Moscow, 1967

After over a year of short-term operations all over the world, you'd successfully proven your worth to your agency. Enough to be assigned a long-term operation in Moscow, exactly what you'd been trained for. What you'd been working towards your entire life as a legacy agent. You were what most people in the service would call a "purebred". Both your parents had been in the service in some form. Their exact roles were highly classified, even to you, but you took pride in your family legacy. Your parents' missions had taken you across the globe growing up. You knew ten languages by the time you were thirteen. You were skilled in at least eleven martial arts by sixteen. You knew how to live in the grey. To be undetected and unfindable, how to lie on your feet, how to put on a mask to make people trust you, and to then stab them in the back.

It wasn't an easy life, but it's all you knew from birth. This operation in Moscow had all the makings to not only give you a well-deserved break from the high intensity missions you were used to, but also to help you make a name for yourself in the agency. An operation all of your own.

That was, until you were told when you landed that it wasn't, in fact, an operation all of your own, but that you'd be working alongside someone else. Disgruntled as you were, it was your job to roll with the punches and keep going. You steadied yourself, readily absorbing the information on this partner of yours.

You weren't told much, just that his name was James Carlton and that he was ex-military, a real rough and tough type. Served in the second World War, though you didn't know what branch or rank. It wouldn't take you too long to deduce it though, you figured. You were to pose as a married couple working at the American embassy while secretly gathering intel on your Soviet agents on the inside. According to your handler, you'd be their secret weapon. Almost every man working at the embassy was a person of interest to the KGB, especially if he was ex-military like Carlton. But not you. As a woman, you'd fly easily under their radar and evade all suspicion while Carlton acted as a decoy and backup when needed.

Fair enough, you thought to yourself. It would still be largely your operation. Now only to hope that James Carlton wasn't one of those men with egos larger than the sun, and that he'd actually let you take the reins.

Dragging your suitcases into the apartment, you sighed softly and looked around. It was a cozy apartment near the embassy in a building where most of the other embassy workers lived as well, decorated much better than your house back home, although, you considered, it wasn't really a home. Just a place to crash in between assignments.

"Ma'am," you heard a man say, stepping into the entryway from the kitchen. He was wearing cargo pants and a grey shirt with a pair of silver dogtags around his neck. Not exactly the most subtle attire. He stood straight as an arrow, his feet pointed confidently frontwards. He saluted, staring straight ahead, a Navy salute, you noted.

"Navy?" you asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yes, ma'am," he confirmed.

You smiled softly to yourself. "Yeah, I figured. You salute everyone you meet?" you teased.

"No, ma'am," James responded, his face as untelling as ever. "Just figured I should, given your position on the assignment."

That made you raise an eyebrow again. You were supposed to be partners. "Jesus Christ, is this your first operation?" you muttered with a soft sigh. "Fucking hell..."

"Yes ma'am, it is," he said. "But I assure you, you can count on me. I graduated with full marks at the academy."