Chapter Text
“Don’t think. Just let it happen.” – James Bond, The Living Daylights
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Moscow, Russia — 22:15
Wrapping her quilted coat tighter around her body, Sara lets out a long sigh and watches as her breath forms a grey, foggy cloud in front of her face. It’s freezing, or close to freezing, and when Sara’s heel catches on a patch of slick ice tucked underneath the deep beds of snow, she suddenly regrets not wearing a more suitable pair of shoes for this outing. Her destination is up the road, an upscale bar decorated with glistening lights that are muted by the snow that drapes heavily over the outdoor awning. Outside, only a few customers linger by the synthetic fire pit, everyone else is already crowded inside to enjoy the warm refuge from the cold.
With another frustrated huff, Sara shoves her hands down deep into the deep pockets of her coat and clenches her hands into fists. Gloves are something else that she should have considered, and she silently curses herself for not checking the weather before arriving here. In her hotel room, Sara has a suitcase lined with various weapons, but somehow packing appropriate winter wear had slipped her mind when she was preparing for this trip. This kind of weather was certainly not in the job briefing, and Sara makes a mental note to always check the forecasts before even setting foot on a plane in the future.
Behind Sara, laughter sounds from a nearby alleyway, the one that she passed only seconds ago. Turning to look over her shoulder, she catches sight of two men stumbling from the bar that’s situated back in the alcove. One of them nearly falls into the snowbank as his friend attempts to haul him up by the arm. They’re clearly drunk, and clearly not a threat, so Sara allows her shoulders to unwind as she releases the grip she had on the knife in her pocket.
On any other night, wearing any other outfit, Sara might consider the city beautiful. A full moon hangs in the sky above, casting sweeping beams of silver light down at the reflective snow. All the buildings that line the cobblestone streets are decorated merrily for Christmas. String lights wrap lampposts and throw vibrant hues of red and green onto the carpets of snow below, and the few trees along the walkways have barren branches that sport ornaments and icicles. It’s more festive here than Sara expected it to be, something that has her chest constricting slightly as she drags her eyes away from the decadent window displays.
An abrupt ringing sound comes from the inside pocket of her coat, the sound splitting through the silence blanketing the snow-covered streets. With a quiet groan, Sara removes a single hand from her pocket and roots around for her phone. Finding it, she flips it open and presses it between her ear and her shoulder. “What is it, Stan?” Sara replies impatiently, already returning her chilled hand to its home before the cold can get to it.
“Are you in the city?” her temporary handler questions, clearly wasting no time. Clicking her tongue, Sara hums affirmatively before checking over her shoulder once more. “I just heard that you’ve finished your first job there,” Stan begins, the sound of paper rustling coming from his side of the line, “You’re already moving to the next one and you have all the details, correct?”
Sara snorts quietly. It’s a stupid question to ask seeing as Stan is the one who forwarded Sara the file yet again this morning. “Yes, I do,” Sara responds, “She’s going by the alias Ava Shaw, she’s somewhere in her late twenties, and intel suggests she might be here to kill one of the media moguls in the area.” Sara pauses as Stan hums on the other end of the line. “What your file conveniently left out is that she’s notoriously hard to find,” Sara complains, gripping her dress from inside her pocket and tugging it up so she can step carefully over a patch of ice, “I’ve been looking for an hour and a half now, and she’s nowhere to be found.”
For a moment, there’s no reply from Stan, just the sound of a telephone ringing somewhere in the background. “You understand that this job has a no engagement order attached, correct?” Stan demands with a sudden edge to his tone that Sara doesn’t appreciate. Raising her brows, she shifts her phone to her other ear and waits for Stan to continue. “Your company,” he spits the final word out, “Has me under temporary contract, but if you mess up, I’m the one who takes the blame for this—so don’t make any mistakes.”
Laughing quietly, Sara approaches the doors of the well-lit bar and quickly ducks inside. “Stan, I really don’t think you're in any position to be giving orders here,” Sara comments as the warmth of the room envelops her. A quiet sigh passes through her lips as she finally lets the edges of her coat fall open, the chill already fading away where it had settled along her skin. After nearly an hour spent in the snow as she traveled from bar to bar, Sara basks in the heat that chases away the cold.
