Word Count: 1,902
Warnings: some minor violence and a little misogyny and some almost vague sexy stuff
Chapter 5-requiem
"There's a girl I remember who was everyone's dream." –Foxes
Irene is an accessory on Napoleon's arm, and she despises it. She nods, and pretends to be surprised and enthralled by business speak, but inside, she's sobbing from boredom.
Catching Gaby's eye across the room, she makes a face. The German woman smiles briefly, before pointing at something with her eyes. Irene follows her gaze past marble columns adorned with gold and discovers that she's now directly at an impossibly beautiful girl. Must be Maya.
Irene smiles politely at whatever boring imbecile Napoleon's talking to, and she leans up towards her faux-husband's ear. "She's there," she whispers, stretching out lipstick-sheathed lips and clacking her teeth together. Rolling back off of her tiptoes, Irene looks at the other man in the conversation. She smiles politely. "Excuse me," she mutters, before stepping around him and heading to ask a waiter for directions to the bathroom.
After locking herself in the stall, Irene checks to make sure her guns are loaded and her knife is in place. There's a dagger at her hip, needles in her hair. She's positively beautiful she's positively lethal.
She wants to do this mission right.
After Irene's sure that everything is in place, she flushes the toilet for good measure and steps out of the stall, fixing her makeup in the mirror. Long lines above her lashes, shadows, stains, tints. She barely looks like herself anymore.
She looks like someone much more dangerous.
Which, conceptually, is ridiculous. The number of people she's killed makes it difficult to be more dangerous, unless you're a lifelong assassin and you've just celebrated your eightieth birthday. In her head, Irene scoffs.
After washing her hands, Irene straightens her posture and heads out of the bathroom. The dull murmur of gossip shooting back and forth from one person to another is familiar, and the way the orchestra plays from the side is comforting.
Irene likes her job.
She scans the crowd for Gaby, to make sure that she's in place. Illya and Napoleon are out of sight, somewhere behind the curtain getting ready for the show. This is not a subtle take-down.
Resting a hand on her hip, Irene checks to see where Maya is, and then turns to Gaby. She nods.
The woman smiles, and says something through gritted teeth into her microphone.
And then, the massive cake in the corner of the room falls over. Irene rushes over towards Maya, not stopping even when the power flickers out for a moment. People scream. She has to move faster, before security finds the girl.
She reaches her after the lights have flickered on and off four times exactly. Irene wraps her fingers around the girl's arm.
"Who are you?" the girl demands, staring at her rudely.
"I'm Agent Acosta. I'm with U.N.C.L.E., and I'm supposed to get you out of here."
"My father would've told me if I were leaving," she scoffs.
Gunshots go off. Her visage switches from snide to panicky.
"We have to go," Irene states rather blatantly, grabbing the girl's arm.
"Wait—I have to—"
"We have to go now!" Irene shouts as a tablecloth in the corner is set on fire. It seems like Illya and Napoleon are doing their jobs fairly well.
"I have to tell my father!" the girl shrieks in a frenzy, and Irene closes her eyes to calm herself down before she actually slaps the girl. Patience is a virtue, but Irene is not virtuous.
"Do you want to die? Because if not, we have to get the hell out of here. Now. Your father will be okay."
Lie.
Lie lie lie lie lie.
Doesn't matter. She just needs to get Maya out.
"Um—" Maya starts, and then screams when one of the giant curtains is lit aflame and topples to the floor. Suddenly, the girl stops fighting, just lets Irene hold her hand and pull her out of the way, through the chaos. Gripping one of her guns, Irene prepares to shoot anyone that gets in her way.
Gaby is already in the car when they get out. She's got the engine warmed up, for when Irene and Maya stumble into the backseat.
"What about my father?" Maya shrieks, spinning around in her seat and looking out the back window. She pounds on it. "Stop the car! We have to get him."
"Control her!" Gaby shouts from up front as she weaves skillfully through traffic.
Irene grabs Maya forcefully, pulling her around. "Sit down and stay still."
"Are you kidnapping me?" Maya demands through shining eyes. "I…they'll come look for me. If you're trying to kidnap me, just know that my father and my fiancé will come for me."
"We're not kidnapping you," Irene defends, lurching to the left as Gaby makes a sharp turn and centripetal force yanks her around. "We're saving you."
Maya turns to Irene. Stares her dead in the eyes for a few moments.
And then, she lets out a shriek.
Irene looks at her, horrified, for a moment before reaching out a hand and slapping her across the face.
"There are no female guards!" Maya shrieks. "You're kidnapping me!"
Just as she says that, Gaby pulls the car over to the sidewalk, where Napoleon and Illya climb in. The brunette in front of the wheel starts to drive again.
