#Agent Alix Martinelli

[liebgotts-lovergirl]

Fire On Fire: Chapter 19

(Ch. 18) ... (Ch. 1)

II Gallery II Symbol Guide II

Summary: Nothing solidifies a friendship like a good old-fashioned jailbreak.

A/N: According to everyone who knew him irl, Skip Muck was the Mom Friend of his group & sooo here, have some Reluctant Dad Friend Nix & Fun Mom Friend Muck😌💖

Taglist: @latibvles @softguarnere @brassknucklespeirs @mccall-muffin @lieutenant-speirs @emmythespacecowgirl @holdingforgeneralhugs @parajumpboots @hxad-ovxr-hxart @sleepisforcowards @indigo-luvers @ax-elcfucker-blog @chaosklutz @mads-weasley @wwhatev3r

Contemporary: October 22nd, 1944. Zetten-Andelot, Netherlands.

“Just for the record, my helping does not mean I’m condoning this.” 

It took all of Alix's self-control not to roll her eyes at her handler as he neared to help her unwind the last of the bandages on her head. 

“Yes, I know," she groaned, half under her breath. "We heard you the first thousand times you said it."

Nixon passed the bandage to Malarkey, who stuffed it quickly into his pocket for safekeeping.

"And you'll hear it a thousand more, Martinelli, because it's a terrible idea!" 

"Then why are you still here?" Alix shot back, momentarily taking a break from unrolling the baggy jump jacket Skip had supplied to glare at Nixon.

"If you don't want to be involved, sir, you’re free to go."

Her case officer washed down another sip of liquor from his flask as he watched Alix tie the jacket around her waist. 

"I'm already involved," he huffed, crossing his arms like a disappointed father. "I'm in charge of your impulsive ass, in case you've forgotten."

"How could I forget?" Alix grumbled as she safety-pinned the Red Cross armband designating her as a combat nurse to her sleeve.

"You– Ow, shit!– You never fail to remind me." 

"Prick yourself, did you?" Nixon asked dryly, repositioning himself in his usual place against the back wall.

"Bastard” Alix muttered under her breath and Nixon snorted.

"That's Captain Bastard to you now," he corrected with a tap to his collar, his expression blank but somehow seeming even more smug, if that was possible.

After pinning her armband, Alix went to work examining the medic’s bag she carried, ensuring that everything was in place.

Her radio, the vials of Prussic acid, her forged identity papers, her gun– with additional bullets, supplied by Nixon–  and her knife were all inside, stashed under a slew of bandages and inside innocuous-looking boxes of field dressings. 

She only hoped it would be enough. 

∆∆━━━━∆∆━━━∆∆━━━∆∆

As expected, it was a busy night at the aid station.

Skirmishes in the nearby area had gotten ugly fast and it seemed like stretchers were being rushed in by the minute.

As if that weren’t enough, Alix had pickpocketed a nearby nurse for her logbook and saw that they were expecting an influx of emergencies being transferred from Arnhem at about 10 o’clock that night. 

With no one watching the “walking wounded” like Alix, it would be the perfect time to slip out the door…If she could only get to it.

Her ankle throbbed terribly and she chewed on her bottom lip, hoping the metallic taste of blood would keep her thoughts from the pain. 

In their haste to treat those with life-threatening wounds from the battlefield, her dislocated ankle had been neglected. 

She had been assured that someone would see about treating it eventually but with all of the emergencies coming in, there simply hadn't been time.

Just putting her boots on earlier had been excruciating– she had to bite down on the blanket to avoid screaming– and she shuddered to think what the hike back to Easy Company would be like.

“You gonna be able to walk okay?” Skip asked from his seat beside her as if reading her mind.

“With my busted-up ankle? Not likely.”

Alix let out a sigh. “Between that and my stiff muscles, I'll probably end up crawling by the halfway point.”

“I'll carry you then.”

“You're hilarious, Skipper,” Alix deadpanned but the blond shook his head, looking far graver than she’d ever seen him.

“I'm serious,” he insisted. “If it gets that bad, I'll carry you. No friend of mine crawls anywhere.”

Despite herself, Alix could feel the pinpricks of tears beginning to well in her eyes and she blinked hard, forcing them back down. 

The fact that a friend she couldn’t even remember was still willing to risk his life to ease her burden…

“Skip Muck, you’re a saint, do you know that?”

He grinned at the praise, a certain effervescent vitality lighting up his face even despite the camo paint he was smearing on to obscure it.

"I do my best." 

"Time-check?" Alix asked and Nixon glanced at his watch. 

"5 minutes till go." 

With that, Malarkey stood up and looked to Nixon. 

"It's where it should be, correct?" 

The captain gave an almost imperceptible nod and added,

"Remember, the recognition phrase is ‘Flash’ and the response is–” 

“‘Thunder’, I got it.” 

With that, Nixon returned to his reports for plausible deniability as Malarkey gradually made his way to the back door and slipped outside.

Alix felt a sudden sense of finality sink into her bones as the squeals of tires in the distance grew louder.

The ambulances were arriving.

"Last chance to back out, guys," she said, ensuring that she made eye contact with the remaining two members of the group but neither took the opportunity.

"On the bright side," Skip grinned, jostling his friend's shoulder slightly. "If we don't die, this is gonna be one hell of a story!"

Just then, the doors to the aid station were thrown open and there were frantic shouts of “Move” as soldiers flooded the room hauling the wounded inside, the stench of sweat, blood, and death all mingling in the air like a perverse perfume. 

With a grudging nod of encouragement from Nixon, who was still staring down at the pages in his hands as though his life depended on it, Alix forced herself to her feet.

It was time.

∆∆━━━━∆∆━━━∆∆━━━∆∆

It had been Nixon's idea to steal tactically acquire the motorcycle in the first place but it had been Don who actually ended up doing it. 

Leaning on Skip’s outstretched arm and trying her hardest to keep from limping too noticeably, Alix had managed to make it out the building’s backdoor without being spotted and the rattling of a motorcycle engine and the crunching of gravel alerted them to Don’s arrival.

The bike had been requested in Nixon's name so they'd have to hurry before it was spotted.

But much to her embarrassment, no matter how much she tried, Alix was unable to climb into the sidecar with only one functional foot.

"Dio Santo!" she swore under breath as she attempted one last hop but fell short yet again.

Noticing her troubles, Skip scooped her up and deposited her into the sidecar like a life-size ragdoll before clambering into the seat behind her. 

“Scoot up,” he yelled over the thundering roar of the engine just as Don kicked off and the whole bike lurched forward into the deep purple night.

∆∆━━━━∆∆━━━∆∆━━━∆∆

Flying through the countryside in the dark was not very scenic but the freeing sensation of the wind whipping through her hair more than made up for it. 

Alix felt the urge to laugh welling up inside her as they raced through the heart of the Netherlands.

Having been confined to her cot in the corner of the aid station for the better part of a month had felt like an eternity and now, heading back into the field, Alix had never felt more alive.

She wished Joe could be there with her, to experience a fraction of the joy she was feeling in that moment.

Imagining his lopsided grin as they zipped through the night brought a slew of butterflies to her stomach but she cut that train of thought off as quickly as it had come. 

He clearly hadn’t been thinking about her so why should she waste her time thinking about him?

Shaking her head, the spy resolved to focus on the map by the needle-thin beam of her flashlight. 

Within minutes, the road ended, leaving them at the edge of a dense patch of woods in the pitch-black night. 

“I’m not liking this,” Don mumbled as the engine slowed to a purr, shaking Alix from her thoughts as Skip hopped over her shoulder, out of the sidecar.

Alix was inclined to agree. 

There was a heavy stillness hanging in the air more reminiscent of a graveyard than a forest which made her uneasy.

This would be the most dangerous part of the plan, the part she had been dreading: the 4.5 mile walk in the woods to Easy's encampment in Driel. 

As much as she would have preferred it, the trio couldn't risk bringing the motorcycle; its deafening roar would alert every Kraut in the nearby area of their exact position. It would have to be stashed for now and retrieved during daylight hours. 

Strange shapes and shadows seemed to follow them, twisting every tree branch into a living nightmare, and the young agent found herself clutching the worn strap of her medic’s bag a little bit tighter, the security of having her weaponry available adding a dash of comfort.

Shifting her weight with a sharp exhale, she half-hobbled, half-hopped forward, keeping her injured foot hovering just above the ground to prevent accidental weight-bearing. Even with Don in the lead, forging ahead, and Skip behind her, watching her six, she still felt far too vulnerable.

“Krauts are like wolves,” she remembered her fellow Sparrow, Jennie, saying in her thick Cajun accent after a particularly rough sparring session. “They can smell your fear. Don’ let 'em.” 

She wondered vaguely where Jennie was, if her missions were going well, but the white-hot pain emanating from her swollen ankle brought her back to Earth.

The burning sensation seemed to only intensify with every step of her good foot, bringing involuntary tears springing to her eyes but Alix clenched her jaw tightly, steeling herself to continue limping ahead into the darkness. 

She would be strong. Strong like Jennie.

"How ya feeling, Pyro?" Skip whispered from behind her and the spy shrugged but her response came from between tightly-clenched teeth. 

"I'll make it." 

In front of them, Don froze, holding up a cautioning hand and signaling for the three of them to crouch. 

Lowering herself gingerly to the forest floor, an involuntary whimper of pain escaped Alix's mouth the moment her swollen ankle touched the ground, muffled only by the sound of her pounding heartbeat. 

The crackling of snapping twigs alerted the trio to a presence up ahead and the spy tensed, slipping her good hand into her bag in search of her weapon.

“Flash!” Don hissed and the ensuing call of ‘Thunder!’ made Alix’s shoulders sag with relief, even as a curly-haired paratrooper roughly the size of a grizzly bear appeared through the brush. 

"Holy shit, Bull" Skip exhaled from behind her, putting a hand to his chest like a man in shock. "You scared us half to death!" 

The larger man let out a deep chuckle and when Alix straightened up, he cocked his head in surprise. 

"Pyro, ain't you s'posed to be in the hospital?" 

"You gonna tell on me?" she teased and he shook his head, a toothy grin spreading across the Southerner’s face. 

“Wouldn’t dream of it. We was gettin' into all sorts of mess without ya!”

"Well we can't have that!" Alix joked as she limped forward to properly greet him, wincing with every painful step. 

Bull engulfed her in a bear hug so tight that Alix swore she could feel her ribs snapping like twigs before letting go and gesturing for the three to follow him back to the rest of the company.

Not wanting to fall behind her companions, Alix pulled the jump jacket from her waist and bit down hard on it as she forced herself to hobble along quicker using her bad ankle, every beat of her heart chanting the same mantra:

Keep moving. Keep moving. Keep moving. 

She would not be the weak link. 

But the spy made it about four or five steps before the sheer agony overwhelmed her, fire shooting up her leg as every nerve seemed to scream out in pain. She bit down on her jacket sleeve to keep from crying out and stumbled forward, nearly hitting the ground.

Skip was beside her in a flash to help but with the same reproachful look Gio had given when she'd scraped her knee bloody climbing a tree in the courtyard just before her Confirmation after their parents had specifically told her not to.

Goddammit Alix, that look seemed to say. Quit being so stubborn.

Skip hung back slightly from the group with a sympathetic smile and slung his rifle over his shoulder like it weighed no more than a feather.

“You’re gonna bust up your ankle some more if you keep that up,” he chided gently before hunching forward, gesturing to his back emphatically.

“Hop on.” 

Alix shook her head, doing her best to paint on a smile but it didn't reach her eyes. 

"Skipper, I'm fine." 

"So you're just chomping down on your sleeve because it's tasty, huh?" Skip commented dryly, still hunched over. 

"I'm gonna say it again: Hop. On."

"Hey, are y'all comin' or what?" Bull whispered from up ahead of them and Don turned around, his expression clearly irked that two of their group were lagging behind.

"Pyro, so help me God, I will stand here till the sun comes up or I get shot in the ass, whichever comes first,"

Skip insisted doggedly, his voice sounding strained from hunching so far forward. 

"So will you please take me up on the piggyback ride already before my damn back breaks?"

"...Fine." 

With an air of resignation, Alix relented, hopping over to her friend, who then hoisted her up onto his back with ease as they rejoined the rest of the group.

"You better be watching my six up there, Pyro," he joked about twenty minutes later.

"'Cause I promised Faye I'd come home in one piece and I don't plan on ruining my perfect record." 

[worstqueerbaittournament]

Submission list

organised by @kindalikerackham (THANK YOU)

This is a list of all of the submissions. It will be updated continuously. Italics are still being decided in the polls, crossed out have been decided on “no”, bold have been decided on “yes”

By character name (or ship name if given)

Akira Kurusu and Goro Akechi from Persona 5 Royal

Alix from Miraculous Ladybug

Allison and Patti from Kevin Can F**k himself

Anna and Marnie from When Marnie was There

baron draxum and master splinter   rise of the tmnt 2018

Batman and Joker/ Bruce and John Doe from Batman Telltale

Beca and Chloe from Pitch Perfect

Beca from Pitch Perfect

Betty and Veronica from Riverdale

Blake Belladonna and Yang Xiaolong, aka Bumbleby from RWBY

Blitzen and Hearthstone from Magnus Chase

Buck and Eddie from 9-1-1

Chad/Ryan from High School Musical

Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr (aka Professor X and Magneto) from anything X-Men

Cory and Naveed from Ackley Bridge

Dani Ramos and Grace from Terminator Dark Fate

Darling Charming and Apple White from Ever After High

Dean Winchester

Destiel

Drs House & Wilson from House MD

emma woods/emily dyer from identity v

Faberry from glee!(Rachel Berry + Quinn Fabray)

Fuffy, faith and buffy from Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Finn and Poe from Star Wars

Firestar and Greystripe from Warriors

foot clan lieutenant and brute  rise of the tmnt 2018 

Ginji Amano & Ban Midou from GetBackers

goro majima and kazuma kiryu -  Yakuza/Ryu Ga Gotoku

Grif and Simmons from Red vs. Blue

Hannibal and will from Hannibal tv show

H.G. Wells and Myka Bering from Warehouse 13

Hikaru Sulu from Star Trek Beyond

hypnopotamus and warren stone  rise of the tmnt 2018  

Ineffable Husbands from Good Omens

Jade and Bella from Rainbow High

Jade and Tori (Victorious)

Jake Peralta (Brooklyn 99)

Jane Rizzoli and Maura Isles from Rizzoli&Isles TV series

Janis from Mean Girls

Jeremy and Michael from Be More Chill

Jess/Jules from Bend It Like Beckham

Johnathan Harker and Dracula from Dracula (Netflix)

Johnathan Harker and Dracula from Dracula (1897)

Juleka and Rose from Miraculous Ladybug

Julian Bashir and Elim Garak from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Jun and Tatsuya from Persona 2

Kaoru Nishimi and Sentarou Kawabuchi from Kids on the Slope (Sakamichi no Apollon)

kanji/naoto from persona 4

keith and lance from voltron

Kim Dokja and Yoo Joonghyuk from Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint

klavier and apollo from ace attorney

L and Light from Death Note

legolas and gimli from lotr

Legoshi and Louis from Beastars

leo and adam from tatort saarbrücken

lightcannon, Jinx and Lux from league of legends

Loki from The Loki show

Luca & Alberto from Luca

Luigi and Bowser from the Mario movie

marc and nathaniel from miraculous

Masumi Itachi from blue flag

Matsuoka rin and haru from Free!

Max from Miraculous Ladybug

Mel and Naomi from Vermonia

merthur (merlin and Arthur from the BBC show merlin

Milo and Bisco from Sabikui Bisco

Mobius and Loki from the Loki show

nana komatsu/nana osaki from nana

narumitsu - Ace Attorney

Naruto and Sasuke

Newt and Hermann from Pacific Rim

Nina and Lily from the movie Black Swan

Peggy Carter & Angie Martinelli from Agent Carter

Quentin and Eliot - The Magicians

Ravenpaw and Barely from warrior cats

Raya & Namaari from Raya and the Last Dragon

rei and nagisa   from Free!

Sam and Max

Sam and Bucky from The Falcon and the Winter Soldier

Sherlock and John Watson from BBC Sherlock

Sherlock and Moriarty from BBC Sherlock

Shiro and Adam from voltron

shiro and keith from voltron

sophie and agatha from The School of Good and Evil

Spirk (Spock and Kirk) from Star Trek  The Original Series

Spirk (Spock and Kirk) from Star Trek  the reboot movies

Sterek  (Stiles and Derek from Teen Wolf)

Steve and Bucky from Captain America

Steve McGarrett and Danny Williams from Hawaii 5-0 (the 2010 version)

stiles stilinski from teen wolf

Supercorp! Lena and Kara from Supergirl!

