TW: Betrayal | Angst | Lost love | Emotional hurt/no comfort | Fem!Reader | Vladimir Makarov because he is a walking red flag
Rewritten.
Usually, reports came in by the end of the day and Vladimir separated them by importancey before going home, so he can start with them the next morning. This report came in by 3:14 and he couldn't ignore it, because he's been waiting for this for literal days. It carried thr priority designation that only the top few had the authority to use, ad this was sensitive data. Naturally, he opened it inside his office, where he was completely alone, surrounded by darkness around where the smal lamp's light couldn't reach.
There was a cup of coffee beside him that was half empty, slightly cold already, as he started to read the report. The first half of it was the usual with names, operations, locations and communications. For minutes hebstarted to believe this wasn't that report he waited for— then he reached page seven, snd the room became colder around him as he was reading it.
He re-read it multiple time to make sure he saw it right. Again and again, before his gaze flicked down to the photo attached to the page. Slightly blurry, black and white, but he immediately recognized the person on it, becasue it was you. Beneath the photo was three words: Embedded asset. Comfirmed.
Vladimir simply sat there, reading the remaining parts of the report, his gaze coming back to the photograph over and over to make sure he saw right. The human mind had a remarkable ability to reject information it didn't want to accept, and this was one of those, but despite how many times he checked, he always made the same conclusion: It. Was. You.
As he slowly finished the report, it became worse from word to word. Long before you two met, an intelligence organization had placed you inside his network, low enough to not be obtrusive, but high enough to easily climb the ladder over time. You were a long term intelligence asset with a simple purpose: gain trust, gather information and report back. Simple as that, nothing else.
The report detailed everything. From your recruitment, through your handlers to your involvement in chases that eventually got leaked. You were there or knew about every mission that got leaked towards the enemy. It took a long time to put the pieces together, but you were the only one who could've done it. The person who make the report was able to get your files at the intelligence agency's sites through hacking into it. That was the most convincing evidence of all.
By the end of the report Vladimir realized he stopped feeling angry and this feeling he harbored in his chest became more like grief. Anger would've been easier than this, as the reports included timelines too. Dates of communication, encrypted messages, every proof needed to see your hands were fully painted red. He couldn't deny it any way.
What did not make much sense was the final section. The intelligence agency stated that the reports stopped around one years ago. There was no more communication or updates from your end, no intelligence transfers. The handlers became increasingly frustrated over this and repeated attempts tovestablish contact with you, always ending in failure. Their orders were ignored by you. The last message ever recovered from you was a simple sentence: "I will not continue."
The timestamp was dated almost one year earlier, around when there was less intelligence breaches. They suspected they found one of the moles around that time, but it seemed like the mole stopped digging instead. But why?
Makarov looked at the photograph again. One year ago was when things started to change. That was the year when you szarted to stay longer after meetings to speak with him more. Those conversations slowly became dinners and the professional distance disappeared after one night when both of you drank a little more than needed. He still remembered how you felt that night between his arms. That was the year when he allowed himself to trust someone. To trust you.
He couldn't deny anymore, you betrayed him. Every word was proof of it. But somewhere along the way you stopped. You weren't caught oenforced, you simply chosen to. If he wanted to be genuine with himself, that hurt even more, because there were no clear answers anymore, only questions.
For another hour he sat there in silence, the report remained open on the desk, papers scattered around, the lhotograph of you on top of everything. You found him there when you looked for him, since he wasn't coming to sleep as he usually did.
The moment you stepped into the office snd saw the papers, saw his expression, you already knew. You closed the door quietly behind you, before you stepped closer, your eyes landing on the papers, in the photograph. You looked away. There was no guilt in your expression, more like exhaustion, be ause you knew this day will come sooner or later.
"How long?" His voice was calm, despite how much his pupils dilated when he looked at you. You hated every second of this, because he was hurting, yet his eyes still held that warmth towards you.
"Since the beginning." You answered without hesitation. He deserved the truth.
"You were sent to spy on me."
"Yes, I was." Your voice seemed stable enough, despite the turmoil you felt inside.
"Were any of it real?" There it was, the question that hurt the most. Not the operations or the intelligence. Not even the lies. What hurt him deeper than anything is that he trusted you enough to warm up to you entirely, because he thought it was real.
The only thing that actually mattered. For the first time, your composure cracked. Because you had known that question was coming too. And there was no answer that could fix this.
"No." You answered, and that single word almost made him look away, but you continued. "It wasn't real when I arrived." Silence followed your words, and it was almost as devastating as the words themselves. "I was sent here with orders. I was supposed to leave." Your voice shook slightly. "I was supposed to report back and keep lying." Slowly tears szarted to burn behind your eyes. You betrayed your orders and everything you believed in the last, because of him. "But then I met you."
Neither of you moved an inch or looked away, and the office seemed to be smaller with each passing second.
"You should've kept going." The words came from him, his voice dry and humourless, yet you heard the broken edge of it.
