Baikal on the Rocks

Patton had been unpacking the ice his team dug up from the Arctic landscape for the The Mocktail Spritz's diminishing stock when Rachel arrived like clockwork for their weekly drink meet up.

"You cursed in Russian without a translator," she half-greeted, half-accused.

The pure clear ice block was heavy and sinking into his arms, but he couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at her before nearly dropping it on the Number Jarvis' shiny black shoes. "Hello to you too, Supreme Leader, sir."

She moved quickly, securing the other end of the giant block when she saw him struggle with it and together managed to heave it to the secret back room where the ice box was in desperate need of succor. Maneuvering it took way too long due to its size so Patton reminded himself to give his ice pickers a stern shout down about the laziness of shoddy ice cutting.

Rachel's teeth started to chatter when they set the block down and she immediately started to dust away the ice from her reddened hands.

Patton frowned. "Need a medic?"

"Seriously? You worry too much." Instead she accepted a warm wet towel from the grateful bartender and hissed when she dabbed it on her freezing fingers when they took their usual seats at the farthest booth. "I know I'm Supreme Leader, but I've had a malfunctioning FRAPPE gun blow up in my face before. Way worse."

He lifted his palms up in surrender. "I can't help it. You're our delicate little pencil-pusher and I need those hands ready to sign off on some very important request forms for more SKEEBIKEs next quarter."

Her jaw dropped incredulously. "What happened to the dozen of them I shipped off last month?!"

"Two words," he raised two fingers. "Cadet training."

"Maybe you should use 'less vehicles' in your drills," she said in a deadpan and raised two of her still shiny red fingers. As for him, thank Zero for gloves. She suddenly shot her head up. "About that Russian thing..."

"I knew this was going to pop up one day. I just knew it." Their drinks were put on hold for now until the ice machine finished restarting. It was really unfortunate, because he had an inkling feeling he was going to need it.

She set the rag down and met his uncomfortable eyes with her own kind ones. "Hey, you don't have to explain if you don't want to, big guy. I was just curious."

Just like that, it was like he could tell her anything. She had that kind of effect on people. It made her a popular Supreme Leader for it. He rubbed the back of his neck for a moment and watched the bartender work on their drinks in order to get a hold of himself. "It's no one's business about my personal life, but you're the exception. You know that."

He knew she was beaming by that tell-tale soft hum she makes when she witnessed something cute, but he refused to see for himself. Otherwise, he'd be a pile of goop on the floor alongside the melting ice in the storage room. "My mom's a total American soldier, born and raised. Her dad and gramps before that, they were all war heroes. Fought in every American war."

"Naturally," she teased. "I expected nothing less from a Drilovsky. Er... I think? No wait, that's Russian?"

"It's a really long story so I'll shorten it before you snooze," he teased back. "My dad's the same. The Drilovsky men are as hard as you can get as soldiers except they were Russian and well... there's a reason it was called the Cold War."

Rachel sat her cheek onto her palm. "How ironic for you then."

"Anyway, my mom wasn't allowed on the front lines because she was a girl, so they stuck her in espionage. Worst right?" Rachel grinned and he continued. "She spent her time as a spy for the American government keeping an eye on the prize near the end of the Cold War. That being my dad of course. I guess Russia wasn't as fun as America because it was really easy for her to tell him how great her country was. They got chummy, he wanted to marry her, and she turned him down because she wanted to marry an American man. When the war ended and she left for America he dropped everything to follow her and got his citizenship. You can see where this is going."

Her sly smiles were always contagious. "He couldn't resist your military-grade gorgeous super-spy of a mom, could he? Sounds like one of those romantic novels my gran enjoys reading."

"Yeah yeah," he dismissed with a grin of his own. "Well no reasonable girl could withstand the manly charm of a Drilovsky. Not with these guns!" He flexed one of his biceps which earned a slow clap from his superior despite the heavy jacket rendering the whole act moot.

"Easy there big guy," she said playfully. "I've seen what you looked like as an old man."

He flinched and tried to recover. "You weren't very easy on the eyes yourself," he shot back. "You sagged."

She sputtered and covered her chest out of instinct. "W-well, you went in your pants!"

He laughed nervously, disguising is mild PTSD about that horrific event with humor. "Keep that down, would you? I don't want the long line of girls outside my office to shorten."

Rachel burst out laughing. "You sure that's not from all the demerits you hand out? You've got the worst track record writing up demerits in the entire seventh age!"

He resisted the urge to stick his tongue out. "I play to win. No wimp's getting graduated under my watch."

"Maybe that's why I spoil your frozen butt so much. You do deliver on great operatives." The drinks finally arrived and, with a lazy toast to the lack of lazy operatives under their command, took a well deserved drink.

"So your dad taught you Russian then?" she asked, bringing the conversation full circle.

Patton shrugged. "I only take what he offers. Most of it is from him cursing. Did spend some of my summers with my grandparents in Moscow whenever we had the money to do it, so I did pick up the essentials." Judging by the eager look on her face, his lips twitched. "You want me to talk to you in Russian, don't you?"

"Yes please!" she leaned forward, her expression playful and dreamy, and the years of knowing her fascination with foreign languages almost made him want to kick himself. He should have told her sooner if this was the response he was getting: pure interest.

He internally preened before delivering on her wish. "I just realized you don't even know what I'm saying now," he purred to her in Russian. "I could call you all sorts of names or insult you and you'd still smile. I won't of course. I'd never really insult you."

Her shoulders hitched at the unfamiliar accent and words that should never naturally come out of Patton's mouth the longest she knew him, but the way she beamed at him said it all. "Jeez, Numbuh 60!" she playfully fanned at herself. "Don't reveal to anyone that you can speak a foreign language. You'll ruin my Moonbase when the girls start charging after you!"

"Sorry," he continued in his father's foreign tongue. "Nah, I'm not sorry. I don't like speaking Russian anyways. But you asked and it's really hard to say no to you. I wonder why."

"You're insulting me, aren't you?" Rachel laughed. "It sounds like you're insulting me!"

Patton raised an eyebrow. "No. Cutie pie. AH-HA!" She had instantly blushed at the words, confirming his suspicions. "Couldn't catch me this time, could you? Of course you could understand Russian, you sneaky espionage agent you!"

That impish smile returned. "Okay you caught me. Just the major languages though. My specialization in Intelligence training was acting as an omniglot. I hated it because they'd always use me as a guinea pig updating the KND translators. Helped credit a lot of foreign diplomacy missions at least. Probably why I was recommended for the Supreme Leader position in the first place. I can yell REALLY well."

A thought hit him that made him grin. "We should talk in complete Russian one day in front of Numbuh 86. She'd probably go insane!"

Rachel let out a bark of laughter. "Give her a nickname in Russian. She'd hate that!"

"I'll call her Котенок every once in awhile just so she'd think her translator got messed up. Don't you think it fits, Зайка?"

She ducked her head and tried not to blush.

Котенок [ko'tenok] - Kitten (probably because Fanny's got the temperament of one)

Зайка [zajka] - Bunny (named as a play on the Japanese rabbit on the moon)