The room is just as crowded as it appeared from the outside, so Sara lingers near the outskirts of the crowd as she lowers her voice slightly. “You’re just a glorified pencil pusher at a telemarketing company who says the most exotic place you’ve ever traveled to is Florida,” Sara continues flippantly as Stan makes a quiet affronted noise on the other end, “I could find you in ten minutes if I wanted to, likely from your favourite take out places and the movie rental service you use every Friday night because let’s be honest, Stan—you’re not the going out type.”
A choked sound comes from the speaker of Sara’s phone just as her lips lift upwards in a smile. Silence falls on Stan’s end, except for a squeaking sound that must be his office chair and the dejected exhale he breathes out. “You found my blog,” Stan mutters, his defeat audible in his tone.
It was hardly a difficult task, but Sara doesn’t need to tell him that. “I found your blog,” she confirms, already surveying the room to see if any women in the bar match the photo that was tucked in her job file, “It was cute though—the cursive font was a nice touch. Though you should consider password protection, because if your colleagues find out what you’re writing about them, I get the feeling you’d no longer be everyone’s favorite errand boy.”
Shuffling comes from the other side, followed by another ear splitting screech of his chair. “Just do your job,” Stan says gruffly before a loud click echoes through the speaker. Unable to stop herself, Sara chuckles quietly before tucking her phone away. Normally she might not mess with her handlers, but Stan is easy to rile up and is always far too pushy. Already Sara is wishing that her usually stoic primary handler would return from his own assignment so she can be rid of Stan and his fussiness.
All around Sara, couples and larger groups of people crowd around high topped tables. They’re enjoying an evening out before the snowfall accelerates and blankets the entire city, making it impossible for anyone to go anywhere. Everyone is dressed in suits or evening gowns, the kind of dress code that Sara in her long red dress and high heels fits in with effortlessly. Scanning the room, Sara searches for the one person that she’s here for, her protection assignment for the foreseeable future. Yet wherever Sara looks, she can’t catch a glimpse of blonde hair or the dark blue eyes that she’s been staring at in the case file photo for days. Clearly, Ava is not here in this bar tonight.
Frustration wells up in Sara’s chest as she lets out a long sigh before turning towards the door again, already bracing herself for the cold. Outside, the wind has picked up, whipping Sara’s loose hair around her face as she looks around her. Her file gave little to no information on Ava, but Sara knows her. Or at least she knows Ava’s type. She’ll want somewhere quiet, isolated, and preferably off the beaten path. Cameras will likely factor into the spy’s choice, so Sara lifts her head up and checks the surrounding lampposts and signs to see where they’re located.
Just down the block and across the street, a tiny back alley leads to a lit up sign that Sara can barely make out from here. Not a single street camera is pointed that direction, and it’s just dimly lit enough that someone could easily move through the shadows undetected. “Spies,” Sara mutters to herself as she carefully steps off the curb, “So predictable.”
It doesn’t take long to cross the street, and it takes even less time for Sara to trudge through the lighter layers of fallen snow in the alley. The bar is dingy and rundown, likely one that is going to house a multitude of criminals. The perfect place to go if someone wants to be ignored and overlooked. Light pours through the opaque windows, turning the snow below a shimmering golden color. Walking along the river of light that carves through snow and ice, Sara finds her way to the door and tugs it open.
As expected, not a single person looks up at the sound of the door opening. Booths crowd the side wall of the bar, but only half are occupied with a variety of shady-looking customers. Sara’s fingers slip around the knife in her pocket, already prepared on the off chance that someone tries something. Even the bartender doesn’t so much as look Sara’s way, too occupied with arranging the very fake red flowers in ceramic vases along the countertops.