"I know." You answered, and voth of you knew it would've been easier like that. If you'd remained a spy and a liar, and you'd never fallen in love. It would've been so mich easier for him to simply shoot you or try to force intel out of you about the intelligence agency your originally worked for.
But instead, you betrayed them, and became something far more dangerous. You belonged to neither side and betrayed everyone, even yourself, and you hated yourfels for that, but hated yourself more for betraying him. Because seeing the bone-deep hurt in his eyes, that hurt more than a single bullet to your chest or to your head.
As Vladimir stared at you, the person he trusted more than anyone else, he realised something horrible. This report told you everything he needed to know about who you were, every secret, betrayal, every lie. But it was the past you, not the one he gotten to know during those dinners and late night conversations. And slowly he realised the report hasn't changed one single fact: he still loved you with every fiber in his body.
mactavish wakes up on a bridge. the bridge; the place he watched gaz die, the place he put a bullet in zakhaev’s head…
the place he stopped being soap.
it’s silent, no screaming or gunfire; just a gentle breeze he doesn’t remember feeling that day over the weight of the blood on his skin. there’s no one around at all, but that doesn’t stop the burn in the back of his head coming from the cracked concrete behind him. a place forever embedded in his mind.
he involuntarily turns to the spot, expecting to see his limp body. he doesn’t know why these events had to blend, why operation kingfish wasn’t enough to cement its own place in his subconscious, just that every time he’s unfortunate enough to dream of this godforsaken bridge, he finds price among the dead. it’s not always the same; sometimes he lays dead before he ever arrives, sometimes his accusatory eyes are sharp and cutting as he uses his last breaths to demand why he didn’t save him, to lament that he wasn’t enough…
mactavish stiffens, confusion beating back the familiar rising dread of waking up on the bridge.
price isn’t there.
in his place is a man, eerily familiar but he can’t quite place him. all he knows is he isn’t supposed to be here. he isn’t one of the men he lost that day, isn’t one of the dozens that haunt his memory and darkens his dreams. he’s in sas standard gear, tac vest practically gleaming in its newness. and in a holster at the small of his back is a gun he’s seen a thousand times.
price’s m1911.
mactavish’s hand snaps behind him, to the matching holster looped through his belt, and his blood chills when he realises it’s empty.
“hello, john.”
he freezes, his breath stilling in his lungs, and he drags the deadweight of his eyes across the concrete, over the debris, until they fall on the boots of the man as he turns to face him.
“we’ve gotta talk,” the man wearing his face announces.
but… it’s not quite his face; the scar bisecting his eye is missing, so are the permanent frown lines etched above his brow. he’s a near perfect copy…
of the boy who walked this bridge all those years ago.
“been a while, hasn’t it?” soap calls across the space between them, looking around the remains of the bridge like mactavish hasn’t memorised every damned block of rubble. “don’t like to visit me much anymore, do you? bit of a scaredy-cat, huh?”
“scared?” he involuntarily scoffs. “son, i don’t think you know who you’re speakin’ to.”
“don’t i?” he challenges blithely. “i’d say i know you pretty well; better than you, at any rate.”
“yeah? how do you figure?”
“pretty easy to know more than a liar,” soap purrs and he tenses against the shiver trying to crawl up his spine as the very air changes; a wrongness piggybacking the wind to try and seep into his lungs. “i know how dead you are inside. how worthless you feel. i know how you look into a mirror... and hate what you see.”
mactavish’s jaw jumps. “know how to spin a yarn, don’t’cha?”
“how many years did it take you to stop looking over your shoulder for him?” he ignores him outright. “to stop waiting for that hand on your back, pushing you in a direction so you didn’t have to stop and wonder if it’s right? it was all so easy when all you had to do was live under his thumb. no choices- no mistakes.”
his fists clench at his sides to abort the jagged flinch ripping through him; countless pages of his journal flitting past his eyes like falling snow, list after list of pros and cons, decision trees mapped out to the tenth degree of separation, blueprint after blueprint laid on top of each other, each with a different entry and exit plan, missions broken down to the second- all so he knew every possible outcome.
so he wouldn’t make another mistake.
so he wouldn’t lose someone else.
“now he’s back and you didn’t waste a breath before goin’ belly up. gave ‘im control o’ your mission, o’ your men… all so he could own you again,” he accuses and mactavish doesn’t know if it’s anger or something far worse making his fists tremble. soap’s eyes drag as they look him over. “i don’t know who finds you more pathetic; him or yourself.”
“you watch your fuckin’ mouth,” he snarls but he doesn’t even flinch, like his rage is little more intimidating than a child’s.
“you're going to die for him after he already got ghost and roach killed, and you won't lift a finger to stop it. talk about low self-esteem,” he huffs, a waver in his voice like he’s unsure if he pities him or is disgusted by him. “then again, it's not much of a life worth saving, now is it?”
his nails dig into the palms of his hands, sticky damp blooming beneath them, but the biting pain does nothing to make this spectre disappear. “wake up, mactavish. come on, wake up.”
