The Softest Hearts Crush The Hardest 🧃

26 💗 Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_meadows/pseuds/A_meadows Inconsistent writer, consistent daydreamer I suck at tumblr

[bambimeadows]

A small reader x Adler thing I whipped up. It’s not my best work, the writing is a bit stripped back, I haven’t put too much effort into it, so it is messy and a bit simple and rushed🙃 But I haven’t posted any writing to tumblr yet, so here you are. Reader is gender neutral (tried my best but let me know of any errors) you’re basically a rookie spy at the BND 🕵️🕵️‍♂️ There is some vague, non explicit sort of smut. Have fun! 💕

Three years ago, when you were a rookie, fresh out the womb of the government’s BND training programme, you had met him while you were shadowing one of the organisations top agents.

He hadn’t even taken the liberty of addressing you directly when the three of you met in the abandoned train tunnels, but he had peered at you from behind his shades, those black, sepia tinged squares of glass and gave you a singular firm nod. It was because he knew your weakness, he could discern your current standings, he smelled it on you like tigers did prey, you might as well have been a tiny, delicate, dainty wobbly legged fawn stumbling along after your handler as if they were mama Deer.

You were a sharper blade now though, sturdier and pluckier in every sense of the word.

Adler needn’t be a source of trepidation, he was an associate and you would be liaising with him for the sake of your job and the free world. You had been trusted to do so, albeit with the less than encouraging words, “Do not embarrass us, agent. You know who he is.”

Indeed you did, in the small inner circles of the BND, the man was a legend. You were privileged just to know he existed.

And here he sat in the Heidelberg, his long limbs sprawled out and propped up leisurely on the small red arm chair. He was slotted into the corner of the joint, at a small round table, another chair sat vacant opposite him. You glance at it with wash and swirl of dread in your belly before you powered forward, penetrating the cloudy hive of collective smoke from the patrons. Adler seemed to be contributing to the smog heartily as he huffed away, letting fluid like clouds billow from his lips with artistic flair and grace.

He did not acknowledge that he had seen you initially, he merely nodded, ever so slightly, to the seat opposite him.

“You’re early,” he comments flippantly, scratching a long, thin hand across his jaw absentmindedly, a hearty earthy sound emitted when he did this due to the faded stubble adorning his visage.

He had been clean shaven last time indeed, you only remembered due to your razor sharp attention to detail, not because you had been particularly fixated on his face and the terrains and markers that pieced it together.

And if you kept telling yourself that you might start to believe it.

You had forgotten however, the exceptional depth and richness of his vocal chords, like an abyss his voice was, bottomless and profound. It sliced through the flesh of any silence with such volition and authority it made your ears flinch.

On cue you glance up at the clock on the wall behind his head and raise an eyebrow at him. “By three minutes, sir?”

“Glad you can read a clock,” he muses, before gathering himself together, sitting up straighter, a rough clear of his throat as he does. “Got what I need then?”

You shouldn’t, but you do feel demoralised by his briskness, his stinging frost. You hadn’t been sure what you had been expecting, but perhaps you should have expected that he’d be a colossal prick after all.

A man like him, why wouldn’t he be? When you’re at the top, wasn’t it the done thing to do? To lord down on people? To stroke and pamper your own ego by wiping your boots with other peoples? You wasn’t entirely certain how you’d behave and move through the world if you were him.

“Yes,” you breath, reaching down into your black leather bag and thumbing around until you find a book, some romance novel you had laying around on your coffee table for months, the documents that laid sandwiched between the pages of said book were the treasure here however, your selection of literature needn’t have mattered. You slide it across the table to him. “Here you are.”

“Thanks,” he scoffs, rubbing his thumb across the cover of the paperback painstakingly slowly. “This will really come in handy for all these lonely nights.”

You search his face for a moment, your eyes straining in an effort to see through the lenses, but there is nothing to be displayed, his face is pristinely still, the glassy mask on his eyes currently impenetrable. He leisurely pulls his hand up to take another ample pull at his cigarette, you take it as your cue, you begin to stand.

“Leaving so soon?” He ponders, tongue laced with feathery and amused surprised. As you are now stood up, looking down at him, you can see the beginnings of his retinas, you could just about make out that they were a startling blue. The man must have seen the ways in which you were trying to peak, so he reaches up and pulls the damned shades down the slopping, robust bridge of his nose.

He makes eye contact with you and it takes a grasp on you you, it squeezes you, the grip firm, sweetly and tenderly painful around your heart, gratifying like the way pressing down on an aged violet bruise is. “You sure you won’t stay for a drink?”

It knocks you for six, and you can’t suppress the gulp that travels down your trachea. It’s no big dramatic gesture, you tell yourself, but your body is not convinced. You begin to buzz, your nerves combust into licks of flames.” Well… I suppose I could have just one. But I have work tomorrow.”

“So does everyone else here,” He throws his hand up, palm towards the ceiling in a disdainful gesture. “Come on, I could use the company.”

Your eyes squint in scepticism at him and he lets out something of a delicate snort and shake of his head. “God damn what are they teaching you kids these days,” you hear him mutter as soft as gently trickling water, you barely hear him. I’m buying,” he says louder, stubbing his cigarette out. “What will you have?”

You felt put on the spot, so you shake your head. “Surprise me, whatever, I don’t mind.”

“Great,” he snaps, a hard breath through his nose as he does.

It’s just as you’re sitting down again, expecting him to be well on his way to the bar by now, you feel his breath right near you ear, and then his voice enters you and it sends lightning sparks up and down your veins. “It looks sketchy,” he murmurs, laying a hand on your arm. “If you sit down, pass me some shitty book and then get back up again. What do you think this is? Amateur hour?”

You let out a breathy little chuckle, ducking you head and shaking it. “The cover is that I give you the book… and that I came here to lend it to you. No one suspects a thing.”

“No one comes to the bar to lend someone a book and then leaves again without even having a drink, without even staying to chat,” he argues back insistently, not missing a beat, there is no malice woven into the seams of his tone, but there’s something testing and almost asking, mocking, like a elegantly arrogant professor egging on and challenging his students. It’s… enticing, alluring, it awakens some dormant yet restless little demon in your ribcage, to say the least.

“So hurry up and go and get me one then, super spy,” you say the last word extremely quietly, turning to him now, and it’s a power move by anyones standards, let alone yours, by your standards you’re staring into the mouth of a tiger. He lingers for a few counts, your noses barely an inch from each other, your breath begins to mix, the smell of his cigs and his alcohol wafts up your nose and you have to give your dizziness a firm push back. Finally, his lips twists into something of a smirk and he bends upwards and walks away.

By the time he is back again, you had grown vindicated in his absence, as if the break from his charm and allure had allowed you to come to your senses. The fireball moment of excitement has faded off into something bitter and icy, because of the insinuation that you were a halfwit, because of the suggestion that you were incompetent.

The man places a pint of beer in front of you and you glance up at him, you cut your eyes at him into mean spirited shards and you know you present indignant.

“No ones paying attention to me it’s you who attracts attention. People look at you, they really look at you. You should get surgery to cover up those scars,” you bite, you feel the snow lacing your tongue as you do and wish vehemently that contrasting hot pricks weren’t travelling up to tingle your cheeks. “They are extremely distinctive.

He raises his eyebrows at you and nods as he pulls a cigarette from his pack. “I’ve considered it. But in truth it doesn’t matter if people notice you, it only matters that you fit in.”

“Well, I reckon you’re playing games with me,” you retort, passive aggressive and snarky, bringing the beer up to take a first sip, and you grimace at his selection. “Trying to size me up. I’ve heard all the stories about you.”

“Is that why you come in here looking like a rabbit caught in headlights?”

That rendered you silent, you felt your jaw set tight and you picked up your drink again, staring into the glistening amber.

“You’re still a rookie,” he has grown quieter now and he has looked away towards the bar, he’s easing up on you. “How long has it been now?”

You look up at him through tired half lidded eyes. “Three years.”

“Yeah… you’re only beginning,” he nods slowly more to himself. “Three years, might as well be three weeks in spy time.”

You glance to the side to see the pair of women, the women in which you were referring to when you mentioned him attracting attention, are still eyeing him up, paying you little mind. You turn back to him, slipping him a sly, devious little quirk of your lips. “Think you’ll be going home with one of them? Or both of them?”

“I really try to avoid it while I’m on the job,” a glimmer of amusement manifests and warms up his face, he brings the tumbler of whiskey up to his lips before slipping the entirety of it past his lips and downing it swiftly. There is no flinch from him, he just presses his lips together hard before he settles into blankness again.

“You’re a rare exception in our line of work then,” you say.

“I’m sure,” he agrees lightly. “If your colleagues were more like me they wouldn’t have to sit around telling tales and spreading rumours like a bunch of stepford wives.”

You glance up at him in momentary astonishment, before you shake your head chidingly, but you ponder briefly that he may have a point, because the way the men spoke, or gossiped, or grumbled, or gushed, about him over at BND was all rather undignified and girlish.

You down the wretched beer and then stand, pushing back the tinges of tipsiness making its way to your senses, you look him square in the face and nod. “Thanks for the drink.”

“My pleasure. I’ll see you Friday. Be ready.”

As you walk out, you feel your mouth start to tug into a small grin and then it spreads across your whole face and you find yourself shaking your head again, involuntarily, as you mutter to yourself, “Asshole, what an asshole.”

-

The days leading to end of the week whizzed by you thick and fast, you anticipation seem to spurn it on, and before you knew it, it was 8pm, chilly and dark and you were making your way on top of a factory rooftop to meet him.

He smoked and peered down at the city, he wore what you wore, a snug black turtle neck, exempt he matched his with grey combat trousers, you wore blue jeans.

“Copying my style I see,” he had quipped, eyes grazing up and down your body when he registered your presence.

“More like you’re copying mine,” comes your quick witted retort, but couldn’t stop the gentle laugh that escaped your throat.

He had smiled earnestly at you, comfortably awaiting the light filled moment to pass before he turned serious, business, steely and professional in the blink of an eye, you had to whip yourself into a similar demeanour.

“There’s an East Berlin spy travelling into the city tonight, he’s been causing a lot of problems, I want him gone.”

“You don’t even want to capture him,” you side eye him warily as you wrap your hands around the icy cold railings. “He could be valu-“

“I know who’s valuable and who isn’t, agent,” he holds a hand up as he cuts in. “Can you follow instructions or not?”

You clench your jaw, your temptation to strike back is fierce and fiery, borderline uncontrollable, but you keep your wounded pride under bandaids and begin to nod slowly. “Yes of course I can, agent Adler.”

“Perfect.”

He checks over his shoulder at the ground below again before turning back to you. “He’ll have armed security. I’ll start taking them out, while I’m doing that, I want you to sneak into his suite and kill him.”

“Wait,” you perk up now, you feel your eyes grow wide and raw as you gaze up at him. “You want me to actually get the kill?”

“What’s your experience with a sniper rifle?”

“…non existent.”

“Exactly,” he replies promptly, still surveying the ground below. “And I already knew that. You’re better on the ground. I’ve heard your stealth is excellent.”

You glance at him, peaking at his side profile, the curved and sharp lines of his nose and jaw illuminated, highlighted, clarified by the murky industrial city lights. His honey wheat hair is different today, it doesn’t bounce and animate with every movement, it isn’t perfectly positioned and curated to suave insufferable perfection, instead it is slightly flatter, yet more fluid, pushed back away from his face to fall in waves and gather and end at the nape of his neck. It suits him, but it renders him quite a new variety of man, a more…more work less play sort of man.

