#KGB radio

[wordfromoursponsor]

"Listeners who listen ... listen to San Diego's adult radio station" (1957)

[fancyshooting]

I think the real EVA was initially supposed to be the one to go and meet snake during operation snake eater. his death meant that the mission went to ADAM instead. the change was last minute, which is why ocelot is late to the rendezvous point. he knew snake was his new contact, so he probably wasted some time making the bullet pendant to show off too

[jonphaedrus]

some facts about my father, a perfectly ordinary human being:

got tenure in two years by getting two 2.5-million dollar grants from the government and he's now held that job for the longest time any faculty at his university has ever been tenured. literally almost longer than his entire school has existed.

he's won a fullbright...thrice.

speaks five languages (fluently: english, hebrew, russian; functionally: polish, dutch) and can get around in three others (german, japanese, and "pidgin arabic" whatever the fuck that means)

he was once locked inside the great pyramid at giza. on purpose.

one time i went to austin when he was out of town and when we got back to his house the only food in his fridge was 1) bulk family size cocktail shrimp from costco with all the shrimp eaten out of it and only the marinade left, 2) three boxes worth of frozen yoghurt bars, 3) two bags of frozen mini-wontons that expired two years earlier

has only one demand for his funeral and it's that while his casket is being lowered into the ground i make sure they play "whatever it is, i'm against it!" from the marx brothers film horse feathers

broke into (and out of) martial law poland in the early 80s and brought four hams in his back seat so he could spent six months living with his girlfriend, including a short period of time where he tried to drive from białystok to kraków in the middle of a blizzard, got lost, had no phone, no map, ran into the police, accidentally gave them his fake texas passport and almost got deported, bribed them with a ham, and then somehow ended up at his girlfriend's brother's apartment by complete happenstance and got blind drunk for a week

made friends with his assigned kgb agent in the 70s in russia

his car broke down in the middle of the sinai desert in the 70s and was saved from dying by a roaming passing band of bedouin car mechanics who took his entire car apart and put it back together and drove off without saying anything except "it works."

convinced me and one of my childhood best friends that he had found a way to time travel an hour into the future through the careful use of daylight savings, a radio station, a car clock, and the fact that he has never been on time for anything in his entire life

when he got his house renovated he decided that two attics and two cleverly hidden crawl spaces wasn't enough, so he added two more attics and another cleverly hidden crawl space, and i wish good luck to whatever poor schmuck (my cousin) has to sell his house someday.

broke his cherry-wood dining table under piles of papers...twice.

when in grad school, pretended to be a visiting russian statistics professor named "professor blowjob" (in russian) and somehow got away with this in order to teach a lecture on how s of x = f of n (sex is fun)

conned me into the belief that i had a magical color-changing guinea pig and kept this act up for literally a decade before admitting the truth

became a fellow on one of the yellow river restoration projects by making friends with an old man doing tai chi with a sword in a park in beijing. turned out that old man with a sword in a park in beijing was the head of the national environmental protection office at the time.

[alessiathepirate]

Far Cry 6

EL CAZADOR Y LA PRESA: Vaas Montenegro x fem!reader

Summary: La Raja Bar - the place where two old acquaintances finally meet again...

Notes: English isn't my first language. I apologize for any mistake I may have made while I wrote this short story.

My Spanish isn't the best so if you find a word / phrase used in the wrong context or anything please let me know so I can improve :)

I can't believe I finally finished this piece, I've been working on it for such a long time. I think the Michael Mando brainrot helped a lot.

I hope you'll enjoy this <3

Warnings: swearing, my Spanish, referenced and mentioned violence, heavily suggestive themes, also mentioned and referenced plot of Far Cry 3 and 5

•••

Juan knew many people and he for sure knew his way around them.

He knew when and how to strike a great business deal, and how to get out on top with more intel and money than the other had initially offered.

But more often than not, when he got tired in the workshop, he just went out to have a drink or two - or more, it was almost always more - with an old friend. And he had many old friends. Some even more dangerous than the potentional business partners; many were ex-guerrillas, ex-CIA, ex-KGB, ex-terrorists... The list was endless.

She liked to join him sometimes; sitting down to try and make the stupid businessman talk or sitting down with a beer to listen to Juan and his old pal fool around.

That's what she planned on doing once again, after finishing a run for the man to steal some uranium from the last few remaining anti-aircraft sites. After taking the iron chest back to Zamok Archipiélago, she went straight up north, to La Raja Bar - where she knew she'll find the one and only Juan Cortez.

Arriving there though... a surprise was waiting for her there. A big fucking surprise. Juan wasn't the one sitting at the bar, waiting for her, already drunk. In fact, Juan wasn't anywhere in sight. Instead, she found an old friend there, hunched over with his elbows on the table.

She could still recognize him even after all those fucking years, even if the time had taken its toll on both of them.

And just by knowing who he was, she was sure he was the one Juan had met up with before leaving without telling her not to come.

And thank God he didn't tell her that.

"Holy shit!" she cursed as her lips turned upwards into a smile. "What's the fucking chance?"

The man turned around slowly - much slower than he did in the past -, but the very dangerous kind of calmness was still seen in the way his muscles moved. The look on his face upon realizing who was speaking to him, wasn't really surprised - she had never seen him being surprised at anything -, although it was close to it. She was pretty sure he had been going on with life like she had done, thinking they'd never see each other again. To be completely honest, for a time she believed he died - until she realized nothing could kill him, only himself.

"Long time no see, Jefe."

Vaas grinned and she took a seat right next to him, asking the bartender for two more beers. The old lady just cursed under her breath, but in the end, gave her what she asked for.

She gave one beer to Vaas and then took a sip from the other one.

"Fucking Hell, chica!" he took the bottle from her and gave her one of his signature little chuckles. "I thought the jungle ate you up alive."

"The jungle?" she questioned. "Like it had a fucking chance."

"It had one in the beginning."

They smiled at the other in a very twisted and scary way. The bartender chose to stay far away from them, and decided to mess with the old radio in the corner.

She liked knowing that nothing changed.

It all felt the same; the drinking, the talking, even the fucking looks... Although they had more scars - more than the ones they had given each other back then -, more grey hairs and a more serious drinking problem, it was as if they were back in some part of the Rook Islands, in a shitty bar.

She leand in more, her lips turning into an even wider smile, until it was a grin, and said: "It doesn't have one anymore, Jefe."

She carefully watched as his expression went through different phases. She could see the almost-smile as his lips twitched when she said that last word.

Jefe.

It was easy for her to tame him just by saying that. For some reason he liked to hear that word from her. Only her. She remembered all the times she had been tackled to the ground, rough fingers digging into her skin. It has always been easy to get what she wanted.

"I can fucking see that, chica."

His gaze was upon her knuckles, which were bruised. Small cuts littered her hands.

"Good for you." she said as she took another sip. "Nowadays not many people get to keep their eyes to look at me with."

Vaas chuckled.

"You still got your claws, tigre." his smile turned into a smirk. "No one broke them before, huh?"

"No one other than you." she teased. "Believe me, no one could do it better than you."

"Careful now, chica." his voice was just like hers, it had something to it - some teasing and some danger, just the things she liked. "You still think you can just run that mouth of yours without any consequences, ey?"

"I know I can't." her tone became low. "That's why it's fun."

Silence followed. The unsettling kind.

And then after a smirk, Vaas laughed.

And she felt as if she was on the Rook Islands again, being intentionally teased and angered, Vaas just chuckling at her reactions. But he had loved it more when she escaped. He loved her fight, he loved her nails more - enjoying when they broke his skin, leaving red lines behind. And in return, she got some thin cuts as well, mostly around her collarbone, making it impossible to hide them.

As they sat there, drinking and laughing, she wanted nothing more than to jump on him and leave marks behind again. And she was sure he wanted to do the same.

"So, what are you up to in Yara, chica?" he asked, his voice turning serious as much as it could. "Causing trouble again?"

"Sí, Jefe. Juan seemed to enjoy it so I decided to join in on the fun. Besides," she pulled down the neckline of her shirt so he could see the scar on her chest. "I got tired of Montana pretty quickly."

"Nice tattoo. You got more?"

"Only this one." she let go of her shirt. "You gave me better ones anyway."

"That I did chica."

She felt a chill run through her as he looked at her.

The want, or rather need was undeniable. He wanted her as much as she wanted him. He needed her as much as she needed him.

They've been far away from sanity for a long time, and their shared insanity met them each and every time they chased the other again and again and again... She was never really sane, especially with Vaas around. He made her the person she has become. He made her want him more than she wanted anyone else.

She still remembered the time Vaas gave her the tattoo she knew he was referring too. They went out to hunt - in reality he just wanted to see her face when she hit a living, moving animal; he wanted her to know she was the one who killed it. And she shot - perfectly. She only had to give the doe one more bullet to put it down and as soon as the animal was dead, her chest started to raise and fall quickly. Yet she didn't have time to think, because one of his arms was around her waist, pulling her close. His face was burried in the crook of her neck as he laughed.

"Ahora ya no eres presa, chica." he had said. "Eres la cazadora." and his teeth broke the skin on her neck.

She had asked what it meant, not quite understanding Spanish back then.

Vaas chuckled, but translated it.

"You just became the hunter, chica. You are not prey anymore." his nose touched her ear and her breathing hitched. "Mi pequeña cazadora."

Mi. She knew that meant 'my'. And from the way he acted she knew he liked that idea. He liked it a lot.

And then his fingers grabbed the hem of her shirt, pulled it up and his knife cut into her skin. Droplets of blood ran down her hip, making her jeans red. She whimpered and grabbed onto his arm, trying to get it away, but he wouldn't move.

The letter V he had carved into her that day could still be seen just above her hip. She thought about touching it - like she always did when she was thinking about him -, but held herself back.

He didn't need to know how much she enjoyed the thought of that scar.

She finished her beer. He did too. She thought about asking for another, but since the bartender wasn't anywhere in sight, she decided against it.

She didn't know what to say.

She wanted him and she was sure he felt the same, but after all those years they both became tame. It was actually surprising to not hear him shout orders.

In the end she reached into her pocket to pay for the drinks, but just as she was about to throw the money on the counter, Vaas grabbed her wrist. Out of reflex her other hand was immediatelly on the knife which was attached to the back of her belt. Vaas just grinned.

'Good reflexes, chica.' she could hear his voice in her head.

She raised one of her eyebrows.

"No need for that, cazadora." uncomfortable tingles ran through her at the nickname and at the touch. "The puta won't ask for money. I made sure of that."

She looked at him with excitement.

Her hand let go of her knife and she concentrated on the feeling of him holding onto her wrist, almost crushing the bones.

Cazadora. He remembered, didn't he? Of course he did. He remembers fucking everything. Especially the things he had done in the past.

She knew he made her. In the jungle, in the heat. Every single time she fought him and he cut her, he made sure she'll become something else. Something... loco.

And every time she let him tackle her, cut her, kiss her and bite her, she let him form her into the insane bitch she has become.

Mi pequeña cazadora. She remembered that day in the jungle when they were hunting the doe. She remembered the dull pain when he drew the V into her skin. She remembered his breath on her skin and his grin when she leaned into him, accepting her own insanity next to his.

She felt the need grow in the pit of her stomach as Vaas held onto her.

Perhaps they weren't too old to hunt again.

"You make me fucking crazy Jefe." she said as she dropped the money, letting it fall, the coins rolling far away.