Superman and Batman from the DCEU

SwanQueen (Regina Mills/Emma Swan from Once Upon a Time)

Sylvie from Loki

Thiel and Boerne from Tatort Münster

Thomas & Newt from the maze runner

troy barnes and abed nadir from community

wednesday and enid from wednesday

Yumihisu (Ymir x Historia Reiss) from Attack on Titan

yu/yosuke from persona 4

Zari and Charlie from Legends of Tomorrow

Zoro and sanji - one piece

By Property:

9-1-1 - Buck and Eddie

ace attorney - klavier and apollo

Ace Attorney - narumitsu

Ackley Bridge - Cory and Naveed  

Agent Carter - Peggy Carter & Angie Martinelli

Attack on Titan - Yumihisu (Ymir x Historia Reiss)  

Batman Telltale - Batman and Joker/ Bruce and John Doe

Beastars - Legoshi and Louis

Be More Chill - Jeremy and Michael

Bend It Like Beckham - Jess/Jules

Black Swan - Nina and Lily

blue flag - Masumi Itachi

Brooklyn 99 - Jake Peralta

Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Fuffy (faith and buffy)

Captain America - Steve and Bucky

community - troy barnes and abed nadir

DCEU - Superman and Batman

Dracula (1897) - Johnathan Harker and Dracula

Dracula (Netflix) - Johnathan Harker and Dracula

Ever After High - Darling Charming and Apple White  

Free! - Matsuoka rin and haru

Free!- ��rei and nagisa 

GetBackers - Ginji Amano & Ban Midou

Glee - Faberry (Rachel Berry + Quinn Fabray)

Good Omens - Ineffable Husbands

Hannibal (tv) - Hannibal and will

Hawaii 5-0 (2010) - Steve McGarrett and Danny Williams

High School Musical - Chad/Ryan 

House MD - Drs House & Wilson

identity v - emma woods/emily dyer

Kevin Can F**k himself - Allison and Patti

Kids on the Slope (Sakamichi no Apollon) - Kaoru Nishimi and Sentarou Kawabuchi

league of legends - Jinx and Lux

Legends of Tomorrow - Zari and Charlie

Loki show - Mobius and Loki

Loki show - Loki

Loki show - Sylvie

lotr - legolas and gimli

Luca - Luca & Alberto

Magnus Chase  - Blitzen and Hearthstone

Mario Movie - Luigi and Bowser

Mean Girls  - Janis

Merlin (BBC) - merthur (merlin and Arthur)

Miraculous Ladybug - Alix

Miraculous Ladybug - Juleka and Rose

Miraculous ladybug - marc and nathaniel

Miraculous ladybug - Max

nana - nana komatsu/nana osaki from

Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint - Kim Dokja and Yoo Joonghyuk

Once Upon a Time - SwanQueen (Regina Mills/Emma Swan )

one piece - Zoro and sanji

Pacific Rim - Newt and Hermann

Persona 2 - Jun and Tatsuya

persona 4 - yu/yosuke

persona 4 - kanji/naoto

Persona 5 Royal - Akira Kurusu and Goro Akechi

Pitch Perfect - Beca

Pitch Perfect - Beca and Chloe

Quentin and Eliot - the Magicians

Rainbow High - Jade and Bella

Raya and the Last Dragon - Raya & Namaari

Red vs Blue - Grif and Simmons

Rise of the TMNT 2018 - baron draxum and master splinter

Rise of the TMNT 2018 - foot clan lieutenant and brute

Rise of the TMNT 2018 - hypnopotamus and warren stone

Riverdale - Betty and Veronica

Rizzoli&Isles TV series - Jane Rizzoli and Maura Isles

RWBY - Blake Belladonna and Yang Xiaolong, aka Bumbleby

Sabikui Bisco - Milo and Bisco

Sam and Max - Sam and Max

Sherlock (BBC) - Sherlock and John Watson

Sherlock (BBC) - Sherlock and Moriarty

Star Trek AOS - Spirk (Spock and Kirk)

Star Trek Beyond - Hikaru Sulu

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Julian Bashir and Elim Garak

Star Trek TOS - Spirk (Spock and Kirk)

Star Wars - Finn and Poe

Supergirl - Supercorp! Lena and Kara

Supernatural - Dean Winchester

Supernatural - Destiel

Tatort Münster - Thiel and Boerne

tatort saarbrücken - leo and adam

Teen Wolf - Sterek  (Stiles and Derek)

teen wolf - stiles stilinski

Terminator Dark Fate - Dani Ramos and Grace

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier - Sam and Bucky

The Magicians -  Quentin and Eliot

the maze runner - Thomas & Newt

The School of Good and Evil -  sophie and agatha

Vermonia - Mel and Naomi

Victorious - Jade and Tori

Voltron - keith and lance

Voltron - Shiro and Adam

Voltron - shiro and keith

Warehouse 13 - H.G. Wells and Myka Bering

warrior cats -  Ravenpaw and Barely

Warriors - Firestar and Greystripe

wednesday - wednesday and enid

When Marnie Was There - Anna and Marnie

X-Men (any) - Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr (aka Professor X and Magneto)

Yakuza/Ryu Ga Gotoku - goro majima and kazuma kiryu

[liebgotts-lovergirl]

5 Facts about OSS Agent Alix "Pyro" Martinelli:

1.) She is named after Princess Alix of Hesse! Her family wanted a royal first name to precede the proud legacy of the Martinelli oil dynasty.

2.) She met Skip + Don in an impromptu drinking competition at a pub where she got utterly TRASHED & ended up puking her guts out. Neither of them will ever let her live it down. 🤭

3.) She is fluent in Italian + French & has a working knowledge of Spanish & Russian. Nix, Skip, & Joe have all tried to teach her some German but for some reason, that is the one language she simply cannot master.

4.) Pin-up modeling began as a way to rebel while she was at finishing school but it actually turned out to be a job she loved! She found it super freeing to get dolled up in clothes she wanted to wear (instead of being forced to cover up all the time) and the pay wasn't bad either.

5.) At finishing school, she convinced her roommate Emmeline to sneak out onto the roof with her and smoke cigarettes at night. By sheer luck, they were never caught.

Let’s get to know more fanfiction OCs! Reblog this post with 5 facts about an OC your muse has been strong with recently!

[liebgotts-lovergirl]

Maybe I'm waking up today...

[liebgotts-lovergirl]

Fire On Fire: Chapter 15

(Ch. 14) ... (Ch. 1)

II Gallery II Tag List Application II Symbol Guide II

Summary: Tackling a mission meant for a team all by herself, Alix goes head-to-head with her most dangerous opponent yet. But perhaps this time, she's bitten off more than she can chew.

WARNINGS: VIOLENCE, ANGST, SEVERE INJURIES, Implied Substance Abuse, Death, the usual espionage stuff

A/N: Sorry this took so long, y'all! I've been on a trip! Here, have a holiday cliffhanger before I disappear again🤭💖

Taglist: @softguarnere @latibvles @mccall-muffin @lieutenant-speirs @brassknucklespeirs @parajumpboots @vibing-away @emmythespacecowgirl @hxad-ovxr-hxart @holdingforgeneralhugs @bellewintersroe @wwhatev3r @ax-elcfucker-blog

Contemporary: September 20th, 1944. Oosterbeek, Netherlands.

As soon as Lieutenant Kruger exited the Hendriksen Hotel, Alix was ready for him. 

Opening her issue of Modes de Paris to a random page once more, she began to study the page on upcoming winter clothing trends, gradually increasing her pace until she "accidentally" collided with the young SS officer, causing him to stumble. 

Most targets would apologize for knocking her and check to see if she was alright, but when the Lieutenant recovered his footing, something in him snapped.

Whirling around in a fit of fury, Kruger seized the spy by the throat, swearing in German as he slammed her against the wall of the Hendriksen hard enough to elicit a choking cough as the air was punched from her lungs.

Alix knew she couldn't put up true resistance or she would risk blowing her cover so she struggled weakly, one hand gripping his wrist and the other pushing him away from her as she fought for air. 

The urge to break his arm was growing stronger with every second but Alix had committed herself to the civilian role and she would have to play it, even to her own peril.

Horrified townspeople saw the confrontation but scurried by, hastily avoiding the scene so as not to catch the SS officer's eye. 

No one wanted to be next.

Tears involuntarily sprang to the spy's eyes as Kruger's hold tightened. When he lifted her off the ground, her ears began to buzz loudly as her vision began to blur and narrow.

Desperately fighting to remain conscious, Alix began to claw his hand and Kruger finally released her, yelling in pain, his voice seeming far away. 

Gasping for breath like a fish out of water, Alix sank to her knees, the magazine slipping from her hand and falling limply to the cobblestones below.

The world seemed to be spinning like a children's top and Alix sat dazed. Kruger looked like he might come at her a second time but before he could, she saw another pair of boots approaching with the sharp clip-clip-clip that meant business. 

As she coughed, leaning against the wall for support, the young woman could hear voices arguing above her in German. Blinking blearily upward, she could see a dignified-looking older man also in an SS uniform with the name “Schwarzkopf” emblazoned on the breast pocket.

A panoply of medals sat proudly on the opposite side of his chest, including what Alix recognized to be the Iron Cross. 

This must be SS Captain Schwarzkopf then, she surmised through the haze. Werner Schwarzkopf. 

She vaguely remembered his file.

Schwarzkopf was engrossed in a near-shouting match with the short-tempered Lieutenant, waving his hands as he gestured to Alix, to the street, and then jabbed an accusatory finger back into Kruger's chest. 

All the fight seemed to have left the younger officer now and his body seemed to sag as he hung his head guiltily like a child being scolded by the schoolmaster.

After a few more minutes of back-and-forth, the row seemed to come to an end and the older officer knelt to pick up Alix's magazine before extending a hand politely down to her which she accepted.

Once she had gotten to her feet, Alix let the tears run down her cheeks and sniffled, hoping to seem more sympathetic. 

It worked. 

The older officer glanced over the title of the fashion catalog with a fond smile.

"Modes de Paris," he read out loud, his German-accent almost disappearing, making his French surprisingly comprehensible. "My wife is subscribed to this. Lisette has a weakness for capes." 

"Well she's in luck because they appear to be all the rage this coming winter," Alix assured, returning the smile weakly as she rubbed her sore neck in with a gentle hand. 

"I should hope so, with all of the money we’ve spent on them!" 

The man let out a booming belly laugh that set Alix's ears ringing again and she winced, clinging to the wall of the bookshop with her left hand in a bid for balance as she slowly straightened up. 

"I am truly sorry for my carelessness," she uttered softly, keeping her head lowered as a sign of her deference. "I sometimes get too immersed in my reading." 

"No need to apologize, Mademoiselle, no harm done," the older man stated broadly but Lieutenant Kruger huffed like a spoiled child before shooting a suspicious glare in Alix’s direction for less than a second. 

Strangely, the youthful SS officer couldn’t maintain eye contact to save his life.

Alix couldn’t even tell what color his irises were because they were dwarfed by his dinner-plate pupils and darting every which way as though distracted by a million different things that only he could see. 

Lieutenant Kruger was muttering under his breath, seemingly speaking more to himself than anyone else as he rocked back and forth on his heels.

The agent glanced over to the older man with concern, lowering her voice to avoid triggering Kruger’s ire again.

“Is he… alright?” 

The graying man grimaced. 

“He is functional. Mostly.”

 

“What’s wrong with him?” she asked, making sure to keep her body language open and non-defensive to emphasize her earnestness. 

The key was seeming politely concerned, not overly curious.

Schwarzkopf shook his head, seemingly mystified.

“Overwork perhaps? Who’s to say?”

“S-She’s a spy!” Kruger burst out suddenly, extending a shaking finger toward the agent.

Alix’s eyebrows shot skyward with a bemused laugh but the older man beside her merely frowned, his forehead creasing. 

“You said the same thing earlier about 4 men in the bakers regiment, Klemens." Captain Schwarzkopf's voice was rising. "Is this your idea of a joke?" 

Kruger was completely ignoring him, seemingly too immersed in his own paranoia to notice. 

This was not a joke, Alix thought as she watched the troubled young man begin pacing anxiously back and forth along the same path.

Something was seriously wrong with her target and it wasn't trench fever. 

"So many spies," the young man mumbled, his movements becoming more jerky in his distress. "So many…So many." 

The lieutenant was becoming more and more agitated by the second, scratching frantically at his neck and face like a dog with fleas, raking his fingernails up and down the pockmarked skin feverishly as if trying to dig his way down to the bone.

Kruger's erratic behavior was causing Alix some serious trepidation.

 The young SS officer was sweating excessively but there were no other symptoms, meaning the Intel she was acting on was incorrect. Whatever his affliction, it was most certainly not trench fever and Alix wondered if it might be better to take him out from a distance instead. 

She might risk losing the chance to nab vital documents he was carrying but if his affliction was contagious, she didn't want to risk any more exposure because she could potentially infect others she came into contact with after.

Deciding to try one last ruse, Alix turned glanced over at Kruger, whose hands appeared to be twitching as he shifted restlessly from foot to foot.

"I really should get going," she excused herself breathily.

"Papa will be expecting me after Monsieur Pètain has gone, I'm sure." 

With all the practiced coyness of an actress delivering a throwaway line over her shoulder, Alix turned to leave when she was stopped, as she knew she would be. 

Kruger was slack-jawed, his huge pupils boring into her like black holes.

 “Your father knows The Marshal Pètain? The Lion of Verdun? But how-” 

"Papa was his roommate at Saint-Cyr," Alix lied effortlessly, cutting the babbling young man off. "And when they left the military academy, they served together in Artois. As you can imagine, they are quite close." 

“What did you say your father’s name was?” the older man asked, a hint of skepticism in his gravelly voice and Alix forced her expression to remain neutral, hoping to God that her cover had been properly backstopped. 

“Antoine Duchamps,” she replied, keeping her tone even, and Kruger’s ghostly face brightened immediately. 

“I know that name!” He piped up eagerly and Alix resolved to thank Nixon later for properly planting her cover when Kruger began chattering twice as fast to the man next to him, leaving Alix blinking as she struggled to follow along.

The Lieutenant's French wasn't bad for a German but the faster he spoke, the more his words began to slur, running together in a muddled mess and on top of it, he hardly seemed to breathe!

"Philippe Pètain! My God, can you believe it? Do you think he would meet with us? Perhaps-" 

But the older officer held up a hand to silence Kruger, who was starting to pace again in his excitement. 

"I'm sure the Marshal is a busy man, Klemens," Captain Schwarzkopf began but Alix shook her head, tossing her curls airily like the airheaded socialite she was supposed to be. 

"Don't be silly!” she chirped brightly, her tone syrupy-sweet. “He'd be honored to meet with some of our valiant German allies! If one of you could escort me to the nearest phone, I'm sure I could ring Papa and arrange it!" 

The young agent paused for a moment, watching as Lieutenant Kruger began scratching vigorously at his neck and cheek again, angry red lines beginning to trail down the irritated skin.

"It can't be a party line though," Alix hinted, twirling a strand of her raven hair around her finger flirtatiously. 

"The Marshal is very particular about who has access to him, I'm sure you understand. One can never be too careful these days. It should be somewhere…private.” 

Kruger had ceased his clawing now, too distracted by the sight of Alix’s fluttering eyelashes and suggestive tone to focus.

“I know the perfect place,” the young man blurted out, seizing her by the arm rather suddenly and practically yanking her towards him in a sudden burst of virility. 

Good, Alix thought as the notorious ladies' man led her back inside the hotel, leaving a confused Captain Schwarzkopf behind them. This should be quick. 

But it wasn't. 

∆∆━━━━∆∆━━━∆∆━━━∆∆

An impromptu SS Headquarters on one floor and a rented love nest on the other, it seemed the Hendriksen made good money from collaborating with Nazis because the place was crawling with them.

 

As the pair made their way through the lobby into the elevator, Alix kept her head dipped low, making sure that her thick, Veronica Lake-style waves were obscuring at least half her face from passersby. 

Beside her, Lieutenant Kruger was still trembling like a leaf; his short, shallow breaths coming out in pants as though he’d just run a marathon. 

A part of her wanted to ask if he was alright but she thought better of it; Alix knew if she set him off again, she wouldn’t be able to hold back from killing him and she was fairly certain that the noise would attract unwanted attention from the multiple Nazis milling about downstairs. 

In the elevator, the young SS officer pressed a shaky hand to his chest, the feeling of his racing heart starting him rocking on his heels once again and Kruger’s anxiety coupled with the groaning of the rusted cables made Alix grit her teeth.

He better not drop dead before we get to the room, she thought bitterly. Because I’m not dragging him there myself.

Fortunately, the ding of the elevator signaled their arrival and the young spy allowed herself a quiet exhale of relief as they exited onto the plush, patterned carpeting of the hall. 

It was showtime. 

∆∆━━━━∆∆━━━∆∆━━━∆∆

Common courtesy dictated that a gentleman should offer a lady a drink upon inviting her in but Lieutenant Kruger was certainly no gentleman. 

Alix had barely sat down by the bedside telephone when the young officer plopped down beside her, his leg bouncing vigorously, practically shaking the whole mattress with it.

"My, my,” he marveled and Alix could feel his bony fingers boldly caressing her upper arm. “Aren’t you a stunning creature?” 

It took all of her strength not to break his hand.

 

“Thank you, sir,” she simpered but when she reached for the phone, Kruger’s other arm shot out like lightning to stop her, clutching her wrist painfully tight.

“What’s your hurry, Fraulein?” he inquired and Alix felt a chill run through at the sight of his crocodile grin. “I’m sure the Marshal can wait until we’re through.” 

The agent played dumb, wincing at his vise-like grip.

“U-Until we’re through…?”

 

“Until I’ve had time to properly enjoy…your presence.”

 

Good luck with that, Alix wanted to remark but she lowered her eyes to the carpet instead, feigning shyness.

"Forgive me, sir,” she murmured breathily, doing her best impression of a bashful ingenue. “But being alone with a man as…” She swallowed her disgust. “As handsome and well-respected as yourself…” 

Beside her, the Lieutenant dropped her wrist and straightened up at her words, puffing his chest out like a strutting rooster and Alix bit her lip to keep from laughing out loud. 

“You needn't be coy, Fraulein," he assured her with a pompous wave of his hand. "We're finally alone."

With that, he made a daring swoop toward her, attempting to hook an arm around her waist but Alix shied away, scooting closer toward the phone instead.

"Perhaps a drink first?” she insisted quickly, followed by a tight-lipped smile. "For both of us, to calm the nerves." 

"I'm not thirsty," he countered, continuing to lean in and Alix kept her expression neutral, tolerating his advances as her mind raced through possibilities. 

She needed him to ingest the cyanide somehow but she knew she couldn't push the subject or she'd risk blowing her cover.