“I get by on it,” you say finally, lowering your gaze as you begrudgingly contemplate the cumbersome and gruesome nature of your attraction, how it flutters against the walls of your stomach.

“Give yourself more credit,” he takes out a pair of binoculars and positions them towards the ground below once, you glance too and see a black car rolling in to the front of the hotel.

“There he is,” he confirms. “You ready, agent?”

You push back your shoulders and raise your chin, swallowing your nerves and doubts and pesky lingering trepidation of impending death, and nod firmly. “Yes I am.”

The man gives your shoulder a clap before turning away from you, beginning to position his sniper rifle to wreck havoc with the men from East Berlin.

Angel of death, slipped across your mind as you walked away from him. So beautiful, but what a dark creature he well and truly was. And you too, you remind yourself. You too were beautiful, and you too were wicked when it was time to be.

That’s why when you managed to more or less silently break into the man’s hotel room, up and over, through the window of the bathroom, you make him suffer.

Yes he had smashed a bottle over your face first, yes he had enraged you, but you could have just shot him with your silenced pistol, instead you take your time with this man and his gargled muffled screams were your solitary reward for it.

“It’s nothing,” Adler murmurs, you are both sat in his safehouse/apartment now. He speaks to you, his voice husky and absent minded due to him concentrating mostly on the cuts on your face, the deepest one being the nasty nick at the top of your lip, he dabs at this one with a wet cloth. You see his face now, his shades had been abandoned on his bed side table, you now get to witness his eyes squint and sharpen to coincide with the tender, effortful care he is showing, even the soft little furrow of his brow is so expressive, “Keep it moist, apply lots of cream to it, all day for the next few days, it won’t scar.”

“Yeah?” You chuckle tiredly. “Okay doctor.”

“Might as well be,” he quips, tilting his head at you and raising his eyebrows nonchalantly.

“Oh bullshit, a fucking doctor please,” you scoffed. “You really love yourself, don’t you?”

“Who else is going to?”

You let the room fall into a gentle silence after that, when he is done with attending to your face, you both sip at beers he had in the mini fridge in his room, but you soon turn to him with a deciding sigh.

“I guess you have a lot of experience with injury,” you resort to. “You must have picked up a few things.”

“My ex wife actually taught me that about the scarring. She thought it could help mine,” he points to his face then. “Bless her heart.”

You watched as his eyes glaze, a transient fleeting few seconds of reminiscing, you wanted to take advantage of the little opening, the little opening of openness.

“How’d you get them?”

“Everyone always asks,” he brings his cigarette to his lips, eyes narrowing into cool consideration. “Everyone’s always so nosy about it. I don’t get it.”

“Wouldn’t you be?”

“I don’t think so. I’d just put it down to bad shit happening to people and leave it at that.”

“Well we can’t all be as cool as you, Adler.”

You glanced up at his face, and you marvelled, because yes it was handsome, but there was something far more interesting than that, there was the almost immaculate duality. Like the strange and beautiful creature who lurked in the opera house, like Jekyll and Hyde, like hell’s fire and heaven’s celestial. You touched it, his face, you wanted to touch the battle torn half, you wanted to fill the diverse topography, the dents and dips and valleys, but you felt it a step too intimate, so you glided your fingers, as feather soft as you could, across the undamaged side instead.

The man doesn’t flinch, but he does slips his eyes onto you with a manner of frosty suspicion and cynicism, he searches your eyes leisurely, patiently yet intently as you continue your light caress.

You found the insinuation of confusion on his part confusing, because you had been ninety nine percent sure he had discerned your attraction to him by now, yet here he is now, coming across so precarious and untrusting, you felt like you were trying to win favour with a perpetually anti-social, precarious dog.

When you lift your hand away however, he does grab it, and not gently either, it is just outside a death grip and it hitches your breath in your throat. You refuse to look away from him, you hold firm, rooting yourself into the ground beneath you, not tearing your eyes away from his. “You’re still too green.”

“You mean… like, envious?”

“Too fresh, too trusting. I’m terrified for you,” he is muttering to account for how close your faces are. “You are…decent, but this life isn’t for you. I can always tell. Trust me, you’re either meant for this shit or you’re not. It’s not really something you can learn.”

“That’s bullshit,” you whisper back shaking your head, a sickened smile coming to your face. “I couldn’t imagine doing anything else. I couldn’t imagine a life without this, without people like you.”

“Then you’re gonna hurt,” he tells you, his eyes have softened now, something faded and dim and quietly melancholic, like cloudy sapphires. “You’ll have to get chewed up and spat out again, and again, and again, until you’re tough and dead enough inside to be what you need to be.”

You felt your stomach drop, despite yourself, but you do not display it, simply grinning and rolling your eyes instead. “Why would you be worried about me? Spies get killed, we’re all just collateral to the top dogs like you.”

“You don’t know shit about me sweetheart,” he drawls, raising his cigarette up to his mouth.

“You’re right,” you murmur voice suitably honeyed, you lean in, a hand coming to grasp his thigh firmly to balance yourself. “I’m sorry.”

It is you who’s made the first move by doing this, the first negotiation into whatever transgression was going to transpire, but it is he who actually bites the bullet and kisses you.

A hand snakes around your waist, his thumb presses irregular shapes into your hip. The kiss is not what anyone could have anticipated from a man like him, it is substantial, but then it is also slow and delicate and feathery, his lips soft and patient and forgiving and almost somehow non intrusive against your own.

“I’d be pretty fucked off if you got killed actually,” he mumbles after he’s broken away from you, he’s talking into your ear now, before he presses a firm, deep kiss to your lobe which starts a wildfire internally and a heaviness and electricity darts straight between your legs.

“Why?” You breath as he starts to litter more kisses down your face, beneath your ear and across the bones of your jaw and flesh of your cheek, as gentle and tickling as water droplets landing and splashing onto you, when he reaches your neck you can’t stifle the little whine that travels up your throat, especially when he begins to nibble on the taunt, excruciatingly sensitive skin.

He has you. You hadn’t even realised how much he did, but he has you. You had melted into his hands, your body was subdued and limp and supple, your head was light, airy and drifting off somewhere as rapidly as a ballon set free into the skies.

You ached and throbbed for him, your heart nearly burst at the sneaking reminders that there wouldn’t be much more of this to come because he’d be long gone by morning. Tomorrow you’d lose him. It could be forever, you could very well never see him again and you’d never get to feel this ever again, you didn’t know.

“I don’t know,” he murmurs after a while, hand snaking between your legs to stroke the plush flesh, albeit through your clothes. “You’re different, and you’re so beautiful. I wanted you the moment I saw you, those few years ago. I’ve often times thought about you since then. I bet you didn’t know that.”

“Bet you didn’t know it’s all mutual,” you quipped back, almost aggressive, desperate and breathy as he caresses travel up higher, with no sign of stopping.

“Oh no,” he brought his head down, you felt his hair brush your temple, he chuckled, unabashed and right into your ear again. “Don’t worry, /I/ knew. I always know.”

“Well chances are you’ll probably never see me again,” you say, catching your breath and placing your hand on his wrist to still him, to catch your breath. You look up into his eyes, through your lashes, you feel sordid and dirty yet so powerful, so powerful over such a powerful human being

. “So are you going to make the most of me this time, or not?”

With his face gradually shifting into a slow, hazy smile, he takes the glass from your hand and physically moves you up to the headboard of the bed.

He takes his time with you, really takes his time. He kisses you for what felt like hours, pulling your body so it curves and moulds into his own so securely, you click together like puzzle pieces. When he enters you it feels like what he said, it makes you muse the reality that you both knew this would have to happen eventually. Mutual lust. To be able to express and display every iota of feelings left unsaid, finally. It was ripping off the bandaid, it was releasing dangerously built up pressure.

He growls sweet praises into your ear and strokes your face and even tells you that you’re his, and with that you wonder if he is acting out his fantasies, if that is what he truly desires, someone to be well and truly his and only his. Did he mean it in a wholesome, domestic sense? Did he mean it in hedonistic manner, did he truly want to own someone? You didn’t know. You didn’t know this man, and you didn’t dare allow yourself to believe that, for whatever it was that his heart desired with every pump, it inherently involved you.

He just craves the intimacy, you decided. He craves passion and adoration, you were sure. In fact, this is what he needs, you consider as he flips you onto your stomach and you bury your face into the plushy cool, snowy pillows that smell of his woody, spiced cologne rendering them an aphrodisiac, who cared about the world that waited for you outside of this room, for now, you consider as he enters you and you moan out deeply, sweetly, this is all you both need.

And then after a couple of hours, you are both done, you lay in the amber glow of the lamplight and his vastly long arms, and this time you do touch his scars.

“It was Vietnam, they got me, pinned me down, pulled out some silly little knife,” he recounts, voice hoarse and low and deliciously thick, rumbling against your temple as you rested your head on his chest. “Luckily there was a squadron not too far behind, they saved me before they my throat got slit.”

He inhales deeply on his cigarette as his eyes pierce the wall opposite him. “It’s nothing more interesting than that.”

“Can you remember how much it hurt?”

“Every day,” he stressed, and then he pauses before chuckling easily, lazily, the sex had mellowed him out, softened and blunted his rough, razor sharp edges. “Fuck did that shit hurt. Really really fucking hurt. Those God damn bastards.”

You laugh as well, his sudden display of humbleness endearing and lovely, it was a moment that you could be likened to the rarest of gemstone.

“I like you, Adler.”

“…Yeah,” he mused, gradually contrite and melancholic as he ran a rough, jagged skinned hand down your arm. “I like you too.”

You shut your eyes, fall in tune with his smooth rise and fall. “I’ll be alright, you shouldn’t worry.”

You fall into the most blissful sleep you’ve had since your were small, and then the daylight is creeping through the curtains and nudging your body awake, and as predictable and inevitable as death, he is coldly absent and you quietly fall apart.

[cimbaerly-deactivated20260323]

Moving sucks…

…and so does the pain in Russell‘s back as he lifts another box that Leah isn’t able to carry by herself. He curses and groans, significantly on edge and ready to snap.

Leah isn’t in a better mood, if anything, she is frustrated and constantly stubs her toe or cuts her fingers while disassembling furniture. She insisted on disassembling their bed and Russell tried to offer help but she shooed him away.

Now both are struggling. And Russell loses it as his back suddenly felt on fire. He drops the box and clenches his hands. „You know what? I‘m done here.“, he growls and it’s obvious he has to contain his emotions. „Why did you pack those damn boxes like that? They are heavy as hell! You know my back is fucked since 'Nam!“

Leah looks up and frowns. „I packed them accordingly to the weight limit that was declared on the cardboard box itself.“ He scoffs. „The weight limit is bullshit then! Or you overpacked it! I told you not to put books into boxes but in suitcases!“ Russell grows significantly agitated and Leah slowly loses it as well. She stands up and places her tools down, hands clenched. „You either used up all the suitcases or lost them on deployment. What else was I supposed to do?! Buy new suitcases?“ „Yes!“ „That’s ridiculous!“

Russell‘s nostrils flare. „Then you could have packed a little more considerate. I would prefer walking more for light boxes than carry one box and break my back!“ „Then why‘d you try to carry them alone?!“ „Because you, Leah, decided to take the easiest part and disassemble our goddamn furniture!“ Leah‘s hands clench harder. „Easy? I cut myself constantly or bump into something! And if we are on the blame train now, why didn’t you get physiotherapy for your back?!“

Russell lets out a sharp laugh. „And what good would that have done?“ „You would be way more in shape.“

„You don’t get it, do you, Leah? You let me do all the hard stuff alone! I am constantly moving up and downstairs, carrying shit and you just sit here looking pretty while disassembling furniture! And you aren’t even quick either! You know how that feels? Like you deliberately do this so you don’t have to do anything!“

Leah gets angry now, her red, wavy hair all puffed up by now. „Russ, that’s not true! I‘m sorry I packed too much but don’t think I did this with intention! That’s not fair!“

The couple is all emotional and eventually, Russell needs a smoke. He doesn’t want to be mean to Leah and so he decides to hit the brakes. What a stupid argument. And Leah doesn’t want to fight either. She sighs, stands up and goes into the kitchen to make hot chocolate. As an apology and also, to give them both a break from moving.

