YULETIDE FIC: Secretly (RED, Ivan/Victoria, PG)

[carlyinrome]

TITLE: Secretly
RATING: PG
FANDOM: RED (Movies)
PAIRING: Victoria Winslow/Ivan Simanov
SUMMARY: Stolen moments in the spring of 1967.
AUTHOR’S NOTES: Written for fresne for Yuletide 2018.

It is the spring of 1967 and the world is young and new. The sun is high and warm, the sky is robin's egg blue, and the air smells like honeysuckles and cordite.

Victoria is using a silencer, and the sound of the bullets racing through the barrel of her rifle are drowned out by the chirping of lovesick birds. Ivan lies on his belly beside her, gazing through the binoculars in a half hearted way.

“You have not replied to my dinner invitation,” he says.

“Ivan,” she says, “you're meant to be spotting me.”

“I prefer to be wooing you. Target is down. A direct hit. If you don't want to go out, I could cook for you?”

Victoria lines up her sight with the next target's head, zeroing in between his bodyguards. “Do you cook?”

“For you, I will.”

Victoria exhales, and applies gentle pressure to the trigger. The gun jerks against her shoulder, and she breathes. Below them there is chaos; someone screams.

“Ivan, the target.”

“Yes, my dove, he is dead.”

She collects the casings. “We should move.”

“Not until you give me an answer.”

She considers. “Italian?”

“You read my mind.”

***

Victoria is in her bare feet with her hair down in the kitchen of whatever flat Ivan has requisitioned for this date. She has a glass of red wine in her hand, and one already coursing through her veins. Ivan sings as he cooks, “I'm a Believer” half in Russian.

The air smells like garlic and parmesan. They're not expected anywhere for hours. The neighbors are dead. Life is perfect.

***

They are naked in bed, sated but not sleepy. Ivan winds a tendril of her hair around his finger.

“Tell me a secret,” he says.

“Never.”

“Not a government secret. One of yours.”

“I never learned to ride a bicycle.”

He laughs, but it's a delighted sort of laugh, not mean spirited at all. “Why not?”

“I don't know. I was mad at my parents for trying to teach me, and then I was simply too old.”

“No, my blossom,” he says. “Never too old.”

***

The bicycle is brand new and painted robin's egg blue. She wonders if he's stolen it. Ivan holds her waist as she tries the pedals.

“Don't let me go until I say,” she says.

“My darling, as much as it pains me, I will let you go the moment you ask me to.”

She smiles.

***

The bicycle weaves and wobbles. She isn't afraid of falling, won't mind the pain, but she knows from experience that Ivan will fret over every little scrape. Once she had to jump over a barbed wire fence, and he spent hours babying every cut, cleaning and stitching and kissing. She doesn't mind in the slightest.

She steers the bike upright. Her position feels strong.

“All right, Ivan,” she says, and he releases her. She doesn't fall. She pedals the bike down the street, and the wind picks up her hair. She laughs, just like he did taking receipt of her secret, in pure delight.

***

“This is a secret, too, I suppose,” she says. He kisses her bare shoulders, lingering over the dip of her collarbone.

“This one we share,” he says.