 

So she played hard to get, ducking away from his arms again and hoping desperately that her attempts at coyness would pay off but they didn't.

The SS Lieutenant was like a machine. 

He didn't need to eat, drink, or sleep; he seemed to run on desire alone and he was vibrating as though there was lightning coursing through his veins. 

She tried several times to engage him in conversation but the Lieutenant wasn’t interested in talking. Once he’d reached out and groped her breast, Alix decided she’d had enough. 

Swallowing her pride, the spy leaned in, keeping her lips just inches away from Kruger's as she slowly eased the F-S fighting knife from the waistband of her skirt. He was so near that she could smell his putrid breath and as soon as his eyes closed, she seized her opportunity and thrust the blade deep into his abdomen.

The force of the stab alone would probably have killed the average soldier but it seemed almost as though the SS officer was superhuman.

He let out a single, strangled noise and looked down at the knife embedded in his torso before his eyes shifted up, black with unspeakable rage as he leapt to his feet and took a swing.

Alix blocked his first strike with one hand while yanking the knife from his bloody ribs with the other, eliciting another bloodcurdling scream from her opponent. 

Heart racing, Alix swiped at him with the blade like Nix had taught her but the Lieutenant was faster, catching her wrist and clamping down between the tendons, forcing her to drop the knife like a hot coal.

 

She hissed in pain and managed to land a blow to the side of his face before he struck back, his fist flying over her head as she dropped to the floor. Panting, she managed to sweep his legs out from under him and he came crashing to the floor with a loud thud. 

But just as she straightened up, reaching again for her knife, the bastard latched onto her leg and dragged her back down onto the carpet with him, bellowing the only word in German that Alix recognized at the top of his lungs: 

“Spionin! Spionin!” 

Spy.

Rolling over, Alix rushed to clap a hand over his mouth but the damage had already been done. 

She could hear the clamor of approaching footsteps, the squealing hinges of doors swinging open, panicked voices shouting in French and German. 

The officer caught her dominant wrist before it reached him, bending it backwards with such force that Alix swore she heard a sickening crack and a hot pain shot up her arm just as he swung again with his opposite hand, this time connecting squarely with her jaw in a stunning uppercut that sent her head snapping back like a flipping switch.

Reeling from the dull throbbing in her skull and spitting blood, Alix managed to tug her pistol from its hidden holster and fired two shots, one after the other, into the man’s head, dropping him instantly.

The sudden cacophony of German coming from just outside the door spurred the agent to struggle to her feet.

Cradling her injured wrist, Alix was seeing double but she managed to stagger her way to the window overlooking the hotel’s back. The deafening jingling of room keys set her ears ringing and she leaned against the windowsill for support as the world seemed to spin.

Her heart thundered in her chest, her racing pulse causing blood to gush steadily from her split lip, dribbling down her chin in a warm stream.

Despite the pain, the young agent still managed to shove the window open and shakily clamber onto the sill. Staring down into the shadows of the alleyway, Alix felt nausea creeping in, her fear of heights making her stomach churn as her vision blurred.

The ground below seemed to undulate like an ocean tide and Alix had to lean against the wall, each time she blinked in the streaming sunlight feeling like a hammer slamming down onto her skull.

Hearing the deafening click of the door unlocking, the OSS operative swayed unsteadily for a moment as the world slowed to a crawl.

Standing on the ledge, Alix found herself in a fog, wondering thickly how long it would take for her case officer to be informed of her death.

It wasn't your fault, Nix, she wanted to tell him. You were a great handler. I wasn't a good enough agent.

"Too many risks, kid." Alix could hear him now, scolding her like he had during training. "You take too many risks."

Suddenly, several uniformed men burst into the room, interrupting her hazy contemplation. The resulting commotion sounded so far away, as though it was all happening underwater.

Holding a hand to her pounding head, Alix squeezed her eyes shut.

I'm sorry, Joey, she thought groggily, her aching head beginning to loll. I love you.

Then with a last shaky breath, she leapt from the ledge, sending herself plummeting downward onto the unforgiving bricks below.

[liebgotts-lovergirl]

Agent Alix "Pyro" Martinelli

The Allied Assassin Office of Strategic Services

[worstqueerbaittournament]

Our tournament conestants

Akira Kurusu and Goro Akechi from Persona 5 Royal

Alix from Miraculous Ladybug

Allison and Patti from Kevin Can F**k himself

Anna and Marnie from When Marnie was There

baron draxum and master splinter   rise of the tmnt 2018

Batman and Joker/ Bruce and John Doe from Batman Telltale

Beca and Chloe from Pitch Perfect

Beca from Pitch Perfect

Betty and Veronica from Riverdale

Blitzen and Hearthstone from Magnus Chase

Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr (aka Professor X and Magneto) from anything X-Men

Cory and Naveed from Ackley Bridge

Dani Ramos and Grace from Terminator Dark Fate

Darling Charming and Apple White from Ever After High

Dean Winchester

Destiel

Drs House & Wilson from House MD

emma woods/emily dyer from identity v

Faberry from glee!(Rachel Berry + Quinn Fabray)

Fuffy, faith and buffy from Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Finn and Poe from Star Wars

Firestar and Greystripe from Warriors

foot clan lieutenant and brute  rise of the tmnt 2018  

Ginji Amano & Ban Midou from GetBackers

goro majima and kazuma kiryu -   Yakuza/Ryu Ga Gotoku

Grif and Simmons from Red vs. Blue

H.G. Wells and Myka Bering from Warehouse 13

Hikaru Sulu from Star Trek Beyond

Jade and Bella from Rainbow High

Jade and Tori (Victorious)

Jane Rizzoli and Maura Isles from Rizzoli&Isles TV series

Janis from Mean Girls

Jess/Jules from Bend It Like Beckham

Juleka and Rose from Miraculous Ladybug

Kaoru Nishimi and Sentarou Kawabuchi from Kids on the Slope (Sakamichi no Apollon)

kanji/naoto from persona 4

keith and lance from voltron

Kim Dokja and Yoo Joonghyuk from Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint

klavier and apollo from ace attorney

L and Light from Death Note

Legoshi and Louis from Beastars

leo and adam from tatort saarbrücken

lightcannon, Jinx and Lux from league of legends

Loki from The Loki show

marc and nathaniel from miraculous

Masumi Itachi from blue flag

Matsuoka rin and haru from Free!

Max from Miraculous Ladybug

Mel and Naomi from Vermonia

merthur (merlin and Arthur from the BBC show merlin

Milo and Bisco from Sabikui Bisco

Mobius and Loki from the Loki show

narumitsu - Ace Attorney

Naruto and Sasuke

Newt and Hermann from Pacific Rim

Nina and Lily from the movie Black Swan

Peggy Carter & Angie Martinelli from Agent Carter

Ravenpaw and Barely from warrior cats

Raya & Namaari from Raya and the Last Dragon

rei and nagisa   from Free!

Sam and Bucky from The Falcon and the Winter Soldier

Sherlock and John Watson from BBC Sherlock

Sherlock and Moriarty from BBC Sherlock

Shiro and Adam from voltron

sophie and agatha from The School of Good and Evil

Spirk (Spock and Kirk) from Star Trek  the reboot movies

Sterek  (Stiles and Derek from Teen Wolf)

Steve and Bucky from Captain America

Steve McGarrett and Danny Williams from Hawaii 5-0 (the 2010 version)

stiles stilinski from teen wolf

Supercorp! Lena and Kara from Supergirl!

Superman and Batman from the DCEU

SwanQueen (Regina Mills/Emma Swan from Once Upon a Time)

Sylvie from Loki

Thiel and Boerne from Tatort Münster

Thomas & Newt from the maze runner

troy barnes and abed nadir from community

wednesday and enid from wednesday

yu/yosuke from persona 4

Zari and Charlie from Legends of Tomorrow

Zoro and sanji - one piece

IT CURRENTLY LOOK SLIKE PRELIMINARIES ARE WINNING THE CURRENT POLL. This would mean that there will be randomised polls of two or three ships battling it out for one of the 32 spots on our tournament

[liebgotts-lovergirl]

I posted 1,773 times in 2022

That's 1,144 more posts than 2021!

132 posts created (7%)

1,641 posts reblogged (93%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@softguarnere

@latibvles

@emmythespacecowgirl

@mccall-muffin

@hbowardaily

I tagged 1,767 of my posts in 2022

#omgg - 410 posts

#bob - 187 posts

#band of brothers - 164 posts

#daww - 103 posts

#reminders - 102 posts

#nature - 96 posts

#oooh - 91 posts

#hbo war - 86 posts

#relatable tbh - 86 posts

#joe liebgott - 83 posts

Longest Tag: 138 characters

#and i find the pov of this so interesting bc for parts of it it's like seeing 2 ppl fall in love thru the eyes of the ppl around them 🥺💖

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Starry the Musical: Vincent Van Gogh (1/4)

"The sight of the starry night makes me dream"

31 notes - Posted July 20, 2022

#4

And to celebrate the end of Pride Month, the Duffer brothers have generously revamped a new version of homophobia just for us 🥴

43 notes - Posted July 1, 2022

#3

Starry the Musical: Theo Van Gogh (4/4)

"You've carried me more than you'll ever know..."

45 notes - Posted July 23, 2022

#2

Fire On Fire: Chapter 1

(Ch. 2)

Gallery II Taglist Application II Symbol Guide

Summary: With WWII raging across the European Theatre, OSS agent Alix "Pyro" Martinelli and paratrooper Joe Liebgott are forced to navigate their star-crossed romance at the worst possible time. With the knowledge that one or both of them could end up dead before the war's end, will their secret love survive the horrors that await them or break under the pressure? Simultaneously, as he prepares to send her into enemy territory, first-time case officer/handler Lewis Nixon struggles to shoulder the ever-present fear that the agent he's come to see as his little sister may not make it back alive.

A/N: Here it is!! Y'all know the drill lol, everything BoB is strictly based on the miniseries & my own headcanons, not the real-life ppl. Also pls be nice to me, this is the first thing I've written since like 2018-2019. It'll get better hopefully lol. (And yes, I'm making y'all wait for that coveted first interaction between Lieb x Alix lol bc I'm evil) 💖

See the full post

47 notes - Posted September 8, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Beside You (Ron Speirs x Reader Oneshot)

Pairing: Ron Speirs x Female!Reader

Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Fluff

For @brassknucklespeirs (Happy birthday, lovely!! I hope you like this💖 )

A/N: Me, using a Marianas Trench song for a ficlet? You’re damn right lol 😆

When your tears are spent

On your last pretense

And your tired eyes refuse to close

And sleep in your defense

You didn’t let yourself cry until you were alone, Ron knew that much, so when he saw you disappear into the stillness of the frigid Bastogne night, he knew exactly where you were headed. 

The days of ruthless shelling by the Germans had felled several trees in the nearby area, splintering them to bits…all except one, which lay across the snow a good 8-10 feet away from the rows of foxholes, tucked away behind a steep embankment, away from view. 

It was the perfect place to seek refuge for a brief second and as the company’s only combat nurse, God, did you need it. Try as he might, Doc Roe couldn’t be everywhere at once and that was where you came in. 

From your first day with Easy, you’d made it your mission to get to know every single trooper so that even in the heat of battle, when someone screamed “Medic!”, you could recognize their voice in an instant and get there. You would talk to them as you treated them, about anything they wanted: their families, their hometowns, sports teams, films, whatever they needed to keep them focused and awake. These men were trusting you with their lives and you would not let them down. You were friendly, hardworking, and dedicated to your field and your company; you never let gunfire or explosions hinder you. If you were needed, you were there. 

It was your warm and selfless nature that had first caught the eye of the infamous Ronald Speirs. You captivated him. How could someone so generous, so full of life, be here, in a place like this? You were an angel trapped in Hell but it didn't dim your shine, not even for a moment. You would give the shirt off your back to anyone who needed it, always the first to lend a hand and the last to quit at the day's end. 

Your vitality and generosity meant that you made friends easily, something that the withdrawn and mysterious Ron so envied. Like a magnet, people just gravitated towards you, happy to bask in your energetic glow, and Ron would watch quietly from the sidelines with a goofy smile on his face like a smitten schoolboy. You were like human sunshine, a balm to his hardened & war-torn soul.

When it's in your spine

Like you've walked for miles

And the only thing you want is just to

Be still for a while

But Bastogne…Bastogne was a whole different beast, even for someone as dynamic and exuberant as you. The conditions were abysmal, supplies almost nonexistent, and tensions running sky-high. 

 Most of the men you treated were lovely and appreciative of your care, but some… some weren’t. 

You'd first heard the mutterings after the deaths of two Replacements. One had been shot by a sniper that no one had spotted in time and the other had taken the brunt of a particularly nasty firefight. Campbell and Ulrich were both good kids and in both cases, you had done your best with what little you had but it just wasn’t enough. The wounds were too severe and you didn't have the equipment needed to perform a surgery that risky nor could you do it by yourself, on the battlefield of all places. All you could do was kneel beside them, hands bathed in blood, and whisper broken apologies for not being able to do more as they passed.

Eugene, all too familiar with this sort of loss, told you that you needed to forgive yourself. 

“There was nothin’ more you coulda done for 'em, cher,” he said as he handed you half of a bandage he'd scavenged. 

But in your heart, you just couldn’t believe that and neither could some of the boys. 

See the full post

60 notes - Posted October 16, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[liebgotts-lovergirl]

Fire On Fire: Chapter 7

(Ch. 6), (Ch. 5), (Ch. 4), (Ch. 3), (Ch. 2), (Ch. 1)

Gallery II Taglist Application II Symbol Guide

Summary: In the immediate aftermath of the D-Day jump, Alix navigates confusion + carnage with an unexpected ally and Lewis Nixon confronts the frustrating realities of mentorship. WARNINGS: Death, War stuff, Gentle bullying Dedication: To my dear friend Poet who tirelessly puts up with me & my ramblings. Thank you for believing in my writing when I couldn't even believe in it myself.💖💖💖 Taglist: @latibvles (...)

Contemporary: June 6th, 1944. Normandy, France.

As jump conditions went, it could hardly have been worse. The wind was brutal, howling in Alix’s ears like a banshee as it sent her lurching off-course like a ragdoll being tossed across a playground.

The initial prop-blast as she'd jumped had snapped the chin-strap on her helmet like a twig and she knew it would only be a matter of time until it fell off.

Tracers whizzed past, lighting up the sky as they went, the bright streaks like sparklers missing her by mere inches, and she tensed in a vain effort to avoid them as she drifted precariously earthwards.

All around her, the night sky was dotted with fellow paratroopers and Alix strained her eyes, desperately trying to locate any familiar frames but she couldn't tell who was who in all the chaos.

After what happened to her brother at Pearl Harbor, she'd stopped going to Mass but even still, she mumbled a prayer for the others: for Joe, Skip, and Don, for the rest of Easy, begging whoever was listening to keep them safe.

In the distance, fire and smoke spiraled across the sky as a dark shape hurtled down toward the ground at break-neck speed. It collided with the Earth with a booming noise, sending flames erupting over rows of what she could now see were fields of crops.

 

Clutching her bag to her body with white knuckles, Alix wondered if that had been one of their planes now engulfed in the inferno below…

No. She pushed the thought out of her mind as quickly as it had entered. She couldn’t afford to think about that. Not now. 

The Earth was rushing up at her faster than she'd expected– she hadn't even noticed her chute opening– but as soon as she touched down, Alix knew something was wrong. 

Instead of solid ground beneath her, she found herself sinking rapidly into a marsh, her boots already disappearing under the brackish sludge with a squelching noise. 

The mud was halfway up her calves now but its pull was so strong and her gear so heavy that she could scarcely lift her legs.

Fighting to keep herself from panicking, Alix began scrambling to remove all unnecessary equipment, starting with her heavy gloves so she'd be able to handle things quicker. Tracers continued to light the sky overhead like nightmarish fireworks, illuminating the marsh in ghostly flashes of white and green.

 

Thinking quickly, she managed to free her Red Cross satchel and tossed it as far away from the water as she could. 

It landed with a thump on a tiny strip of dry land a couple feet in front of her and she breathed a small sigh of relief. 

At least the radio and her important documents were safe. 

Realizing she'd already lost her helmet somewhere along the way down, she began to struggle with her parachute and reserve next, swearing under her breath as the muddy water surrounding her only continued to rise. 

Just above her knees now, it was steadily creeping up her thighs. It would be at waist-height in no time and she would soon be dragged under completely by the weight of her gear.

Reaching down into the brackish swamp-water, she groped desperately for the knife she kept tucked into her boot. Yanking it up out of the mud with all her might, she hurriedly cut herself free from her accidental restraints before sloshing toward the edge of the marsh to grab her bag. 

After cleaning her knife off and returning it to its sheath, Alix had almost made it out of the muddy water when she bumped into something solid. As she squinted to inspect it, she felt her stomach drop. 

It was the body of a paratrooper, caked in mud and moss, floating face-down in the swamp water, the suspension lines of his parachutes wound around his head and neck like a perverse burial shroud.

His hands were clawed, fingers forever locked around the tangled cords like a vise in his final desperate attempt to loosen their fatal chokehold before the bog water had dragged him under.

Alix felt cold dread seeping into her lungs, chilling her worse than her sopping wet clothes.

What if it was Joe? Her Joe?

He had jumped right before her so locationally, it made sense he would have landed near her and the wind was bad enough to twist up the chutes. The drowned trooper was too tall to be Skip and too lanky to be Don, but he was built like Joe from what she could see-- thin and wiry...

Drawing her lower lip between her teeth as she bit back the twisting nausea in her stomach, Alix steeled herself to actually touch the corpse.

She needed to check.

She needed to know.

Taking a deep breath, she seized the dead man by the back of the collar and hauled him to one side with a grunt so that she could see his shoulder patch, bracing herself to see the Screaming Eagle that would identify him as 101st. 