Russell comes back in and she immediately hugs him, gently. „I‘m sorry, sweetheart…“, she whispers and he shakes his head, holding her tight. „It‘s fine. I started it. And it was stupid.“

They hold each other for a while and then sit down to have the hot chocolate. They’d continue with the boxes and furniture the next day.

I absolutely did not write this because I am moving, no, not at all~

[bambimeadows]

You guys do all realise this fandom is dying and will be dormant within the next year unless we get new Adler content which we likely won’t, there’s really no need to create anymore beef lmao

[abelofdaughter]

robert redford as joseph turner in three days of the condor. bruce thomas as russell t. adler in black ops six. + ignore the different coloring </3

[ladysouthpaw1213]

Would you be interested in participating in a Black Ops Secret Santa this month?

Yes

No

Voting ended onDec 11, 2025

here’s how it’s gonna gonna go, the pole will last a week to see if anyone is interested, then if we have a high enough number, I will make a follow up for a post asking who wants to participate(you can just reblog or comment on this as well and that will count as volunteering). The week before the holiday weekend, I will dm you and tell you who your secret Santa . You get to choose what you wanna make for them(fics, art, moodboards, renders etc) then post it on your blog with the person tagged for them to se

I hope everyone has fun and may it be a wonderful experience💚❤️💚❤️💚

(Comments and Reblogs are so heavily appreciated, please spread the word

[ladysouthpaw1213]

https://www.tumblr.com/ladysouthpaw1213/800685862430162944/stop

who are some of YOUR favorite creators??

oh boy, where to start( I want to say everyone and tag them but there’s a limit), so I started with some of my friends and the ones responsible for helping me become more active

Artists:

@alypink @imagoddamnonionmason @imjustsocute @welldonekhushi

@septic-salad @zachfoxx121 @zehnmou @callmelitlesunshine @cimbaerly

@fleshqounds @lum-1 @anime-potato-san @theactualeccentrcks @ivqnx

@sunarteater @makilight @alexa-mwll

@turturmoil @rolling-veins @d0gmeats

@aut0m4te @meimelmoo @winterhawl

Efingart(also known as E)

Writers:

@djloveyou3000 @hedgehogsaretheultimatelifeform @quizzyisdone @softcallofdutyimagines

@russelltadler @russadler @bambimeadows

@animefreak1145 @iamcautiouslyoptimistic @parvulous-writings

@ll7esxs @bluebellwren @manicrouge @wildmayhemz

@bluelilly-cat @starshotspiderz @altcvnningham

Others:

@eistro-phobia @ilovemen7 @haileyishere

@mr-cia-adler @makeila04 @mayasnowforest

@alaskaassassin @mnasthaii @mortal-kombattore-115

You guys(along with plenty of others) are all wonderful and inspired so much. I’m glad I got to meet(see what you done for Black Ops). I hope you get all the comments and reblogs you could ever ask for when the day ever comes. Thank you so much💜💙🩵

[allallallstone]

Adbell

[bambimeadows]

For Halloween I tried writing some sort of AU stuff for the first time, vampires were apparently what I was in the mood for, I know, how unique. But this is what I came up with! I can’t promise I’ll continue it but if there’s enough interest it will certainly be a good motivator 🧛

A long Black leather trench coat sat on the back of his chair. He wears a black button down shirt - satin, dark sepia tinged shades perched on his face, his sandy hair was the warmest thing on him, it was swept back, the slickness and immaculateness of it set off his sharp jaw. And the scars, the famous scars, illuminated and defined under the dimmed ceiling lights.

He sat in the basement of the seediest, most drug fuelled night club in the city. A punky alt scene hosted in a repurposed warehouse, a far cry from the painstakingly glitzy establishments up town.

You were shown into the room by another man you barely paid attention to, but he pushed you in and shut the door on you both and now you stood before him. Behind you the muffled bass of the aggressive fast paced music pounded in your ears, vibrated your body to the point of aggravation.

“Thank you for seeing me, Mr Adler,” you say finally, clear and resolute in the otherwise silent room.

He nodded casually, sticking a cigarette in his mouth, flipping his glinting silver lighter open with a careless toss of his hand, having it lit and billowing with smoke in a blink of an eye. To the side of him laid on the table was a revolver and a wallet. Both undoubtedly loaded.

“So you’re looking for work, huh?”

His voice is an effortless smooth rumble, it makes you close your eye for a moment to gather yourself, to quickly grab and cling onto the threads of your nerves before they all started to unravel.

Most people might have not known the true nature of what Russell Adler was, but they knew who he was, he was the most notorious man in the city, you just hadn’t imagined quite how much he would embody that perception, but he did so to the point of cliche.

“Yeah, that’s right.”

His mere aura and presence alone seemed to be something of a black hole, he was a sickeningly potent concentration of all the commanding and domineering energy in existence. It made the air lethal, dry, tight, you could feel it in the small room to the point of physicality.

“Dirty work,” he mused, a sliver of amusement licking at his tone as he gazed up at you. “I’ll be straight with you, you don’t look like the type. See I uh… I judge a book by it’s cover, I don’t have the time to sit and work everyone out, and I’m not exactly instilled with much confidence in you, sweetheart.”

Your face remains still as you stare down at him, your growing trepidation yet acceptance that you were willingly putting yourself in a potentially life-devastating scenario made your eyes glaze over. You could very well die in the next few days.

Russell apparently seem to clock on to your listlessness, the extent at which you seemed to have given up, in a more serious, quiet tone, he asked: “So what brings you here?”

You take a deep breath and as you exhale you dare to take a seat opposite him. As you expected he didn’t bat an eye, he wasn’t one for formalities and airs and graces, he may have been elite, but he wasn’t delusional, he didn’t have some self imagined crown on his head, you could tell.

“I’ve always known you,” you admit with a waft of humility. “Or, known of you. I knew you’d be a…reliable source of income, if I do what you need and I do it well.”

“A lot of people know of me.”

“Yeah. I know. But…” you swallow to moisten your throat and brace yourself for the leap you’re about to take, “we have a long standing history with… your kind.”

The man’s easy expression drops in an instant, he’s stony and the muscles in his jaw and neck tighten, you felt his intensified attention hone on to you like an archer to a bullseye, ash from his cigarette even crumbled to drop down on the table from him being distracted. “Who do? Who is we?”

“My family. For hundreds of years.” When his blank expressions persists you nod, hoping you come across as earnest. “That’s right, Mr Adler, I know what you are.”

That cut through to him, you can vaguely see the shapes of his eyes behind his shades from this close and you watch how they squint. Suddenly he was sitting up straighter, leaning over so his imposingly big, long arms took up space on the cold metallic table. He had rolled his sleeves up to his elbows and they sat tightly around his skin, which was not as pale as you anticipated at all. He waited in silence for you to continue and you find yourself analysing the hair on his broad forearms as you found your tongue again.

“They tell me we distanced ourselves from you all 50 years ago or so. Wanted to wash our hands of it all, be honest upstanding citizens, apparently we decided it was… well, like you say, dirty work. Too dirty.”

He paused for a moment, taking a drag and blowing smoke in your direction as he regarded you. Slowly a scythe of a smirk tore into the marked up side of his face and you exhale slightly in relief. “You’re an Adelaide kid? Are you fucking kidding me?”

You heave a sigh as he begins to chuckle which is a melodic hum in his throat that escapes through his closed lips, a shake of his head as he flicks smoke into the ash tray which you’ve just noticed looks suspiciously like a fragment of what was once a bone, you eye him wearily.

“Your family know you’re here?”

“No.”

“No,” he repeated lowly, mockingly in a near whisper that sent electricity up the pole of your spine. “And what would they do if they knew? What would they say?”

“They’d be seething.”

He nodded and raised his eyebrows as he stubbed out his cigarette, bobbing his head from side to side in some sort of faux, taunting acknowledgment or agreement. “And how do I know you’re not some… spy? Sent to take me down once and for all.”

“Simple,” you say, you too now sitting up straighter, breaking through the hazy atmosphere and his smoke and willing yourself to wake up. “I’ve come here today, ready and willing to kill for you.”

“Kill for money,” he retorted as he sat back in his chair once more.

“Money is nothing to you. Money is nothing to any of you. That’s always been the advantage you’ve had over everyone else, Mr Adler.”

He muffled a yawn before crossing his arms, spreading his legs out as if to indicate he was bored and getting comfortable for some long spiel.

“Point being, you could just as easily throw me to the wolves… like you did to my family.”

You saw his eyebrows twitch behind his shades, his full pale lips pressed into a thin line. Silence fell between you two, the music pounded evermore, diluted and vague as it penetrated the walls.

You waited in suspense, wondering if you were imminently to be on the ground face first for your disrespect, you wonder if he may try to counter, tell you how wrong you were about everything and that your family were scoundrels who didn’t know shit, instead he sat up again, disappointingly back to being unfazed if not slightly bored.

“So, I ask you again now all that’s established,” he waved his hand dismissively. “Why are you here?”

“Like you said, I need money and a lot of it, fast.”

He pursued his lips, a shrug and a little shake of his head as if to respond to such an anti-climax. He wanted to be entertained, and you wouldn’t degrade yourself, but perhaps you could appeal to him.

“And… I’d be getting in touch with my roots. Reigniting long standing traditions that my family sought to erase.”

He tilted his head at you, a light taunting push for you to continue with your pitch, prompting you to clarify with a sarcastic cynicism, “Helping vampires keep their hands clean.”

He didn’t buy it but indulged you anyway, another ghost of a smirk playing at his lips. “Damn,” he murmured, almost to himself with a light scoff. “I haven’t heard that word in a long time.”

“What word?”

“Vampire.”

“You don’t like it?”

“I don’t have an opinion on it,” he mused, it was eerie that it somehow came across as genuine, almost… pleasant. “I suppose I just don’t hear it often these days. It’s outdated, you know?”

You shrug an apology, it now being your turn to appear disinterested.

“I’m intrigued,” he concluded, his voice lighter and louder to cut the tension. “I’ll give you that. Some Adelaide spawn waltzing in here offering up their services was the last thing I was expecting tonight.”

He stood up, the chair scraping across the concrete floor working to signify an effective end to the meeting. “Alright kid. Fuck it. I don’t care where you come from. You wanna try and help me for a quick buck? Take a crack at it.”

You blink in restrained astonishment as you watch him take his heavy jacket and slip it onto his mantle like shoulders. He goes about collecting his cigarettes, his gun, his wallet. “Mason, moody looking fucker stood just outside the door there, he’ll give you a target, he’ll give you the timeframes. He’ll talk money. I would brief you myself but, quite frankly, I have better things to do.”

He walks past you and opens the door, a scent of cigarette smoke and metallic vaguely housed in wood and spice wafts up your nose. He turns back to you, almost as an afterthought.

