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“- objects to the marriage, speak now or forever hold your peace.”
Officially, on paper, you’ve been married to Russell for five days already. Just over two years have passed since Solovetsky; you’ve earned your status as a ‘rehabilitated-terrorist,’ spilling what little information on Perseus you retained and offering unconditional aid to the CIA in return for most of the standard freedoms every American citizen is entitled to. Naturally, your ‘colourful’ past puts you on shaky ground, but for the most part you’re free.
Marrying Russell had a few hurdles, of which were only made slightly easier with a personal approval from Ronald Reagan. It's a bit ridiculous, you think, wondering exactly how such a topic had even made it to the president’s office, let alone receive approval. Likely they’d merely seen it as a way to keep you nearby. A way to keep their friends close and enemies closer and all that.
On your side of the audience, mercifully to save you the embarrassment, sits Woods, Mason with his wife and son, Hudson and his family, Sims and Park. Russell’s side is considerably fuller, but not by a significant amount. Everyone’s dressed appropriately in formal attire, even Woods who you’d half expected to show up in a button-down flannel top and a pair of worn jeans.
Your dress is gorgeous, too, the only unsightly thing about it being the enormous price-tag Russell told you not to think about. For a dress you were going to wear once… you rolled your eyes at the inane cost with a playful bemoan about ‘capitalists’ at the dress fitting. You were being serious when you told Russell that you were going to return it, though. The pictures of your big day are the only souvenir you care about.
“I object!”
Your brows furrow as you and Russell, as well as everybody else in the audience, turn simultaneously in search of the objector.
“Excuse me?” Russell asks sharply in the general direction of the voice.
Woods is close enough that you hear him mutter a confused ‘what the fuck?’ as he scowls, turning his head back and crossing his arms. Mason and his wife share judgemental looks as the audience begins to stir, mumbling their shock between themselves.
Your mind starts to lag, blinking incredulously as you try to recall what exactly is supposed to happen when somebody objects your marriage. Surely the interruptor would know that objecting the religious ceremony would only serve to annoy you and not actually effect your marital status…
The objector stands up from his seat in the pews, voice a little nervous when he suddenly receives the full attention of the entire audience. “I object,” he repeats, walking forth and making his way up the isle. You recognise the man from your brief introduction to him prior to the ceremony as the guests lined up to greet you and Russ - the marrying couple. He’d given you a strange look back then, but you didn’t think that meant he was planning on disrupting your wedding…
The man, your and Russell’s neighbour, refocuses his attention to the priest. “Father Daniels,” he addresses the priest. “I have reason to believe that this… ‘Bell’ is a communist. A soviet spy!”
A beat of silence. Your heart stutters and Woods snorts loudly, apologising profusely as he’s unable to keep himself together. It looks as if he’s about to get a handle on himself when he shares momentary eye contact with Mason, who seems to illicit an even worse bout of noisy amusement from the both of them.
“Spy?” Russell’s tone is dangerous when he comes to your defence. “Bell’s not a spy - nobody here is,” he lies.
Oh, the fucking irony.
Your neighbour shakes his head. “I work for the white house, Mr. Adler, I’m a true patriot.” Even Russell cringes at that one. Emboldened, your neighbour steps forward and crosses his arms a little more assertively. “There’s no reason for a russki to be anywhere in the USA, especially not in Langley.”
Woods decides to argue with the objector himself - as soon as his laughter quietens. “Does the name Bell even sound Russian to you?”
“No,” your neighbour allows, but his resolve doesn’t falter. “However, it does sound fake.”
“Of course it isn’t fake, it’s short for…” Woods proclaims threateningly before anybody else has a chance to get a word in. He takes a second too long to figure out what Bell might be short for that by the time he says, “Isabel,” Mason jumps in to insist your name is ‘Annabel’ at the same time Sims comes up with ‘Mirabel.’
The silence that follows is only broken by Hudson’s cutting sigh of disappointment.
“It’s not short for anything,” Hudson says, voice firm as he glares at the objector. “Now, Mr. Patriot, you can clear off before my friends with concealed-carry permits decide to ‘help you.’”
“She knows Russian! I’ve heard it!”
“So what?” Russell’s carefully schooled expressions seem to be betraying his anger, something he usually bottles up and saves for when he’s in any situation involving Perseus. “So do I, for that matter. Leave, Arthur, unless you want that in Russian, too? Пшёл вон отсюда.”
“You tell him, Poncherello,” Woods eggs on, giving ‘Arthur’ a menacing look that finally sends the guest on his way out of the church.
The priest, although mildly perplexed at the situation, gives you both apologetic looks. “I… cannot proceed. The sacrament of marriage has been disturbed by the objection.
The audience groans. If you weren’t humiliated before, you are now.