But it wasn’t there. Instead, clear as day, was a patch of twin A’s on a field of red, marking him as 82nd Airborne. 

Alix exhaled, a sick sense of relief filling her. 

It wasn’t Joe. 

Leaving the corpse behind, the young agent grabbed her bag quickly and trudged onward, out of the marsh and into the darkness of the forest surrounding it. 

∆∆━━━━∆∆━━━∆∆━━━∆∆

Despite the roaring of plane engines above and the scattered pops of machine-gun fire in the distance, the forest itself was eerily silent. 

No birds singing or rabbits racing around the forest floor, not even a solitary deer passing through— everything lay virtually undisturbed, save for the soft crunching sounds of pine needles bending under Alix’s boots as she walked. 

Her eyes darted from tree to tree, searching each shape and shadow for potential danger, and her fingers hesitated just above the flap of her bag, where her loaded handgun was hidden. 

She knew she technically wasn’t supposed to carry it openly– nurses didn’t carry firearms so it was a dead giveaway– but walking around empty-handed when there could be Krauts lurking behind every branch made her feel like a sitting duck and she hated it. 

Oh what the hell, she thought, dipping into her bag to grab her handgun. This is war after all. 

A sudden rustling in the bushes behind her made her glad she had and she whirled around, gun at the ready, just in time to see a tall figure tramp into view.

“Flash,” she hissed, gun barrel still pointed straight at him until she was sure he wasn’t a Kraut in disguise.

“Thund- Oh Christ, not you.” 

It was Lewis Nixon or at least, it was supposed to be. The combination of leaves and pine needles clinging sporadically to his sleeves gave him the appearance of a giant, disgruntled vulture carrying a gun.

“Pleasure to see you too, Lieutenant,” Alix remarked sarcastically as she lowered her weapon and tried to stifle a smirk. "Aren't you supposed to be at headquarters?" 

"I'm working on it," Nixon huffed, the cloud of his breath hanging in the frosty air. "My compass got pretty banged up on the way down when—" he began brushing off the assorted foliage attached to his person. "— I landed in a damn tree." 

Alix nodded, pursing her lips to keep from laughing out loud. 

"Well, lucky for you…" 

She paused and dug around in her bag for a second before coming up with a tiny compass disguised as a shirt button, holding it up for Nixon to see. "I have this." 

Now Alix wasn't expecting praise from her case officer, not by any means, but she certainly wasn't expecting him to snap at her like he did. 

"I don’t need your help, Martinelli,” he responded tersely, his jaw clenched so tightly that it looked painful. "I know where I'm headed."

Alix put her hands on her hips. 

What the hell did he have to be irritated about? She was trying to help.

"Sir, it'll be quicker this way," she maintained, waving the compass for emphasis. "So just use it and we can get going."

Nixon jerked his head back, brows snapping together.

"Who the hell is 'We'," he demanded. "There is no 'We'. I signed up to be a case officer, not a babysitter.” 

God, did he always have to be this obstinate?

Alix fought to keep her tone level. 

"The sooner we get out of here, the sooner we complete our objective," she said, forcing a smile through gritted teeth. "So will you please just use the damn compass?" 

"I don't remember asking for your input, Agent." 

Now he was actively trying to piss her off and Alix could feel it working.

The agent took a deep breath as she tried to restrain herself.

"Permission to speak freely, sir?" she asked, her emphasis on the last word deliberately caustic, matching his tone. 

"Permission denied."

But it was too late. 

Before she could stop herself, Alix blurted out, "What the hell is your problem?" 

Nixon’s expression darkened. 

“Watch yourself, Martinelli," he warned.

But Alix was too fired up to stop now. 

If looks could kill, Lewis Nixon would've been dead on the spot.

“Lieutenant, you've been trying to force me to quit for two fucking years now," she all but snarled. "Trying to break me mentally and physically so I couldn't get in the field. But guess what–" She gave a sarcastic sweeping gesture. "Here I am. I made it anyway.”  

Nixon's intelligence training had served him well because her case officer had one hell of a poker-face. Despite his crossed arms, he was impossible to read which just infuriated Alix even more.

“Santa Maria," she swore, still gesticulating wildly with her hands. "You have had two whole years to be an asshole! Would it kill you to take tonight off so we can at least get where we need to be going?”

“For the last time, I know where we’re going,” he asserted with an exasperated groan. “And I can get us there without your help!”

“Sir, I don’t know why you hate me so much but we both have our orders, so whatever it is, you’re going to have to —"

The sound of boots crashing through brush behind them interrupted her and the pair both whipped around to see a man in a gray uniform and cloth cap charging through the bushes toward them. 

A lone Nazi. He wasn’t heavily armed, by any means– no gun in sight– but the knife he was gripping sure didn’t bode well.

Nixon dropped to one knee, finger paused just above the trigger, waiting for a clean shot from his angle, but Alix was not in a patient mood. 

Instead, she ran towards the approaching soldier, her heart pounding in her ears as she allowed him to get within five or six feet of her before squeezing the trigger–

Pow! Pow! Pow!

Blood spattered the nearby leaves like a fine mist and the German crumpled to the dirt with a dull thud, the knife clattering harmlessly out of his hand. 

Just steps away from the body, Alix froze, the color draining from her own face as she watched the deep red liquid slowly blooming from under the soldier’s head and body like a morbid carnation.

The grotesque image of the bullets colliding with his skull played over and over in the agent’s mind like a macabre film reel. As the gunshots echoed in her memory, she had an epiphany.

One of the shots had been hers, she realized, but the other two weren’t.

So it must've been...

She looked back at her handler, Lieutenant Nixon, who had already shouldered his rifle and was stalking off in the opposite direction. 

Pushing aside a branch, Alix followed him, jogging slightly to catch up with his much longer strides, but he didn't slow down at all. 

"Hey," she said, about to thank him for backing her up when he abruptly whirled around to face her, cutting her off.

"Blanche, what the hell were you thinking!?" he hissed, dark eyes blazing with barely-suppressed rage. "Running towards a Kraut like that with a fucking handgun, have you lost your mind?!"

Leave it to Lewis Nixon to turn a moment of gratitude into an argument.

“I got him didn’t I?” Alix snapped defensively. “A shot between the eyes on a moving target and all you’ve got for me is chastisement?" 

"That's not the point," he hissed again, his fervent stage-whisper the only viable substitute for yelling in the field. "You could've been killed! What if he'd had a rifle?! What if there had been a sniper waiting nearby?! You're not even wearing a helmet, for Christ's sake!"

Nixon turned on his heel angrily, forging ahead once again when a thought came to Alix's mind.

"Wait, who the hell is Blanche?”

Nixon’s pace faltered and for a split second, he looked like an animal trapped in the path of a speeding car.

"What?”

“You just called me Blanche, I heard you.”

A myriad of emotions flickered across Nixon’s features but then it was back to his usual, inscrutable poker-face. 

“Bullshit.” 

Alix gave him a look.

"No, I definitely heard you say Blanche," she insisted. "And that better not be your wife because I refuse to be associated with anyone crazy enough to marry you."

Nixon made a face.

"Christ, no, Kathy is my wife. Blanche is my sister." 

The spy cocked her head as she put two and two together. 

"Wait…Is that why you've been trying to get me to quit the program all this time: because I remind you of your sister?!"

The corner of Nixon's mouth twitched like he was fighting a smile.

"You remind me of her, alright," he replied as he ducked under a spiderweb. "You’re just as insufferable." 

Alix rolled her eyes.

"You could've just told me, y'know, instead of being an emotionally-stunted asshole about it."

Nixon snorted derisively.

"Right, because that's what I'm best at: communication and emotional regulation."

Stepping over a rock, he muttered bitterly, "both of which are staples in the Nixon family household." 

"Hey I'm just saying," Alix replied with a shrug. "I would've understood. My older brother–" 

She cut herself off as the words caught in her throat but Nixon was courteous enough to pretend he hadn’t noticed. 

“Don’t take it so personally,” he said nonchalantly as he ducked under a low-hanging branch. “I shut everyone out. It’s what I do best.”

“Not Lieutenant Winters,” Alix pointed out and she swore she almost saw a look of fondness cross Nixon’s face but he said nothing.

∆∆━━━━∆∆━━━∆∆━━━∆∆

As the pair continued their walk, their eyes roved their respective sides of the forest, scanning for potential enemies. Every shadow, every tree, every crack of a twig or shifting of underbrush needed to be carefully investigated. 

Lieutenant Nixon, easily the more heavily armed of the two, took the lead while Alix followed just behind him like a shadow.

She had expected there to be more Germans where the one earlier had come from but there weren't. Thinking back on it, she wondered why he had no rifle, no helmet. Why he was running in what should have been the opposite direction of Nazi troops?

Then it came to her: He had been a deserter, not part of the larger group. He probably wouldn't have hurt them.

Guilt swirled in her stomach but a crackling of leaves above them interrupted her thoughts. Nixon's hand shot up, immediately signaling for Alix to freeze which she did. 

"Flash," Nix whispered, lowering himself to the ground with his rifle trained at the noise, which was coming from a large Sessile oak tree. 

He exchanged a worried glance with Alix before signaling, both of them thinking the same thing: Enemy sniper.

Wordlessly, the young agent shifted slightly to cover her handler's back in case another foe should appear from behind them and for what felt like an eternity, the only audible sounds were the distant rumblings of artillery from far beyond and the fearful thump-thump-thumping of her heart as she awaited the appearance of the expected Nazi sniper.

But it never came. Instead, from the tree's forked, top-most branch, emerged a small but extremely fluffy squirrel with flame-red fur and long, elfin ears that pointed heavenward. For a moment, it quietly regarded the two strangers below with its button-black eyes and twitching tail before scampering away again into the depths of the tree. 

Relieved, Alix relaxed the tension in her shoulders and Nixon huffed as they continued their trek.

"Some sniper," the spy remarked with a nervous laugh. "But better safe than sorry, I guess."

"Well considering I'm responsible for you, whether I like it or not," Nixon snarked over his shoulder as they walked. "Forgive me if I'd rather not have your death on my conscience."

Realizing he'd said something almost vulnerable, he added quickly, "Besides, I've got enough paperwork to deal with without your death notification adding to it."

But he wasn't done.

"And speaking of your fucking death notification--" he deftly removed his helmet and thrust it into her hands. "Put this on. You never know when someone's going to try a pot-shot."

Alix cocked an eyebrow skeptically.

"Why? I haven't needed it so far. I didn't even notice mine was missing for awhile."

"Why? Because I care about you, you little shit. Now put the helmet on, that's an order."

Alix sighed but reluctantly put the helmet on.

"But what about you?" she asked. "Will you be okay?"

Her handler shrugged.

"I'll be fine. I can always grab another one when we get where we're going."

∆∆━━━━∆∆━━━∆∆━━━∆∆

The forest seemed to stretch for miles ahead of them, a never-ending sea of leaves and winding branches reaching out to them like arms as they passed.

And the deeper they plunged into the thick woods, the more terrifying the sights became. Dangling precariously from the treetops were the mangled corpses of several paratroopers, some swaying somberly as the breeze battered them back and forth in a morbid dance.

Nixon gave her a boost on his shoulders so she could climb a branch or two up to check their patches and dog tags.

"82nd again," she called down to him.

"Jesus," he panted as he helped her back down. "Not a single trooper from 101. Where the hell are we?"

As soon as she reached the ground, Alix fished the compass out of her pocket and instantly swore in Italian.

The needle had shifted in another direction. 

They had gone too far.

From what she remembered of Welsh's navigation lectures, they would have needed to deviate from the path and change direction a good thirty paces ago. 

She followed the compass’ instruction, beginning to backtrack as she waited patiently for the compass to correct itself. 

"Where are you going now?" Nixon groaned, stopping in his tracks.

“We were getting off-course,” Alix informed him, holding up the compass again. “We needed to turn back there.”

"Bullshit," Nixon responded with a shake of his head. "According to our drop zone, we should've been right on track."

"Well we're not," Alix prodded, waving the compass. "We're off."

"How could we be off?" Lieutenant Nixon was indignant. "I plotted the maps myself! Don't be a backseat driver, Martinelli." 

"I wouldn't have to be a backseat driver if you would just drive us correctly from the front," Alix griped. 

"My calculations were on-point with the maps," her handler maintained defensively. "I should know, I helped plot them." 

"Well your memory can be faulty, sir," Alix pushed just as stubbornly. "But the compass definitely isn't." 

The pair faced off for a moment, each sizing the other up. Despite being at least six inches shorter than him, Alix glared up at her handler like a bull about to charge but he glared right back down at her.

There was a tense silence while both sides leveraged their options before Nixon pulled the metaphorical ace from his sleeve.

"I have seniority,” he stated with a smug finality, looking far too triumphant for Alix’s taste.

The younger agent put a hand on her hip.

"Are you seriously pulling rank right now?” She narrowed her eyes. “I swear to God, I should strangle you.”

“Oh please,” Nixon deadpanned. “You can’t even reach my neck.” 

“You just pulled rank to win an argument,” Alix reminded him with an arched eyebrow. “You’ve sunk low enough for me to reach.”

“I’m quaking in my boots, Martinelli, truly,” was the dry reply and Alix was forced to concede.

Like it or not, he was her handler and even though they were a team, he did have seniority.

"Fine,” she grumbled, crossing her arms like a petulant child. “We’ll go your way. But if we end up waltzing into a trap because of your fucking hubris, I swear to God, I'll come back from the grave to haunt you myself." 

With a small noise of satisfaction, Nixon turned and the pair returned back to their original path.

∆∆━━━━∆∆━━━∆∆━━━∆∆

Two hours later and there was still no sign of civilization, no sign of their comrades, and virtually no moonlight. Alix found herself squinting in the ink-like darkness, desperately searching for landmarks in the cold but there were none. Every tree looked the same as the tree before it and she shivered, her clothes still frigid from the bog but at least they were no longer dripping water everywhere.

For the millionth time, she pictured the recon photos and sand tables she’d studied back in Aldbourne, praying for an epiphany but none came. 

The only new developments were some stinging blisters on her left heel that grew more raw with every step and an ache in her right shoulder from the weight of the radio hidden in her Red Cross bag.

“'I plotted the map, Alix,' she mimicked sourly. “'I don't need your compass. I know where we're going.' Lieutenant, I told you we were going the wrong way before but noooo, somebody needed to be right.”

"If you don't shut up, I am going to leave you here," Nixon snapped, stopping his pacing long enough to give her an irritated look. "Once I figure out where the hell 'here' even is."

Alix pursed her lips but acquiesced, staring up at the sky in silent frustration as though the answers were written in the clouds somewhere.

“I don’t understand it,” Nixon muttered more to himself than to her, as he resumed his pacing. “We were right on track.”

“Here’s a bright idea,” Alix snapped in response. “Maybe next time, listen to the person with the fucking compass.”

"I don’t remember giving you permission to speak freely,” was the peevish reply and Alix gritted her teeth.

Even though he trained her, in the field, an agent and their handler should function as a two-man team. Nixon damn well knew that.

He was trying to push her buttons again.

She’d played this game with Giovanni when they were kids: who could irritate the other first? 

As the younger sister, she usually lost. 

One could only be poked and prodded and have their hair yanked so many times. But one day, taking pity on the baby sister he so mercilessly teased, Gio had told her the secret to winning: 

If she couldn’t control her temper (and she never could), then the only way to win was not to play at all.

So making up her mind to ignore Nixon’s subtle dig at her, Alix just continued walking on, double-checking their progress against her compass all the while. 

She made it all of two minutes before she broke.

“Look, can we dispense with the formalities already,” she burst out finally. “Seeing as we’re technically supposed to be a team?” 

“Nah, I like the formalities,” Nixon replied easily, all the practiced pettiness of his Ivy League humor shining through. “I prefer an established hierarchy.” 

“Of course you do,” Alix snarked with an eye roll. “Because you're the one at the top.” 

Her case officer just shrugged. 

“Touché.”

∆∆━━━━∆∆━━━∆∆━━━∆∆

Another hour of walking passed uneventfully and Alix was beginning to feel like she was losing her mind.

Lieutenant Nixon had searched in vain for some basic topic of conversation at first to pass the time, but they were both too tired to make it past the weather and neither one wanted to delve into their complicated family lives.

"Can we not do small talk?" Alix winced. It reminded her of being dragged to teas and society events with her mother's social circle where she had to pretend to care about gardening and crocheting and other pointless activities while her brother got to go to the racetrack with her father. "I hate small talk."

Nixon shrugged idly.

"That's fair."

There was a silence and in a brief moment of delusion, Alix thought he might restrain himself from taking another crack at her but the slight hop in his step predicted otherwise. 

Not even a minute later, true to her prediction, Nixon spoke, still keeping his eyes fixed on the path ahead despite the teasing smile tugging at his mouth.

"So you and Liebgott, huh? It’s about time.” 

Alix felt her face heating up even in the dark at the suggestion. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said lamely, still clinging to the thinnest possible veil of plausible deniability that she could.

“Don’t insult my intelligence, kid,” Nixon chuckled. “I’m paid to know things.”

Alix eyed her handler suspiciously. 

Was he bluffing?

“How long have you known then?”

“How long have I known about what part?” he asked. “You’re gonna have to be more specific. Because I’ve known a lot for a long time.”

 

“Like what?

“Well," her case officer replied jovially with the same nonchalance that her mother used when gossiping with other society wives.

"I have it on good authority that you wouldn’t stop making eyes at each other during lectures about six months back so I kind of figured something was going to happen, especially when I heard about the both of you buttoning your collars up sky-high to hide hickeys. And then later, I heard that you two got walked in on having some…shall we say, extracurricular fun,” he snickered. 