And soon they were on each other. Hands roaming free, teeth biting lips. His thumb found the letter V above her hip and she whined.

She let herself be tackled, she let him break the skin with his teeth.

No matter how different she has become, next to Vaas she didn't want to be a hunter.

Not when it was too enjoyable to be the prey.

[eretzyisrael]

How Israel Lost the Information War

Yesterday I was listening to a news program on the radio while preparing dinner. The host asked his subject – I don’t recall who it was, probably an opposition member of the Knesset – this question: how can it be that world opinion has become solidly anti-Israel only a few months after the worst pogrom since the Holocaust, in which more than a thousand Jews were murdered in the most brutal fashion imaginable, in which hundreds of women were raped and children tortured to death? The predictable and stupidly self-serving political answer was that it was the fault of the Netanyahu government, which had “mismanaged” the war. But what is the correct answer?

The real reason is that Israel, while successful in the “kinetic” aspects of the campaign against Hamas, has been overwhelmingly defeated in the less visible theater of information warfare.

The roots of this defeat go back decades. There was as yet no “mismanagement” on the day after the Hamas invasion, when there was an outburst of anti-Israel demonstrations and attacks on Jews around the world while the rampage was still continuing in parts of southern Israel. The ground was prepared as far back as the 1970s, when a wave of Arab petrodollars, guided by the Soviet KGB, flowed into a massive project of psychological and diplomatic warfare against the Jewish state. It wasn’t so difficult for them – the built-in antisemitism of the West, temporarily suppressed after the Holocaust, found a new outlet. It was easy, too, to nurture antisemitic elements in the Muslim world. In the West, the educational systems were infiltrated and subverted, starting with the “best” universities and continuing down to textbooks and curricula for elementary schools. A reality-inverting identification was made between Zionism and Western colonialism and racism, benefiting from both the anger of the formerly colonized and the guilt of the colonizers.

Funds for anti-Israel initiatives also came from the network of charities associated with George Soros, starting around the beginning of the 1990s. This money nourished many of the NGOs and human rights groups that became centers of anti-Israel propaganda, and continues to support them.1

In the diplomatic realm, the invention of the Palestinian Refugee after Israel’s War of Independence (a war of national liberation in which the formerly colonized Jews fought Arab proxies of the British Empire!), provided Hamas with the troops it needed, fed and educated to the point of fanatic hatred with Western money. Hamas combined the multi-faceted indoctrination against Jews and Israel, pioneered by the PLO after Oslo, with religious jihad. Both the West and the Muslim world were primed and ready to blame Israel for the murder, rape, and pillage of her people. And the great-power rivals of the US, Russia and China, were only too happy to join in the take-down of what they see (correctly?) as an American satellite, an outpost of the US in an important zone of contention.

Given the fertile soil, the propaganda offensive of Hamas and its supporters when Israel counterattacked blossomed into a worldwide flourishing of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish expression. The Palestinians, who have developed the technique of exploiting their supposed victimhood, sometimes by exaggeration, sometimes by invention (as in the alleged shooting of the boy Mohammad al Dura in 2000, probably the most blatant yet effective “Pallywood” production ever), and sometimes by deliberately putting their people in harm’s way, pulled out all the stops. Soon the horrors of October 7th were drowned out by the suffering of the Gazans affected by the war that their leaders had started. Western media and humanitarian organizations slavishly repeated Hamas propaganda about civilian casualties with proforma disclosures that their only source was Hamas.

Mismanagement on the part of Israel also goes back decades. It includes overdependence on the US and consequent weakness in the face of pressure from unfriendly administrations, inability to overcome wish-fulfillment illusions about Palestinian motives and plans, weakness in the face of domestic pressure (for example, the release of more than a thousand imprisoned terrorists in return for one kidnapped soldier), and the tendency to prioritize internal political issues over serious external threats. A very serious failure has been our sporadic, inconsistent, and poorly funded actions in the information arena, while our enemies have implemented a long-term, carefully planned and meticulously executed campaign.

Al Jazeera, began broadcasting in Arabic by satellite in 1996, and since then has added multiple languages, including English. Based in Qatar and very influential in the Arab world, it has been in the forefront of anti-Israel propaganda ever since. In wartime, it specializes in inflammatory stories and photos of “atrocities” allegedly committed by the IDF (pictures from Syria and natural disasters are sometimes used). Left-leaning Western media, like the British Guardian newspaper have always followed an anti-Israel line; and the BBC is far from impartial. More recently, mainstream media in the US like the NY Times and Washington Post newspapers, the NPR radio network, CNN, and others – staffed by the products of “good” universities – have become more than merely biased: at their worst (which is often), they are mouthpieces for Hamas. Pro-Israel media in the West are rare and marginal. Some of Israel’s own media – in particular the English edition of Ha’aretz, which is widely read throughout the world – is only slightly less toxic than Al Jazeera. Israel is overwhelmed on social media as well, in part by botnets, but also by individuals and anti-Israel NGOs which dedicate staff to this function.

The combination of governments, international institutions, NGOs, media, academic institutions, and the arts all promulgating the carefully nurtured myths of Palestinian victimization and Israeli malevolence have overpowered Israel’s woefully inadequate attempts at a response.

In short, Israel has been and continues to be outgunned in the realm of information warfare. There have been sporadic attempts to improve the situation, but the funds for such a massive undertaking have never been available, nor would there likely be agreement on precisely what the message should be and how it should be presented. And we don’t have decades to lay the groundwork and gradually uproot the deep-seated antisemitism and hatred of the state of the Jews that has developed over time, even if we knew how to do it.

The best strategy in the face of this defeat therefore will be to depend on the human tendency to cheer for the winner: to be the “strong horse” that everyone bets on. Israel will need to defeat its enemies on the physical plane, to humiliate them and strike fear into the ones that are left. Rather than a picture of “responsible citizenship” that the world has been conditioned to disbelieve, our image should be that of a violent and dangerous player. In an environment where we can’t create warmth, we should at least inspire trepidation.

1 Alexander H. Joffe, “Bad Investment: The Philanthropy of George Soros and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, How Soros-funded Groups Increase Tensions in a Troubled Region: May 2013 https://www.ngo-monitor.org/soros.pdf

[spooky-pomegranate]

So I found your “Violence and Timing” fic which led me to ao3 and I binge read every chapter. It is really good. Like really good. Like really fucking good. Like I was up all night last night just reading through those chapters because it’s so good. I just had to let you know because wow. I’m kinda sad I finished all the chapters so far because I feel like I just finished a tv show and I always get sad whenever I finish those. So yeah… just letting you know your writing is top tier.

It Was Supposed to Be Simple:

Captain Price x F Reader Word Count: 2.2k

Summary: For Price, it was supposed to be a simple mission. For you, it was supposed to be the most important meeting of your life. But nothing ever goes to plan, does it? (A/N: Thank you so much @peepawsbeardhair ! That's incredibly sweet to say. I've put a lot of excerpts from that story on Tumblr and people seem to eat it up, but I've never posted the first chapter. Maybe it's time?! )

--------------------- RUSSIA. DECEMBER 2022 ---------------------

“Bravo 5 how copy?”

Captain Price’s surveillance crackled to life in his ear as Gaz responded, “Approaching Building 1 from the west now sir.”

“Rog. Ghost what’s your status?” The bitter winds burned his lunges with each deep breath.

Another crackle, “In position on the east. Ready to breach on your order Captain.”

The blizzard had made for good cover. In the ten minutes Price had occupied his overwatch position nearly half an inch of snow had gathered on his back. His fingers ached as he pinched his radio.

“Alright lads. On my order in 3, 2, 1. Go!”

For the next several minutes gun smoke, fire, and blood filled the air. The mission was simple. Enter the building, kill any armed guards, and secure the intel.

The location, albeit currently freezing Price to his very core, hadn’t been a complicated one either. An old remote KGB intelligence outpost deep in the heart of Siberia; small, run-down, minimally guarded.

“Nothing that’ll win you chest candy.” Ghost had quipped when Laswell briefed the trio on the mission.

While Price fired another sniper round into the building, he thought back to the last words Laswell had said to him before he had boarded the helo at base.

“We have solid intel the Russians are planning something John. Something big. I know this isn’t the type of job I usually ask of you boys, but we need this intel and we need it now.”

Price didn’t mind that it was a straightforward mission. In fact, he was looking forward to something simpler. Scars and nightmares often reminded Price of his more complicated missions. He hoped this trip wouldn’t add to either of his unwanted collections.

Another cackle over the comms, “Captain, the building is clear.”

“Copy you Lieutenant. You have eyes on the intel?”

“Yes sir. But Captain…” Price heard Ghost’s voice waver ever so slightly. The most minute change in pitch.

“Bloody hell Price, you’re gonna want to see this.”

--------------------- LONDON. DECEMBER 2022 ---------------------

“Just a hot coffee black. You know what actually, can you add a shot of espresso in there? Sorry, yeah thanks.”

“One red-eye. Anything else today?”

“No, no that’s all thanks.”

You knew the caffeine wouldn’t help your shaky hands. The extra shot certainly wouldn’t quell your uneasy and empty stomach either, but you moved onward, grabbing your order and heading out to the street. You had more important things to worry about today.

As you took your first sip a text came through on your cell.

“In the lobby now. They want to move meeting w/ Deputy CTO up. Didn’t say why. Can you be here in 10?”

Luckily you’d been pacing around the same three London blocks for 20 minutes now.

“Be there in 2.”

You crossed the street and made your way into the towering high-rise lobby. It was crowded with businessmen. You tried to scan the room for your boss. Where the hell was he? Damn it, all these men in suits looked the same.

“Didn’t get me a coffee then?”

“Jesus! Oh my god, I didn’t see you sitting there. Why the hell did you scare me like that!?”

You nearly spilled your coffee whirling around to face your boss. He’d been quietly sitting in a corner, briefcase and winning smile in tow.

“And why are there so many people in this goddamn building right now anyway?”

You tried to calm yourself a bit. The espresso was a bad choice. Your nerves were on fire.

“Did you forget who we’re meeting with today? Half the people in here are Secret Service. We’re lucky the CTO has a few minutes to spare for us between these international summit meetings. ”

You looked around the room. Now that he’d said it, you realized there weren’t a lot of grey hair men in the lobby. Most of these guys were younger, closer to 30, and their posture was straighter than anyone who normally spent 8 hours a day slumped over a desk.

“Right, yeah that makes sense.”

“Hey.”

You looked back at your boss. He smiled, his eyes crinkling in the corners.

“We got this okay. Don’t be nervous. You’ve made something that’s gonna change the world, so let’s change it okay.”

You took a deep breath and nodded.

“Okay. You’re right.”

“I’m always right.” He huffed out a low chuckle. “Let’s head to the elevators. We’re meeting on the 56th floor.”

Your boss grabbed his briefcase, you clutched your coffee, and the two of you made your way across the room. As you waited for an elevator you took a final look over the cramped lobby when you thought you saw… him. He was in a black jacket, dark jeans, boots, and a hat pulled low over his face. You were sure it was him. It couldn’t be. But it…

“You coming or what?” Your boss’s voice cut through your racing thoughts.

“Yeah, sorry. I’m coming” You entered the elevator and tried to put the man’s image out of your mind. It was probably just the coffee and your nerves. A mirage brought on by stress and anxiety. You really didn’t need that extra shot.

