and while she was always pleased to see him...the awkward blush that would tinge her cheeks was subsiding. Nadia was always lovely but never more so than when she blushed. He quite enjoyed watching her blush. It was a trait he'd appreciated in Laura as well.

What he did not regret, however, was the nervousness being replaced by a growing ease, comfort, with him and - in fact - he was growing increasingly intrigued by it. A side of Nadia was emerging from behind carefully constructed walls. He was beginning to see the woman she kept hidden away. The woman sculpted by the abandonments, disappointments and betrayals which were the hallmarks of her past. Nadia was as much actress as she was intelligence agent and he had come to realize she played differering roles for everyone around her. Devoted, naive sister; sweet, innocent and inexperienced young woman; confused daughter; competent agent...

It made things as complicated as it did simple. It meant considering her every response and sifting out what was genuinely her and what was her attempt to be what he wished her to be. But, no matter, he merely folded a new layer into his already complex and multi-layered strategy. He actively approached her outside of work, always careful to make sure she was alone when he did so. Manipulation was an art form and Jack had no illusions about his skill in that particular area. He'd learned and molded himself into a master of the art, determined to recognize in others the very techniques Irina had so easily used on him. He would not be played so easily again and the fact that Sloane had been complicit in Irina's deceptions, had held the upper hand for years while allowing him to remain blissfully unaware of the imbalance, burned. It burned deep and hot and fueled his actions as much as desire and his need for control.

Beneath that control, beneath his training and his discipline, where his desires and needs existed was the knowledge that for as much as he told himself he logically needed the upper hand with Sloane, needed the strategic advantage that Nadia in his bed would give him...he knew the desire for revenge, the desire for Irina, and the desire for Nadia herself were tumbling together. Blending and intermingling. It should have amazed him that he managed to keep a lid on it at all. That it didn't boil over anytime that Nadia ventured near. Perhaps, on some level, it did mystify him that he could keep it from her, from the others, every day. There was no mistaking that, for now, they had no clue. Sloane would in time, but the others - there was no need for them to know. He would not tell them and neither would Sloane. The humiliation of having lost his daughter to the man he called friend but betrayed as a matter of course...Sloane's need for the persona he'd crafted about himself would prevent that from ever happening. It didn't matter to Jack. He would have everything he'd set out to accomplish. He would have the upper hand once more, he would have his revenge and he would have Nadia. Whether anyone else knew or not was irrelevant to that end and he, therefore, saw no need to inform or reveal his desires to anyone else. If anything, he saw only reasons to the contrary and worked with that in mind.

He made neutral comments which were innocuous to anyone who would overhear but carried a thousand different meanings to the ears for which they were meant. He did not congratulate himself when those dark eyes sparkled and her flawless mouth widened into a shining smile. He would not spare himself the arrogance or luxury of that action but he did take the time to indulge himself in the beauty of which she seemed so unaware of. Nadia was no fool, she used her body in her work, used it against the men and women she was assigned as targets but there were moments when Jack doubted she truly comprehended her own beauty. Her mother had projected the same guilelessness and although he'd been given much cause to doubt that. Looking back, he could recall moments where he wondered if Irina had not comprehended it as well. There were light years between the command of sexual power and the ability to wield it and a woman's genuine comprehension of her own beauty. Like he had with Laura, Jack knew he would devote time to showing Nadia the truth of herself even as he showed her so much else.

He did not devote much time to the contemplation of that nebulous future. It was foolish to dream and wonder of something which he had yet to achieve. Not when there was a chance he might not achieve it at all. There was much to concern himself with in the task at hand to waste time and energy with fanciful dreams. He considered and contemplated all that he needed to then left the rest of that time to if and when it arrived. In the meantime, he focused on the task of wooing Nadia Santos. As assignments go, even self-given ones, he'd rarely had one so pleasant and he was not immune to the charms of it. As Nadia grew increasingly more comfortable with him and the dynamic between them slowly evolved, he found himself initiating less of the contact. She began to engage in the very same subterfuge he had used on her. Suddenly Nadia was the one turning up in places unexpectedly, arranging chance encounters and run-ins.

While the man beneath the agent was both amused and attracted, that calm and analytical side of Jack noted the change and adjusted strategy accordingly. His plan, if nothing else, had to be organic and ever evolving. Nadia could never know the lengths to which he had gone to achieve her response and she certainly could never know the reasons behind it. Jack was content to leave her to her blissful ignorance as he had been so blissfully unaware decades before. He did not regret the decision. There was much he wished he did not know and for as much as her resemblance and echoes of Irina drew him...

He wished they were not there as well. He knew they were all of the things which made the growing relationship a dark and complex secret rather than a simple connection.It was the only wish he allowed himself and it was not one he indulged in often. Only in the moments when Nadia turned toward him a certain way with a certain smile on her face and time melted away...In that moment he wished things were different.

But the moments inevitably would pass, they always did and always would, and Jack...Jack continued on with the plan.

finis