“Dick, myself, and Harry even had a bet going on when you'd actually go steady officially. Loser pays for poor Shifty’s shrink.” 

Shit. 

The mention of that night made Alix want to crawl into a hole and die. She didn't know anybody else knew about it, let alone her handler and superior officers, and she made a mental note to apologize to Shifty another thousand times whenever she saw him next for the mental scarring she and Joe had accidentally inflicted upon him months earlier by forgetting to lock the door.

“Need I say more?"

"No, I get the picture, thanks," Alix replied, wishing fervently that the ground might swallow her up before they reached their destination. "But how did you find out? Who told you?"

Neither Skip nor Don would have said anything, of that she was sure. She would stake her life on their loyalty.

And Shifty was still too deeply embarrassed about his role to utter a word about it to anyone either, so he was out.

That only left…the entire rest of the company.

Damn it.

“A good operative never compromises his assets,” Nixon responded sanctimoniously, with a grin so smug that it made Alix want to punch him. "Just know I have my sources and they're extremely reliable."

Alix flipped him off in response which only made him laugh harder.

We better find our way out of here soon, Alix thought in exasperation as she busied herself with the compass again. Before I commit a second unplanned homicide.

∆∆━━━━∆∆━━━∆∆━━━∆∆

[liebgotts-lovergirl]

Wonderstruck Pt. 2

(Pt. 1)

Gallery II Taglist Application II Symbol Guide

Summary: In following her out into the night after her hasty exit, Joseph Liebgott has flipped Alix's entire world on its head. But maybe, just maybe, she doesn't mind. A/N: THERE'S A PLOT, I PROMISE, THERE'S A PLOT!!!! Dedication: To my dear friend @brassknucklespeirs who encourages my bad behavior. Consider this your payback for hurting my heart & calling me out with "No Shame"🤭💖 WARNINGS: SMUT (18+), Hurt/Comfort, Unsafe sex (WRAP IT BEFORE YOU TAP IT, Y'ALL, OR I'M COMING FOR YOUR KNEECAPS 🤬🤬🤬), Trust issues, Implied abuse (nothing graphic), everybody cusses like a sailor but y'all knew that Taglist: @latibvles @softguarnere @brassknucklespeirs @mccall-muffin @holdingforgeneralhugs

8 Months Earlier: January 8th, 1944. Aldbourne, England.

It wasn’t until Alix made it outside of the lobby and into the icy chill of the English winter that she realized she’d forgotten her coat.

The wind was harsh, stinging her bare skin, and she rubbed her arms in a vain attempt to ward off its bite as she began the long walk home.

“Kinda hard to 'go for a smoke' without your cigs, ain’t it?” a familiar voice called into the night as the door squeaked shut behind him, forcing Alix to stop in her tracks.

Goddamn it. 

The agent huffed, gathering her courage before turning to face Joe, the small cloud of her breath still hanging in the frosty air behind her. 

She'd intended to speak but no sound came out. 

After all, what was there to say? 

“I lied and ran off because I’m scared to get involved with you, in case you’re already involved with someone else?"

Yeah, that would go over like a ton of bricks. 

A Martinelli doesn’t show weakness, Alix remembered her father scolding her when she’d dissolved into tears after Clay’s numerous, public infidelities. Not now, not ever. 

So she said nothing, arms crossed, her ruby-red lips pressed into a tense line as she studied the paratrooper who'd come out after her.

Joe was standing just outside the building's overhang, hands shoved deeply into his pockets as he leaned against the building's outer wall, Alix's navy-blue coat draped over one shoulder. 

His deep brown puppy eyes traced over her features so softly, as though there was something worth seeing in them…in her…

Alix crossed her arms even tighter around herself, dropping her gaze to the cobblestones. Anything to avoid those sweet, puppy-dog eyes. 

She hated the way he looked at her, like she was the sun: something brilliant, worthy of kindness and reverence, and a million other sweet sentiments she didn't feel she deserved. 

How could anyone look at her like that after the things she'd done?

∆∆━━━━∆∆━━━∆∆━━━∆∆

4 Years Earlier: August 18th, 1940. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

With a shout of obscenities in Italian, her father Emilio, had burst into their parlor, slamming a stack of men’s magazines and pinup calendars down onto the mahogany coffee table in front of her with such force that the whole table shook.

“What in God’s name is this?” he demanded, stabbing an accusatory finger at a Beauty Parade drawing of her in a slinky evening gown cut practically down to her navel, her cleavage nearly spilling out as she leaned on a piano.

“And this!” A page torn from the Esquire calendar depicting a provocatively-posed Alix as Miss July, lounging on a beach towel in an impossibly tiny two-piece. 

“And this!” A Titter centerfold featuring a blushing Alix with the skirt of her sundress snagged in a door, revealing her garters and a tantalizing flash of white lace panties.

“Is this what you've been doing while you're away?” her father bellowed, his voice echoing off the walls. “We send you to Richmond for finishing school and you become a prostitute?!" 

"No, Pa, I-"

"Basta! Non dire cazzate, you got that? Don't fucking bullshit me!"  

"They're just pin-up drawings! It's not like I'm naked-" 

"You think that makes it better?!"

Her father grabbed one of the calendars off the table and waved it in front of her face.

"Do you see this shit? This is the shit roughnecks carry with them out to the oil fields every day! Is that who you want to be, Alix, some workmen’s tart for them to gawk at, like a piece of meat?! You want your name– OUR name– associated with the likes of them?!"

"I didn't even use my real name for those!” Alix shot back, her temper flaring. 

Her parents were strict but even still: she’d had a taste of freedom and she’d be damned if she’d be caged ever again. 

“Pa, I’m careful, I swear! I give false names every time! Hell, I’ve even worn wigs!"

"And what, you think that's going to keep people from recognizing you?! Ci fai o ci sei?!"

"No, I'm not stupid, Pa! Look, I-"

"Zitta! We did not name you after royalty so that you could parade around like a whore and humiliate this family! We’ve got a reputation to uphold and I am not about to have it ruined because of you! Capisce?"

Without waiting for an answer, he threw the calendar down onto the ground and began to pace across the floor, muttering and massaging his temple with his hand. 

“Santa Maria,” he all but spat, shaking his head at his prodigal daughter with disgust.

“We can only pray the Hearsts don’t hear of this. Because who in God’s name would want to marry you now, knowing the…the filth you’ve involved yourself in?!”

∆∆━━━━∆∆━━━∆∆━━━∆∆

8 Months Earlier: January 8th, 1944. Aldbourne, England.

 Joe broke the tension first, clearing his throat uncomfortably, and Alix jumped at the sound. 

Tentatively, he draped her coat around her shoulders, as though she were a bomb set to detonate any second. 

Just like everybody else in the company.

Alix drew the dark material tightly around her for protection from the elements. 

“How’d you know?” she asked softly, glancing up to him nervously before her eyes darted away again. 

How did you know that was my coat? 

How did you know where I’d be? 

How do you know me so well without ever having known me?

Joe rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably.

“I ain’t a spy or anythin’ but I ain't fuckin’ blind either,” he remarked, attempting a smile but it came off more as a grimace of self-loathing.

“I noticed you when I came in. I remembered the coat you wore. It…” 

He huffed for a second, his breath clouding the frosty air, before finishing simply, “It looked good on you.”

“Thanks,” Alix murmured before retrieving her cigarettes and glancing back up to Joe, extending an olive branch.

"You want one?"

He cocked an eyebrow and hesitated for a moment, before asking, "What kind?" 

"Chesterfields," Alix replied with a half-smile, passing the white and gold carton over to him. "I'm under contract."

Was it just the dim lighting of the street lamps or did she see the ghost of a smile cross his face? 

"Ya got good taste," he remarked simply before plucking a cigarette from the carton and retrieving a lighter from his pocket. 

He leaned over to give hers a light first, the both of them painfully aware of how close their faces were once again. 

The unacknowledged memory of the almost-kiss from earlier lingered between them like the rolling fog over the crop fields and Alix wondered if he could hear the thump-thump-thumping of her heart at the thought, even now.

“You coulda just told me, y’know," he mumbled after the first drag, sounding so unusually quiet and hesitant, so unlike the brash, cocky front he tried to keep up, that for a second, his words didn't even register.

"Told you what, Joey?" 

The agent flinched at the way her voice sounded. Brittle, like broken glass.

But she couldn't help it. Her resolve was waning.

As she took a drag to steady herself, Joe's head jerked up in surprise at her words, brown eyes wide. 

"Joey, huh?" he repeated, ignoring her question as the corner of his mouth starting to quirk up in his trademark goofy grin. "Nobody's ever called me that before." 

Alix started to apologize automatically but Joe shook his head. 

"Don't," he chided gently. "I like it. But-" 

He chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck. "Think I'd like anything that comes outta that pretty mouth of yours."

"Awful quick with the lines tonight, aren't we?" Alix tried to sound nonchalant but there was a notable edge to her voice that caused Joe's brows to knit with concern.

"That a problem?" 

"Of course not," Alix replied coolly, the smoke from her last drag curling into the air between them like a momentary barrier.

"I just know your type is all." 

Joe gritted his teeth at her insinuation.

"Yeah?” he asked tersely. “And what type's that?" 

“The type that gives their girl back home the runaround while they're off chasing tail and chasing glory."

A vein popped in his jaw at the insinuation.

"You think you got me all figured out, huh?” he snapped tersely. "Well you don't. I've never gone steady with anybody, okay? I don't have the fuckin' time!" 

He shook his head in frustration.

"I been workin' two jobs, helpin' out my folks and lookin' out for my siblings since I was a fuckin' teenager. Yeah I slept around a little bit here and there, I'm not gonna bullshit you, but I never gave anybody the fuckin' runaround, okay? I'm not Skinny and I sure as fuck ain't Tab." 

Alix blinked in shock at his outburst as she absorbed his words, but Joe wasn't done. 

"And y'wanna know why I joined the Airborne?" he demanded.

He took a quick drag, the exhale coming just as fast.

"Wasn't for shits and giggles, lemme tell ya. It was so I could save enough money to put a fuckin' down payment on a house for my folks. That's why. Not glory, not girls, okay? My fuckin' family. 

He took another puff of his cigarette, golden-brown eyes now studying the darkened landscape behind her before discarding it under his heel. 

Alix tensed. Taking a slow drag off her own cig, she hoped quietly that the slightly bitter, hazy taste would clear her racing thoughts. But it didn't. 

Boy, did she feel stupid. 

"Look, Joe, I-I'm sorry," she mumbled, staring at the ground and tossing her cigarette away, her muscles taut as she braced for some sort of fight. 

Conflict was a regular feature of her life growing up. Her father was a wild and wealthy womanizer and her melancholic mother socially prominent and heavily religious. When they clashed, which was often, the walls of their estate shook with the bellowing, doors slamming, and glass breaking.

A marriage of convenience, yes, but a match made in hell. 

Her first real boyfriend…her former fiancé…had been much the same. Alix had learned very quickly that Clayton Hearst did not tolerate mouthiness.

That was probably why her father had chosen him for a match— to keep his wayward daughter in line. It hadn't stopped Alix from fighting back but it made for some very rough arguments. 

Fortunately, Clay had left for the Marines while she was still in school, allowing Alix a small reprieve from their near-constant fighting. 

The Dear Jane letter she'd gotten in the mail a month later had only proven to her what she'd already known deep-down: 

Clay had never loved her. Hell, he'd never even liked her. The still-healing bruises from their parting arguments were proof enough of that. And just like her father, he'd rather spend his leave time cavorting with other women instead of remaining faithful to the one he was supposed to love. 

The soft percussion of boots on pavement shook Alix out of her reverie and she jumped. But to her surprise, Joe's approach wasn't angry. Not at all. 

Instead, she felt calloused fingers gently tilting her chin up to look him in the eyes and she flinched. But instead of the fury she'd come to expect, she saw only concern reflected back at her. 

“I don’t know what asshole taught you that that’s how men are,” he said softly. “But I can fuckin’ promise you, that ain't how I am. You'll see." 

Alix knew she shouldn't but the sincerity in Joe’s tone tugged at her heartstrings in a way she hadn’t expected and even with all her reservations, she couldn't help but believe him. 

She was suddenly, painfully aware of his proximity, his face so tantalizingly near that she could smell the dizzying sweetness of the alcohol on his breath mingling with the faint smoke of his last cigarette. 

Alix's eyes raked across his features: the intensity of his warm caramel gaze, his finely-drawn cheekbones, his strong aquiline nose, and she couldn't help but linger on the smile tugging at his lips, each thud of her heartbeat chanting the same thing like a mantra:

Kiss him. Kiss him. Kiss him. 

"You gonna kiss me or what?" Joe teased softly, as if he could read her mind. 

The slight gravel of his voice sent a tingle of pleasure down her spine and Alix knew then, as surely as she knew her own name, that kissing Joe Liebgott would be sealing her own fate, allowing herself to need him in a way she hadn’t wanted to need anyone ever again. 

But in that moment, a decision was made: 

It would be worth it. 

So in response, Alix gave in to her impulses and pressed her lips earnestly to his with all of the sweet desperation that had been building up inside her since their eyes had first met days earlier.

Before she’d even known his name, a part of her had wanted to do this and the fact that it was actually happening had her head spinning in the best way.

Joe’s lips were soft, far softer than she’d expected them to be and they moved instinctively against hers in perfect synchronicity, anticipating her needs as naturally as he had on the dancefloor. 

Alix reached up and ran her fingers through his thick copper hair, the intoxicating musk of his cologne and the feel of his arms sliding around her waist sending warmth blossoming through her like a blazing hearth in the winter chill.

Deepening the kiss, her tongue tentatively prodded his half-parted lips and he tangled a hand in her hair, intensifying their embrace. 

Kissing Joe was like a drug, the syrupy-sweetness of the alcohol on his tongue and the searing heat of his mouth on hers stirred something in her she'd never before experienced. 

The warmth between them was slowly building, spreading like a wildfire, and even the sudden, frigid downpouring of sleet couldn't sour the elation they felt in each other's arms. 

“You gotta be shittin’ me,” Joe chuckled in between kisses, deftly flipping the collar up on his jacket with his free hand.

“What’s wrong, flyboy?” Alix quipped, her hair now coated in the frozen slush. “Afraid of a little winter weather?” 

“Nah," he scoffed with a teasing nip at her bottom lip. "But if I catch a fuckin' cold ‘cause of it, I’m makin’ you take care of me.”

"Yeah?" the agent joked, returning the nip playfully. "Why me?" 

"'Cause I ain't foolin' around with Roe." 

Alix couldn't even respond, reluctantly having to tear herself away due to her uncontrollable shivering.

"I should p-probably get g-going," Alix managed from between chattering teeth.

Both her coat and dress had already been soaked through with the freezing water and the harsh wind was biting at her through the trees.

"B-Before it g-gets worse." 

"Not like this we're fuckin' not," Joe declared, gently guiding Alix under the overhang. "We'll catch our deaths."

"You-You don't have to come," Alix replied, wrapping her arms around herself in a vague attempt to conserve whatever body heat hadn't already fled. 

"Like hell I don't," Joe responded stubbornly, crossing his arms to keep himself warm as well.

"If you think I'm gonna let you walk home alone in the middle of the night, and in this weather on top of it, you're outta your fuckin' mind." 

He was shivering too but he still took off his half-soaked coat and wrapped it around Alix's already-soaked coat anyway. 

"What...What do you recommend then?" 

Instead of answering, Joe opened the door to the White Rose again. 

"Lemme take care of it, dollface." he called over his shoulder as he slipped inside. "Don't miss me too much." 

∆∆━━━━∆∆━━━∆∆━━━∆∆

About five minutes later, Joe reappeared, dangling a room key with a triumphant grin on his face. 

"C'mon Ziskeit," he urged, wrapping an arm around her and guiding her inside where it was warmer. "I told ya I'd take care of it!" 

"How did you manage that?" Alix asked incredulously, once she'd stopped shivering so violently. "They don't rent to unmarried couples, do they? It'd be improper!" 

As if to answer her question, when they passed the concierge desk, the clerk gave them an enthusiastic parting wave. 

"Enjoy your Honeymoon, Corporal and Mrs. Liebgott!" 

Alix turned to Joe, wide-eyed. 

"Joey, you didn't-!" 

But Joe shot her a wink. 

"What can I say? I got creative." 

∆∆━━━━∆∆━━━∆∆━━━∆∆

Their room at the White Rose was a bit on the smaller side, right next to the first floor stairwell, and most importantly, it was warm but Alix wouldn't have noticed the difference if it had been a suite at the Waldorf.

Joe's lips pressed urgently against hers and together, they stumbled as one through the doorway in a frenzy of desire, each kissing the other as though their lives depended on it.  

"You been drivin' me crazy all night, y'know that?" Joe mumbled haltingly against her lips as he fumbled blindly for the door knob.  

"Have I?" Alix asked innocently, lightly nipping at his bottom lip before peeling off her coat and tossing it to the ground.

“Don’t fuckin’ play with me, Zees," he cautioned, pressing her back up against the closed door, which rattled its complaint.

"But why, Joey?" Alix purred seductively, reeling him in by his tie just to brush her lips tantalizingly against his and slip away before he could kiss her. 

"It's so much fun to tease you."

"Yeah?" She could hear the smirk in his rough voice but what she hadn’t expected was to feel him behind her. 

Catching her hand as he spoke, Joe deftly tugged her back to him and she yielded, allowing him to pin her against the opposite wall instead with a dull thump, caging her between his arms.

"’Cause I bet it's gonna be a whole lot more fun to tease you.”

He started with her jawline, his kisses torturously gradual as he made his way down her arching neck, the heat of his breath sending goosebumps prickling down her limbs. 

Locating her sweet spots with relative ease, he latched on, sucking a small trail of love bites into the delicate skin, pulling a breathy moan from Alix’s throat before she could stop it.