A very official-looking staffer met you on the 56th floor. She led you to the meeting space, a modern but sterile-looking conference room with floor-to-ceiling windows, tinted glass separating the room from the hallway, and a massive oak table with a dozen chairs.

“The Vice President and Deputy Chief Technology Officer will be with you both shortly. Please have a seat.”

“Wait the Vice President? Like the Vice President of the United States? He’s coming to our meeting? I thought we were just meeting with the Deputy?” The sentences jumped out of your mouth quicker than you would have liked.

“Yes, as you may know, the Vice President has made technology and anti-terrorism efforts a focus of his office for several years now. He’s been briefed on your work by the CTO and is eager to discuss further details with you both.”

And with that sudden news, the staffer disappeared, slipping back out into the hallway.

As you watched her figure move down the hall behind the tinted glass, the walls felt like they were starting to push in on you. Could the ceiling be dropping in on you too? You took another sip of your coffee, nerves fully on fire again.

Several more minutes of pacing and pep talks occurred before the conference room door opened again. The staffer was back with important friends this time.

After the most formal introductions of your life, your boss took over with his presentation. It’d been decided a long time ago he’d handle the flashy intro and you’d seal the deal with the demo. This was your baby after all and no one knew it better than you.

As your boss finished the pitch you stood from your chair, resting your hands firmly on the briefcase he’d brought. The leather was cool and soft.

You locked eyes with your boss. His eyes crinkled at you again. You felt the air come back into your lungs and the walls didn’t feel so close anymore. You could do this.

As you slipped your hands inside the briefcase the sound of heavy boots echoed outside. Black shadows in the shape of half a dozen men darkened the tinted glass separating the conference room and the hallway. Then came the voices; deep, angry, decidedly unAmerican.

“If you fucking muppets don’t let me into that room I promise you you’ll regret ever stepping foot in this bloody country.”

An agent whipped opened the conference door, nearly tumbling over as four combat-clad men pushed their way inside.

“Diaz, what’s going on?” The Vice President eyed the fumbling agent.

“Sir, we need to move you to…”

The agent's voice was cut off as the windows behind you exploded rocking you forward. Shards of glass rained down on your back as your ribs collided with the oak table. Every ounce of air was knocked from your lungs as you crumbled to the floor. The table toppled over onto its side in front of you while behind you the room opened up to the London skyline.

Total silence enveloped the room except for a high pitch buzzing that felt like it was crawling its way out from deep inside your ear.

Enormous pain rippled throughout your chest as you reached above you for the briefcase now precariously dangling off the edge of the table. You pulled the smooth leather to your chest.

As your braced your forearms on the ground and pushed yourself up to your full height you heard a murmur of a deep voice. Someone was trying to penetrate the ringing in your ears, but you couldn’t understand. The buzzing was still too loud.

Fully upright you came face to face with one of the foreign soldiers. He towered several inches above you, a British flag squarely on his chest. His steely blue irises glanced over your body and when his eyes came back to rest on your face his pupils were nearly double in size.

Then the soldier lunged at you.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Price wrapped one of his hands around your waist and the other on the back of your head as he tackled you to the floor. He didn’t care about the bruises he’d leave on your hip as he pressed his full weight roughly against you. He needed you on the ground now.

“Get down! Sniper on the roof across the street. Soap take him out now!”

“On it!”

Before Soap could pull out his rifle the first shot rings throughout the conference room. Price watches as it slams into a businessman’s chest ripping flesh and bone. He can taste the terribly familiar scent of coppery blood in the air.

Before the crimson cloud can even reach the carpet, another shot. This one takes down the stubborn agent who delayed Price getting into this room. A mist of blood plumes where the man once stood. Price grits his teeth.

Then another bang. This time the staffer is down.

Soap fires next. His Scottish timbre yells out, “Sniper down.”

Ropes drop down outside the building. Price knows this means the fight is just beginning. He quickly kneels removing himself from you and grabs your hand, yanking you to a seated position. He can see tears forming in your eyes. He can’t worry about exfiltrating a civilian now. Secure the high-value officials and eliminate the threat, those words repeat in his mind like a command he’s ordering to himself. There are only seconds before this room will be invaded.

But he won’t leave you here out in the open, he can’t watch another civilian die if he can stop it. So without saying a word he looks at you and points to a spot behind the overturned table. He hopes you’ll understand his wordless intention. You hadn’t answered him when he’d asked if you were alright after the blast, a shot eardrum from the blast most likely.

Price lets out a small breath as he watches you scurry to cover behind the overturned table.

He reminds himself of his own order, secure the officials. Price barks, “Gaz, Ghost get the VP and CTO out of here now! Roof’s compromised take the stairs. Go!”

“Moving now sir.” Ghost answers.

Then comes the smoke, the Russian voices, and the sound of boots crunching on carpet and broken glass. Prices slides in next to you behind the cover of the large overturned oak table, shoulders and thighs pressing up against each other. He can feel your body shaking. He doesn’t need to see your face to know that tears are down your cheeks by now.

Price peers around the table. The smoke is thick. Wait, he tells himself. The haze will thin out soon with the windows blown away. Wait … for the moment to strike. Wait… for the enemy to compromise themselves. Wait… because everything in Price’s life depends on the perfect balance of violence and timing.

One of the Russians get’s impatient and fires a rogue round into the ceiling. Patience pays off and Price shoots his pistol. One down.

The smoke is clearing fast now. Price moves from his cover behind the table. Soap emerges from the receding smoke with him. They fire and fight together, pushing their way forward toward the London skyline with bullets, knives, and brute force. Russians falling one by one in their wake.

There’s no one left in front of Price to gun down when he hears a scream from behind him. You’re standing by the door, briefcase clutched to your chest, and knife to your throat. One of the Russians must have taken the stairs from the roof down, sneaking into the room during the fighting.

Price tries to remind himself to wait. To wait for the right moment. To pair his violence with perfect timing… but your eyes. Your eyes beg him not to. Your eyes beg Price to move now, to fight now, to save you now.

So he moves. Price raises his pistol and fires. But at that same moment, you move and two bodies hit the floor.

Fuck. What had Price done?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

(Read the rest of this story here)

[petertingle-yipyip]

WORLD CLASS SINNER - FRANK CASTLE

eight - beautiful liar

tags: n/a // seven // nine // masterlist

Pairing: billy x reader, frank x reader

Word Count: 6,938

Summary: A breaking point, new alliances, and seeds of mutual trust show Y/N who is and who isn’t on her side.

You and Billy took Morty away after that. It was a quiet car ride for the most part. Morty hardly said anything and Billy kept his focus on the road. He had one hand on the steering wheel, the other resting on your leg and absently tapping to the music on the radio.

You were busy with the swirls dancing between your fingers. The familiar hazy red heat of anger, the chilling wispy blues of sadness, the shaky yellow mist of fear. They weaved between your digits and swirled at your palm, blending out across your skin before reforming into separate entities. They moved like snakes over your knuckles and traced the lines of your palm.

There was something oddly comforting in watching your power in your hand. It was a reminder that you weren’t numb to the world like you so often wanted or claimed. You were human, with human feelings. And you were allowed to have those, to acknowledge them and live with them.

Matt was the one who insisted.

————————————

You were in the library, the folder with the case study open at one end of the small table and your notebook on the other end with a collection of highlighters and colored pens filling the gaps. You were working on an assignment that wasn’t due for at least two more weeks, but you needed something to keep your hands and mind busy. As you were walking to the student center earlier that day, you saw two girls - girls you didn’t even know - who looked just like Nat and Yelena.

Your heart sank and a hefty lump settled in your throat. Ever since then, you’d been jittery. Shaky hands, panicked glances in every corner. There was no way they were there. But your mind kept coming back to the ‘what if’ of it all.

“Foggy said you’d be here.” Matt said, tapping his cane against your foot. His sudden appearance made you jump and knock your notebook over. “Sorry.” He smiled nervously.

“It’s not you.” You sighed and collected your notebook. You condensed your materials and took his hand to guide him to the open chair on the other side. “Just a weird day, I guess… Sometimes I wanna shut it all down and just exist in a bubble for a while.”

“What do you mean?” His brows furrowed with worry behind his glasses.

“I don’t know… I thought a new setting would help but I still feel out of place. It’d be easier if I could just feel nothing.”

And you could. You could block it all out. You didn’t know why you hadn’t done that yet, but the way Matt silently focused in your direction reminded you why. He understood the best in you, despite still being early in your friendship. He seemed to know the truth in you despite the lies you were cloaked in.

“It’s not a bad thing to feel that you’re not happy.” He said after some quiet contemplation. “No one’s happy all the time.”

“Honestly, Matt, I don’t remember the last time I was happy.”

“That’s okay, too… Y/N, feeling those things doesn’t mean anything is wrong with you or you’re never gonna be happy. If you keep people that make you feel better around, pretty soon you won’t remember what this felt like.”

“So I should let myself be sad?”

“Why not?” He shrugged. “Otherwise you’ll never know how to get through it.”

—————————————

You were pulled from your memory when you felt the car stop. You closed your fist quickly and the colors poofed away. Though you knew no one else could see the hazes you did, it still felt that you needed to hide them. Climbing out the car, you saw Billy had driven you all to a nondescript hotel building. You couldn’t even tell if it was in New York or a neighboring city.

“And what’s the deal with you two, huh?” Morty commented as Billy led him through the building, you at his side. You hadn’t even registered Billy had a loose hold on your hand at first. “You order her off a KGB website or what?”

“Он понимает, что я могу убить его сейчас, и никого в этом месте это не волнует, верно? Это сделало бы вам с Фрэнком одолжение.” You said simply, turning to give Morty a sarcastic expression while Billy chuckled. (He does realize I can kill him and no one in this place would care, right? It’d be doing you and Frank a favor.)

“Funny.” He sneered back.

“We used to work together at Anvil.” You said plainly. “I left for a better opportunity.”

“And William let you in on this?” His brows raised as Billy opened the door. “Sleep your way to the top, right?”

You made a move towards him but Billy stepped in front and put an arm around your waist. You glared up at him for a second until you felt it, that confirmation that he had something going. It was smooth confidence, a sense of being in control. You nodded slightly and let out a deep breath to show that you were fine so he backed away, guiding you into the room.

Morty commented on the wallpaper while Billy sat in the chair near the small dining table. He motioned you over and you went, finding yourself trusting whatever plan he had. Likely because you had no real options, unless you were to try to kill them both.

But you’d lose more than you’d gain.

You put your hand on his shoulder again, resting a knee over his leg and leaning into him slightly while his arm hung lazily at your hips.

Though as you were there, you felt something else, something far away. Hope was the best way to describe it.

It was familiar but not too much so. You knew the person, but they were relatively new to your life. But with it came closure, peace almost. And that source you’d know anywhere.

Frank. Which meant the other was Lieberman. Meaning they had something good, something that could end it all. Something you were missing because you were at Billy’s side.

“You never liked me much, did you, Morty?” He said with a certain amusement in his voice.

“Nope.” Morty answered simply. “You special forces types always pissed me off.”

“Probably why he doesn’t like me either.” You joked lowly and Billy chuckled.

“And you had him drinking off the floor like a dog.” Billy continued and you smiled.

Morty wandered the room making some other comment that you ignored.

“You ready?” He said lowly.

“For what?” You asked in the same low tone.