“I wouldn’t fuck it up if I were you though,” he intones. “I’d hate to have to victimise another greedy Adelaide opportunist, and I have no patience for incompetence.”

You stick your chin out and level him with a steely look. “Neither do I.”

He glances at Mason for a moment and then the two begin to laugh lowly and slowly in unison, quite cruelly, but something more pressing than that grasped your attention. You see it then in both their open mouths and you feel your stomach drop because it’s the first time you’ve ever seen it in person and it is unmistakable. Their fangs, glinting at each other in the low light, immaculately white triangles with points as sharp as fresh needles.

[bambimeadows]

Might get back into writing for Adler out of spite for the black ops 7 rollout

[manicrouge]

Blessing you with fic magic

Thank you! And, in actuality, while the whole thing is not complete, I am here to share some of the beginnings of it considering I have wrote so much for it that, sharing this tidbit will not, in anyway, ruin the rest of the story I'm still working on !!

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

WIP: Clink, Clink, Baby!

CW!Russell Adler x F!Reader

[About]: After moving into a new neighbourhood, you attempt to acclimate into the community.

[Wc]: 2.6k

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

A new dawn brought with it a new day, and with a new day, there were undoubtedly new opportunities. 

The song of the summer was booming from the tinny metal speaker of the radio on the yellowish marble counter in the kitchen, windows open, white lace curtains blowing in the breeze. Hardly a singer, you opted to hum along with the melody of the song you’d almost squealed at when it came on the radio.

Trays lined the kitchen counters, the smell of chocolate, vanilla, and sugar encompassing the entirety of the house. The sun beamed through the windows, a slight sheen on the cookies you’d spent most of your morning baking. 

Sweat brewed on your brow, the sleeves of the sweater you’d slept in the night prior bunched at your forearms. Hardly dressed for the heat of the peak summer in California, you realised, but the night prior, whilst you had been digging through boxes, after a day of pulling and pushing furniture into the house, and the time spent unpacking dishes, and decor, when you’d finally made it into your bedroom – you hadn’t the energy to muster digging through the boxes labelled with ‘CLOTHES’, and so, you settled with one of your father’s old sweaters, the bottom edges of it marked with the oil of the car that had driven you to where you were there and then.

He’d been firm in driving you up, making sure you got settled, even though he and your mother were planning on making the trip back to San Diego in just a month's time for your birthday. You allowed him and his fatherly ways to completely consume you, smiling at him as he left you with a kiss on the head, and a well meaning ‘good luck, have fun – but not too much fun.’

It was then that you realised, as the car drove off into the distance, that your life was changing. Hopefully for the better, too. 

Taking a step back, you huffed, admiring the fruits of your labour. From out the window, you heard the shifting of the tree to the right of your house, the breeze much too gentle to bring a sort of coolness to counter the ferocious heat. Still, with the AC finally working, after a couple closed-fist bashes on the top of it – and an excitement blooming in your chest, you figured that, even with the warmth, you had all the means to have a good day. 

Leaving the cookies to cool, you moved through your house, stripping yourself of the scruffy sweater as you finally dove into the boxes of clothes you’d pushed to the corner of your bedroom, sitting on your knees as you pulled each piece out separately, holding it out in front of you.

They were destined to move from box to pile; you hadn’t intended on putting anything away – still knowing you were doing away with the floral wallpaper your grandmother had decorated the house with. A sign of independence, you know that, as she’d decorated the walls with it after divorcing your grandfather, but… well, the reds and yellows weren’t exactly to your taste, and doing away with them would be, in some way, a sign of your own independence. 

Until then, your bedroom was not intended to be the best looking – only practical. Similar to the blue and white striped, knee-length dress you pulled from the box in front of you.

It had been your mothers when she was in her early twenties, her pride and joy, you heard her voice rattle through your head, followed by the sound of her chortled laughter as she accompanied that claim with, don’t give me that look – it was way before you came along! 

Home away from home, knowing that, even though she was only one telephone away, she would be there with you in the form of the dress that she seemed to value more than her child. Nevertheless, the fact that she’d trusted you enough with it was sweet enough to put a prep in your step as you slipped on your white pumps, rushing back out into the kitchen at the digging of the timer that had been ticking away. 

When the cookies were piled into a basket lined with a kitchen towel, you slipped into the bathroom, finishing up getting ready for the day: swiping your cheeks with cheek red blush, applying lipstick on your bottom lip, rubbing your lips together. You smiled at yourself in the mirror of your bathroom, the smile quick to become a snarl as you bared your teeth, scrubbing away at your front teeth with the pad of your finger in an effort to get rid of the lipstick that had marked them. When it was gone, you trailed your tongue over them, proceeding to smile again, speaking out loud, extending your hand out as though you were introducing yourself to someone.

“Hi, I just moved into the neighbourhood, an’ I was just wonderin’ if ya would like a cookie, y’know as a, uh, gift of sorts?” Your eyes narrowed, peering into your soul as you cleared your throat, rolled your shoulders, and blinked. “Hello, my Mimi just recently moved to Florida, and she left me her house so… I’m your new neighbour! I baked some cookies, would you like one?” You pursed your lips, “They don’t want my whole fuckin’ life story.” You settled your hands on your hips. “Hi! Nice to meet ya, I’m your new neighbour and I baked some cookies, would you like one?” 

You nodded to yourself with the last one, turning on your heel, shoes squealing against the tile as you headed back towards the kitchen, determination brewing in your chest, a smile on your face as you took hold of the basket and looked towards the front door. Rehearsals went… alright, you supposed, maybe they could have been a little better, but how bad could the real thing really be? 

A door slammed in your face. 

It slammed so hard that the knocker bounced and hit it with a thunk, and you stood there, basket full of freshly baked goods, blinking back (what must have been) the fourteenth set of tears in the span of the fifteen minutes since leaving the house. The mood you’d had that morning, dancing in the sunlight and basking in the comforting smell of you. Mimi’s infamous cookie recipe had well and truly died with the last grimace of the elderly man who shut you out with the, quite frankly, rude quip of ‘Aren’t ya a bit too old for the girl scouts? Beat it, Jezebel! I’m not interested.’ 

You hadn’t been rude to any of them – a couple of them never even opened the door, and the skip in your step was replaced by the sluggish pace of you dragging the soles of your feet against the concrete, walking up the drive of the final house in the street. 

You’d been to every other, and in spite of the bitter mood you’d been put in, you persevered. Besides, even if they were just as unfriendly as all the ones who’d come before, you well and truly weathered the majority of the embarrassment, and when you returned home, you’d at least have a pile of cookies to drown your sorrows in.

The last house on the street was identical to the rest of them, burnt orange tiles on the roof, cream paint on the front with the white curtains in the front drawn. It seemed you’d moved into a neighborhood purely inhabited by vampires as, when you looked across the road, back at your home, you realised you were the only person to have their blinds pulled open.

Sucking up a breath, you bowed your head as you stepped onto the brick of the porch, approaching the front door. With the basket resting in the crease of your bent arm, you used your other hand to knock at the door. The muscles in your chest ached as the sound of your knocking resonated throughout the house on the other side of the door – how strange, you’d thought; it sounded almost empty. You twisted your foot into the ground, shifting on your feet as you stared at your reflection in the pane of the glass of the door.

As the seconds ticked by, the hopes of meeting someone genuinely worth while wilted, and upon enough time passing for you to conclude that no one was coming to the door, you released the breath that had caused your chest to swell, turning, head down like a sulking child, glancing at the basket full of cookies. 

As you went down the steps of the porch, beginning to head up the path, your eyes watered terribly, threatening to spill down your cheeks, your bottom lip wobbling. You stilled, however, when there was the clunk of a lock, and the squeal of hinges. 

“You need somethin’, kid?” 

Standing in the doorway was a man. In spite of the slight distance between the pair of you, your shoulders bunched up, noting how he seemed to loom over you. With the sunlight gracing his features, it highlighted the scar on his face. Jagged and brutal, you felt your eyes widen before you even realised it, quick to blink in an attempt to ward it off; the last thing you needed was for another neighbour to hate you. The longer you gawked, admittedly unable to look elsewhere, you followed the lines of the scar like a path, and it led you just beneath his sunglasses. It went further, you realised, the top of it stopping just before his eye. 

Lucky, you thought. He got lucky.

“Kid?” called the man in front of you, lips drawn into a thin line. 

Immediately, as though under his command, you turned so you were facing him, fighting against the urge to bound up the steps and squeeze him for being the first person to actually address you without hurling an insult your way, reminding yourself of what you had rehearsed in the mirror. 

“My Mimi moved away, cause she was gettin’ old and she left her house to me, a- and I, uh, I,” you stared at him harder, nearly flinching as you felt the cogs in your brain, that had been frozen by the coldness of the other neighbours, stick together. Your tongue felt heavy in your mouth, it was like your mouth was full of sand. Your heartbeat was ringing in your ears, and so, you extended you took hold of the handle of the basket resting against your arm, holding it out to him. “Cookie?” 

“Cookie?” repeated the man, arms crossed. 

“Do you,” you said with a breath, “want a cookie? T- They’re chocolate chip, I baked them fresh this morning!”

 With the look of blatant boredom on his face, you’d half expected the man to turn step backwards into his house, slamming the door without bothering to answer you. However, he beckoned you forward with his pointer and middle finger, the request almost as captivating as the call of a siren. You answered it happily, like a sailor trudging into the water as you walked up the steps to him, the basket still held out to the man. 

Extending his hand out, you noticed his fingers and the top of his hand were branded with brown, slightly fair hair, almost blending into his skin, the veins on his hand prominent as he took a cookie from the basket. 

Bringing it to his mouth, he paused, and asked “This some sort of peace offering?” 

“Uh, no,” you said, nostrils flaring, “I just… thought it’d be a good way to meet the neighbours.” 

“How’d that go for you?” 

You looked down at your shoes, mumbling, “Not very well.” 

The man took a bite of the cookie, “This your recipe?” 

“No, sir,” you answered, “It’s my Mimi’s, actually, used to own a bakery ‘round here back in the 50’s.” 

Humming, he put the rest of the cookie in his mouth, chewing with an enthusiasm you’d only assumed to be mocking you and your efforts to be nice. Dusting the crumbs off his hands, he grunted as he swallowed it, “Talented lady.” 

“Oh, thank you – did you know her?” 

“No,” he said, tucking his hands into his pocket, “People ‘round here don’t acclimate into the community anymore. Or, at least, I don’t.” 

You frowned. “Oh, well I’m sorry to have bothered you…”

“Adler,” he answered, and much to your surprise, he extended his hand out to you. And you took it, had to keep yourself from breaking all the bones in it in fact, as the overwhelming, bonecrushing urge shook you to your core. In your mind, you clung to him like he was a lifeboat, and you were in the middle of the ocean, fighting to keep your head above water, whilst, in reality, you carefully shook his hand. It was paw-like, his hand, thick and firm, callouses pressing into the palm of your hand. His hold was much firmer – maybe he intended to break the bones in your hand – and his hand near enough swallowed yours whole. And when he pulled his hand out of yours, in spite of the raging summer heat that was causing your shoulders to tighten, your hand felt cold. 

“You’ve got a strong handshake on you,” he said, “Your daddy in the military?” 

“Fought in Vietnam, sir,” you answered with a nod, blinking as you observed the man in front of you. By the looks of things, he was just as old, if not slightly younger than your father, and with the scar on his face and the firmness of his handshake, you figured just the same was true for him too. 