He was smirking against the blossoming bruises, she could feel it, and she eagerly nipped a row of matching marks into his neck in return, around the chain of his dog tags, the resulting guttural groan from him making her a little weak in the knees. 

His kisses traveled further down at a maddening crawl, making Alix squirm with impatience.

He was keeping her caged against the wall on purpose, forcing her to allow him to take the lead and for an agent so used to being the pursuer, the honeytrap, in-command at all times, she could’ve screamed in frustration. 

Sensing her impatience, he captured her mouth in another desperate, heated kiss and she pressed her whole body flush against him with an almost-feline grace.

Slow as pouring honey, she dragged herself agonizingly against him, making sure he felt every inch of her from her breasts to her hips and ass up against him.

She could feel the curve of his hard cock straining through his trousers as it lightly prodded her thigh–– and the sensation inflamed her like a cat in heat.

Tugging him nearer by his tie a second time, Alix leaned just close enough for her warm breath to ghost along the shell of his ear. 

“Fuck, I need you, Joey,” she moaned breathily, running a teasing hand over the bulge in his pants and making him shudder from the contact. “I need you so bad.”

“Okay now that,” Joe groaned at her touch. “That’s just fuckin’ cruel.”

“Then do something about it,” Alix purred and that was all the paratrooper needed to hear. 

Joe could be a very petty and proud man, but even so: he wasn’t superhuman.

Scooping her up in his deceptively-strong arms, Alix let out a small yelp of surprise as Joe moved her away from the wall and began backing her towards the bed, their lips crashing against each other’s again and again as they stumbled to it, throwing off their clothes as they went. 

Joe’s tie, her dress, his shirt, her heels, they all were strewn somewhere on the way but neither of them noticed where.

The backs of Alix’s knees hit the bed and Joe gave her a gentle push, easing her onto it, the mattress springs creaking softly.

 But for all his earlier cockiness, the paratrooper was rendered completely awestruck by her nearly-naked form, and he took a step back for a moment, simply standing there in his skivvies, gazing at her in pure disbelief. 

“Fuckin’ Christ,” he whispered finally, his eyes roving down her lounging body on the mattress, absorbing the image as though he couldn’t quite believe she was real.

Alix propped herself up on her elbows to give him a better view. Her bra was long gone– tossed to the floor nearby– and all that remained on her were her black garter belt, and matching stockings.

Suddenly, Alix found herself feeling more nervous than she ever had before. Modeling was impersonal. This wasn’t like that at all.

None of the artists had ever looked at her the way Joe was looking at her now, so…so reverently and yet so ravenously at the same time.

Come to think of it, no man she’d ever met had looked at her like that before, with such a mixture of carnal desire and awestruck admiration, and it was driving her wild in the best way. 

She needed him. In whatever way he wanted, Alix knew she needed him.

As if he could read her thoughts, he walked to the edge of the bed and gently nudged her legs apart with his hand. 

Alix must’ve looked surprised because he gave her a playful wink and settled between her thighs as though he'd always been, the look of pure desire in his eyes sending a tingling sensation to her most sensitive parts. 

Shifting the pillows so she could have a better vantage point, Alix could see even from there that Joe’s pupils were blown with lust and she could feel herself reddening under his gaze.

“You just sit back and relax up there, Ziskeit,” he entreated her, the old cocky, flirtatious Liebgott grin she’d seen earlier in the evening returning once again.

“This is gonna be fun.” 

“Joey, you don’t have to…” Alix began softly but the feeling of his lips nipping and kissing the inside of her thighs killed the rest of the words in her throat. 

God, he was good. 

He left a burning path of love bites from her hip bones down her inner thighs, causing her to whine impatiently at the dull ache blooming between her legs. 

He was driving her crazy and he knew it too, damn him.

Alix’s breath hitched as Joe eased her panties to the side with a finger. 

"God, you're fuckin' soaked," he breathed and Alix felt her heartbeat quickening at the lewdness dripping from his words. 

But even underneath the obscenity and voraciousness of his tone, there was an underlying sweetness too.

“You sure you wanna do this, Ziskeit?” he asked tentatively, meeting her eyes and suddenly seeming almost nervous.

“We don’t have to, y’know…I’ll understand, if you don’t…”

Alix frowned. 

Had she misread his signals the whole night? Was he just here because he was mollifying her?

“Do you not want to?” 

His eyebrows shot up immediately and he sat back on his knees. 

“You kiddin’ me? Of course I want to! I just didn’t want you to think-”

“I don’t,” Alix interrupted, knowing instinctively what he was going to say. “I don’t think that, not at all.”

He nodded his acknowledgement and returned to his prone position between her legs.

"Oh, by the way," he remarked nonchalantly, looking up with a positively sinful grin.

"You're gonna be cumming at least twice before we do anythin’ else." 

Alix’s eyes must’ve looked like saucers.

“U-Uh,” she stammered, knowing beyond the shadow of a doubt now that her face was a deep crimson.

“One thing, before you start. Um…I’ve never…y’know…Not from this…or anything, really. I don’t even know if I can…”

Joe’s eyes were as round as hers as understanding set in. 

“Wait, never?” he asked incredulously and Alix shook her head with a nervous titter, suddenly feeling extremely shy.

“Nope.” 

Clayton had never been the type to care about her pleasure and the others had been similarly apathetic.

Truthfully, she hadn’t even known sex was supposed to be enjoyable until Lavinia from St. Mary’s had shared stories of her romps in the woods with one of the boys from St. Ignatius. 

“I, uh, I hope that’s not a problem, Joey.” 

Recovering from his momentary trance, Alix saw something flicker in the golden flecks of his eyes, like 24Karat gold dust…was it affection? 

“Don’t worry ‘bout it, dollface,” he reassured her with an easy smile as he nudged her panties to the side once more.

“Just lay back and lemme make you feel good.”

Alix obeyed eagerly and he hooked his arms under her thighs, draping her legs over his shoulders before descending on her heat like some kind of starving animal. 

“Oh fuck,” she whimpered, feeling a bit pathetic at the way a few well-placed laps of Joe’s tongue already had her head feeling light. 

Tangling her fingers reflexively in his thick, lush brown hair, Alix swore she could feel him smiling as he devoured her, reveling in the way he was making her come undone in a way no one else had. 

Minutes later, she was trembling. The assassin everyone was so in awe of was quivering like a leaf in the breeze at every broad stripe of Joe’s well-practiced tongue. 

He knew what he was doing, that was for sure. 

Her free hand gripping the sheets, she could feel the muscles in her stomach clenching, bracing for each wave of pleasure that Joe’s tongue sent rushing through her. 

“Shit, you taste good,” Joe mumbled, greedily lapping at her core like a man starved, burying his tongue so deeply within her that Alix had to scrunch her eyes shut to keep from falling to pieces right then and there. 

“So fuckin’ sweet for me, aren’t ya, Zees?” 

“O-Oh God,” Alix gasped out, tugging at Joe's hair desperately. 

The pooling warmth in her stomach was getting stronger, deeper, her legs trembling as the waves of pleasure began to build, filling up like a balloon seconds from bursting. “Joey, I-I think-"

Joe groaned in excitement, lapping steadily at her core, before beginning to suckle on her clit, causing her vision to flash momentarily white. 

Alix let out a strangled cry, her back arching clear off the mattress and involuntarily thrusting her breasts into the air.

“Oh-Oh fuck, Joey,” she mewled, her voice carrying clear across the room as the dam broke. She tried to press her quivering thighs together, the overwhelming sensitivity like a tsunami of bliss completely flooding her senses, but Joe wasn’t done with her. 

Not even close. 

“Louder,” he urged as he coaxed her through her first orgasm, giving quick kitten licks to her most sensitive spot and teasing her slick entrance with a finger.

“C’mon, Zees, I wanna hear you.”

“Joey, if you keep this up, the whole hall is gonna hear me,” Alix half-sobbed, the pleasure so overwhelming that she could feel her vision swimming. 

Joe pressed a soft kiss to her knee before slipping a second finger inside her, sending her keening his name so loudly that she was sure even the clerks at the concierge desk could hear. 

“Good,” he affirmed, beginning to scissor his fingers inside her core as her breathing quickened to ragged, blissful gasps.

“Besides, we’re newlyweds, remember?” 

He shot her a wink. 

“We’re ‘sposed to be at it like rabbits.”

∆∆━━━━∆∆━━━∆∆━━━∆∆

Alix had always thought the phrase “seeing stars” was just an expression but after the third or fourth orgasm Joe had ripped out of her, she was pretty sure there were lights dancing before her eyes after all. 

“You doin’ okay, Zees?” The paratrooper perked his head up from between her legs, the evidence of her arousal glistening on his chin.

His bangs were stuck to his forehead, the both of them covered in a sheen of sweat, but he looked as satisfied as she felt. 

“You need a break or somethin’?” 

Alix gave him a reassuring smile and shifted her still-trembling legs off of Joe’s shoulders. 

“I’m good, Joey.” 

He cocked his head and sat back on his heels, eyeing her inquisitively, a note of concern in his husky voice. 

“You sure?”

Alix nodded. 

“I promise.” She let out a shaky laugh. “I’m just taking a quick second to recover, that’s all.”

Satisfied with her answer, the paratrooper crawled up beside her, back against the headboard, a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth as he searched the face beside him intently for a reaction.

“Pretty fuckin’ good, huh?” 

Alix giggled. 

“If you couldn’t tell from me screaming your name for however long it’s been, yes, it was ‘pretty fucking good’.” 

Joe gave her a playful nudge with his shoulder. 

“Just checkin’. Can’t leave Mrs. Liebgott unsatisfied on our honeymoon, y’know. What kinda husband would I be?”

Alix knew he was just joking but the reference still made something in her flutter with delight.

This paratrooper…This technician with the warm smile and the quick wit, who seemed to read her better than anyone else, he intrigued her like no one ever had.

He was an adventure, a revelation, an epiphany, everything she hadn’t known she’d been missing, all wrapped up into one charismatic person.

Feeling something stirring deep inside her again, Alix found herself gripped by a primal urge she couldn’t shake. 

She needed him, all of him. Now. 

Rolling over onto her side so that she was facing him completely, she could see the taut muscles of his thin, wiry frame, tensing like a panther as he looked at her.

How could he always read her mind?

Giving him a once-over, the spy glimpsed the same salacious shape straining against his underwear. 

Leaning over, she began to toy with the waistband of his skivvies, causing Joe's hips to buck up involuntarily as her smooth fingertips dipped below. 

“C’mon, Ziskeit,” Joe cajoled, those deep brown eyes full of unspoken pleas for release as Alix resumed kissing down his neck. “Don’t be a fuckin’ tease.”

“If I recall,” Alix murmured against his skin as she grazed her nails down his abs, making him inhale sharply. 

“A certain person made me beg for a full five minutes…” 

“Well that person's a fuckin’ idiot," Joe grunted desperately. 

As he was speaking, Alix slid his skivvies off and took him into her mouth, delicately tracing the head with her tongue.

"And I'm sure he – Oh fuckin’ Christ!” Joe hissed, tangling a hand in her hair desperately to keep some self-control as she went about her work, taking him deeper into her throat.

“Fuck, I’m sure he knows better now."  

Alix smirked, hollowing her cheeks and taking him still deeper, pushing him further down, savoring the taste of him, and she could feel his hips starting to buck. 

“God, you’re fuckin’ perfect,” he growled but as she deep-throated him again and again, he released her hair, his hands hurriedly finding their way to her shoulders. 

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Zees,” he choked out, pushing her away gently and it only took that warning tone for her to release him at once with a lewd pop.

“You okay, Joey?” she asked, her turn to be concerned, and he laughed nervously.

“Uh…” he chuckled, sheepishly running a hand through his hair.

“I…I wasn’t gonna last too much longer, if you kept that up. That was… Christ, that was somethin’ fuckin’ else.”

Alix hummed appreciatively before swinging a leg over and straddling his lap.

“Can we try this then?” she murmured, ghosting her fingers up and down his strong arms. 

"Jesus Christ," Joe whispered almost reverently from his half-propped position against the headboard, his heavily-lidded eyes roaming every inch of her nude form, still admiring her as though she was a priceless Caravaggio.

"You sure you're not a fuckin' dream or somethin'?" 

He slowly reached out, his fingertips ghosting across the valley of her breasts in mesmerized disbelief, as though he was afraid she might disappear at any moment if he was too rough with her.

"I'm real, tesoro," Alix assured him, guiding his hand to squeeze the supple flesh, sending a flood of warmth through her and she could feel him twitch beneath her, prodding her inner thigh with his arousal.

“I promise, I’m real.”

Carding a hand through his hair, she captured him in a long, passionate kiss which he returned just as fervently, the pair moaning deeply into each other’s mouths as she sank down on his cock.

She gasped as he bottomed out, the slight burn filling her with ecstasy, and he groaned deeply.

“Oh fuck, you feel so good.” 

Alix didn’t even have the words to reply. The feeling of fullness Joe supplied was unimaginably euphoric, blanking out her mind completely. 

Relying on animal instinct alone, she began to roll her hips, rutting against him as desperate keens and gasped curses fell from both their lips like prayers. 

Joe wrapped both arms around her waist, burying his face in her breasts with a deep, rumbling groan of ecstasy, gripping her to him as though she was a lifeline, the lifesaving driftwood to a drowning man. 

“Madonna mia,” Alix breathed, the fervent motion of her hips stuttering momentarily at the feeling of him latching onto the sensitive skin of her nipple. 

She rutted against him desperately, needing more and more of him, tugging on his hair in a silent plea for everything that only he could give her.

“Hey Ziskeit,” he murmurs seconds later, his voice husky with arousal, and she could feel her walls constricting around him tighter and tighter. “Goddammit, I think I’m gonna cum soon...” 

Her pace twice as insistent now, Alix bore down on him, Joe’s dog tags jingling musically against her chest as she rode him into oblivion. 

“Fuck, Joey, I need you,"  she murmured, chanting the last three words like a prayer as she felt herself teetering on a precipice for another time.

“Don’t say that," Joe gasped out, his grip around her hips so insistent that she was sure bruises would form later. "Don't fuckin' say that unless you mean it." 

He was bucking up against her too, matching her rhythm, every stroke so intense in her core that she was left a whimpering mess.

“I mean it, Joey,” Alix moaned as she pressed his face to her chest, "God, I fucking mean it."  

“Oh shit, Jesus Christ!” Panic and pleasure twisted Joe’s handsome features, his voice raising frantically. “Uh, Zees, I- FUCK!” 

His warning tone reached a fever pitch just as his orgasm jolted through him, ripping a guttural sound from his throat and leaving him slack-jawed and panting as his cock pulsed.

Alix was seconds behind him, burying her face into his shoulder with a broken sob as another orgasm overwhelmed her, plunging her instantly into white-hot bliss as he held her, murmuring praises in English and what she assumed to be German. 

Joe lolled his head back against the headboard, his murmuring voice farther and farther away now. Alix was too fucked out to think anymore and she found herself slumping over on top of his chest like a ragdoll as she drifted off.

∆∆━━━━∆∆━━━∆∆━━━∆∆

Surfacing from sleep around 1am to find Joe still buried comfortably inside her, the pair of them still tangled in each other’s arms, Alix gently eased herself upright, wanting to take in the scene for a moment, not knowing if she’d ever have the chance to again. 

Was this a one-night stand? God, she hoped not. Was it her imagination or was there something more between them? 

A spark? No…a flame. More than a flame. An inferno. 

In one night, Joe had shown her an entirely different world, an entirely different life than the one she’d been trapped in before.

How could she just go back to normal now, as if she hadn’t been completely and totally changed? As if her entire world hadn’t been rocked by one cocky paratrooper with puppy-dog eyes?  

Their clothes, still damp from the sleet, lay discarded in messy bunches along the carpet like autumn leaves.

Thinking back on it, Alix couldn't remember how long it had been since they'd begun but the chill of the remaining frost that had coated them both at the start was long gone by now, replaced with the sticky-sweetness and feverish heat of sweat and sex.

Joe wasn't like Clay or any of the handful of guys she'd been with before, she mused. 

They'd all been selfish lovers, entirely focused on chasing their own wants while denying her hers. She was merely a vessel for them to get off, nothing more than a doll to be used and discarded once her purpose had been fulfilled.

In one night, Joe had treated her like the complete opposite. 

He was still as full of fire in the bedroom as he was out of it, but for once, it was only for Alix to see. He had been chasing her all night but not in the way the others were. For the first time in her life, someone seemed hungry to please her. The thought was so foreign that it sent another shiver of pleasure through her.

Even in his sleep, Joe’s breathing hitched at the sensation of her walls contracting around him and she couldn’t help but giggle into her hand. 

“Whassofunny?” Joe mumbled, cracking an eye open. 

“Nothing, cucciolo,” Alix assured him, running a hand through his sex-tousled hair. “Go back to sleep. You need it.” 

“I fuckin’ don’t,” Joe insisted doggedly, starting to sit up, but when Alix started to lift herself off of him, he hissed and shook his head. 

“Not yet, Ziskeit,” he pleaded, his words still running together a bit in his after-sex haze. “A little bit longer.” 

“Then go back to sleep and I'll stay put,” Alix countered.

“Can’t,” Joe yawned. “Can’t sleep much normally, ‘cept after…y’know.” 

He made a vague gesture to their situation and Alix cocked an eyebrow, dark eyes sparkling with mirth. 

“If that was your way of trying to come onto me again,” she commented drolly. “I appreciate the creativity. I don’t think ‘Fuck me to sleep’ is a line I’ve heard before.”

“Wasn’t a line,” Joe responded with a shrug. “I really can’t sleep for shit."