He gently moved your knee and stood, nodding for you to follow. As you two went into the next room with Morty, you saw the dead body on the bed. A woman in tight leather with her throat slashed. You didn’t need to ask to know that was likely the woman Morty had expected. The sight of the uninvolved woman lying dead on sheets stained with her own blood made your chest uncomfortably tight.

You weren’t able to comment on the body because when you turned back to the men, you saw Morty reaching for his gun. As soon as it was in full view, you kicked out at his hand and the gun clattered to the floor. You heard the sound of the blade at Billy’s wrist moments before the squelch of the knife piercing Morty’s abdomen. One. Two. Three times.

He fell to the floor with a thud while Billy collected the discarded gun and cleaned his blade. You moved around the man and put your foot on Morty’s back, flattening him to the floor. You watched the puddle of blood grow thicker and stepped on the man to get to the phone he was crawling to. You yanked the cable out the back and moved away, leaving the man as a bloodied pile on the floor.

As you were getting to Billy’s side, you felt something new. Despite being miles away, you could feel that spark of hope snuff itself out. It was replaced with anger but not a regular pissed-off type of anger. It burned, even from where you were. While Billy was on the phone, you focused in on it a little more and it was easy to understand that whatever Frank had tried had failed. And that felt like a punch to the gut.

The next day, you tried to call Billy so you could talk about the past day or so. You wanted to find out, as definitively as you could, where his loyalty truly was. Obviously, he had some tendency to side with Rawlins given there was some sort of power dynamic or reciprocal relationship between them. But you wondered if there was enough loyalty to Frank that you could wiggle in and separate Billy from Rawlins completely.

Except he didn’t answer.

You checked in with Dex and he said that there was nothing for you and him yet, but you were more than welcome to keep your eyes and ears open for something that he could bring to your SAC.

So with nothing else to do, you went to Lieberman’s.

You knew there would be an earful from Frank the second you walked in, but you opened your mouth and welcomed the argument almost immediately.

“…image from your scope.” Lieberman told Frank and he was the first to acknowledge your appearance. “Hey, Y/N.”

“Hi.” You nodded. “It’s William Rawlins.” You said, gesturing to the man on the screen that you weren’t looking at.

Instead, you were locked in with Frank.

“Uh, yeah… The third.” Lieberman added awkwardly. He must’ve picked up on the tension because he tried to keep the conversation moving forward. “He’s the director of covert operations at the CIA. Takes a guy like this to pull it all together and make it stick.”

“How’d you know that, huh?” Frank asked bitterly.

Sometimes his monotone made it hard to read but that faint red from him was obvious to you.

“I also know that you went after him yesterday and it didn’t work.” You said simply, working to keep your voice level. “It was a CIA safe house, meaning bulletproof glass. No one told you that?”

“I tried to.” Lieberman said from behind Frank.

“Why were you at Bennett’s place, Y/N?” Frank pressed.

“Rawlins hired the team to watch Bennett. One of the guys on the team called me and asked if I was busy. I went because you didn’t like my original idea so I had to improvise.”

“Improvise. Improvise.” Frank repeated and you found yourself feeling slightly intimidated, though you didn’t show it. “What the hell are you up to, hmm? What if Rawlins has you killed cause you did your own thing?”

“He won’t.” You challenged, knowing that Billy - for the moment, at least - wouldn’t let it happen.

“You don’t know that.”

“I do.”

“How? How do you know any of this?”

“Oh please.” You scoffed. “I’ve been doing this shit my whole life. At some point, it gets predictable.”

“Answer the goddamn question.”

“I did. Rawlins hired a team, I got an offer. What’s not connecting?”

“Who called you?”

“Someone I used to work with at Anvil.”

“Anvil? So Russo knew about the team?”

“Rawlins probably tried him, yeah.” You shrugged, ensuring to diminish those suspicions in him. “I guess he helped set up some of Anvil’s early contracts so he thinks Billy owes him something.”

“Jesus Christ.” Frank muttered. “Alright, well what else do you know? Since you wanna go rogue and do whatever the hell you want behind my back.”

“Hey, I had good intel.” You defended. “No one asked you to go take a shot at a goddamn safe house!”

“Okay!” Lieberman yelled suddenly, standing and pushing his way in between you and Frank.

You hadn’t even realized either of you had moved forward to be nearly toe to toe until Lieberman’s elbow was digging into your chest to push you away. The bony pressure snapped you from that suffocating mania and you saw the red at the edge of your vision fading back to the living heat on your skin.

“Frank, you’re the one who said we could trust her.” Lieberman reasoned. “We need her.. She’s good, y’know. She has your back. You need that out there.”

Frank said nothing, only stared at you.

“Y/N.” Lieberman turned towards you. “I know you’re used to doing things your way, but we really need to work together for this to work. Rawlins knows we’re coming for him, which means we need to be clean from here on out.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” You nodded.

“Okay.” He nodded. “No more going behind anyone’s backs. Everything out in the open.”

“Yeah.” Frank agreed.

“Morty Bennett’s dead.” You said flatly. “My guess is to protect you or to just Rawlins cashing in an I.O.U. because Billy did it.”

“Yeah, I saw the piece the Bulletin ran on that.” Lieberman agreed. “Stabbed to death.”

“Good.” Frank nodded.

“Shit.” Lieberman said suddenly, abandoning his post between you two to return to the computer. “What if- Oh, God. What if he’s been waiting for someone to look for him? By searching his file, I’ve just blown us. There could be a team on its way right now.”

“Relax a second.” You tried but the man’s frazzled state vibrated the air in the compound.

“You’ve been on that CIA site all day, right? You seen anything about us? Any chatter at all?” Frank added in a matter-of-fact tone.

“No..” Lieberman said awkwardly.

“No?” You repeated, now baffled by the panic. “CIA’s not coming after us. FBI doesn’t have anything to do with this either. My partner would’ve let me know if this hit my SAC’s desk. Homeland barely has anything on Kentucky and I’m guessing his appearance on base is being masked as a training exercise.”

“I took a shot at this guy and you didn’t read anything about it.” Frank continued. “You’re scared, David, and I get that. But think about how this Rawlins prick feels. I think the three of us, we’re sitting pretty right now.”

“He’s trusting his inner circle to take care of it.” You reasoned. “Whoever from Cerberus he can still get to and any new allies he’s made, he’s gonna send them our way first before anything legit comes at us.”

Within minutes of that conversation ending, Lieberman was sent into a new spiral of panic. The cameras within his home were no longer accessible so he urged you and Frank to go look into it. You two conceded and Frank stopped off to get flowers for Sarah.

When you two arrived, you expected there to be some sort of argument between you all about that missed dinner, but there was none. It wasn’t even mentioned. You shrugged it off as Frank having already made up for it. Instead, she offered you two a glass of wine and conversation.

You had your pocket tech out and came to find out that there was no damage to cameras or connection. It was just that the internet had been unplugged.

As you focused back on the conversation in front of you, you found a lightness in the air. More so than just friendly. You wondered if Sarah was flirting with Frank, at least a little bit.

You went under the end table and reconnected the internet so that buzzing panic gnawing at the back of your head would go away. In the meantime, Sarah poured you two another glass while talking about David.

“You never talk about your wife.” Sarah told Frank before glancing at you. “And you have been awfully quiet. Husband?”

“No, not anymore.” You gave a sad smile. “He is- Or was truly perfect… The kind of feeling that you’ll never get with anyone else. Other guys are different and you think that’s good, till you miss something specific he used to do. You said David would fill your tank, Matt would sit on the roof of our building with me. We’d just kinda exist, in our own space where almost no one could find us.”

Your fingers slipped under the collar of your shirt and you found the chain with the band.

“I’m so sorry.. Was it recent?” Her eyes softened and she placed a comforting hand over yours.

“It’s been a few months.” You nodded. “He was the type that I’ll be getting over for the rest of my life.”

Frank patted your back gently and you smiled slightly in thanks before he started talking about Maria. You realized that the explosions in your chest were less frequent, the heat in your blood less aggressive. The hole in your chest didn’t echo as deep. You were still angry and alone, but maybe it did get better if you let yourself feel it.

It wouldn’t go away on its own but everyday processes it and accepts it a little bit more.

Maybe you could figure out how to get through it after all.

Sarah tried to convince you two to stay longer but you both politely declined. You stated your FBI case and Frank simply said he had ‘things’ to do. She gave you two a small tupperware, leaning in to kiss Frank only moments after. You spun on your heel and hurried out the room while Frank let her down gently.

You laughed about it once you two were in the car and teased Frank the drive back, only to get a ‘yeah, yeah’ and a chuckle.

The next day, you got a call from Dinah. She asked if she could meet you for drinks somewhere you two could talk and you could feel her pride through the phone. She had something good. You agreed and asked her to meet you at Josie’s after she got out of the office.

Not much happened during the day, so around six she called again. You met her outside the building and she was hesitant to go inside. You, however, walked in with a smile on your face and all the regulars celebrated your arrival.

You ordered a drink for you both and told Josie to start you a tab. She joked that you'd better not have the same paying habits as your friends and you insisted you’d close at the end of the night.

“So, you have something good for me?” You asked with a smirk.

“You were right about the bug.” She said quietly, leaning in to keep secrecy.

“You don’t have to whisper.” You said, mocking her with the same tone - which earned you a scowl - before speaking plainly. “No one here gives a shit. One of the perks of doing business here.”

You remembered when you and your friends sat at one of the tables, talking to Grotto. It was the start of what would turn into a long road with Frank Castle and the Punisher.

“How did you know about it?” Her voice snapped you back.

“Doing business here?” You questioned. “The guys at Nelson and Murdock loved coming here, been doing it since college.”

“I meant the bug.”

“There was feedback.” You gestured vaguely to your head. “You figure out who’s on the other end?”

“No, but I have a plan. I’m setting up a fake meet, day after tomorrow, with Jack DeLeon and use Frank Castle’s name as bait.”

“Two names like that means a big risk. I assume you’ve got a solid team?”

“It’s… Standard.”

“So why’d you call me?”

“I was hoping for your freelance help.”

“Mmm.” You hummed with a new smirk. “I’d thought you’d never ask. You think we’re gonna catch whoever’s after Castle?”

“It’s the best chance we have.” She defended.

“And do what with them?”

“Expose them.” She said as if it was obvious. “Put them on trial.”

“Dinah, these men that were chasing, killed two kids and an innocent woman.” You said plainly, jabbing a finger against the tabletop to punctuate your words. “You’re not chasing one ghost, but two. Castle hears you have the guy responsible, he’s gonna come for him. Just like he came for Schoonover. And Bennett. Kitchen Irish, Mexican Cartel, Dogs of Hell. What makes you any different?”

“Once we expose what happened in Kandahar, Castle can have him.”

“I doubt it gets that far.”

“Do you know something? Is that your point?”

“What if I told you I had a theory as to who was at the top of the whole thing?”

“I’d say you’re full of shit.”

“Am I?” You laughed slightly. “Billy usually doesn’t think so.”

Her eyes were suddenly taken over by the green haze of jealousy.

“Don’t forget that he’s not all yours, Dinah.” You taunted.

“I never said he was.” She countered tightly while the haze faded.

“Right… When was the last time he woke up in your bed, then?”

“That’s… not relevant.”

“So this morning then.” You nodded. “Explains why he didn’t call me back last night.”