“Russell,” you lower your voice to a whisper that should only be audible to him. Your cheeks burn with indignation and embarrassment. He tilts his head in the direction of a dressing room, and you nod despite yourself, quickly understanding his meaning. You hear the tail end of Russell telling Mason and Woods to get everyone to the reception before he catches up to meet with you in privacy again.
“Пиздец,” you seethe quietly once he closes the door of the small changing room. “Our wedding is ruined.”
“I’m sorry,” Russell offers, wrapping his arms around you, encouraging you to rest your head against him as you swear and curse.
“He didn’t even know anything,” you continue, seeing red. “Everything is because he caught that I am Russian.”
You continue to clench and unclench your fist in a fit of quiet rage, promising under your breath that had you not already legally married Russell, you’d kill that man. It would be easy, too, given that you know where he lives already. The CIA can give you their worst cell for all you care, bring you back to the labs by your hair - as long as your neighbour got what was coming.
The initial rage passes, a heavy feeling of general… upset takes its’ place. “What do we do, Russell?”
He sighs, mulling it over before offering his thoughts.
“You’re not religious…” Russell muses before frowning immensely. It’d never come up, honestly. “Are you?”
Maybe, a lifetime ago. It’s not the MK-Ultra that washed it out of you, either. You’d stopped attending religious services long before you started university - around the time the ultranationalistic seeds had begun to fester in your young adult mind. There’s a soreness inside you as you fail to recall how upset your mother had been, the only thing that you can remember that she’d disapproved; the words she’d screamed are forever muddled by what the CIA put you through. God, you’re not sure you can even remember her face…
“Religion is the opium of the masses,” you recite to Russell blankly, finding it only a little amusing at how his eyebrows shoot up when you quote Marx. You shrug to punctuate your real answer. “I don’t know.” You sigh, running your tongue over your teeth as you change your answer to something firmer. “No. I’m… not.”
“We’re married on paper, live together and work together…” Russell lists. “We’ve still got a reception party planned, even if the priest can’t ‘marry’ us, it’s still our wedding.”
“I suppose…” God, you realise, your makeup must be ruined. At least you’d gotten your wedding pictures done before the event - although you’re not entirely sure you’ll ever be able to look at them without thinking about what a shit show everything that followed was.
Russell pulls away slightly to allow for eye contact between the two of you. “Come on,” he says gently. “Hudson spent who-knows-how-long preparing a speech for us, I think he’ll kill Arthur if he’s the reason it can’t be read…”
You quirk your eyebrow. “You really made Hudson write a speech?”
“It’s customary,” Russell tells you, matter-of-factly as you’re both acutely aware of your intrinsic cultural differences. He’d asked you to pick out a ‘maid of honour,’ but you’d both abandoned that idea when you realised your pool of close friends is small enough even without considering gender. “I made him the best man.”
“Still… you made him do paperwork to attend our wedding?”
“He makes me do paperwork all the time,” Russell brushes off. “No speeches in Russia?”
You make a truly dismayed expression, biting the corner of your lower lip as you try to remember as best you can. It’s… hard. You don’t think you’ve been to very many weddings. Before… Russell and the CIA, you didn’t really have that many friends… and judging by the wedding party being almost exclusively his colleagues (from both Vietnam and the CIA) and his family, you suspect that Russell doesn’t have that many, either. Your only attempt at recruiting a maid of honour had resulted in Russell’s ex-wife cautiously asking if you were a Russian ‘mail-order-bride’.
“Not really,” you settle on. Had you once been married? It’s hard to discern. “There’s… church. I think I went to a nice restaurant afterwards, once, and at the end there was a fight. It wasn’t unusual.”
Russell grasps onto your struggle to remember, giving you a slight look of concern despite your half-hearted attempt to not sound so unsure of yourself. You don’t mention your mental fog anymore - you’ve been deprogrammed to the best of Russell’s ability given the lack of CIA’s research when it comes to the rehabilitation side of MK-Ultra. He doesn’t mention your failing memory either. You’re grateful. “We should have let Woods fight Arthur, then,” Russell says, a gentle attempt at levity. “Balance out the cultural traditions a little.”
“Not too late for that,” you huff in amusement. “We know where he lives.”
“Old fashioned fisticuffs, Bell. That presidential seal of approval doesn’t condone murder.” Russell pauses. “Well, not usually.”
“Fisticuffs?”
“Bare-knuckled, just with your hands.”
You look at him skeptically, both realising at the same time that those parameters are far from enough to stop Woods from killing somebody. Bringing a gun to a fist-fight might pane out to be more humane for anybody up against him - he certainly seemed more than capable when bringing down that mannequin. The thought sobers you up from your grievances and you crack a smile.
“Should we be… joining the reception, then?”
“… in a moment,” Russell smirks, hand patting down the pockets of his trousers, finding both his zippo and an uncreased carton of cigarettes. “Care to share a light?”