“Good man,” he said, a chirp in his tone in spite of the fine-lipped expression on his face. Your eyes drifted to his scar, and then quickly rose in an effort to try and spot hit eyes in the yellow glass of his aviators. 

“He retired a couple years ago,” you explained, “He was in the army since he was young, but his… mind got sick while he was fighting over there. Doctors said he’s got, um,” you tapped your foot against the floor, brows knitting together as you huffed, “I forgot the name for it–”

“PTSD?” Adler asked, “Used to be known as shellshock. That’s what they used to call it back during the First and Second World War.” 

“Yes, that’s it,” you answered, nodding your head, “He’d kill me if he knew I was telling a stranger his business.” It was a realisation meant to be contained to the confines of your mind, and you brought your hand to your mouth much too late to keep him from hearing you.

Your plan for the morning had gone horrifically, and even when you had gotten what you wanted, the world seemed to be against you. You waved the, metaphorical, white flag of surrender as you cleared your through, averting your gaze from his sunglasses to the pile of cookies still in the basket. “Do you want some more of them? I’m not gonna eat them and, well, I’d rather them not go to waste.” 

Adler looked down at the basket, pursing his lips. You noticed how the scar tissue on his face took on a slight tinge of purple when he did so. Without a word, he took another one and said, “I’m more of a Molasses man.” 

With that, he turned on his heel, and before you had the opportunity to bid him farewell, he closed the door behind him, leaving you standing on the porch with a flushed expression, and still, a basket full of cookies. 

At least he didn’t slam the door in your face.

[bambimeadows]

Curious Adler nation, who’s your fave MW character, can be either the reboot in mind or the originals, I’ll try and provide a full list, shepherd hasn’t made the cut. I ran out of boxes but I’m sure none of you really like him that much so

Who?

Ghost 💀

Soap 🧼

Pricey 🥃

Alejandro 🇲🇽

Rodolfo 💪🏼

Farah 🌿

Alex 🇺🇸

Gaz 🇬🇧

Graves 🪦

Nikolai 🚁

Makarov 😷

Kate 🧣

Voting ended onJul 2, 2025

[bambimeadows]

Justice for Rudy💔

[bambimeadows]

Curious Adler nation, who’s your fave MW character, can be either the reboot in mind or the originals, I’ll try and provide a full list, shepherd hasn’t made the cut. I ran out of boxes but I’m sure none of you really like him that much so

Who?

Ghost 💀

Soap 🧼

Pricey 🥃

Alejandro 🇲🇽

Rodolfo 💪🏼

Farah 🌿

Alex 🇺🇸

Gaz 🇬🇧

Graves 🪦

Nikolai 🚁

Makarov 😷

Kate 🧣

Voting ended onJul 2, 2025

[bambimeadows]

you are one of the most classic Cold War writers out there. Thank you for all of your amazing over the years 💜💙🩵

Thank you my angel 💓

[adlersgirl]

ORAL FIXATION | Adler x Non-Bell! Reader

warnings: hinted smut (???) none really except tht this is my first post on here and this is an unfinished fic LOL hi

23:00 — CIA Safehouse, West Berlin

Throughout the many years you've worked with Adler, you'd become just as acquainted with him as you had with the smell of his cigarettes. The smoke rose in soft clouds, illuminated by the cold, dim lights hanging from the ceiling in the warehouse that became your designated safe haven after accompanying Adler on your eventful missions. Adler's legs rest atop his desk, puffing away at his chosen vice. For some reason, you found yourself holding your breath in order to listen closer to his soft inhales — the way his cigarette crackled as he drew the smoke into his lungs, and the faint whistle that escaped his lips upon each exhale. The aroma of nicotine paired with the sight of your handler looking so relaxed stirred those feelings within you — that taboo fantasy you'd been trying to push away for so long. The rest of the crew had already gone home, and yet despite the heaviness of your eyelids, you sat at your desk as you translated a piece of Russian intel to the language your colleagues were more familiar with.

Your body was sore from the last mission you'd been on, but you weren't going home until you were finished. You couldn't. There was something inside of you that was nagging, something telling you that you needed to impress him. You needed to be good for him.

"Well, shit."

Adler's voice was laced with disappointment as he tossed the empty pack into the trash. You figured the cigarette he'd just finished was the last one he had, and knowing him, it wouldn't make him a very pleasant man for the rest of the night.

An hour passed. You'd gotten 23 out of 30 pages of intel translated. Almost there. But your progress had slowed exponentially as the time passed, and it was solely due to the way that Adler had begun to fidget with damn near everything in his office to keep his hands occupied. You saw him bringing his pen up to his mouth, gently biting at the cap and absentmindedly tapping it against his lips. But, as evident by the raspiness of his voice, the man had been smoking far too long that he probably didn't even notice his amusing reaction to being deprived of his favorite cigarettes.

He wasn't going to notice it himself. And he still didn't seem to get it when he turned his head to check on your progress, instead catching you staring right at him with your eyebrows raised in amusement as if you were watching an animal at the zoo.

"Don't look at me like that."

Adler rose from his chair, the wood squeaking against the floor as he pushed it back. Your gaze followed him as he strolled over to you, his hands in his pockets. He let out a sigh, a few seconds of silence following it as he tried to figure out the smoothest way to ask you for a favor.

"Doll... you did all that work? Ahh, I'm not surprised..."

Always a compliment first — Adler knew you well enough. He knew that praise was your motivation, that you'd be more likely to follow his commands if they started with a bit of kindness.

"Listen, you wanna head to the gas station for me? I'll give you the cash, get yourself a snack or something. I just need... well, I ran out of smokes."

Maybe it was the artificial tone of his voice, or the way he started leaning down to your level that let you see his eyes from behind his shades... you could see the slight squint in his eyes that revealed his façade, and you knew he was just trying to get you to run an errand for him.

So immediately, and without hesitation,

"No."

You felt the rush of adrenaline coursing through you as you spoke the word — you knew it wasn't something he was used to hearing. To be honest, you didn't like saying it to him. You knew you'd eventually go and get them anyways, but you also knew how crazy he was going without his cigarettes and perhaps for the first time ever, you actually wanted to tease him.

"No?"

Adler stared at you with an amused, almost shocked expression. It certainly wasn't what he was expecting to hear coming from one of his most loyal operatives. But as he leaned even closer, he could see the corners of your lips resisting a smile. He knew what you were doing. The silence between you lasted for a painfully long time as he watched you closely, biting his lips as though he was trying to hold back from saying something. But eventually, he couldn't resist it any longer. Maybe it was the withdrawal from the nicotine that was driving him crazy, or maybe it was the undeniable tension that had been growing between you two since the very beginning — but his self control finally slipped.

"Well, I guess I'll just have to find something else to put in my mouth, then."

[bambimeadows]

Overtime

GN!reader x Russell Adler

Hey guys, in the spirit of realising I’ve lost my writing abilities and motivation to trauma and depression, I’m shamelessly reposting what I believe is my best work to tumblr from AO3. I hope you enjoy and maybe sharing my writing will be a motivator to learn how to write again.

And just a disclaimer, this has Lazar in it, I was not educated on the horrors or nature of the IDF and the consistent and historic crimes of Israel against the Palestinian people when I wrote this fic years ago in 2021 and played Cold War. I will admit he was never a character that particularly interested me but he was just there so I just used him. I have come a long way since and I will not write about him in particular ever again. A slight double standard considering the U.S military force or CIA is barely any better, trust me I know but uh, yeah I hope you enjoy the fic.

1981 Berlin. The air is crisp, the sun has made an appearance regardless.

Now dusk, it descends towards the horizon and paints swirls of vanilla orange across the sky. It’s a stark contrast to the ground below, Berlin’s miserable, industrial grit.

It’s a gorgeous respite, but the subzero temperatures have bitten your cheeks raw, so it’s about time you go back inside and resume your work.

All-day long, a steady flow of decryption tasks have been tossed at you without so much as a courteous smile in your general direction. After a while, it all seems the same, a linear, monotonous rut. The jury was still out as far as you were concerned - was it better to have your brain zombified by desk work, or ravaged feral by combat?

At least on the front lines there was the variation in scenery. CIA safe house E9, well, you called it the grey place. Everything was grey in there, grey walls, grey chairs, grey steel, you’d look over at the evidence board and see the photographs of the humans you were hunting were grey too. So it was no wonder your mood was rain clouds and all its drizzle.

Your eyes flutter shut, allowing the breeze to taunt you just a moment longer, but then the angelic hush is struck down by the mammoth garage doors beside you.

Your rudimentary tut and sigh coincide with their grumble as they open. You hadn’t wanted company, you much preferred your breaks sans colleagues...

But your heart gives you a stealthy, low jab in your ribcage, because it is him.

Him, who is hues of cognac, rich mahogany leather and toasted honey hair. The way his jaw is set is a cliche of America’s ideal masculinity.

It’s an obvious choice to lust over a man like this. People judge women for lusting over a man like this. Because The handsome-hotshot- Asshole? Really? How predictable, how terribly uncreative and idiotic and self-destructive.

To hell with it though, you had no one you valued the opinions of to tell. Those three inside could laugh at you until they were split at the seams, you didn’t feel this way on purpose.

He does not acknowledge you, yet. Only he could do this and it make sense, if it were anyone else you’d be flummoxed.

Instead he stands a little way away from you and starts to light his cigarette with his infamous silver zippo, his old faithful. Sometimes, typically during the sluggish late afternoons, you see him twirl the lighter around in his agile, spindle fingers. It’s hypnotising if you watch closely enough.

Even his fidgeting is sophisticated. He is perfect.

And when you acknowledge this, it is not a lovehaze sentimental byproduct of your... infatuation(?) It’s a prudent observation, he does nothing to convey humanness. If you cracked open the sturdy husk of him, you weren’t certain you’d find the reds and pinks and intricacies of flesh and organs. Perhaps you’d find silver metallic at best, a ghostly black chasm at worst.

“Nice work on getting us that location, Bell,” his voice is lithe as he takes his first inhale, masochistic to his lungs he is. He exhales nicotine clouds through lips that are silky in the spaces they are not chapped, and his tone is back to it’s imperative gruffness. “What are you doing out here by yourself?”

The initial isolation with him has siphoned your word bank dry - well you’ve never been the social butterfly of the team, to begin with, but Sims, Park and Lazar didn’t make the walls of your throat close in like this.

When allowed to grow too long, your hesitation becomes ripe with meaning, you are all but stammering without moving your lips, so you swallow the dryness and verbalise. “I just needed to get away from it all for a few minutes.”

“Get away from us?” The inflection at the end of his sentence, a glimmer of wry, incognito humour. Squint and you’d miss it, the right corner of his lip did actually quirk up just then. But the inner cities of Hell would see pretty snow flurries before his face arranged into anything pleasant and palpable at the same time.

“Normally I’m able to do so without any issues,” you snipe back.

Knowing exactly how you sound, you point your chin and nose towards the heavens. You wish to look regally aloof, instead, you could discern you look brattish and bashful all at once, this was only corroborated by his delicate scoff.

The intention was to throw him off the scent. The sickly-sweet stench of thrumming hearts, tummy aches and clammy hands didn’t take a fine-tuned bloodhound to sniff out. Apathy would be the optimal approach, but you were yet to master this trade. That was his game.

You see it then, as you always do, in your peripherals, he lifts one of the Marlboros up, and then down.. and then he looks at you. It can be tricky to tell where his eyes swivel and take purchase thanks to the sunglasses that had found a forever home perched on his skull.