“What do you know, Y/N?” She said firmly. “Besides how to get on my nerves within twenty minutes.”

“I met this guy recently, CIA head of covert ops. Now he looks like every other run of the mill CIA department head, but the eye… Frank told me how he went in on Orange and his guys had to pull him off. This guy’s eye matches Frank’s story.”

“Who was it?”

“That’s the kicker. Rumor is this guy has old money. I’m talking his family’s been in everything throughout the generations. We can’t go after him without a direct line and solid confirmation.”

“Give me the name, Y/N.”

“Don’t know it.” You shrugged. “All I know is that he’s ’the third’. And I’m in on the sting, by the way. You have a tactical for me?”

She handed you a folder.

“We’ve uploaded a fake one to our servers.” She explained as you looked over the pages.

“Yeah, the bug in your office is probably in your computers too. Let me ask you this… You coming to me right now, is that for me as a federal agent or me as a ghost story? Because those have two completely different operating guidelines.”

“I need results.” She said firmly, though it seemed more to convince herself than you. “But I also believe in the law so… What’s the difference?”

“Blood. And equipment. The ghost story has better toys.”

“Just-“ She groaned. “The federal agent. I need these men alive, okay? One of them gotta talk.”

“Right…” You nodded. “You hear about Morty Bennett?”

“No?”

“Stabbed to death in a motel upstate.” You said. “After an alleged training exercise, but he also was in on the drugs in the KIAs.”

“You think your CIA guy had him killed?”

“It tracks… He had Henderson killed. He wants Castle killed. He has Bennett killed after Frank shows up.”

“It’s scary how fast you can connect dots.” She said with mild awe. “Maybe you were made for the FBI.”

“That is not what I was made for.” You looked to her, holding out your glass for a toast.

“What is it then?” She raised hers.

“You’ll see soon enough.”

You two didn’t talk for much longer. You paid your tab on the way out as promised before returning to Lieberman’s. You had to pause when you walked in to process to seemingly off the wall conversation they were having.

“Do you. Miss sex?” Lieberman said with a drunken slur, to which Frank laughed.

“What do you want me to say?” He said with a shrug and a smile.

Frank noticed you and gestured you over. You dropped on the seat beside him and he passed you the bottle. You glanced at the label before shrugging and taking a drink.

“Because for me, I miss sex.” Lieberman ranted and you made a face to yourself. “You wanna hear something funny?”

“What’s that?” Frank said.

“I’m hung like a moose.” He answered proudly.

“Ты, должно быть, шутишь.” You laughed and passed the bottle back to Frank. (You’ve got to be kidding.)

“Y/N!” Lieberman announced happily. “You miss sex?”

“No.” You shook your head.

“No?” His brows furrowed and he dramatically cocked his head. “A woman like you doesn’t miss sex?”

“Why would I miss it?”

“Wait, do you two…” He trailed off and gestured to you and Frank. You stared expectantly with raised brows while Frank cocked his head in question. “You two hook up?”

“Отвратительно!” You said and laughed. “He’s not exactly my type.” (Gross!)

“Not your type? He’s exactly your type!” Lieberman reasoned.

“No, he’s not.”

“Yeah… Angry, check. Murderous, check. Ruggedly handsome, check.” Lieberman threw his arms widely to the side. “What else do ya need, Y/N?”

“Sounds more like he’s your type.” You joked. “Besides, my last guy was more of an altar boy. Nowadays I tend to go for a man who’s a little more unstable.”

“Oh, what did- What do you guys call him?” He looked over his shoulder while he thought before spinning back to face you two. “Red! Red wasn’t any good then?”

“Red was plenty good.” You defended with a laugh. “But my sex life didn’t die with him.”

“Jesus Christ.” Frank muttered and made a face before drinking from the bottle.

“I can make it worse.” You laughed and shifted to face him.

“Please don’t.”

“Yeah, I usually call Bi-“ You began before Frank leaned forward and pushed you gently by your forehead, making you laugh. You looked over and saw Lieberman drop his pants so you laughed again before covering your eyes.

You dropped your head to Frank’s shoulder as a means to hide while Lieberman made jokes about Frank being an ass man, to which you were still laughing.

You hadn’t realized before, but you had almost forgotten what your honest laugh sounded like.

“It’s good to hear you laugh like that, Princess.” Frank said honestly when Lieberman took a few steps away. “Didn’t think I would till this was all over.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry I’ve been so horrible lately.” You admitted as you straightened. “I don’t know how to feel this or even what I should feel. I’m pretty lost right now.”

Before Frank could offer any other consolation, Lieberman staggered back in. 

“Madani is how we fix this! She wants the same things we do. We don’t need to hide from her. We give it to her and she arrests Rawlins. I go home, boom!” Lieberman ranted quickly and you instantly felt the light air of drunken jokes fall heavy.

“No.” You said flatly while Frank firmly said “Stop that shit.”

“Rawlins dies.” You continued. “You said it yourself, he has hands in everything. That kind of reach can surpass prison.”

“That’s right.” Lieberman said sarcastically. “Everybody dies with you two. Your family’s dead.” He pointed to Frank. “Your husband’s dead.” He pointed to you.

Why did everyone call Matt your husband?

“Anyone that ever look at you sideways, they’re dead.” He continued. “And you just keep on going. You two are psychopaths.”

“I let Wilson Fisk live that night and I’ve regretted it every since. If you want to see this thing to the end, I highly suggest you stop while you have your head..”

You stood quickly with tight fists but Frank reached out for your wrist. Lieberman stormed away in a huff and you felt your nails digging into your palm as your fist got impossibly tighter. Lieberman said something about calling Madani so you pulled yourself free and moved across the room.

You knocked the phone out of his hand and he took a swing at you. You ducked quickly and sidestepped before slamming an elbow against the pressure point of his chest. He wobbled into Frank, who knocked him unconscious.

“Madani has a plan she brought to me.” You said as Frank set up Lieberman on the cot. “She wants to go after Rawlins, but she doesn’t know it’s Rawlins.”

“How’s she gonna do that?” Frank asked, seemingly uninterested.

“Fake sting.” You explained. “She put out a tact plan that says you’re meeting with DeLeon, hopes it’ll draw out his team and she can get info.”

“You gonna do it?”

“Yeah, might as well.”

“Why?”

To find out what side Billy’s on.

“Keep tabs.” You said instead. “There’s rumors stirring that I don’t like.”

“Anything I should know?”

“Nothing you’d believe.” You said honestly.

“So, what, you’re just gonna stroll up with your goggles and little buzzers like nothing?”

At that you laughed.

“No, just me. No mask, no suit, no Bites. Just me and a bulletproof and a pistol.”

“Alright.” Frank nodded. “Don’t get killed, okay?”

“Haven’t failed you yet, right? I’ll be back in one piece.”

You went home to find your door cracked open. You instinctively reached for the gun at your hip but you came up empty. Instead, you checked under your cuff and found the blade. With a silent curse, you crept forward with a sudden feeling of being unwelcome in your own apartment. You went to release the blade but used the other hand to slow it to reduce the sound. The tip threatened to break the skin of your palm as you guided it out.

As you moved into your apartment, you saw a vaguely familiar shape kneeling at the closet under the stairs that led to the roof. You started a little harder and saw the familiar trail of long blonde hair.

“Dammit, Karen.” You said loudly, to which she jumped. “Why are you in my apartment?”

“Sorry, I just…” She said quickly as she pushed the case back and carefully shut the doors. “Still doesn’t feel real is all.”

You sighed slightly and gestured for her to sit while you went back to shut your door. You sat beside her on the couch and removed the blade from around your wrist. You tossed it into the coffee table with a loud clank before you stared at the empty bed that was almost   mocking you from your bedroom.

“Some days I wake up and I still think he’ll be next to me.” You said absently. “And then I realize he’s not and it feels like a knife in my chest.”

“Y/N..” She said gently and her hand came to your arm, snapping you from that heavy melancholy.

“I’m sure you’ve heard but we’re getting closer.” You said instead, pushing to your feet to get space as the tears began to burn your eyes. “We’ve got a name and a face. Just need an opening.”

“Oh.. That’s good, right? The sooner all this is done the better.” She tried and you scoffed.

“Karen, nothing about any of this will get better. Frank’s not gonna come out as an upstanding citizen once this guy is gone. Matt isn’t gonna come back. Nelson and Murdock won’t come back.”

“I didn’t mean-“

“We won’t come back either.”

“I don’t understand…”

“You and I.” You shrugged slightly. “After I told you about Exodus but before Grotto came to us, we were becoming pretty decent friends.”

“I’m still your friend, Y/N. Foggy is still your friend.” She said with gentle insistence as she stood to face you. “I know that nothing’s going to be the same. I’m not that naive, but you have to believe that you won’t be miserable forever.”

Maybe that’s what you were made for. Misery.

“Can you just…” You gestured to your door. “With Frank and Billy and Dinah and Lieberman and Sarah and Orange, worrying about you and Foggy is the last thing I need right now.”

She scoffed lightly before muttering to herself as she headed to the door. She was nearly out when you heard her footsteps coming back. You had to bite your tongue to keep your sharp comment back as you glared at her, waiting for her words.

“You know.” She said angrily, a slight snarl as she clicked her tongue. “You can’t sit here and blame Matt’s death for the shitty way you treat people that care about you.”

“Right. Thanks.” You nodded, slamming your shoulder against hers as you moved past her. You nearly slammed the bedroom door behind you.

The next morning you had a call from Billy, saying he wanted to pick you up for lunch to talk about a new project. You also had a text from an unknown number saying to be outside and you knew it had to be Frank or Lieberman. You got dressed quickly and grabbed a jacket before heading down, getting out just as  the car pulled up. Without much explanation, Frank drove to Sarah’s house.

You two stepped inside and the atmosphere of the house was noticeably thicker than the last time. The mention of her son sent panic through the air and it made you shiver. You turned your head up the stairs, feeling a young anger burning under the thick blanket of loneliness. A few feet away sat a vibrating bundle of mixed emotions. Sadness, stress, exhaustion.

“Is Leo upstairs too?” You asked simply.

“Yeah… Both the kids are.” Sarah nodded.

“Why don’t you take a walk while we talk to them, yeah?” You offered, adding a small smile while you took in some of her worry. “Pete’ll talk to Zach and I’ll chat with Leo.”

She sniffled before nodding. She led you upstairs to Leo’s room before she stopped at Zach’s and asked him to head down. Zach stopped and stared at you in silence for a second before glancing to either hip, likely looking for your gun.

“Can I hold the gun now?” He said and you frowned.

“Only got my badge today.” You shrugged and shifted your jacket to show the badge. “And you’re still not old enough, bud.”

You tapped on Leo’s door and she called for you to come in. She smiled widely at you and adjusted on her bed so you could sit beside her. You put hands in your pockets as you sat and found the small enamel emblem waiting for you. You pulled it out and were greeted with the vibrant red hourglass of the Red Room.

You realized you hadn’t worn that jacket since you and Matt revealed your identities to each other in the office.

“What that?” Leo asked, leaning over to see.

“This is a very complicated little symbol.” You said honestly. “Y’know, I was a very different person growing up. A lot angrier, lonelier, more hurt. And this-“ You lifted the shape for you both to see. “-is a symbol of the place that caused it all.”

“Was it a school?”

“Sort of, like a boarding school and an orphanage put together.” You offered her the emblem. “I learned a lot in that place, about myself and different skills. It made me who I am, or who I thought I had to be at least.”