At the very end of the bar, a dark blue overcoat with black elbow patches is draped over the back of the seat. A blonde woman sits there, her eyes focused on a stack of papers in front of her. The rest of the countertop bar remains empty, and the woman is partially obscured from view by red flowers. Yet for a moment, the woman looks to the side and Sara catches a glimpse of a deep-set frown and bright grey-blue eyes. Even from this distance, Sara already knows that she has found the elusive Ava Sharpe. A smile tugs at the corners of Sara’s lips as she carefully makes her way to the back of the bar and slips into an empty booth. Now facing Ava’s side, Sara wraps her coat further around her body and leans backwards. Completely oblivious to the attention Sara is paying her, Ava remains hunched over the file on the countertop. Sara can’t help but let out a small laugh at how this time around, she had to hunt Ava down instead of running into her on accident.
Because this isn’t Sara’s first time seeing Ava. However, this is the first time that she’s had the time to really look at her. Ava’s shoulders are slightly slumped as she bows her head over the file, her brows creased in concentration as her finger maps over the file in front of her. Sara tilts her head to the side and shifts to the very corner of the booth where she’s hidden away from any scrutiny should the other patrons decide to take an interest in her after all.
Unlike everyone else in the bar, Ava is dressed nicely. Whereas the rest of the bar patrons are wearing rugged outdoor clothing, she has on a stark white button down and pleated black dress slacks. Her sleeves are rolled and fall further up her arm when Ava rests her elbow on the counter and tucks her chin in her palm—the action revealing tanned skin and well-defined muscles in her forearms. Her hair is just as neat as every pressed line in her shirt, tucked behind her ears and tumbling halfway down her back in loose waves.
Somehow, this is not what Sara imagined Ava would look like. Before, she’d only caught glimpses of Ava, always on security cameras. The League has been monitoring Ava’s work for a while now, though Sara knows that they haven’t yet connected Ava Sharpe to the elusive spy that is constantly meddling in League affairs. The file that Sara read this morning never even mentioned that Ava was a spy, but it never had to. After what happened in Belgium with the forger, Sara was finally able to connect a name to a face and it didn’t take her long to realize that Ava is the spy the League has been watching.
Sara’s eyes fall once more to the coat draped over the chair back. Her gaze catches on a piece of red fabric tucked just under the collar near the left shoulder. Leaning back in the booth, Sara lets out a quiet laugh of disbelief. She knows that coat, she’s seen it before. Prague, a year ago, Sara saw a woman stab a man with the tip of an umbrella in broad daylight. The woman had been dressed in that very coat, one with an identical red patch under the collar. She remembers it happened in less than a second, that it was something she had to think back to when the man suddenly collapsed in the streets. All Sara could recall was a glimpse of red against a blue coat and the feathering of blonde hair blowing in the breeze.
This wasn’t in the file, but then again Sara doubts that the League knew it was Ava. She never even knew. Ava Sharpe just became a lot more interesting. Right now, Sara is far too close for protocol. She can almost hear the voices of Stan and her handler reminding her to never let herself get caught in the target’s line of sight—that leaving a witness is never an option. Yet Sara never much cared to listen to those rules, and she’s not about to start tonight. Not when Ava is right here and Sara can finally study her.
At the counter, Ava flexes her shoulders before settling again, the line of her jaw jumping as she roughly turns the page of the file in front of her. Sara finds herself wondering if Ava’s eyes are just as bright and piercing as they were in the photo she found in that file in Brussels. She’s sure that they are, and she almost wishes that Ava would turn her way. Instead the spy doesn’t move, her free arm draped over her lap where Sara can see the outline of a gun laid under the thin blazer Ava has draped across her legs.
When Ava turns the page again, Sara can almost decipher some of the text present on the paper. But she can’t read it—it’s in French. Against her will, she feels her brows raise slightly. She can’t help but be slightly impressed. It’s amazing really, that Ava is here in the middle of this bar in Moscow, reading a document in a foreign language, and yet not a single soul is paying her any mind. She’s hiding in plain sight, and she’s doing so effortlessly. Nobody else is looking at her but Sara can’t take her eyes off Ava. In photos, Ava is beautiful but here in this bar, even with the shadows cast over her features, Ava is stunning.