It’s how his body turns in your direction, a compass needle, that’s how you know. And he wants you to know because a man of his precision did not have to work at tactfulness. Adler stifles you with his watch, it has the magnetic force to still you in your path, it slows your limbs and quickens your heart. Not like a lion to a gazelle, the dynamic is more off-kilter than that, and gazelles sometimes escape. It’s more like a barn owl to a field mouse, swooping down unprecedented and picking your flesh from your bones before you could even consider what transpires after demise.

But what you wouldn’t give, just for even a few morsels of time, to wiggle your brain into his and in an act of gluttony, gain access to every last thought he had of you, his inner monologues, the passing remarks as he watched you go about your day. You didn’t care if he thought you were the lowest life form on this planet, you’d adore to be put out of your misery regardless.

You cave, turning your head to look him dead on. You see the leftover sun ricocheting off his sunglasses, the frames are casting a shadow over his face like a sundial. “What?”

He shakes his head, he waves his hand, slight haphazard gestures so dismissive, it yields the very fibres of you trivial and inconsequential.

“You’re a member of the team,” he informs you as he flicks the exhausted cigarette butt into the distance. “You can play lone wolf when the job is done.”

As he turns, his hand clamps down onto your shoulder and squeezes electricity up and down the pole of your spine.

It was no sweet, encouraging gesture, you were not a naive, feeble little thing. You knew. Unassuming small doses of control here and there were utilised to maintain dominance, to fortify it’s foundations, over time he might build empires of influence in the open plains of your mind.

The pack leader bangs on the door to be let into his den and throws over his leathered shoulder as an afterthought; “Time to get back to work, don’t you think kid?”

Adler had a pyrokinesis bestowed on him specifically to melt everything dignified inside you.

-

It’s a few hours later, a nearby digital clock has shifted its neon sabres to 20:00

Park and Adler leave the small office at the other end of the safe house, and as always like ritual or clockwork, they throw an indistinct glance in your direction and exchange a few parting words before they put distance between each other and continue their work separately.

Your eyes are heat-seeking missiles as you watch Adler wander over to Sims. As always, there was no clue on his face as to what he had been talking about with agent Park.

“Is he really all that?” The words and the breath attached are but a hair’s breadth from your ear. You flinch back intrinsically, shoulders hunched up and brow bone bent out of shape as you glance up at the intruder.

The offending party is the mountain-esque man you’ve come to know as Lazar, said mountain is topped with the distractingly unorthodox combo of a burger town t-shirt and black leather suspenders. You contemplate questioning why, you realise there is no point.

A rumble of a laugh emits from him, it comes from the deepest part of his belly and sounds like trombones and thunder harmonising. He pulls a bar of chocolate from his pocket and presses it down in front of you so the royal purple foil is obscuring the face of some Russian spy.

“Oh,” you say, a lightness of sugared surprise lighting up your face as you pick it up and smooth your thumbs over the top. “My favourite, how did you know?”

“Ah,” he taps his nose with a self-pleased wink before placing his hands in his pocket. “I might have had some insider information.”

You let out a breath of a laugh as you began to peel it open. “And what’s the occasion?”

“You sulking around here like the apocalypse is nigh,” he responds, pushing his chest out with a sigh, “But then again, that’s not occasional for you, it’s customary.”

“The apocalypse could be nigh from what I understand...” comes your smart-aleck bite, but he has no interest in it.

You feel the sparks of energy that has overflowed the entirety of him, he’s a loaded spring today, and apparently you are the punching bag of choice. “A word of advice though, a man like Adler? He’s not going to be into the pouty, sulking in the corner type. It’s cute for about five minutes, and then it’s annoying.”

It has to be done, you have to gaze up at him with choler and revolt like cat and mouse back and forth’s are far beneath you, but it only serves to makes his ear-to-ear grin glitter into the seafoam of his retinas. “How many more times do I have to tell you? I don’t want to be the subject of your sick fantasies, Lazar.”

Your teeth chomp into the head of the chocolate bar with purpose, seethe-narrowed eyes not moving from his face as you do so.

“I don’t get it personally,” the six-foot-four man leans onto your table, you eye the space his thigh meets the metal warily as it creaks in protest under his weight. “You salivate over him all day as if I’m not stood right here.”

You exhale, you take another bite of your sweet treat, rewarded to you because you are sulking around like the apocalypse is nigh.

“Do you not have somewhere else be?” You are only half-joking, but the wolfish good nature that had warmed his face rendered him far too charming for you to solicit true agitation. “Like clinging on to Park’s pant leg or something?”

“Ha ha ha,” he drones, his sarcasm is smooth and without malice as he plucks the remaining square from your fingers and slips it past his hearty moustache. “If that were in any way accurate, at least I have better taste than you.”

“Please,” your mouth curling sportfully as you predict what response you’d achieve with your next words. “Park’s just Adler’s female equivalent. Two peas in a pod I’d say.”

Lazar opens his mouth, the beginnings of objection etching its way onto his rugged features, but it’s wiped away as his eyes drift to the side.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Adler says as he approaches, he slots himself in between you and Lazar with slippery ease to place yet another faded beige folder on the desk in front of you.

“Um...,” your lips twist to the side of your face as you peer down at the unwelcome presentation and start to dissect it’s contents. “What’s all this?”

“Hm?” He steps back, awaiting your elaboration as if he hadn’t an inkling of what could be askew.

“It’s just gone eight o clock, you want me to start something else now?”

You glance up at Lazar momentarily in wishful thinking he might rally behind you, he is paying you no mind, staring off into space and stifling a yawn instead. No honour among thieves. Or CIA agents.

“You don’t mind staying a little later, do you?” Adler asks, velvet has draped over the jagged edges of his voice as he asks you the favour- asks you the favour? No, he’s telling you the agenda.

In fact, it crosses your mind now; this has probably been aforethought of his since you arrived this morning. He’s had all day to ask, he made an active, mindful decision not to.

Why were you so fond of him again?

You fail to keep your chagrinned grimace below surface level, but succeed in biting your tongue instead. “No, I don’t mind.”

“Knew you wouldn’t let me down,” the tongue in cheek praise drips from his mouth honeyed and throaty, teasingly smug even. He turns to Lazar then. “How about you? Interested in some overtime?”

“No thanks Doc, there’s a burger the size of my head and a hot bath calling my name. But I suppose you’ll be staying here late as well?”

“I can’t just leave them to her own devices, can I?”

-

23:00, now the red digits were laughing at you, your eyes are dry and foreign in your skull, your fingers have cramped and you wished they laid idle under body heated blankets.

Adler has been in the office for a large part of the night, he came back briefly but then the phone rang and he had to excuse himself again.

He had even wagged a finger at you and told you to stay when your face had lit up with inquisitiveness.

Certain information, you had clocked early on, was not meant for your subordinate ears. It is excruciating. Knowing there are things that you do not know feels like ants marching paths up and down your skin. Secrets were hidden underneath your nostrils, but you couldn’t find them to save your life.

But it was simple protocol, procedures and security and some other effectively silencing buzzwords used frequently by men far less remarkable than Russell Adler.

Said man joins you again before too long, pulling up a chair opposite you without ceremony. His knee brushes against yours, your body screams at you for it, he pays it no mind.

“Who was that?” you ask, appropriately nonchalant as you shift your gaze back down to your papers.

“Nothing for you to worry about.”

It was rather remarkable just how often it was nothing for you to worry about.

“If you say so.”

Silence had been stalking you both the second you had been left alone together. It had caught up now, only to you though. Quiet wasn’t awkward to him, it was embraced with open arms.

Positively, you were stuck with him, the table you were both seated at felt like a deserted island. And he had turned brooding into an art form tonight.

It’s not like he was ever full of the joys of spring... but he wasn’t always plagued with the miseries of winter either.

“Is...Everything okay?” You decide to press, press him, press your luck. Your shoes are pressing into the eggshells he had littered on the floor.

Adler clears his throat and flips a page, marks something on the paper before he replies.

“I get tired too, Bell,” he indulges you, or the closest he can come to indulging you. There are cracks revealing something akin to defeat in his tone, and now you’re intrigued.

Vulnerability? A whiff of it at least? But is this all it took? For the others to leave? Or was it because he was at work at an hour that was designated to be tucked away in his hotel room?

“If you’re tired,” you begin, shrugging and shaking your head because it’s the most obvious thing in the world to a mere mortal like yourself. “Why don’t you go and get some sleep?”

He doesn’t respond so you fill in for him. “If you get tired too, you should take care of yourself... too.“

Adler slips his gaze up onto you, he is directly across and now that the two of you are close enough, you can see the silhouettes of his eyes after all.

Can I see you without your shades? trickles down from your brain and onto your tongue, it tastes of everything forbidden, so you let it disintegrate.

He huffs amusement through his nose and shakes his head slightly. “You’re cute, kid.”

You could hardly find the common sense and professionalism to be patronised by it. “Cute” is a bad omen in all truth, cute is merely inferiority in a pretty, ribboned parcel.

You clear your throat, willing the hot needles to stop prickling at your face. “It’s only common sense, Adler.”

The air is clearer from that exchange, a sweetener in strong black coffee. You’re here on this island with him, at least it’s not all doldrums and smoggy atmosphere.

You think you might try again in fact, why not strike while the iron is hot? “So, is it true you have an ex-wife?”

Something on the diverse terrains of his face twitches, he stops writing mid-sentence but doesn’t glance up. “Is it true?”

“Yeah.”

“Why would I lie?” The question is the real article, entirely rhetorical. To his credit he does seem entirely perplexed, his bushy eyebrows of gold wire have ruffled lower behind his shades.

You tussle with it for a few counts before you determine your retort, a ghost of a smile plays at your lips as it comes to fruition. You are impish, urbanely playful even, as you peer up at him through your lashes. “I know you’re making up that tiger story.”

The hum that rumbles up his trachea and slips through his lips is not one of vexation. You’re crossing lines right here right now, on the deserted island among the murky grey waters of the CIA safe house... and he doesn’t seem especially pissed off about it.

“Look,” he’s levelling with you as he places a cap on his pen and picks up the neighbouring coffee mug to take a sip. “I promise you, there are few things in this life more realistic than a failed marriage.”

“I understand that, but I just...”

Your vacillation swells to extremities and it provokes him to lean forward, his forearms invade your territory. His head tilts in your direction like infant plants growing towards sunlight. It’s an unexpected, singular note change in his intoning symphony of apathy. Unexpected, but more importantly, you consume it with near greed.

And look how close the two of you are now, you are close enough to inhale Marlboro’s and his cologne more wholly than you ever have - a heady concoction of spiced earth and sharp citronella that spins your head 360. “You just what, Bell?”

“I just can’t imagine it.”

“Why not?”

The most delicate piece of humour twinkles between the lines of his voice, the voice that has suddenly grown deeper with huskiness - this was it, this was his recreation, watching you squirm.

He’s moved back, slumped in his chair and cocking his head towards you, expectant yet indolent. And it dawns on you why he looks so mind-shatteringly attractive in this snapshot. Not just because he is him and you are you with your affinity for him, but because he is challenging you.

In this colosseum however, with this warrior of silver tongue and platinum mind, you didn’t fancy your chances.

“You’re nosy, just for the sake of it,” he states after your silence frosts over into opaqueness. “I usually hate that in a person.”

“Usually?”

He makes no move to reply immediately, but then the phone rings again for the third or fourth time tonight. It’s occurred to you by now he was staying late to take calls, not just because he couldn’t leave you to your own devices. Whoever was on the other line had impeccably bad timing and you resented them greatly.