You glanced over and saw she was fascinated with the little piece of enamel.

“You can keep it if you’d like.” You laughed slightly. “I may not love it but it does show that the things we go through don’t define us… You don’t have to be the one who holds everything together.”

“Did my mom ask you to say that?” She dropped her hands to her lap.

“No.” You shrugged. “Just thought you’d need to hear it.”

“One of us has to have their head on straight. If it’s not gonna be Zach, then it’s me.” She nodded, as if trying to convince herself more than you.

“Right, right. Did you ever hear about Daredevil and Exodus?”

“Yeah?”

“It was like that with them, too. Daredevil thought Exodus was crazy for wanting things her way. She wanted to hurt the people that did what was done to her. Yeah, she wasn’t hurting the people that hurt her, but if they did the same things to others, it was the same.”

“But it’s not.”

“Right, that’s what Daredevil said. He agreed that bad people needed to face consequences but right consequences. Arrests and charges and trials. They argued for a long time in the beginning.”

“So who gave in?”

“You ever hear about Daredevil killing anyone?” You raised your brows and she shook her head. “Me neither. Exodus pulled back, trusted Daredevil and Daredevil stopped trying so hard to control everything she did.”

“How do you know this?”

You leaned forward and back, looking around as if to make sure no one else was around, then you motioned her closer. She leaned in as did you, lifting a hand to cover your mouth.

“Because I’m Exodus.” You whispered and her mouth dropped. “Or I was, at least, before I got the FBI spot.”

“Ohmygod!” She whispered loudly. “Does Pete know?”

“Nah.” You shook your head.

“Wait. But you’re so nice?”

“It took a lot of violence to be so gentle.” You nodded. “And I’m not always like this… Growing up I was tired of being afraid, so I became something others would fear.”

“I’m not afraid of you.”

“Really?”

“Really.” She nodded. “I like you’re kinda cool.”

“Well in that case, I want you to keep that with you, okay?” You gestured to the hourglass. “It’s more than a symbol. So long as you have it, you'll know I have your back.”

“Thanks.” She smiled. “Could you…”

Your brows raised in question.

“Could you teach me some stuff?”

“Like fighting?”

“Yeah…”

“I'm not gonna teach you anything crazy.” You laughed. “But I can show you how to get out of stuff. C’mon.”

You offered her your hand and she took it excitedly, shoving the Red Room logo into her pocket. You two went downstairs and found Frank getting ready to take Zach outside. The guys began throwing a football in the street while you showed Leo how to break a few basic grapples and some common reversals.

You had just sat down after your shower when Billy called. You groaned as you pushed yourself to your feet and headed out again. As little as you wanted to be in your apartment, you wanted at least a few minutes to sit down. Regardless, you met Billy out front.

He was waiting outside the car and opened the door for you. You said nothing as you sat in the passenger seat and he said nothing when he drove you to some out of the way part of the waterfront.

“This isn’t lunch.” You said simply.

He gave a small chuckle in return before he got out. You muttered to yourself about what you had gotten yourself into while you shoved the door open. You slammed it behind yourself and took a few short steps to catch up to Billy. He looked over his shoulder and offered you a smirk that you furrowed your brows at.

What the hell was he up to?

After a few minutes of silence, you two standing tensely on opposite sides of the room, a small group of men entered. You stood taller almost instantly, one hand tightening into a fist while the other snuck behind your back for the blade at your belt.

But the men walked right past you.

They didn’t even acknowledge your presence in the far corner. They were completely focused on Billy, but you weren’t so sure that would be a good thing. Your body relaxed only a fraction of a percent when their conversation started. It took them out of the room and Billy’s eyes met yours, silently asking if you were going to follow.

Hesitantly, you did.

You placed yourself in the doorway Billy was previously waiting in and listening quietly. Both arms were crossed over your chest, hiding balled up fists as the men talked. You didn’t care all that much to listen, knowing whatever Billy was going to offer would be met with refusal.

You couldn’t play both sides forever. When you tried to do that with Fisk and Matt, it got complicated. It got messy. People got hurt that didn’t need to and it wasn’t like you had a ton of spare people as of late.

“So who’s the girl?” One of the men finally acknowledged you.

“Bystander.” You said flatly with a small shrug.

“A bystander that doesn’t flinch at open fire on civilians?” Another challenged. “I don’t buy it.”

“Good thing you don’t have to.” You hissed before pushing yourself up and looking to Billy. “Thanks for the invite, but I’m not interested. Have fun though.”

You offered a salute before turning in your heels and leaving. You left without responding to any of the comments in your wake, both from Billy and his friends. You contemplated waiting at his car but that defeated the whole point of your exit so you opted to walk. You didn’t get far before Billy was calling you back.

When you didn’t stop or turn around, you heard his rushed footsteps to catch you.

“So that’s it, huh?” He asked when he finally got to your side.

“Yeah, I’m not interested in being an errand boy for Rawlins. Been there, done that. No thanks.” You answered simply, keeping your eyes forward and your feet moving.

“C’mon, Y/N.” He groaned. “You really think-“

“Just stop.” You cut in firmly. “I’m not doing anything for Rawlins anymore. I need to focus on my own shit, not trying to take down Frank.”

“He’s not gonna let you just walk away.”

“Well then I hope you’ll give me a heads up when I become your next blacked out search and destroy op.”

[armed-saphire]

Descriptions from the MGS3 voice casting sheet: (there are a few grammatical/spelling errors, I'm assuming because it's translated from Japanese.) (also lots of spoilers ahead)

Snake-

Male, 30s, Standard English. His real name is Jack. Naked Snake is the code name he uses in the VR Missions and during Snake Eater operations. He will later be given the name, Big Boss, and is the Big Boss of the future. 6'5" high, and his physical constitution are thick like 'Schwarzenegger'. He has more of an "all mighty", tough fighting style. He is a persistent, highly independant hero. FOX (Force Operations X), the special forces team that Snake serves with in MGS3, will eventually become the unique special forces team, "FOX-HOUND", formed at the end of the 20th century for solo infiltration and destruction.

The Boss-

Female, 40s, slightly British accent. A British American female. Real name is unknown. The code name she uses in the U.S. is The Boss. She serves in FOX's VR Missions. She gives support via radio transmission during the VR Missions. Her age is unknown but she is a gorgeous female soldier somewhere in her 40s and single. She is mother of Ocelot. She had experienced the world war. She was involved with the British SAS, the American Green Beret and SEALs, and sits high on the list of each country's special-forces legendary soldiers lists. She is currently proposing the establishment of a new special force unit. She is Snake's mentor, and the only woman that Snake loves.

EVA-

Female, late 20s, standard English. Eva is a spy and Snake's supporting mole. Infiltrating the KGB, she acts as Sokolov's lover under the name Tatyana (nick name, Tanya). She is also romantically involved with Snake, but he doesn't know about her double identity (Tatyana and Eva). Eva is using Khrushchev in support of Snake. She is an ex-NSA code analyst, an American sexy blonde type super glamour chick. As Sokolov's helper (and lover), she infiltrates the GRU, where she also becomes the Major's lover. Actually, during MGS3, while working as a spy for China she falls for Snake while working together. She is a very wicked, fox-like woman, but likeable.

Major Zero-

Male, 50's, British accent. Real name is David Oh. In "FOX" he's known as Major Zero. He will be referred to as Major Tom in the VR Missions, but his code name, Major Zero, will be used during the main story. He offers intelligence support to Snake via radio transmission during missions. He belongs to the CIA bureau of classified planning, and is the commanding officer of "FOX". Major Tom is British, an English gentleman. He is in his 50's and single. Aiming to create a task force of absolute secrecy to collect intelligence during the Cold War period, he organized "FOX". Major Tom has a British accent.

Thunderbolt-

Male, 50s, standard English. He is the colonel/major of the GRU. His code name is Thunderbolt, real name Ephgeny Borisovich Volgen. He plays MGS3's villain role. He is a giant at over 6'7" tall. He is kind of a torture freak. Inheriting a fortune from the Assembly (his dead father's money laundering business was handed over), he builds an enormous base in Glasnigrad. Bringing in The Boss's group and the Brezhnev military faction, he seeks ultimate political power. A man of broad tastes, he keeps two lovers, one of them Lieutenant Raikov, the other Eve. He is the strategic operations commander of the enemy. He is an ex-boxing champion.

Ocelot-

Male, high teens, standard English. He is Snake's old enemy and biggest rival. He has an incredibly handsome appearance, and is, in a word, cool. He is a pure, likeable young man. As a teenager under Major Volgen, he commanded the elite force. Ocelot, son of a legendary hero and was raised to be an elite. First encounters Snake in the VR Missions, he was put to shame in front of his subordinates. He hopes and hunts for a chance to someday get even with Snake. Even after that, Snake always seemed to be one step ahead of him. In awe of always being outdone, Ocelot comes to respect and hold deep affection for Snake.

Ivan Raidenovitch Raikov-

Male, 20s, standard English. Ivan is a young GRU Lieutenant. An elite in the power hierarchy, he is next in line behind the Major, and also the Major's lover. In his 20s.

Paramedic-

Female, mid-20s, standard English, raised in Eastern part of US. A Caucasian female who handles Snake's medical care via radio transmission. She is in her mid-20s, divorced. She is a "FOX" support member. She has a full, round look to her, and a motherly feel.

Mr Sigint-

Male, mid-20s, African American accent. He is a Will Smith type, a 21st century young African American male. He is crazy about computers. A supporting member of "FOX", he appears in the main story of MGS3. Mr Sigint keeps tabs on Snake via radio transmission. He explains about historical or visionary weapons and gives advice on how to deal with certain enemies. As a member of the NSA, he is familiar with the most cutting edge electronic reconnaissance technology.

Director Sokolov-

Male, 50s, standard English. He is a Russian scientist and his full name is Nicholas Stepanovich Sokolov. He is the man Snake must recover and escort back. He runs the planning and design department with Khrushchev (KGB) funds. Possessing a tall, emaciated body, he appears to be nervous but diligent. He is the inventor of Shaghad. In fear of his own creation, he hopes to leave Russia. Climbing the Berlin wall to the west side, he finds protection, but in Cuba Missile Crisis related dealings, is brought back to Russia. In the main story he is killed by the Major, Volgen, after making contact with Snake.

Director Glanin-

Male, 60s, standard English. He is another Russian scientist. His full name is Alexander Leonovich Glanin. He is short and fat, with a sly look and way of talking. A member of the Kosygin faction, he works in the Glasnigrad Planning and Design Bureau as a scholar, funded by the GRU. He is the inventor of a two-legged walking machine (the eventual REX). He is crazy about vodka. Troubled with the development of incorporating nuclear powered energy into his two-legged walking machine, he consults his American friend (the father of Otacon). After leaking information to Snake, he is tortured to death by Major Volgen.

The Pain-

Male, 50s, standard English. A surviving member of Cobra. He has the ability to manipulate and command large numbers of bees. He is a giant at over 6'7" tall. He keeps the queen bee in his backpack, using her buzzing sound to guide the other bees. His body is also covered with bees. When they fly, a beehive is left behind, formed in his hand. The beehive can then be thrown like a grenade, exploding into a swarm of bees. The Pain keeps a highly toxic, "bullet bee" inside his body. When he removes his skullcap, the bullet bee is released from his mouth. This bullet bee, much like a real bullet, is fired at high speeds.

