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The sunlight dappling through the trees plays on the shadows they’re hiding in and before they get to business, he briefly fantasizes about a world in which they are here together under other circumstances: her hand in his as he drags her to the Louvre because it’s fun to play tourist together, her indulgent smile as she leads him to her favorite dive bar—no Agents Faust and Hunt, only Ilsa and Ethan.
But:
We can never be free.
Today, he’d been forced to hurt her, to put the mission above a single life. Their governments had pit them against one another once more and he was growing weary of working against her when all he’d wanted was for her to be free, to be happy—with or without him.
Yet here she was, still in the game and wincing when his thumb brushed over a still-tender wrist from where he’d hurt her, shying away from his comfort, standing so tall and brave and certain. Except—
Except she was wavering in the face of his kindness, his tenderness. She swayed towards him, voice dropping low, her free hand flexing at her side like if she didn’t she’d be fisting a handful of his shirt and pulling herself closer.
“Please,” she whispers, eyes searching his face for understanding. “Don’t make me go through you.”
Because he knows that Ilsa shares the same weakness that he does: they cannot put the one life above the many. Especially if the one life in question is the other.
And then she’s walking away, her fingertips sliding along his palm as she pulls her hand free from his. It’s easier, he knows, to walk away than to stand in front of temptation. But he’s so damn tired of letting her walk away.
So this time, he doesn’t.
It takes two strides to get to her and no thought at all to reach for her, his hand finding hers once more. He slides his fingers between hers and tugs her back around to face him. It’s too easy to step into her space—she lets him—as his free hand drifts to the curve of her cheek, waiting for permission to touch her further.
Ilsa sighs, bites her lip, and tilts her face into his hand, lips brushing against the sensitive skin of his palm, even as she says, “Ethan, we can’t.”
“I know,” he says softly, brushing his thumb over her cheek and tucking a stray piece of hair behind her ear. He grins at her, toothy and silly—just for now. “But we are anyway.”
Ilsa closes her eyes, leans into his touch, and he can see her fighting the urge to give in. He understands. She’d offered this to him once and he’d turned her away; she doesn’t want to be hurt and he has no intention of hurting her anymore. So he waits, lets her work it out in her own head, content to hold her until she comes to a decision.
When she looks at him again, he knows she’s going to run. There’s too much at stake for both of them to indulge and he doesn’t blame her for wanting to get away from another distraction. It takes everything in him to not hold onto her, to let her go this time. But when she steps back, she winces and falters, her hand going to her hip.
“Ilsa?”
She waves him off, limping a little before standing up straight. “It’s fine,” she says with a tight smile.
“It’s not,” he insists, stepping back towards her, refusing to let her create space between them where he doesn’t want there to be any. His fingertips drift over the jut of her hip and up towards her ribs. She hisses at the slight pressure he applies, sucks in a breath and jerks away. “I hurt you,” he murmurs, pain and recrimination filling his voice.
“Yes, well, you hit me with a car and I shot at you,” she says wryly, breathing through the sharp pain. “I’d say we’re even.”
“No, we’re not.” He takes her hand in his again. “Come with me.”
“Ethan—“
“Just for a little while,” he clarifies, hand tightening in hers. “Let me make it up to you. Please.”
This time, there’s no fight. “Alright,” she whispers.
They are hurt and compromised and all roads were leading here—he’s just taking them through a shortcut.
___________________
The journey to the safe house is a slow one. Now that Ethan knows Ilsa is putting on a brave face through the pain and discomfort of her injuries while walking, he slides an arm around her waist and hauls her closer against him, encouraging her to put some of her weight onto him.
“This is an unnecessary risk,” she murmurs, eyes darting over the faces of the people milling about on the streets, searching for any signs of surveillance or danger.
“We have different definitions of necessary,” he counters, leading them down a shaded alleyway and into a shabby looking housing building. She is limping almost imperceptibly beside him and he knows what it’s taking her to appear strong and unaffected, to be a perfect spy.
He brings her closer to him, like he can absorb some of her pain and discomfort, as he deftly leads them around tight corners and strides down empty hallways until they stop at an unmarked door with peeling paint.
The inside of the CIA safe house is sparse—a slightly rusted stovetop espresso maker, duffel bags of clothes and blankets, and cupboards stocked with protein bars and shelf-stable goods. But where the space truly shines is the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, which is exactly where he leads Ilsa.
“It’s almost eerie how similar our safe houses are,” she comments, leaning against the edge of the sink and shaking out of her overcoat. It’s a small bathroom, barely enough room for them both and it feels intoxicating to be so close. “Of course, ours are stocked with kettles and tea rather than Moka pots and espresso,” she teases.
Ethan huffs out a laugh before crowding against her, leaning over her to open the medicine cabinet behind her and picking out an assortment of numbing creams, pain killers, and bandages. When he stands before her, it’s a little closer than he was previously, like they are two magnets inexplicably drawn together by forces outside of their own control—like physics, like nature, like the inevitable.
The fingertips of his free hand not holding the medical supplies drift over her hip and side, gentle and barely there. She sighs and relaxes back against the edge of the sink, relieved to no longer have to bear weight on her banged up hip, ankle, and ribs.
“Let me?”
Ethan’s voice is quiet, almost reverent, as he asks to tend to her and she knows she’s the only person who can grant him he absolution he is seeking, penance from the crime of hurting her. So she presses her palms to his chest, right over his heart, and nods while words are stuck in her throat.
What she doesn’t expect is for him to go to his knees before her, medical supplies clattering to the surprisingly clean floor. His hands go to them hem of her blouse, tugging gently to pull it free from the waistband of her trousers. She sucks in a breath at the sight before her and grips the edge of the sink behind her.