“I suppose I don’t mind it so much on you,” Adler bends down over your shoulder, your faces cross in transit, just an inch apart, maybe three-quarters of an inch. Your cheek is parallel with his for a few counts, every count is a count too long. He grabs his cigarettes and his lighter and he’s stood back up and you’re breathing again. Your heartbeat is in your head, beating against your eardrums and throbbing in your eye sockets as he walks away.

You know, because it is common sense to know, that things like that are not supposed to happen. It doesn’t matter that they are de minimis, ghosts of occurrences on paper. That’s why he does it, the tiny things, no one could ever question a wisp of a moment like that and appear reasonable.

“Huh? I was just grabbing my cigarettes,” you imagine him saying, so clean and nonchalant, and then a scorching, lethal quirk of his brow and shake of his head. “Are you feeling okay today? Is something bothering you?”

Maybe you’re overreacting, perhaps you’re over-imaginative. He leaned over you, he didn't lean into you. He didn't push you against a wall or pull you into his body, or grab your face or shove his mouth against yours.

... But he knows what he is doing, he will always know what he is doing.

With him away again talking to God knows who about God knows what, you see the window of opportunity to rest your head. Just for a few minutes, you tell yourself, you’ll be back up by the time he returns.

-

You’re in the back of a car now. Man made lights from outside the vehicle cast shapes of amber and red across the interior as you’re driven. You look out the window, but your surroundings are awash and murky, as if someone decided to mix every paint colour they had on a canvas.

You don’t know where you are, what you’re doing. When you look at the dossier in your lap the words jumble and rearrange until it might as well be written in an ancient, forgotten tongue.

But there is something niggling at you, like a trapped insect in the most elusive crevice of your brain - a déjà vu and familiarity that flaps its wing frantically and relentlessly bangs into the window but can’t quite find the exit.

A man turns to you from the front of the car, shaggy raven locks and spectacles that are inherently sinister, they frame something callous and ominous. Both the eyes and the glasses were serial-killer-esque.

His mouth opens and moves, but you cannot properly discern the words, it sounds like he’s speaking with his head underwater.

The intonement continues for what could be an eternity, for what could be seconds or minutes or hours, before he has pulled out a pistol. He is snarling when he aims it at your chest.

A tremendous bang, the first clear sound you have been able to hear, and then you are leaking. It’s too dark to see colour, but you know instinctually the liquid seeping down onto your person is red red red.

You’re stuck then, razor-sharp stinging dims down to a dull pinch yet you are still stuck. Your chest is inferno, every other body part turns to cement. Internally you thrash and scream and cry, but your shell is unshakeable. Every piece of effort has been rendered impotent. You’ll be like this, encased in your own physical being until the Earth combusts, you can’t fathom this claustrophobia ever alleviating. You can’t fathom your body will be anything other than a coffin for your mind-

But you’re back. Your head has jerked up, your eyes have forced themselves open and you’re back in the grey. Panting and wide eyed like you’ve come close suffocation.

Your relief swoops you up into a tight, loving embrace, but it soon fades off. Grief clings to you instead, it crumples your face and dribbles from your eyes until you’re jolted up and down with hushed, heartsore sobs.

You have endured grenades and flashbangs and gunfights and napalm strikes and this strike and that strike, all the strikes they could think of... You were supposed to be as tough as nails, yet a nightmare made you crumble like drywall?

Adler is back, the king of tough as nails, he walks past you again without acknowledgement and resumes his position across from you.

It takes him a moment, and then another moment after that, but he does notice something has gone awry eventually.

“What happened?”

You shake your head adamantly, fixing your wobbling visage with a stiff pout. It’s a futile effort, you succumb again and have to bury your face in your hands. You want to scamper away, but why bother, he would only chase you.

He rounds the table, eliminating the space between you in two steps. His hands grasp your forearms and tug until your palms are un-suctioned from your saltwater face.

You have been forced to look at him, it wasn’t reasonable for him to do that, he shouldn’t be so invasive, but it dawns on you before you can snatch yourself away, you’re looking at his eyes- into his eyes. His eyes - sharp cut and hard set in his skull, sleek crystalline windows that housed electric blue flames.

The sunglasses were gone. This was the first time you’ve seen him without that unyielding barricade- that dammed black-sepia glass.

The thin line that had manifested between his brows, the restrained puzzlement making his eyes squint and glint prettily under very not pretty industrial lights, it was overwhelming. A piece of human anatomy should never have so much faculty.

“Bell,” his voice is like warmed cotton as he kneels before your lap, tilting his head up towards you to look you in the face. “Tell me what's going on.”

“It’s nothing,” you drag a hand across your face to wipe string snot from your nose “It was just a bad dream... I’m being stupid.”

He breaths out at the admission, letting his head drop down in despair before he glances up at you again. “Do you want to talk about it?”

-

Adler makes you tea and clears away the work on the table top, he has made “talking about it” an official event.

Your fingers press into the folded up blanket that had been placed in front of you. It had been there before, you had been resting your head on top of it during your slumber/ordeal.

You definitely hadn’t placed it there yourself, no, you had placed your head down on cold metal.

But if you pried about these fleeting little trinkets, you may find you’re not on the receiving end of such gestures again.

He sits in front of you once more and folds his hands together. The glasses are back. That gemstone moment from earlier had been a flash in the pan.

“I was in the back of a car, I don’t know why or where I was going...”

His hums his understanding gingerly, just impatient enough to coax you along the timeline. God did you feel juvenile.

“There was this man....” you sniff, clenching your fists next to his ones. “And it’s so strange because I can’t remember where I know him from. But I do know him. I know I do. And it’s true what they say, isn’t it? That your brain can’t invent faces?”

Adler’s hand slides over one of your knuckles, reminiscent of a snake moving itself over a rock. “What did the man do to you?”

You exhale shakily as your tongue twists and flexes, tries to find the adequate words to draw up the picture. For once you are not letting his administering of touch knock you for six, because it is normal, you’re friends and he’s consoling you.

“He shot me. And I know that doesn’t sound like a big deal, especially not for people like you and me, but I was just bleeding and...I couldn’t wake up for what felt like so long...”

You’re still on the precipice of tear fall. You hear the edges of your voice distort against your will.

”It all felt so real.”

A narcotic laced shushing sound, a lullaby of such, flows from Adler’s mouth. His hand has swapped from perching atop yours to curling around it. It’s warm, and the rough, hard bits of skin protruding from the starts of his fingers are contrarily smoothing of your ruffled feathers because you revere any glimmer of anything quintessentially him.

“What did he look like, Bell?” He’s asking you, pushing and prodding into the bones of your digits and smoothing his thumb across the back of your hand.

You let yourself sink in with no shame, but you’re not wholly sedated. His mouth is stony, thin and straight, you can’t comprehend why distress would be stewing away under that stoic lid of his.

You describe the main star of your nightmare to Adler, intriguing yourself to find you remember his face as clear as day

“Would did he say to you? Can you remember?” He persists, his grip on you has grown tauter, so has the bones and skin of his jaw. The man is holding himself back, he wants to pounce and tear every last detail of this from you, you can tell. It should have made you enjoy this less, you refused to let it.

You shook your head, he exhales deeply through his nose as soon as you did. “Nothing at all?”

“Nothing at all.”

Finally, he pulls his hand from yours with a good-natured pat for your efforts.

“I’m sorry,” he says, standing up and disappearing momentarily. He comes back with your jacket and is gesturing for you to stand up so he can help you put it on. Everything suddenly feels manic and rushed, there’s an electric current of urgency in the air. “I never should have asked you to work so late. You’re obviously over-tired. Let me get you back to your room.”

He’s on edge and it’s scary, because like every other emotional on the wheel, he doesn’t show it outright. You have to read between the lines, strain your ears for the inflections in his vocal cords, squint hard enough to make out the raise and tense of his shoulders.

Even then, only a higher power had the key to open the door and peek at what could be ticking away inside of him.

You could see, because you’re really not an idiot, he was anything but pleased with your wide tales of backseats and men with serial killer glasses and bullets to the chest.

But why? The answer was there but you just couldn’t...

“I’m sorry, Adler,” you cut into his whirlwinds so you can address him head on. “But why have you turned this into such a big deal?”

“Who says it’s a big deal?”

“You’re worried. Don’t tell me you’re not because I can see that you are.”

He stops mid warpath to smooth his heckles down, the broad, sweeping lines of his shoulders lower as he exhales.

You hadn’t seen him like this before and you have been through literal war zones together.

The man’s hand slides across your upper back, you allow him to guide you towards the exit of the safe house. Not until you’re both in his car, putting your seatbelts on, he speaks to you again.

“The truth is Bell,” he turns the key to have the engine rumbling to life beneath you. “I’m worried about you... psychologically I mean. You know how important all that shit is in our line of work.”

You fight down an incurring eye roll and let your forehead roll onto the window. “You mean you’re scared I’ll go crazy and go on some killing spree... or something...”

There’s not another word spoken for the whole drive.

-

Adler walks you through the stale cigarette stench and desolation of your hotel lobby, even the CIA had to cut the costs somewhere. You didn’t even begrudge Adler the privilege of staying in another hotel a little further down the street. Another hotel loosely translating to a better hotel, ten times nicer than this dive, you understood. Park stayed here too and knocked at your hotel, at precisely 7am, every morning, without fail, and she would drive you to the safehouse, in silence, every morning, without fail. You didn’t know where Lazar and Sims were situated. It was something about it being smart to be spread out too, so if you were ambushed they wouldn’t be able to swoop you all up in one go.

Still, it was funny, the various ways in which hierarchies were established.

Your quarters wasn’t a terribly dreadful affair if you tried not to be so miserable about it all. It was a tinderbox, but that could be part of its charm. It was cosy and reposeful for the bed to take up the vast majority of the room, the sheets were semi-fresh and tastefully white. And the walls were a forgiving shade of forest green, if there was mould slowly poisoning you you were none the wiser. The television was only on the fritz thirty percent of the time, and showed foreign programmes because you really weren’t a great deal away from the border.

Adler sits on a nearby chair, his tall form hunches over slightly as he appears to be particularly fascinated with the plethora of stains imprinted into the carpet.

You’re sat on the bed, wondering why he is still here, but you have no bone of contention with the fact. Every inch of you is fatigued, lead is setting into your muscles.

It does not spare you from the butterflies in your belly, they break out of chrysalis only for transpiration such as this- Russell Adler in your teeny hotel room by his own accord.

Despite the exhilaration, you try to be a Good Samaritan. “You don’t have to stay here with me. I’m fine now, I promise.”

He is depleted just as you are, he has even started running a hand through his hair. That’s a fault in his code, he never does that.

And because he never does that, you have never seen it tousled and ruffled like it is now, it is less insufferably debonair and more boyish, down to Earth even.

Before you can lose yourself to gazing, he stands and only has to move a step to sit on the bed beside you. Your breath is baited as he takes off his shades again and places them on your bedside table.

Vast, never-ending hands then grab you by your upper arms. His grip isn’t that of steel but it doesn’t need to be. His eyes, and the fierce beast leashed and obedient within them, stop you in your tracks better than any bear trap could.

“You promise you’re telling me everything about that dream? There was nothing else?”

It was an effective tool, this removing of the shades shtick, the tiniest instinctual iota of you wishes he would stop, to shove the damn things back on his stupid, ridiculously square movie star head and stop wreaking havoc in your chest.

“Adler...” you intone, shaking your head and raising your face so you are nose to nose, so your breath is mingling and he’s all you can see. “You’re being really weird...”