The Fear-

Male, 50s, standard English. He is a surviving member of Cobra. His real name is unknown. His arms and legs are considerably longer than a normal person's, and he climbs trees much the same way that a spider would (he can pop his limbs out of joint and bend them backwards). Using rope he can rapidly travel through the forest and between trees. He is indeed a spider man. He has a long, insect-like tongue (forked through surgery) and can grab things with it.

The Fury-

Male, 50s, standard English. He is a surviving member of Cobra. His real name is unknown. He wears a black Soviet-made space suit, which serves as a replacement for actual fire prevention gear. He is very skilled with a flamethrower. Like The Boss, he has experience going into space as an astronaut, but suffered full body burns when traveling through the atmosphere. He can no longer feel pain, and does not talk much at all. He lives to create angry, wicked fire. Removing his helmet reveals a burn-distorted face.

The Sorrow-

Male, 50s, standard English. He is an ex-member of Cobra, already dead. He was romantically involved with The Boss, and the father of Ocelot. In battle together with The Boss, he lost his own life to save hers, and his corpse still rests below a suspension bridge in Cherno Yarsuki. He becomes an ally of Snake. Since he is a ghost, he does not speak outside of the boss battle. He gives off a sense of intelligence and the feeling of a philosopher. His personality is dry and serious. He is unarmed and very weak when it comes to combat. He can use his spiritual mental power to communicate, and has the ability to summon the dead.

The End-

Male, 100 yrs old, standard English. A surviving member of Cobra with a code name (The End) that implies the meaning "demise". His real name is unknown. He is the oldest member of Cobra and taught The Boss everything about sniping. This legendary sniper was born in the 1860's, he will soon be more than 100 years old. He is the founder of all modern day sniping techniques, from stalking and ambushing, to general know-how. With lichen living parasitically in his body, he is a living miracle. Through the photosynthetic properties of the moss living in his body, he can survive without eating or drinking anything.

There are some additional ones that I felt didn't need to be included in this post but if you want to read them all of the descriptions are here.

[dresden-syndrome]

24/VI-1963. KGB division unit B-8, Saxony region, German Democratic Union Republic, EESU.

Tomasz turned his head towards the loud, rough sound of footsteps. For him, that meant danger. Someone's coming. Someone's coming for him. There's nothing good to enter.

As long as Tomasz was kept in the lab, the only times he'd feel relieved hearing footsteps were feeding hours. Back then, at the prison, nothing was ever known, fixed or certain. At times, he wasn't getting any food or water for a few days, having to drag his weakened, bruised, aching body to the faucet each time he wanted to drink. In the lab, on the other hand, life was bound by a strict schedule. This hour to eat, that hour to sleep. If you won't, you'll be fed and sedated the hard way. A few bulky books on the table and Radio Wrocław playing far in the hallway. Everything was painfully predictable, except for one little thing. Experiments. Nobody knew when the doctors would take them, as well as why, for how long and would they even return.

He couldn't stay in a locked room forever, yet even a slightest sound made him flinch. The footsteps were getting closer. Too late. No time to hide. He could feel his breath getting faster, body freezing with fear, bracing for what is to come.

The opening door made Tomasz flinch one more time. A neatly looking man in a Soviet uniform stood in the doorway, holding a weird blue stick in his right hand. The man had a rather relaxed, lively, even friendly appearance - nothing like the pale, scrawny, constantly tired scientists or the loud, gruffish officers in the detention. No matter what. It's a military man. He's not to be trusted.

-Good morning, little one. How are you doing?

The Soviet officer introduced himself. He spoke with a strangely light, calming voice with a notable accent - speaking Polish clearly was a struggle for him - yet Tomasz still couldn't move a muscle, still alert and afraid.

-Don't worry, sweetheart. You're not in the lab anymore, - he made a few steps forward, carefully observing his new possession, - I will take care of you from now on.

Tomasz stayed silent. What did it mean - take care of? What will he do? He couldn't believe his lab days were over, he was out of there, he made it out alive. Yet he wasn't released, neither he'd ever be. From the moment Tomasz got classified as a class 4, his life and freedom was over. He was aware of it very well.

-Listen here, - the officer stated, setting a first rule for the boy to know, - For you, I am the boss here. You will have to do what i say. Understand?

Failing to receive anything more than a little nod, he stared into Tomasz's eyes.

-You understand, little one?

-...Yes, sir - Tomasz muttered.

On the next move, the Soviet man pointed at the prod in his hand, slowly moving it towards his new pet's leg.

-Look at this.

A sudden bolt of pain struck the back of a leg, forcing Tomasz to let out an involuntary scream. It was burning to touch. Frightened again,he retreated to the bed corner, further away from the painful thing.

-Does it sting that much? - the officer condescendingly shook his head.

-Listen, if you don't do as told, if you act out, I'm afraid I'll have to use it on you. Now, be a good boy and stay quietly in the room. I'll be back soon.

When the door shut again, making a key-locking sound, overwhelmed and confused, with a stinging feeling on his leg as a new owner's reminder, Tomasz curled up on his bed as tears rolled down his eyes.

Day 4 and 7 of Whumptober

Prompt: Cattle prod / "I paced around for hours, I jumped at the slightest of sounds"

Art taglist: @painful-pooch @prismpanic @generic-whumperz @suspicious-whumping-egg @onlywhump

[justabigoldnerd]

Wanna squeal about my Mutant Trio for a sec lol

Napoleon "Roulette" (later "Cowboy") Solo - Telepathy and telekinesis.

The telekinesis is very mild, he can't lift much more than a telephone. With the telepathy, he can smell/taste emotion and see images/read minds but only what they're currently thinking. He can also communicate telepathically.

Illya "Seismic" (later "Peril") Kuryakin - Molecular Acceleration.

He can convert potential energy to kinetic energy. He used to be able to do this with objects, but the KGB trained him to only use it in himself, essentially creating superstrength. He can also naturally block out telepaths.

Gabriella "Genus" (later "Chop-Shop/Chop-Shop Girl") Teller - adaptive organs/absorbant skin

If she touches something that could harm her, her skin changes into material that would be unharmed by it. Touching hot metal = hands turn to metal. Caught in an explosion = lungs and eyes adapt to breath/see through the smoke. Think Darwin meets Absorbing Man lol. She also went deaf in this AU, and she can hear by absorbing the frequency of a radio that she carries, although she does know German sign language. This also gives her advantages by being able to hear police chatter over radio and the like. Telepaths will speak to her through telepathy and spoken word, so their voices sound normal, but everyone else sounds like this to her:

[usafphantom2]

These photos of Viktor Belenko’s defecting MiG-25 buzzing Hakodate rooftops prove that reaching Japan was easy but landing the Foxbat was difficult. Here’s why.

For Senior Lieutenant Viktor Belenko’s defecting MiG-25 Foxbat reaching Japan proved to be the easy part, as touching down on Japanese soil turned out to be much more difficult.

Advertise

On Sep. 6, 1976, the inhabitants of the Japanese city of Hakodate on the island of Hokkaido, turned their eyes to the sky, an airplane flew over the roofs of their houses at a very low altitude. With just two minutes of fuel, Viktor Belenko, desperately looking for a place to land, finally in front of him appeared Hakodate International airport, in the city of the same name.

As the photos in this post show, the low flying of the MiG-25 (NATO reporting name: Foxbat) caught the attention of all the inhabitants of that city, who photographed Belenko’s Foxbat just before landing.

Arguably the best-known case of Cold War defection, Senior Lieutenant Viktor Belenko, serving with the 530 IAP of the PVO’s fighter aviation, flew a MiG-25P fighter-interceptor from Chuguyevka AB, in the Primorskiy Kray of the Soviet Far East, to Hakodate airport, located on the Japanese island Hokkaido.

As explained by Krzysztof Dabrowski in his book Defending Rodinu: Volume 2 – Development and Operational History of the Soviet Air Defence Force, 1961-1991, numerous reasons prompted Senior Lieutenant Belenko to take this step, including problems in his professional, as well as personal life: he was overdue for promotion to the rank of Captain and his marriage was failing. Obviously, various shortcomings of the Soviet systems as well as discrepancies between official propaganda and observable reality, also played their part. The Soviets and nowadays Russians, suspected that he might have been earlier recruited by US intelligence agencies. However, there is little evidence to support this assertion.

Viktor Belenko MiG-25

As for Belenko, the man supposedly had a certain manipulative streak but was also outspoken and assertive, at least by Soviet standards. He kept an equal distance to most people yet made sure not to make himself suspect: he befriended the KGB overseer assigned to his unit, did not listen to American radio broadcasts, and forbade his wife to do so.

Perhaps a little surprisingly, the defection itself was not particularly difficult. On the day that fundamentally changed his life Senior Lieutenant Belenko and several other pilots were performing training sorties. Initially, he followed the assigned flight plan but then, descended rapidly to low-altitude and headed out to sea in the direction of Japan. However, reaching Japan proved to be the easy part, as touching down on Japanese soil turned out to be much more difficult. Since the JASDF failed to intercept Senior Lieutenant Belenko’s aircraft, its fighters could not escort the MiG to a suitable landing site, such as the Chitose Air Base. As a result, he had to land at the aforementioned Hakodate airport and if the situation was not dramatic enough, a passenger aircraft was just taking off when the MiG flew in to land.

Fortunately, a collision was averted but the landing was still problematic, for despite deploying the aircraft’s drogue chute, the MiG overrun the end of the runway by ca 240m before coming to a halt. Senior Lieutenant Belenko was taken into custody by the Japanese police but soon enough, he found himself in American care and was flown out of Japan to the US. He was well prepared to be a valuable defector: in addition to all the information he had by virtue of being a PVO fighter pilot in active service, Senior Lieutenant Belenko also brought the MiG-25’s flight manual with him. In order to be able to put even more on the table before making good his escape, he also requested permission (which was granted) to access and read various classified materials.

Thus, Senior Lieutenant Belenko was a prized source of intelligence and when extensively questioned, he gave exhaustive answers. Amongst others, he was asked if Soviet pilots would ram enemy aircraft, with his reply being in the affirmative.

Belenko MiG-25

Obviously, the MiG-25 fighter-interceptor Senior Lieutenant Belenko defected with, was also of great value. It was first covered with tarpaulins, then disassembled and moved from Hakodate to Hyakuri military airfield (currently the facility serves as the civilian Ibaraki Airport) where it was analysed in detail. The analysis was a technical intelligence bonanza, causing a western re-evaluation of the MiG-25, which up to that time, was somewhat overrated. Once ag the Soviets realised what had happened, they demanded the return from Japan, of both the aircraft, as well as the pilot. They claimed that Senior Lieutenant Belenko had made a navigational error and his refusal to return was the result of him being drugged.

Soviet pressure eventually resulted in the return of the MiG-25 in a dismantled condition. However, Viktor Belenko was first granted political asylum in the US, subsequently received to US citizenship and as far as it is known, adopted well to life in America. To say that the whole affair was very embarrassing for the Soviet Union, is an understatement. Since their most capable fighter-interceptor was now compromised the Soviets modernised the MiG-25 and went to serious work on its eventual replacement which resulted in the development of the MiG-31.

It should be noted that a similar incident took place, over a decade later, when on May 20, 1989, Captain Aleksandr Zuyev flew a MiG-29 to Turkey. That, however, was a defection of a pilot and aircraft from the VVS and not from the PVO.