Ethan’s fingers go to the button and zip of her trousers, his blue-green eyes finding her own and waiting for permission to continue. She bites her lip and nods and watches with her heart in her throat as Ethan Hunt’s fingers begin to undo her trousers with a reverence befitting an acolyte at an altar. The silky slide of her trousers falling around her ankles and the rush of cool air against her warm skin is a pale shadow of sensation compared to the harsh exhale she feels when Ethan finally sees the damage along her left hip and leg.
“Ilsa,” he breathes out, fingertips trailing over purple-green skin littered with bright, angry red abrasions. He tilts his face up to hers, regret etched into every line of his face. “I’m so sor—“
But she can’t hear apologies from this man. Their pasts are too entwined, hurt dealt in equal parts. She thinks back to a train station in London when he had trusted her in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. One of her hands slides into his hair, nails scratching against his scalp, and she echoes his own words back at him: “You were just doing your job. And that’s all we’ll say about that.”
His head falls to the side, pushing into her touch like it’s the absolution he needs, and then falls forward, his forehead resting against her stomach. “Okay,” he murmurs. “Okay.”
After that, he sets to work on cleaning her up, on easing her pain. He empties a handful of pain killers into his palm and offers them up to her, which she takes with a raised eyebrow. She was never much one for prescribing information and recommended doses, either. The pills go down sticky as she dry swallows them and continues to watch him work, eyes darkened between pain and pleasure.
Ethan works on cleaning the abrasions first, pushing her blouse aside and delicately dabbing antibacterial cream along the red scrapes. Her riding suit had taken most of the damage, saved her from any serious road rash, but there are some things—like getting hit by a car—that even a suit can’t save her from. She sucks in a breath at the sensation of cold cream and hot fingers and Ethan looks up at her with a furrowed brow, concerned he’s caused her further discomfort. Her only answer is to cup his cheek with her hand and murmur reassurances, “I’m alright.”
He nods and gets back to work, wiping the excess cream off on his trousers and surveying the bruising—a hideous map of greens and purples. “There’s nothing I can do about the bruising,” he tells her, shifting his weight on his knees.
“It’s fine, Ethan, reall—“
And then her words are lost in a gasp of surprise as Ethan leans forward to press a delicate, barely there kiss to the jut of her hip where the bruising is the most colorful. Her hand buries itself in his hair once more as she shudders beneath him, his lips moving across her hip and the dip of her waist and the tender bulge of her rib. Each movement is careful and precise, the perfect amount of pressure—enough to let her know he’s touching her, but not so much as to cause her pain.
She’s shaking with the effort of holding herself still beneath his touch, her fingers tightening and relaxing into his hair, soft sounds of pleasure-pain escaping her in soft whimpers. “Ethan…”
He settles back onto his heels, his penance paid and his eyes shining. If he were a different sort of man, if he weren’t so noble and honorable, he may have pushed further. He may have danced his fingertips around the edge of her underwear and tugged it down too, worked his mouth down over her thighs—teeth and tongue and lips working together to create new marks all their own, this time out of pleasure instead of pain. If he were a different sort of man with his priorities out of order, he may have tenderly hooked her bad leg over his shoulder and pressed his face between her thighs and helped her take her mind off the pain he’d inflicted on her with his fingers inside of her and his lips and tongue working at her clit.
She would have let him, she thinks. He’s so far beneath her skin and inside of her heart and they haven’t really done anything yet, not really. It’s how she knows she’s compromise beyond belief, it’s why she’d begged him to step aside and not make her choose.
Because it won’t be a choice at all. When it comes down to it, she’ll choose him every time.
Instead, Ethan Hunt is the kind of man who has impeccable control over himself, knows they are on borrowed time, knows they have objectives and missions to return to. He pulls her trousers back over her knees and thighs and hips as he dresses her, knuckles skimming her the soft skin at the back of her knees and thighs. She sucks in a breath when he drags the zip back up, scratches his nails against her stomach as he buttons the trousers closed.
He pushes himself to his feet and she winces in sympathy as his knees crack and creak. He reaches for the hem of her blouse, but she can’t take this dance—not when she’s had his lips on her skin and his heart in her hands.
She grabs fistfuls of his shirt and tugs, just once, so he stumbles against her. He’s so careful to not hurt her again, to keep his weight off her left side. But she wants him as close as she can get in this moment. Her arms wrap around his middle, her face finds its home in the crook of his shoulder as she tucks herself completely against him. He is warm and solid and smells like coffee and mint.
His leg slots between hers and one of his hands tangles in her hair and against her neck, holding her impossibly closer to him, as he breathes her in, nose buried in her hair.
For a few moments, they have exactly what they want when this is all over: each other. No agent designation attached to their name, no world to save or criminal to catch; just them, just Ethan and Ilsa.
“I have to go,” he murmurs against her skin, lips dragging against her temple. “Benji and Luther are waiting.”
“I know.” And she does know, may be one of the few people in the world who understands him in this way.
He pulls away, smooths her hair from her face and leans in to press a careful, perfect kiss to her forehead, lingering. He knows if he kisses her now, he’ll be lost and distracted and he can’t afford that—not now, not when Lane is back on the playing board.
“When this is over—“ He starts to promise, not certain what it is exactly he’s offering other than there being an after and a them.
She presses her forehead to his one more time in acknowledgment, in acceptance of what little he can offer. “Go,” she murmurs, pushing him away and looking like it costs her something to do so. “Go.”
This time, it is Ethan who walks away with the knowledge that she cannot follow—not this time. But it doesn’t stop him from leaving a little piece of himself with her for safekeeping. For after.