He instigated it. So not all of it can be placed on your shoulders, no, it’s not all your fault. Because his eyes do drift down to your mouth and up the path of your neck in the most strange, surrealist morsel of time.

That’s the only reason you press your lips flush against his and flutter your eyes shut. Rough patches like the ones on his hands interrupt the run of velvet that are his lips. Of course you taste and smell nicotine, it’s just not heinous and gag worthy like you often endeavoured to convince yourself.

They feel and taste like you had imagined. And you had imagined they’d feel and taste rapturous. But instead it is purgatory, because he did not push you away, but he did not kiss you back. He was not engulfed by your split-second fervour, but he was not fleeing in revulsion, he was not running to the en suite to throw up his lunch. He just... lingered in limbo, and waited for you to stop, so you did.

And even when you’ve parted, he is unmoving and sturdy in front of you. His eyes are sliding across your face with something hazy, something reminiscent of the pockets in the safe house he filled with his smoke. It looks like craving, you refuse to believe it is.

“I can’t do that with you,” his hand curves up your shoulder and winds into your neck until it cradles your cheek. “Sorry.”

“Why?”

“Well, I could write you a list.” He takes his hand away and then he takes his body away and you already yearn for how that half of the bed had dipped under him. “But it’s nothing about you personally so don’t go thinking about it too hard.”

You hardly hear any of this, your body is shutting down.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper, and you are. Because you’ve been Icarus and after being so careful, it was Adler’s lips that were your sun in the end. Not even his lips, just him. Everything and anything him. You had no wings of wax for him to melt, but streams of rejection still trickle into your bones and weigh you down to the ground all the same.

“Don’t be,” he says with flecks of amusement in a low, steady tone and your head shoots up at him, regrettably, with hope. “It’s the most action I’ve had in ages.”

His smirk is lopsided, a scythe craning into the war torn half of his face. He looks absolutely exhausted, but you don’t think he’s ever looked so handsome. It’s only coarse rock salt in your fresh wounds.

Maybe you’ve revitalised him, perhaps he was flattered and glowing from the inside out. There is not a speck of enmity on him as he goes about obtaining his shades and placing them back on his head. He is glacial, you are burning and scorched everywhere.

“Get some rest for me, kid,” is his farewell, he drags fire-touch across your arm once more and then he is gone. As is your sanity.

[bambimeadows]

Lmao, it’s rant time. Lock in.

This is going to be my only post about this and whether it ruffles feathers or not that’s fine. I’ve arrogantly reposted my poorly written replies to someone below because I can’t be bothered to type it all out again, but yeah this is my whole take on the “dadler” discourse amongst other discourse involving people taking issue with how he’s written. I also feel like this is a perspective no one is talking about but I think it’s kind of important if we’re going to talk about what’s realistic to his character and what’s not.

To me this is all very reminiscent to how people were arguing about whether or not he had an ex wife in the Cold War days. He literally said it, there is nothing to insinuate he was lying, the lie would make no sense like his other lies did, but as per usual here comes the denial and the “no I know Adler better than anyone! No way he could have things and a life and a past outside of what I can immediately see! That’s MY Adler 😣” crowd because people are both over protective of Adler’s character and also dead set on him being this almost god like almighty being who probably doesn’t even eat, sleep or shit and should remain chronically mysterious and exist only in the tight linear box that is a COD campaign. he certainly could not be just a man who happens to have a crazy job but also has mundane struggles and factors in his life, could certainly not be just a product of his time, oh no. it’s so unrealistic that a military man would get married and have children… in the 60s/70s/80s. What a crazy idea. That wouldn’t make him as cool anymore! Wouldn’t make him the marvel superhero figure you covet him to be!

I guess my gripe with this is ironically people ignoring what’s realistic while trying to scream at others for not being realistic. just loud and wrong. I try to save my feminism more for my twitter but I find the insinuation that Adler is too cool(?) too mean(?) too evil (?) too busy (?) too in danger (?) to have children insulting and ignorant, given the way children, marriage and traditional family units fit into patriarchal structures. Men, especially men like Adler, do not routinely have kids because they’re nice people! It should be said that you can be an asshole and still be a loving parent, I guess, but honestly It’s more a status thing, men back then were seen as failures if they didn’t have kids, they still kind of are today in many circles, they do it because traditionally, continuing the bloodline is the done thing to do, that do it for social norms. And maybe yes they do also just want to be fathers and raise children but that’s definitely not some special thing that only good hearted, morally sound people desire. To me, although I love him dearly, Adler is a character who is very much reminiscent and representative of patriarchy, a powerful man who commands respect in a variety of different ways and bulldozes his way through the world with often little care for who he is impacting. I could not think of anything more realistic than him participating in the traditional family unit and fitting into gender roles. So yeah historical context is important to me, I try to give room for it whenever possible. But that’s just my preference.

For full transparency, I wrote Adler as having kids years ago, way before the “dadler” thing took off and way before people were theorising that Phillip graves was his son, because he did not exist yet. I did it because I thought okay, he’s been married, I’d imagine he has kids from that marriage, it’s more likely than not that he has, look at the times and look at who he is. So I made it be. Years later I had believed it had been confirmed in the form of black ops 6 with that small moment in the campaign, I had believed the skin was them merely doubling down on it or giving acknowledgment to the fact they included it for the sake of the random. But now some people are saying “nope that doesn’t mean anything! 🙂‍↔️” it really is the ex wife thing all over again.

But that’s purely all just my perspective. However you want to headcannon him is absolutely fine! It’s a fandom. You want to firmly believe he’s childless, never been married etc etc that’s also completely fine. But please don’t talk nonsense such as it would be out of character or disrespectful to him as a character to say he has all of that about him, and then claim you’re saying that from a perspective of realism.

I really do see stuff in this fandom all the time that makes me think “mmm I don’t like that” but do you know what I do? I accept it’s not my cup of tea and I scroll on. I do not sit and throw tantrums because people are writing his character in a way that does not suit me, I am not so self centred. I can’t believe this fandom managed to get worse since I was actually active in it lol.

[eistro-phobia]

Frank Woods and Russell Adler

Long ass post of me talking about the relationship between these two

So I didn't really pay much heed to their relationship until now; it just felt like two characters that were given a few connections here and there to fit Adler into the Black Ops universe.

But the more I looked into them, I find a lot more going on between them—enough for me to believe that aside from Mason, Adler might be the closest person Woods has in his life.

So how did it start?

We learn that Woods knew Adler since Vietnam (presumably during MACV-SOG operations, which both Woods and Adler headed). Their relationship isn't exactly highlighted in Cold War, but there's a lot of subtle yet notable interactions between the two:

This little bit brings me so much joy

[Credit to @flyingraijinn]

In the first cinematic, where Russell gets questioned by the officials if his plan was necessary and he responds that they don't have to listen to him—guess who's the first to jump to his defense?

Though this one's subtle, I find it important. Adler keeps Bell within his or Park's sights almost at all times, but the one op where they can't, who does he trust to go with Bell?

Though I doubt Woods knew about Bell, I feel Adler trusted him enough to handle them should they go berserk.

Right after, when the jig is up about the greenlight nukes and Hudson spins the blame on Adler for not apprehending Perseus before, Woods doesn't even need to be told to square up and beat this bitch up a second time

❌️ Woods was stopped by Adler ✅️ Woods let Adler stop him

The last bit, even though it's not canon, I wanted to call attention to

[Skip to 2:46]

It's them! They fucking lied to us! That true, Bell?

Though Adler was already suspicious, its Frank's words that prompted him to finally question them. Maybe I'm reading into it too much, but it seems like it was Woods that made Adler pause and question if, just maybe, he'd failed.

You wanna load up the body? Fuck if I care. Leave it for Perseus to find.

Even after the main game, when Adler is captured, of course he's the first to go look for him

And the one to find him

Even in the field when Adler's on an op, he's in the background keeping an eye on him

And goes back to Hudson to report on him when he goes dark

Now, onto BO6, where their relationship is pulled into focus:

First, we have the starting piece that sets BO6 in motion

Woods doesn't take shit talk pt.2

Yes indeed that is Frank Woods defending a wanted fugitive that is, as far as they're concerned, responsible for his state, even as pos Livingstone is actively grilling them.

Then this <3

If I'm not wrong, this is the first time we see Adler genuinely not be an asshole

And then the second time

The fact that he'd let Woods despise him just to keep him safe is 🥹

And a third time, when he rushes to his aid despite the burning house around him

Now, how is this possible? Why are they so close? In fact, you'd think Woods would hate Adler the same way he hates Hudson—the authority, the methodical nature, the secrecy—you'd think it was a no brainer. And so did I, for a long time.

So it surprised me when I heard Woods speak so highly of Adler, not even having the slightest of doubts against him:

[Skip to 1:40]

Adler? Turn against his brothers for cash? Are you kidding me? Those threads he loves, they ain't cheap now. Listen, I know he can be a goddamn psychopath, I get it. But he's on our side. He's just got his own way of doin' things.

And even when Harrow was interrogated and she told the truth about her parents, Woods vehemently refused to believe her. Even as far as questioning the victim's own memory and calling her parents traitors.

So why does he place this insane amount of trust in Adler?

Well, he gives us—Case—the answer.

I've known Adler since 'Nam. Give it twenty years, he'll grow on you.

Russell fought with him in Vietnam.

No shit, yeah. But remember how tight knit Woods was to his fellow soldiers. He even cried when the young recruit died in the first game.

So of course, fighting alongside Adler in a hellhole would've brought them closer together.

You keep believin' in the ones who got your back, go to battle for you. Adler was one of those.

Of course Adler had Woods' back; it's Vietnam, you're not surviving without having your team's back. It's not a stretch to say they went through life and death moments that they survived solely because of each other.

But another large part of why I believe Woods respects Adler is because he's, surprisingly, a lot more similar to Woods than meets the eye.

Think back to Break on Through. All the memories that Adler has Bell relive. His memories. Who else but him could describe such scenes in detail? He was the one that survived the helicopter crashing into the trees. He was the one that treaded through trenches in the night dodging a field of VC. He was the one that took out practically invisible snipers gunning for him from the trees. He was the one that cleared a village of the convoy and defended American troops under fire. He's the soldier that survived all that.

He's a killer; a monster, make no mistake. A monster that wasn't always assigned behind a desk holding the title of an officer—hidden behind a mask of nonchalance and charm. And Woods knows that monster. Woods respects that monster.

Adler's persona is ultimately an act. He appears uncaring and practical, but his true nature always slips through. He doesn't get along with Hudson, nor with Park's pragmatic nature. He makes split second decisions not on logic, but his instincts—hell, sometimes even his wishes. He gets vicious, loses his cool, and is unrelenting in his goals, refusing to be deemed some washed up old man. That's the true Adler peeking through—forever embedded yet somehow hidden in the lines stretching across his face, only ever showing its ugly head when he's pushed to the limit.

Who else would know it better than Woods, from a place you survive by being nothing but vicious?

As for Adler, who holds Woods close when he seems to do so for very few, he too tells Case why.

He's loyal.

Russell values loyalty: when he leads people into the eye of the storm, he needs loyal men following him without question. It's why he gave Belikov no choice but to get him the keycard, expected Sims and Park to fall in line and help his ass, made sure Bell obeyed him like a dog; it's why he even orders Case around like one (more on that later). He's a natural born leader that needs people with him and all the decisions he makes, questionable as they are.

And when he's taken to playing the villain with such commitment, to still have a friend that believes in him and his choices—a close comrade he's known from his oldest and darkest days on the job? He'll allow him into his heart, even if just a little.

That or theyre fucking idk