His warm brown eyes were boring into hers again and she could feel the playful chuckle he was trying to suppress in his voice when he added slyly, 

“But y’know, just outta curiosity… if it had been a line, would it’ve worked…?” 

She was now hyper-aware of his hands resting gently on her bare back as he held her, the roughness of his calloused fingertips sending sparks dancing deliciously across her soft skin. 

“Wouldn’t you like to know, flyboy,” she teased with a soft roll of her hips, but the slight catch of desire in her voice when she felt him stiffen betrayed her.  

"Shit," Joe grunted at the sudden movement, pupils blown with desire. "You're such a fuckin' minx, y'know that?" 

"Am I?" Alix blinked innocently before clenching the muscles in her core around his cock in a vise grip, making him hiss. "I hadn't noticed." 

"Okay that's it," Joe hissed, the rasp in his slightly nasal-tenor coming out as almost a primal growl. Keeping one hand steady on her back, he pulled out and flipped her over, pinning her firmly underneath him. 

Alix sunk her nails into his back to keep herself from moaning needily as he buried himself within her once again, rougher this time, the heavenly ache between her legs as he bottomed out causing a small whimper to escape. 

“Gotta be quiet now, dollface,” he mumbled, crashing his lips to hers to keep himself from groaning out loud.

“People’re probably sleeping. Like we would be if you weren’t so goddamn gorgeous.”

“Such a charmer, cucciolo, I- Oh fuck!” 

Working up speed, Joe began pounding into her mercilessly, seemingly determined to make her pay for teasing him so cruelly earlier, and Alix wrapped her legs around him, craving him impossibly closer to her.

“Tesoro, fuck, I think–” she whimpered from beneath him. “I think I might-”

“Yeah?” he grunted, the vigor of his pace only increasing. 

Thinking back on it, his dog tags had been clinking so loudly against his Star of David pendant that Alix hadn’t even heard the door open.

“Real sorry I took so long, Pops,” a soft-spoken but familiar voice rang from the entrance. “But Doc said-” 

Shifty Powers, the sweet-faced trooper who’d waved to Joe in the lobby earlier, was now frozen dead in his tracks, his eyes dinner-plate wide as the tall glass of water he’d been carrying slid from his hands, shattering into several glistening chunks on the floor with a CRACK!

He was beet-red but rooted to the spot, his horrified gaze dropping down to the shattered glass at his feet and then back up to the still-intertwined Alix and Joe like he was tied to the tracks of an oncoming train.

“Shit,” he mumbled, stammering out excuses and apologies, half to himself and half to the couple as he immediately dropped to his knees and began busying himself with trying to collect the glass shards. “I- This-this isn’t…and y’all aren’t…But I thought-”

Alix lunged for the comforter, which she hurriedly wrapped around herself like an oversized towel.

“Don’t worry about the glass,” she reassured him kindly, his eyes glued firmly to the ground. “We’ll take care of it. You just get where you need to go.” 

“A-Are y’all sure?" He was speaking entirely to the carpet, head dipped to avoid any more accidental views.

If it hadn't been such a humiliating situation, Alix might've giggled.

"I wouldn’t wanna cause y’all any trouble.”

“It isn’t any trouble,” Alix insisted. “Isn’t that right, Joe?” 

Joe made a skeptical noise in the back of his throat, somewhere between a cough and a grunt, but the glare she shot him could’ve wilted even fake flowers and he finally relented.

“Yeah sure,” Liebgott replied, dulling the sharpness of the irritation in his tone. “No trouble at all.”

“Well alright, if y’all are sure…” Shifty mumbled, his face still a bright cherry red. “I’ll, uh, I guess I’ll just see y’all around. I'm just gonna-"

 

With that, he fled the room like a bat out of hell, leaving a disgruntled Joe and a mortified Alix in his wake. 

"God, I cannot believe that just happened." Alix squeaked into her palms, wishing that the Earth would just swallow her whole.

Even the exquisite soreness between her thighs wasn't worth that.

Joe meanwhile, was muttering to himself as he stepped over the glass shards strewn along a small patch of carpet.

"Going somewhere?" Alix asked with a cocked eyebrow.

“Yeah," Joe grumbled. "To latch and lock that goddamn door.” 

[liebgotts-lovergirl]

Fire On Fire: Chapter 1

(Ch. 2)

Gallery II Taglist Application II Symbol Guide

Summary: With WWII raging across the European Theatre, OSS agent Alix "Pyro" Martinelli and paratrooper Joe Liebgott are forced to navigate their star-crossed romance at the worst possible time. With the knowledge that one or both of them could end up dead before the war's end, will their secret love survive the horrors that await them or break under the pressure? Simultaneously, as he prepares to send her into enemy territory, first-time case officer/handler Lewis Nixon struggles to shoulder the ever-present fear that the agent he's come to see as his little sister may not make it back alive.

A/N: Here it is!! Y'all know the drill lol, everything BoB is strictly based on the miniseries & my own headcanons, not the real-life ppl. Also pls be nice to me, this is the first thing I've written since like 2018-2019. It'll get better hopefully lol. (And yes, I'm making y'all wait for that coveted first interaction between Lieb x Alix lol bc I'm evil) 💖

Contemporary: June 3rd, 1944. Aldbourne, England.

The most important ally in a spy's life is their case officer, also known as their handler, and for some reason, Alix’s seemed determined to get her killed before she ever set foot in a war zone. 

"It wasn't a suggestion, Martinelli, it was an order. You’ve been sparring with your dominant hand all day. Switch hands." 

Alix barely had time to fumble her weapon from her belt before Lieutenant Nixon came at her face with a knife. 

"Shit!" 

She ducked as it sailed over her head but managed to pop back up just in time to block an incoming punch with her right forearm.

"Christ," Alix griped, swiping at Nixon with the knife in her left hand, grazing his arm with the flat of the blade. "A little warning would've been nice, y'know!"

"Oh I'm sorry," the intelligence officer remarked snidely, stepping out of her reach to avoid another slash. "Did you think the Krauts would send you a personal invitation?" 

 The younger agent didn’t answer, instead aiming a kick straight at Nixon's stomach. She was shorter than him by a good 6 inches even in boots but her legs were still just long enough to reach him.

The kick was hard enough to connect but gentle enough not to hurt too much, more of a tap than a true kick.

“Weak form,” Nixon called out, although his slight stumble backwards betrayed him.

She knew he was deliberately trying to piss her off so she’d make more mistakes.

He always said “Anger makes you stupid, stupid gets you killed.”

Nixon recovered quickly from the kick, dodging her attempt at a stab and returning one of his own, easily tapping her arm with the dull side of the blade.

“Too slow.”

Yeah? She cocked a perfectly manicured eyebrow. We’ll see about that.

On a whim, Alix faked a punch to Nixon’s left. It was a gamble but it worked. He fell for her ruse just like she’d hoped and as his focus shifted to blocking his left side, she was able to disarm him with a swift kick to the right, knocking the knife out of his hand and into the grass somewhere.

She put her hands on her hips and grinned, panting. That was the quickest disarm she'd done all day and she'd managed it using her non-dominant hand and after hours of non-stop physical training, no less.

Not bad for one of Director Donovan’s “glorious amateurs”, she mused.

Watching her superior fishing around in the pasture for his lost weapon was kind of cathartic, Alix thought to herself with a stifled laugh. Perhaps it was just schadenfreude but it felt nice to see him be the one to struggle for once.

Ever since the first day he’d been assigned as her handler two years ago, Lieutenant Nixon had made it his personal business to make her life a living hell.

She had tried to be cordial to him but he wanted nothing to do with her, even going so far as to only refer to her as “Agent” or “Martinelli”. He had run her ragged during OSS training, ruthlessly drilling her on everything from close-combat and weapon-handling to enduring an interrogation every day for a full three weeks.

Nothing was ever good enough for him; he could always find something to criticize. He expected her to commit written information to memory practically the second she received it and he wasn’t shy about quizzing her at random on everything from poisons to arteries to conversational French.

She thought he might loosen up after her graduation from the OSS program, once he’d seen that she had transformed from a society girl into a capable agent who didn’t need her supervisor breathing down her neck, but that didn’t seem to be the case.

He still saw her as the youngest and smallest trainee that needed constant supervision and strict discipline for even the most minor of infractions. 

Getting transferred to England for further training with their Special Operations Executive had been a welcome change of pace. Her handler had gone back to Toccoa, Georgia with the Airborne and she finally felt like she could breathe again.

Life with the SOE wasn’t nearly as stressful because it was a well-established organization and her superior officers there were much more laidback. She felt secure in her training and confident in her skills. But her relaxation was short-lived because after a year, the Airborne had transferred too and with them came her Draconian handler and a host of new trials to complete. Joy.

Despite Alix’s lifelong fear of heights, even completing her jump-training wasn’t as difficult as earning Lewis Nixon’s approval, and that was really saying something.

For whatever reason, the intelligence officer seemed determined to break her but the young OSS agent was even more determined to succeed.

No matter how hard he pushed her, she always pushed right back. The sight of an intimidating-looking officer glaring down at a petite woman 9 years younger and half a foot shorter than him like she was the Devil Incarnate after a particular bout of sass often provided endless entertainment for troopers passing by the training ground and Alix herself would've found it hilarious if she wasn't on the receiving end of said glare.

Digging her red-painted nails into her palms with frustration, Alix marched over to her handler and cleared her throat expectantly. 

The Lieutenant looked up from his field notebook and cocked a bushy eyebrow. 

“Did you want something, Agent?”

Alix’s dark eyes narrowed. Nixon’s air of deliberate nonchalance was really pushing her buttons and he knew it. The more heated she got, the colder he would get, but she could feel her temper bubbling just under the surface anyway.

“I have a name, you know,” she snapped. “It’s Alix.”

“I don’t care. You’re an assignment, not my friend. Now, what do you want?”

Alright, that’s it.

“Well number one, for you to stop treating me like a fucking child!”

“Then stop acting like one,” was the dismissive reply.

“Excuse me?!”

“You heard me. You’re getting complacent. You’re going to be in extremely close-quarters with highly-skilled German officers, alone. If you make even the slightest mistake, if you're off by even a second, they’re going to eat you alive.”

“I’m a Sparrow,” she shot back. “A trained assassin. I’d like to see them try.” 

“You’re also what, 5’4” and a hundred-something pounds soaking wet? Some threat! If they disarm you, it's game over." 

Alix seethed, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring daggers at her superior.

“I graduated top of my class. You’ve seen me fight! You know I’m as effective with a weapon as I am without one!” 

“With your right hand, maybe, but what if it’s restrained and you have to use your left?" 

“You worry too much.” 

“You don’t worry enough. You’re not strong enough to be effective against highly-trained soldiers without a weapon. Here, throw a punch with your left, I’ll show you what I mean.” 

Alix’s dark eyes narrowed and she gave a sarcastic smile.

“It would be my pleasure, sir.” 

She swung a long left-hook. Her knuckles had just grazed his jaw when he grabbed her wrist.

Using her own body’s momentum against her, he stepped in, hooking his arm under her armpit and easily flipping her over his shoulder onto the ground with a hard thud. 

“Fuck!” Alix coughed out, the breath forcibly knocked from her lungs due to the sudden impact. Laying on her back, she was winded and her muscles were burning but her mind was racing. She was down but not out.

Catching her breath, she shifted into a crouching position. Now she was seeing red.

Nixon meanwhile, was resting on his laurels. 

“See,” he announced from above with a smug, almost irritatingly paternal air. “What did I tell you? You’re not as effective unarmed. You need to train mo-”

THUMP!

Swinging her leg out in one fluid motion, Alix had caught his ankle, using a Tiger-Tail leg sweep to swipe her handler’s legs out from under him, bringing him crashing down next to her with a string of muttered curses.

“Doesn’t look like you’re that effective unarmed either, sir,” she said with a sarcastically-bright smile. “Maybe you should train more.”

The Lieutenant opened his mouth defensively, about to respond, but he was cut off by the sound of tires on the grass behind them.

Glancing up at the noise, Alix felt relief wash over her at the sight of Sergeant Bull Randleman and Lieutenant Winters crossing the field toward them in a Jeep. If anybody could temper Lewis Nixon’s attitude, it was those two. 

The dark-haired lieutenant got off the ground, dusting off his uniform. Turning to Alix, he offered her a hand but she gave him a scathing look that clearly said “I don’t want your damn help” so he retracted it with a shrug. 

Suit yourself. 

Inwardly groaning at her sore muscles, Alix gritted her teeth and silently dragged herself to her feet. She was not going to give him the satisfaction of seeing her struggle.

As long as I'm still breathing, she thought. I'm fucking fine.

As the two officers approached, both she and Nixon saluted them.

“That was a damn near perfect takedown you just did,” Bull exclaimed with brotherly pride, chomping on the end of his trademark cigar as he and Winters approached. “And some disarm too! We saw when we was passin’ by earlier! You're some kinda killer now, huh, Pyro?”

“After two years of training, I sure hope so!” she chirped, grinning at the nickname. The memory of its origin always made her laugh.

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A year earlier: January 1944. Aldbourne, England.

On her first day training for her cover as a combat nurse with Easy, she’d gotten into an explosive argument with some guy named Cobb over a particularly sexist series of comments he’d made while cornering her outside, after one of Welsh’s riveting lectures on map-reading.

“What’s a pretty thing like you doing here anyway?” he’d asked, looking her up and down with a wolfish smirk. “War's no place for a woman like you, sweetheart.”

“I'm doing my part, same as you," she’d answered coolly. “And just for the record, ‘a woman’s place’ is wherever the hell she wants to be.”

With a bright, "Fuck you" smile, she had just pushed past him to be on her way when she distinctly heard him grumble “Jeez, learn to take a compliment, bitch.”

The shouting match that followed quickly escalated into a physical brawl the moment the phrase “all bust, no brains” came out of his mouth. The fight only ended minutes later when a still-cursing Alix was physically dragged off of a barely-conscious Cobb by Bull, who didn’t want the new girl committing murder on her first day.

“Well ain’t you a little firecracker!” Bull had remarked, shaking his head in amusement. 

And thus, the nickname Pyro was born.

╚══  • 🖤🖤 • 🖤🖤 • 🖤🖤 • 🖤🖤 • 🖤🖤 •  ══╝

Contemporary: June 3rd, 1944. Aldbourne, England.

“So what are your thoughts, Nix?” Winters inquired. “You’re her handler, after all. Is she ready?”

 There was a short silence and Alix held her breath.

What if he lied and told Dick she was terrible? What if he got her kicked off the mission and the whole Sparrow program never got off the ground because of it? What if- 

“It wasn’t a bad session—” Nixon started after a minute of thought and Alix exhaled.

Thank God. 

 “—But her disarm could’ve been faster. Her shooting is fine with her right hand but she can’t make a left-handed headshot worth a damn, let alone in the time frame she needs to.”

“Well,” Bull drawled matter-of-factly. “considerin’ it’s her left hand she’s workin’ with and ‘s far as we know, she ain’t left-handed, I reckon just bein’ able to hit the target is somethin’. She's somethin' to see shootin' with her right though! Kill-shots every time."

Winters nodded in silent agreement, making some small notations on the clipboard he was carrying before looking over at Nixon, green eyes meeting black.

“Mind if I have a word with you, Lew? In private?” he asked, gesturing for them to take a short walk back to the Jeep and the dark-haired man shrugged, putting his hands in his pockets. 

“Sure thing, Dick.” 

He gave a curt nod to Alix and a strained smile to Bull before the two men started off. 

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“Now, far be it from me to tell you how to run things,” Winters began tentatively once they had arrived at the car. “But don’t you think you’re being just a bit too harsh on her?” 

He leaned against the Jeep, giving his friend a scrutinizing look. 

“I mean, did you really expect her to be able to make a head-shot with her non-dominant hand? Can you even make that kind of shot with your left hand, Nix, let alone in under 5 seconds?”

"No but I’m also not the one who’s going to be locked in a room every other night, up close and personal, with members of the SS, the Gestapo, or God knows who else,” Nixon countered, beginning to pace. “She needs to be prepared, goddamn it.” 

Dick frowned as he watched his best friend. He’d never seen Lew this anxious before. He opened his mouth to respond but before he could get the words out, his friend cut him off.

“There’s no room for mistakes, Dick,” Nixon insisted, his voice rising. “She’s good, really good, but she has to be the best or she's going to get herself killed out there!" 

“She is the best or she wouldn’t have been recruited in the first place,” Winters replied evenly.

“We all know that Soviet Swallows aren't recruited at random and neither are American Sparrows. She was chosen because she can handle it.”

Nixon shook his head. 

“What if you’re wrong?”

“I’m not,” the redhead said bracingly.

“She’s been training non-stop for two years, in everything from poison usage to intelligence-gathering, seduction to pickpocketing. Hell Nix, you just flipped her onto the ground and she still managed to take you out too in a matter of seconds! She’s a crack-shot and speaks how many foreign languages now?” 

“Three,” the dark-haired man conceded. “Italian, French, and Spanish. Four if you count a working knowledge of Russian.” 

“Exactly. And on top of it, she has the smartest man I know as her handler. Even if I didn’t have faith in her, which I do, I have faith in you and your abilities and so does Bill Donovan or he wouldn’t have personally assigned you to such a new program.” 

Nixon rubbed the back of his neck worriedly, his mouth set in a hard line.

A part of him knew that Dick was right— all of the relentless pressure he’d put on her had paid off because Alix really was one of the best to come out of the OSS but still, that nagging fear just wouldn't leave him alone.

He had a bad feeling about all this. 

╔══ • 🖤🖤 • 🖤🖤 • 🖤🖤 • 🖤🖤 • 🖤🖤 • ══╗

2 Years Earlier: June 1942. Washington DC, USA.

He thought back to his first briefing on agent handling with the OSS two years earlier. He had been among a group of about eight officers called to OSS headquarters for a personal conference with the director, Bill Donovan himself. 