Napoleon sits in the backseat, next to Irene. Maya's sobbing, and he glances over at the girl, confused. Somehow, he doesn't look disheveled in the slightest—his hair is still gelled back and his suit unruffled. He tugs at the lapels of his jacket to fix the angle, but that's it. He's back in place.
The four spies are silent as they make their getaway. The only sound is Maya's screaming and crying.
Irene eventually switches seats with her, in case she decides to jump out the car door or something.
They drive for hours.
And then they reach the safehouse.
Irene can remember her romance, if it can even be called that, with Drew quite well.
In 1953, she was at a bar pickpocketing men and saving the bills in their wallets for a plane ticket somewhere else.
"Hey there," someone blubbers from behind her. Irene slowly moves her fingers away from an unattended jacket strewn over the back of a chair. She turns around with wide eyes, mouth open and a thousand excuses on the tip of her tongue. A handsome man, tall and broad shouldered, stands there smiling at her. "I'm Drew," he introduces before she can say a word.
Irene remembers smiling back, hopefully flirtatiously to erase the memory of her trying to steal a wallet. "Irene," she answered, leaning back and exposing the V of her chest.
"What's a pretty thing like you doing here?"
In her head, Irene is screaming. The alarms are sounding. ThingThingThingThingThing she needs to y. She needs to get away from him now he called her a thing she is a goddamn person she needs to run.
She doesn't. She just flips her hair over her shoulder, inhaling his whiskey scent. She leans up close to his ear, and whispers, "That's a secret."
(If she's flirty enough maybe he'll take her to a hotel room, where she can tempt him until he takes off his jacket, and she can pull his wallet out and run.)
He laughs a little in her ear. "Any way I can convince you to tell me?"
Irene leans back, then lifts up an eyebrow. "Maybe."
She knows how to do this because this is how she would lure men into her black widow's web. Flirting. Smile. Make them want more.
"And how's that?" he asks her.
She shrugs. "You could buy me a drink."
He looks entranced, under her spell, and so she laughs over her shoulder and orders two martinis. In an eager haze, he finds a seat at the bar, and she settles down next to him. "Where are you from, Irene?"
Shaking her head, she answers, "Not yet. I'll ask you questions first." Assess if it's worth trying to grab his money. Does he have enough? "How old are you?"
"Twenty five," he answers dutifully. "You?"
Nineteen. "Twenty two." She raises a brow at him. "What do you do?"
"My dad owns a firm, Rogers and Co. I'm a lawyer."
The bartender places two martinis in front of them. Irene drums her nails against the table. "Are you a Mister Rogers, then?"
He laughs. "I suppose so."
She smiles, traces a deliberate path across her teeth with her tongue. Tantalizing. Tempting. She can see in the way his eyes darken that he's completely engrossed in her words.
She's got him.
"Do you have a wife?" she asks him.
Drew frowns. "No. My dad's pressuring me to find one though."
Opening.
"I don't know if I can marry you," she starts, taking a drawn out sip from her glass, "but maybe you can get us a hotel room, and we can see from there."
He hesitates. Ohnoohnoohno. But then, he grins back at her. Wolfish grin. Scary grin. Grandmawhatbigteethyouhave grin. And he says, "Let's go."
They abandon half-filled drinks and walk down the sidewalk until they find a motel. He rents a room, they stumble in, Irene reaches into his coat, sloppy mouths. She pulls a wallet out of his pocket and stumbles into him to distract while she shoves it into her pocket.
He grabs her wrist though, and mumbles against her lips, "I know what you're doing."
Irene pulls away, ready to run, but he holds her in place.
"I'm not gonna hurt you," he tells her, and Irene has already balled her hands into fists, ready to punch him and make a hasty escape. "I want to make a proposal," he starts, but Irene is already swinging her hand forward, upwards to break his nose.
Drew stumbles back.
"Whoa, whoa, hold on. I was gonna say, that if you marry me—"
"No."
"Wait, if you marry me, I'll support you financially. A hundred percent. Whatever you want. I need a wife, and judging by the fact that you're trying to steal my wallet, you need money. It's mutually beneficial."
Irene eyes him suspiciously. "How can I trust you? That you won't kidnap me?"
"How can I trust you?" he counters. "How can I trust that you won't take my money and run?"
Balling her fists up, Irene spits out, "I'm not that kind of girl."
"And I'm not that kind of guy," he returns easily. The stare at each other. "Look, you won't have to work another day of your life. We can find a nice house and you can do whatever you want for the rest of your life."
Irene can't believe she's considering it. She can't believe herself when she reaches out a hand to shake his. "Fine."
That's all there is. Business, and nothing else.
a/n: I feel like the first part of this chapter was a mess but the rest was okay. I'm sorry about the long wait :/
Thank you so much for all of the reviews! Please keep em coming