The League calls her the Director; a cold and ruthless spy known for her ability to take down her company’s enemies in a matter of days. Sara’s assignment to her came with a do-not-engage order, one that was marked in all red and underlined three times. Yet despite her reputation, Ava looks almost harmless. She looks almost softened in this light, in this bar, and sitting at the counter with her shoulders weighed down in what might very well be defeat.
Sara’s gaze tracks to Ava’s face once more, her eyes tracing the slope of Ava’s cheekbones down to the soft frown she’s sporting. Even from a distance, Sara can see light and delicate freckles dappling her cheek and jaw, spreading down the side of her neck where three buttons of her shirt are undone. More tanned skin is on display there, a flush present across Ava’s collarbones, likely from the heat inside the bar. Her own cheeks flushing, Sara drags her eyes upwards once more as she scans Ava’s posture.
Ava’s chin now rests in her palm, her spine curved as she leans further over the counter. Combined with Ava’s blank stare at the file and the slight frown pulling at her lips, it’s a look that Sara thinks she might recognize. She wonders if life as a spy is just as lonely as that of an assassin. She wonders if Ava is only here instead of in her hotel room so she doesn’t have to be surrounded by so much unchanging silence. Sara wonders if Ava ever gets that same deep ache in her chest when she thinks about what life outside this job is like. But most importantly, she wonders what Ava might do if Sara were to approach her right now.
Sara shouldn’t, she knows that. But the urge to walk over is bubbling up in her chest. It’s been so long since Sara was around someone who knows this lifestyle. Assassin or spy, it’s a lonely life, one where everything is always changing and rapid adaptation to new circumstances is the only option. A new city every week or month makes it hard to get used to any kind of habit. The only habit that Sara has formed over the years is how to never make them. Yet for some reason, here is Ava, the very woman that Sara has crossed paths with over and over. Of all the assignments to come Sara’s way, this was the one she was given and she’s finding it harder and harder to remember those red underlines on the paper.
Right now, Sara should walk out. The door is right there across the bar—twenty paces and she could reach it. She could leave and find a place across the street to wait until the time comes to follow Ava home and make sure that she moves through the city unharmed. It would be so much easier to do just that—to just follow her orders as they were given to her and to not make contact with the sullen spy sitting at the counter. She shouldn’t play games with spies, no matter how enticing the spy might be. The League taught her to never do that.
But part of Sara’s job means reinventing the rules, and making everything fun is the only way Sara gets by. That’s what she blames her actions on when she pushes up from the booth and walks over to the unoccupied seat next to Ava. Spies might like their secrets, but Sara has never been able to resist a good puzzle. Taking another deep breath, Sara calms the excitement curling in her stomach as she sits down in the padded royal blue seat at the bar. Blue-grey eyes meet her own after Sara orders drinks and something flutters in her chest when she finds that Ava’s eyes are far more striking than she had imagined. Ava’s frown is back in full force and Sara can’t help the way her eyes flicker down to Ava’s lips when the spy glances away for a moment.
Sara shouldn’t be doing this, so she will blame her flirting on the long day she’s had. She’ll blame her disregard of orders on her diligence, on the fact that the League could always use more intel on the Operative. She’ll blame her staring on the fact that Ava is doing it too, the fact that Ava’s eyes are traveling over her. When Ava raises her glass upwards, her lips already curving into a grin, Sara can’t fight her own smile off. The knowledge that she shouldn’t be doing this makes it all the more exhilarating, and Sara doesn’t want to quiet the thrumming inside her chest—the first time that she has felt this kind of thrill in a long while.
Ava pulls her hand away and Sara skims her fingers over the delicate bones of Ava’s wrist; eliciting another almost smile from the spy. Sara will have to blame that on the single sip of vodka she took and the way Ava’s gaze makes her forget all about the rules of engagement and deep red lines scored into files. When they keep talking, Sara will blame it on her need to know more, her need to dig her fingers into Ava Sharpe and draw out everything that makes her the enigma she seems to be. Sara wants to know everything. Ava doesn’t know it, but the game has begun, and this time, Sara just knows it’s going to be a fun one. A tiny smile tugs at the corners of her lips as she lifts her glass to Ava’s, gazing back into deep, bright eyes, “To business, and maybe just a little bit of pleasure.”
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