Once all of the handshaking and small-talk had died down, everyone spread out and took their seats, an expectant hush falling over the small crowd.

“Gentlemen,” Donovan began, his gravelly voice piercing the thick air. “There are whispers in the intelligence community that the Russians are developing a new program.” 

Nixon shifted uncomfortably in his chair, struggling to concentrate. It was stiflingly hot in his uniform and the air conditioner in the office had stopped working, much to everyone’s chagrin.

He could feel the sweat dripping down his back and he grimaced.

This better be good.

“We have received Intel from our sources in Russia that strongly confirms the use of so-called ‘Soviet Swallows’-” 

“Like the bird, sir?” the officer across from Nixon piped up and Donovan let out an exasperated sigh.

“Yes, like the bird, son. "

Nixon might've laughed if the situation hadn't been so serious.

"These Russian Swallows are part of a new program utilizing female spies who are highly trained and tasked with infiltrating and incapacitating the enemy. They combine the deadliness and discipline of a soldier with the glamour and grace of a movie star."

There were some oohs and aahs from the officers around him but Nixon remained silent.

If they were as highly trained as Donovan was suggesting-- and knowing the Russians, he had no doubt they were-- these Swallows, whoever they were, would be extremely dangerous and effective agents in the field.

"Now," Donovan continued. "Our objective is to get ahead of them. The president has tasked us here at the OSS with creating a similar program, known as the Sparrow Program, and we need capable officers like yourselves to lead it. If all goes well, these young ladies I am assigning you today will be the very future of American espionage.” 

The men in the room all began to exchange curious glances.

The meeting itself had been scheduled for some time but all of the information about it had been considered Classified, so nobody had known how significant the project actually was. The nervousness and excitement in the room was palpable.

“The files that I am handing out to you now, gentlemen, are our first class of agents. Each of them have been carefully selected from the top schools and families across the country. They are the best and brightest that the United States has to offer. You have all been assigned one agent and as her handler, you will be personally responsible for her from today onward. You will be training her, managing her operations, arranging drops and meetings with Resistance contacts, processing the Intel she brings so it can be passed up the ladder, and you will be her lifeline if anything, God forbid, goes wrong.”

There was a beat of uncomfortable silence before he added brightly, “But no pressure."

Nixon made a bitter noise in the back of his throat and sipped the cup of black coffee he’d gotten from the lobby.

Oh yeah, he thought cynically. No pressure at all.

"Now when I read off your name, raise your hand and my assistant will present you with the file of your first operative, who you will be sending behind enemy lines at a time and date to be specified. I will be personally available to answer any questions, should you have them. First up...Atkins!"

Nixon stared straight ahead, past the officer sitting across from him, out the window, to the treeline as he waited for his name to be called.

Great, the lieutenant mused bitterly. I get to be responsible for someone else's life now too. Because I'm doing so well managing my own.

Once the folders had all been handed out, the director began to circle the room, periodically answering questions as they were asked.

Lieutenant Nixon let the file sit closed on the table for a minute, just staring at it, as he mentally prepared himself to look into the face of the person he would be sending into enemy territory.

Steeling himself, he reached for the folder and opened it, glancing inside before immediately slamming it shut. 

The girl looked so young in her photo, barely 21, and for a split-second, in her glossy black curls and dark eyes, he saw his baby sister, Blanche smiling back at him. He suddenly felt ill. 

"Ah, you got Miss Martinelli," Donovan said, suddenly appearing over his shoulder as if sensing his doubts. "Alix is a charming girl. Quite a rebellious streak no doubt, but one of our most promising recruits. A swan among sparrows, if you will. Educated at St. Mary’s-- one of the finest finishing schools in the country, I might add-- and top of her class in our training facility as well. Her father, Emilio, is a good friend of mine. He's in oil, as I'm sure you know."

Nixon gave a half-smile, hoping he looked convincing and interested. He had no idea who Emilio Martinelli was nor did he care.

Rubbing elbows with other rich people was his mother's department, not his.

Casting one more glance at the folder, he took a deep breath and exhaled, trying to rid himself of the violent wave of nausea that hit him relentlessly.

From the moment he saw the photo, it had dawned on him just how easily the girl in the folder could have been his sister and now it wouldn’t leave his mind. She was just like Blanche in almost every way. This was somebody's little sister, no doubt.

And how could he send his little sister to die? He couldn’t.

Donovan had just turned to move on to the next officer when at the last minute, Nixon caught him by the sleeve.

“Sir,” he begged, his voice low. "Not her. Anyone but her. Please.”

The director’s brow furrowed.

“Son, I'm afraid everything's already been arranged. There's no backing out now."

The younger man quailed.

What was he supposed to do? Keep pleading? Tell the director he couldn’t take on the recruit because he couldn’t look her in the face without seeing his baby sister?

That was exactly what he did. 

To his relief, Donovan didn't laugh. Instead, he put a bracing hand on the lieutenant's shoulder. 

“You say she reminds you of your sister back home, right Lieutenant?” 

“Yes sir.” 

“Then prepare her like you’d prepare your sister. Protect her. Keep her alive.”

“Yes sir.”

╚══  • 🖤🖤 • 🖤🖤 • 🖤🖤 • 🖤🖤 • 🖤🖤 •  ══╝

Contemporary: June 3rd, 1944. Aldbourne, England.

Winters cleared his throat awkwardly, breaking the silence between them as he wracked his brain for how best to broach the delicate subject on his mind. 

"Lew…uh…"

"Spit it out, Dick," Nixon intoned from beside him without even looking up. 

Winters did his best to oblige.

 

"Is this..um..Is there some sort of a romance thing going on with you and her or something? You just seem really torn up but I thought she had a thing going with.." 

Nixon jerked his head back with a flabbergasted look like he'd just been told Winters was moonlighting as a circus clown.

"What?! Oh God no, Dick, she's like my kid sister! Christ, she's a child!" 

"She's twenty-three, isn’t she?" 

"Yes, exactly! She's a child!" 

Winters laughed and shook his head in amusement.

"You act like being in our thirties makes us ancient. But good, I’m glad we got that cleared up then because I was going to say, if that's your problem, I can't help you. I’m not very good with that sort of thing."

A teasing smile played at the corner of Nixon’s lips. 

“Yeah, I’ve noticed. Say, do me a favor, Dick?”

“Depends on what it is.”

“If you ever have any more wildly off-base speculations about my love life, keep ‘em to yourself. In all the years I've known you, I don't think you've been right one time."

They both laughed but the auburn-haired officer sobered quickly.

"In all seriousness, Nix, lighten up a little on Martinelli, okay? She’ll be fine. Letting her have a little fun once in a while won’t hurt, especially since we're due out any day now.”

The intelligence officer cocked an eyebrow slyly. 

“Since when are you lecturing me on 'lightening up' and 'having fun'?" he asked, black eyes glittering with barely-contained mirth.

"Who are you and what have you done with my friend Dick?”

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[liebgotts-lovergirl]

All For One & One For All

Gallery II Taglist Application II Symbol Guide

Summary: In trying to tear them apart, Captain Sobel just accidentally brought them closer. A/N: Just a lil friendship flashback blurb thing that came to me while I was working on Chapter 11 & I figured I'd put it out there lol bc platonic friendships are important!! Taglist: @latibvles @softguarnere @brassknucklespeirs @wwhatev3r @mccall-muffin

6 Months Earlier: March 18th, 1944. Aldbourne, England.

“I’m gonna kill myself,” Don muttered, hauling what felt like the millionth pile of dirt over his shoulder. 

“I’m gonna kill him myself,” Alix replied out of the corner of her mouth, digging her shovel violently into the Earth with renewed vigor, as though spearing Sobel straight through the heart.

“Not if I do it first,” Skip mumbled back to her with a roll of his eyes. “Can you believe this is our fucking Saturday?"

“I don’t remember giving you three permission to speak!” Sobel bellowed from the outside of the ditch, pacing from one end to the other like a caged animal. 

“Sir,” Skip half-panted, in a tone of forced diplomacy. “We’ve been at this since dawn and it’s almost ten now. When can-”

“You will be digging these damn ditches until I tell you to stop, Sergeant Muck!” Sobel interrupted, nostrils flaring.

"Your times from yesterday morning's run were so pathetic that you should be grateful I didn't make you run beforehand!”

Well what did you fucking expect, Alix wanted to retort.

Don was sick as a dog, and both she and Skip were nursing hangovers on zero sleep, having spent most of Thursday night taking care of Malarkey after they returned from the pub.

What the hell did Sobel expect them to be after all that, Olympic fucking medalists?

Digging pointless ditches only to fill them back in was one of Sobel's favorite punishments and the three of them seemed to always be first on his shit-list: Alix for insubordination and her smart mouth, Skip for lateness, and Don seemingly just for existing. 

Don stopped digging to let out another hacking cough into his elbow and Sobel’s nose crinkled disdainfully.

Keeping his head tilted down, Skip still managed to exchange worried glances with Alix. 

Don's flu had only been getting worse under the constant training in the English rain, and his best friends both wondered silently how long Don could remain working before he collapsed.

Finally, the agent resolved to say something.

She couldn't let this asshole Sobel endanger her friend, even if it meant taking on more punishments herself.

“Sir, Mal can barely stand!" Alix protested, pausing from her work momentarily to wipe away the sweat trickling down her forehead.

She was trying her best to remain civil but it was a Herculean effort.

"Punish me and Skip all you'd like but Don is too fucking sick to be here. He needs rest and a doctor before he gets any worse!"

 

Sobel glared down at her for a moment and Alix could see the cogs turning in his mind before he spoke. 

"It's Martinelli, isn't it?" he asked finally, eyes narrowed as he scrutinized her. "Our Sparrow-in-Training." 

You have my file; you know damn well who I am, Alix wanted to snap, but she managed a "Yes sir" from between gritted teeth.

“Well Martinelli," he spat as though her name was a curse word.

"You don't give the orders around here. I do. And since you three had the worst times yesterday, you will be digging ditches until I tell you otherwise. Is that clear?" 

"Then let me dig Don's section," Alix pushed. "So he doesn't have to." 

"I can help!" Skip volunteered but Sobel ignored them, continuing on his tirade.

"Director Donovan and the OSS might see something special in you, Martinelli, but d’you want to know what I see?” 

Not particularly but I know you're going to tell me, Alix thought dryly but outwardly she held her tongue, glaring down at her shovel as she dug up another round of soil and threw it over her shoulder. 

He was deliberately trying to rankle her by ignoring her concerns about Don's health, framing it as though she were trying to give orders above her station. 

What a piece of shit. 

“I see a spoiled brat who thinks she’s too good to be here because Daddy paid her way into the OSS."

Alix set her jaw but Sobel was just getting started. 

"You may be Donovan's little princess back at HQ," he sneered. "But as long as you are positioned with Easy for your cover, you are under my command and I will not be allowing this type of insubordination to go unpunished. Get out of the ditch." 

Alix's brows knit. 

"Sir?" 

"Get. Out. Of. The. Ditch." he repeated, overenunciating his words as though she were a child. 

Once she'd climbed out, Sobel, who towered over her at 6 foot 1, regarded her as though she were an ant beneath his boots. 

"Count yourself fortunate that I can't kick you out, Martinelli," he all but snarled at her.

"Because I wouldn't hesitate. You're not cut out for the Airborne." 

"Good thing I didn't sign up for it then, sir." 

Shit. 

Alix's mouth moved faster than her brain sometimes. 

Most times, she thought ruefully. 

A snicker escaped Skip's mouth before he could stop it and Sobel's head whipped around, descending on him like a hawk.

"Do you think insubordination is funny, Sergeant?"

 "N-No sir," Skip choked out, trying to disguise his laughter as coughs. "Not funny at all, sir."  

Sobel was wearing a sanguine smirk, pacing in front of Skip and Alix's section of the ditch as though he were deciding what method of torture would be most appropriate for each of them.

The sadistic bastard was enjoying this. 

"Agent Martinelli," he announced, turning back to lock eyes with Alix. She could see a vein pulsing in his forehead but she kept her eyes focused, squinting in the morning sun. 

She would not be the first to blink.

"Since you seem to enjoy assuming a leadership role when it has not been assigned to you, you will be running the officers' course: 5 miles at full-speed and you will be timed. Your handler ran it in 35 minutes. Since you seem to think you rank even higher, let's see if you can run it in 25." 

Alix drew her bottom lip between her teeth to keep from yelling, biting down so hard that she tasted blood. 

He's insane, she thought to herself. He's officially fucking lost it. 

Another impossible task, and all because she had been a little tired during the morning run.

She could've screamed, especially when she saw the gloating look on Sobel's face.

"I may not be able to kick you out, Martinelli, but by the end of today, you will wish that I had."

"We'll see, sir."

"Muck, Malarkey" Sobel barked, turning his attention to her other friends. "Get out of the ditch." 

Skip exhaled sharply through his nose, as though he was releasing any hope of having a good day, but he too clambered out of the ditch before reaching down to help Don as well.

"Since I would hate to break up the Three fucking Musketeers--"

Sobel's voice was dripping with so much sarcasm that it left Alix seriously considered how much it would cost her to accidentally poison the man's coffee some fine morning.

"You two will be accompanying Agent Martinelli on the Officers' Course. But this is not a playdate, you three. You will be competing. The one with the slowest time will be filling in this unfinished ditch all by themself."

Alix cocked an eyebrow.

She knew the game he was playing. It was the same game that the headmistress played at St. Mary's: trying to pit friends against each other.

Sobel got a real kick out of being divisive and Alix suspected that whatever else was going on in his life, he wanted everyone else to suffer for it too.

Well, tough shit.

She might've actually felt sorry for him if he wasn't such a jackass.

But Sobel was the sort of man who would probably kick puppies for fun.

He was clearly banking on the fact that if they were busy fighting with each other, they'd be less effective against him so he was trying his damnedest to sow some discord between them.

But he didn't know Warren Muck, not like they did.

Skip was the glue that held everything together, the ever-patient mediator.

Don and Alix may have been quick to anger but never him.

Infinitely good-natured, the Skipper wasn't one to hold a grudge and he as well as anyone knew what Sobel's modus operandi was. It would take more than a stupid punishment from Sobel to make him truly angry at either her or Don.

"What are you waiting for?" Sobel shouted, seemingly morbidly overjoyed to watch them struggle through the course. "Get a move on! You're wasting daylight."

"Yes sir," Alix spit with as much venom as she had in her as the three headed off.

∆∆━━━━∆∆━━━∆∆━━━∆∆

"That man is the Devil in jump boots, I swear," Skip remarked from her right side at his usual bounding pace "I'd stake my life on it."

"You're not wrong, Skipper," Don wheezed through another loud cough, his speed starting to lag. "I'm pretty sure he's tryna kill me."

"Sure seems like it," Alix panted in reply, slowing down to match Don's pace. "Sorry I got you guys smoked too though. I would've rather it've just been me."

"No sweat," Skip chirped cheerfully, still practically skipping, true to his name. "Beats digging more stupid ditches!"

Don managed a small grin.

The bounce in Skip's step never seemed to fade, no matter how dark the day.

"And besides," Skip continued. "At least we're all getting smoked together, right? Builds character."

"Well by the time we're done in Aldbourne, we'll probably have the most fucking character of anyone in the damn whole company," Don joked.

"You're welcome," Alix snarked, the heavy footfalls of her boots sending clouds of dirt up like a small stampede.

"Guys, did he really call us the Three fucking Musketeers as an insult," Don laughed, which quickly turned into a sneeze.

"Or was that just a product of my flu-addled imagination?"

"No, it was real," Alix commented with a grin. "Not a bad book either, Les Trois Mousquetaires. I read it at St. Mary's."

"Hey, no kidding!" Skip's face lit up from beside her. "I read it in school too!"

"Weren't they also called--" Don broke off due to another coughing fit and Skip finished for him.

"The Three Inseparables, yep!"

"'We are never seen one without the others...Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, the Three Inseparables.'" Alix recited from memory.

"And D'Artagnan, the extra," Don added. "But he doesn't really count, does he?"

"I know Sobel meant it as an insult but is it terrible that I actually kinda like it?" Skip asked. "'S pretty fitting, I think."

Alix shook her head.

"It's definitely fitting," she piped up in agreement. "Plus, anything that Sobel hates is pretty much automatically my new favorite thing."

"Agreed," Don replied. "But now we need to figure out what're we gonna do about this stupid fucking competition. We'll be at the end soon."

Malarkey was right, Alix mused, trying to ignore the ever-increasing burning of her muscles as they ran.

They were nearing the end of the course and Sobel would soon be expecting two winners and a loser.

Since Malarkey was sick, most likely, Sobel was betting on him finishing last so that he could be forced to fill in the ditch, but neither Skip nor Alix were going to let that happen.

"Well, the answer's right there, isn't it?" Alix commented and both Skip and Don cocked their heads.

"Care to elaborate?" Skip asked at the same time Don managed to choke out "Share" in between a string of thunderous sneezes.

"'Tous pour un, un pour tous!'"

Skip shook his head.

"Sorry, no dice. Translation please?"

"'All for one and one for all,'" Alix answered brightly.

"We finish the race at the same time, together, that way Sobel can't make any one of us fill the ditch in alone. The work'll go much faster between the three of us!"

"'All for one and one for all,'" Skip repeated, a grin spreading across his face. "I love it. You in, Mal?"

"Of course I'm in!" Malarkey piped up. "Man, I can't wait to see the pissed off look on his face when he realizes we won't play his stupid fucking games!"

And Malarkey was right.

The sense of pure triumph and satisfaction that Alix felt watching Sobel's face turn red with fury as the three of them crossed the finish line arm-in-arm was enough to get her sore muscles through even the most strenuous parts of refilling the ditch afterwards.