“you've got nothin’ outside of the sas,” soap continues. “you are nothin’. as mindless and obedient as an attack dog.”
‘dogs… i hate dogs,’ mactavish groaned, the memory of foaming teeth sinking into flesh far too close for comfort.
‘these dogs are like pussy cats compared to the ones in pripyat,’ came in a shock of static, dry and dismissive, and he buried the strange, nauseating twist in his guts under a wry chuckle and the relief of hearing familiar war stories again.
‘good to have you back, old man.’
“that's not true,” he bites out.
“no? what are the things that you want? what are the things that you dream?” soap reaches behind him and mactavish hears the click of price’s gun being removed from its holster. he waves it and the blatant disregard makes him grit his teeth. “your gun? that's price's. your favourite drink? price's. your cigars? price's. do you even have an original thought?”
‘what the hell kind of name is soap ghost?’
“no. no, all there is is, ‘finish the mission! look out for your men, boy!’ you still heard price's voice in your head all those years he was gone, didn’t you?” he accuses and aims price’s pistol at his temple. “clear as a bell.”
“shut the fuck up,” he spits.
soap huffs a humourless laugh, grinding the muzzle against his temple, then lets it fall away. “i mean, think about it...”
he lazily paces in a wide arc. mactavish matches him step for step, not wanting this vindictive, twisted thing of memory to come anywhere near him.
“...all he ever did was train you, order you around. price knows who you really are; a good soldier and nothing else. daddy's blunt little instrument.”
‘how’d a muppet like you pass selection?’
‘that was better. not great. but better. that was an improvement, but it's not hard to improve on garbage. try it again.’
“but roach? oh, he saw somethin’ special in him. somethin’ more. you could see it, couldn’t you? how gentle he was with ‘im. the way he never was with you.”
‘i’ll take roach, move in parallel to you; finally found a kid who knows how to keep ‘is mouth shut,’ price finished, like mactavish’s approval over the setup was little more than an afterthought.
roach almost tripped over himself to look at him, eyes wide with desperation for him to disagree, to keep him close like he had since he chose him for the 141. kept him close to keep an eye on him, to make sure he didn’t flounder under the weight of his new position, to catch him when he didn’t make the jump to the helicopter. close enough to see the notebook he kept tucked in his jacket pocket, the leather still so new it hadn’t even creased.
sometimes he wondered if he ever thought what villa clara’s tasted like.
‘he’ll look after you,’ mactavish promised and pretended not to notice roach’s imploring eyes or ghost’s subtle disapproval.
the pity seeps from soap’s voice, twisting into condescending rage as his grip tightens on the gun. “your own father figure doesn’t care whether you live or die- why should you?”
“son of a bitch!”
mactavish rushes soap, tackling him around the middle, and the manic grin on his face when his head connects with the ground, blood gushing over the concrete, just makes him angrier.
“price is a vengeance obsessed bastard!”
soap tries to rear up and his fist crunches into his cheek, his cheekbone shattering under his knuckles.
“all that shite he dumped on me about protecting the world! that was his shite! he's the one who couldn't protect anyone! he-”
the pain of his knuckles breaking on soap’s cheek doesn’t reach him. he just shifts to his left hand, pinning him by the throat.
“-he's the one who let gaz die! he let ghost and roach die! he wasn’t there for them- i always was!”
soap chokes on blood and he blindly traps his wild swing, trapping his hand and price’s gun in his elbow.
“he wasn't there for me! i don’t deserve what he puts on me!”
mactavish aims the gun.
“and i don't deserve to die!”
and pulls the trigger.
soap’s head snaps back, cracking off the cement, the hole in his forehead lightly smoking; his blank, empty eyes staring up at nothing.
mactavish pants for breath, hands shaking as he falls back onto his knees. if he looks hard enough, he can see the outline of the blood gushing from the back of his exploded head matches the puddle gaz’ left behind.
price’s gun is heavy in his hand and he needs his other to stabilise it enough to slide it home into its holster, half turned over his shoulder to watch it retake its rightful place.
he settles back on his knees with an unsteady breath-
and chokes on it when he sees soap’s eyes focused on him.
he jerks upright to fist his gear, hauling him in close enough to smell the death on his breath. blood seeps from between his snarling lips, dripping down to join the growing stains on his tac vest and the concrete below. his chest weeps with it, caving in on itself like he’d been caught in an explosion, not shot.
“you can’t escape it, john!” soap screams and the blood his spits is hot on his face. “you’re gonna die! and this?
“this is what you’re gonna become!”
mactavish’s eyes snap open, sweat catching in his lashes and blurring the water-damaged ceiling of the hovel he and price have been hiding in. he kicks the thin blanket off his legs and stumbles to his feet, unsteady legs carrying him to where price snores on his own couch, his hat dragged low over his eyes just like he always does when he sleeps.
he stands there watching him for a long time, long after his breath settles and the sweat dries on his skin.
it doesn’t bring him the comfort he’s searching for.