My father( Butch Sheffield ) was working at the Pentagon as Director of Reconnaissance when one of his action officers an SR -71 pilot jumped into action, and flew to Japan to meet with Victor. Buck Adams got to him first. It’s a little of my inside information.

@Habubrats71 via Twitter

[whatstrangeloops]

Listening to my father-in-law tell me about the Soviet fishing fleet. Frequently, KGB agents were stationed on long haul fishing ships to monitor foreign radio chatter from international waters. Among the agents this was actually considered a pretty good assignment. Why? While on they were allowed to supplement their income by working at the on-ship cannery and the wages from that were apparently much better than those you got from being an agent of the KGB!

[fancyshooting]

thoughts on ocelot’s time in the navy(?) - based on that analysis of his uniform

cushy!

if his conceited attitude is anything to go by, he was treated very well in russia. he has an inflated ego but is sorely lacking in skill. he becomes indignant at snake's criticism, as if he has been used to constant praise. I think the KGB would've congratulated him for defecting, then in the GRU we know he gets special treatment from volgin due to his background. his youth would get him a lot of adulation too. so young! so clever!

I was struggling to find any irl battles or idk events ocelot could've been involved with but then I realised that his whole thing in mgs3 is that he doesn't actually have a lot of combat experience. a lot of that is likely due to the leniency afforded to him on account of being a very special boy. he does wear a ribbon bar though, suggesting that he achieved something of note at some point within those first four years in the soviet union (although judging by his epaulettes, he was promoted not long before the start of the virtuous mission, so maybe the ribbon bar is related to that)

since he was only sixteen when he defected, he probably wasn't enrolled into the military straight away. he and EVA had NSA secrets to spill first, so he must have had meeting after meeting where that information would have been recorded by KGB officials. then, he would have to be taught the russian approach to espionage and the political climate etc. etc., which would take some time. I'm not sure if he would still officially be with the KGB by the time he joins the military... we're never told exactly what kind of work he was doing for the KGB other than acting as an informant and secretly passing on intel from the GRU. the KGB also had their own spetsnaz (spetsnaz literally just means "special forces" so you can get GRU spetsnaz and KGB spetsnaz - both totally different groups), meaning that ocelot might still have been operating in a military environment rather than focusing on civilian matters, which I think is what you tend to think of when you hear "KGB"

the soviet naval infantry was disbanded in 1947 and remained as such until 1961 (there was still a soviet navy but no naval infantry, the branch that the west would call marines). I personally believe ocelot was sent to join the GRU when he was eighteen, so I'm trying to fit everything around that. apparently the cuban missile crisis was a factor in prompting the ussr to strengthen its navy and that was in october 1962, meaning (according to my headcanon) he would already be in the GRU. this could be why he ended up in the naval infantry and not, eg. the air force

there's no way that, as the son of two legendary war heroes, ocelot wouldn't have received any combat training in childhood. the philosophers would have been pushing him to meet the standard set by his parents. russia isn't supposed to know about all that training though, so he would have had to have pretended to be nothing more than a cryptographer (maybe his skills dulled and he's just rusty in mgs3...?)

regardless of the exact years and specific organisation he was working for, I think little captain ocelot probably spent more time hanging out with the high-ups learning about military strategy while the other men his age were out in the field doing the taxing, dangerous work. if he was pretending not to have had any prior combat training, maybe he was put to use working on a radio team or something. idk signals, communication, all the skills that he would be expected to have as a known former NSA agent

he could've trained with the naval infantry while already being part of spetsnaz. apparently navy spetsnaz were accommodated with regular recruits and went through pretty much the same training so that they wouldn't be marked out as SECRET SPECIAL FORCES. that means he could technically still be doing navy stuff in mgs3, even though he's stuck up a mountain

he's definitely trained in jumping stylishly from aircraft into water at least. naval infantry conduct operations mostly by amphibious assault... hey wait. what if the croc cap was..... omg thank you ADAM...

um... he got to go on boats and maybe a submarine. cats generally don't like water but ocelots do so swimming is fine. he travelled around the coast and saw a whale one time. he read lots of secret documents about submarines and developments in the world of sonar and radar and underwater weapons. torpedoes and um... um... idk I wish I had more to say about this but idk anything about the navy, let alone the cold war soviet navy sorry :( I hope it wasn't terrible B) ty for the ask!!

[ask-percyparker]

The lights went out in an instant. Theo froze in place. Percy glanced around in confusion.

“What the—“

Before he could finish his sentence, Theo’s radio crackled to life as both men were swallowed by darkness.

“Christ, you’ve both been trapped—Gonna try to override the exit from here! Hang on—” Rose shouted.

As soon as her voice fell silent, a blinding white light flooded the room as a massive monitor from the other side of the window looking into the room they were both trapped in flanked by clusters of smaller ones in the room with them all spark to life.

On every monitor, a static image of an imposing suited man, his eyes obscured by the brim of his hat flickered on the screen as a new voice spoke. A voice both men recognized as the voice that welcomed them to Rapture as they made their respective descents on the Bathysphere.

“So tell me, my friends… which one of the bitches sent you two?” Osborn questioned, “The KGB Wolf or the CIA Jackal?”

Theo was rendered speechless, too fearful to dare answering. But Percy stepped forward to speak.

“Neither,” he answered, “Just a reporter, sir.”

A mirthless laugh erupts from Osborn at that.

“Well then,” he said, “Here’s the news: Rapture isn’t some sunken ship for you to plunder and Norman Osborn isn't a giddy socialite who can be slapped around by government muscle. And with that, farewell, or Dasvadinya. Whichever you prefer.”

The security monitors flicker to an image of a stylized image of Rapture, the words “Please Standby” emboldened upon it. Osborn spoke no more.

Before either could react, the voices and cackles of a large group of Splicers were heard from the other side of the window. Their horrific forms only illuminated by the harsh, failing white light of the largest screen. With whatever they got, they set out to immediately try to break the glass windows that separated them from the two men they set their sights on.

Percy and Theo were outnumbered.

Both of them backed away as they steeled themselves for a fight. Theo’s palms crackled with electricity as his veins glowed blue. Percy’s hands twitched in anticipation as flesh melded into the exoskeleton of a spider.

“I got it!” the voice of Rose exclaimed from Theo’s radio, “Both of you, get the hell outta there! Hurry!”

Glass began to crack, threatening to let the Splicers in. The previously locked way out gives way.

Both men rushed into the new room where a vault-like door to the Medical Pavilion was seen. They set to work getting it opened before the Splicers could reach them…

[mirrorhouse]

what was EVA’s purpose in operation snake eater? ADAM and EVA are “a couple of insiders”, “trained by the kgb for exactly this kind of mission”. but only ADAM has infiltrated gru’s ranks, according to zero. EVA is a kgb agent too, but gru aren’t exactly letting kgb wander around tselinoyarsk freely (although volgin seems kinda lax about letting tatyana disappear, despite ocelot suggesting to him she’s a kgb spy). but what was EVA specifically meant to be doing?

“EVA” never mentions having to take out EVA, only that she “snuck in” (assuming she means to the kgb research facility to meet with sokolov) while pretending she was him, although his death at her hands could be implicit. sokolov doesn’t seem to know her as EVA, though, instead as ‘tatyana’.

she only says she was planning on taking out ADAM but he never showed at the rendezvous point (since he cleared the preceding areas out he was probably hanging around, but maybe backed off when “EVA” showed up to avoid risking his gru cover with an unknown party. or maybe it was when the boss showed up and drew attention to snake’s position) and she obviously would have no idea who he was outside of that setting.

ADAM was able to offer field support, intel, and a means of escape. EVA (apparently) didn’t arrange anything, and hardly seems a big part of the mission at all until the ‘switch’ and “EVA” shows up at night before ADAM can get there in time. so… maybe EVA had a more ‘passive’ role. maybe he hadn’t been trained for combat, and was providing mission intel/intercepting radio transmissions instead, that kind of thing.

[mariacallous]

Following a series of high-profile failures and mass expulsions of uniformed “diplomats,” Russian intelligence has turned to more subtle methods, including leveraging scientific organizations with international ties. One such espionage “front” is the National Research Institute for the Development of Communications (NIIRK), which is led by ex-SVR and FSB officers. In Europe and neighboring countries, the institute organizes numerous conferences and internships. Here, intelligence officers and pro-Kremlin propagandists, under the pretense of promoting good neighborly relations, spread the notion that the West is an enemy, and that prosperity lies in friendship with Russia. The main targets are promising students and young scientists, who are ultimately groomed for espionage activities.

On June 19, 2023, Moscow’s usually quiet Korobeinikov Lane was unexpectedly closed off. Athletic-looking men with radios were bustling around its perimeter. Soon, an honor guard and official cars with flashing lights appeared. People carrying carnations gathered in front of the building that houses the National Research Institute for the Development of Communications (NIIRK). The last to arrive for the festivities was SVR head Sergey Naryshkin, who presided over the installation of a memorial plaque for former SVR director Vyacheslav Trubnikov. Speeches followed: “Vyacheslav Ivanovich worked here for two years,” “an outstanding intelligence officer and diplomat,” “a legend of intelligence,” “a knight of the Cold War,” and so on.

Before the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the house was home to actors Alexander Lensky and Alexander Yuzhin-Sumbatov of the Maly Theatre. Later, it was occupied by the NKVD, MGB, and KGB; the mansion hosted clandestine meetings with agents. After 1993, several businesses were based there, but over time, the place fell into disrepair, and homeless people took over the vacant premises. In April 2020, the restored mansion became the new home of NIIRK. Cars belonging to the embassies of Central Asian and Transcaucasian republics began appearing outside.

What kind of institute is this? According to its website, NIIRK’s primary mission is “the development of multilateral dialogue among peoples, cultures, religions, states, international scientific and educational organizations, and civil society to strengthen peace and harmony.” The institute’s expert research and analysis are utilized by the Presidential Administration's Office for Interregional and Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, foreign aid and cultural exchange agency Rossotrudnichestvo, the FSB's 5th Service, and the SVR.

The institute’s first official director was Irina Zavesnitskaya, co-founder of the PoiskSidelki LLC. A year later, she was succeeded by her husband, former FSB general and overseer of the Transcaucasian region, Vladislav Gasumyanov.

Friends of the Kremlin

As per The Insider's findings, over the past eighteen months, NIIRK has organized a total of twelve off-site conferences, forums, and roundtable discussions across various countries including Armenia, Georgia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Transnistria, Tajikistan, and Slovakia. Moreover, NIIRK has welcomed several delegations from these nations to Moscow for internships, with plans to host approximately ten more this year.

The institute primarily targets young scientists — aged 20 to 40 employed in research or academia. As one Armenian student shared with The Insider, “Throughout the internship, we were constantly reminded that without Russia, we would be doomed to become slaves to the West. Once, they casually asked me if I had relatives in Europe. Upon hearing my negative response, they lost interest in me.”

Key speakers at these conferences include General Gasumyanov, former SVR Academy head Nikolay Gribin, and former Slovak Prime Minister Jan Černogurský, who chairs the “Friends of Crimea” association. Černogurský frequently appears on Russian propaganda TV shows, where he advocates a pro-Kremlin agenda for his country of citizenship while predicting the imminent collapse of the dollar and the subsequent disintegration in the United States.