Archive of Our Own

At times Ethan Hunt thought it easier to view himself less as a man and more as a particularly complicated machine.

When missions stakes got too high, when he was balanced on the edge of a broken ledge with no more than five seconds to make a move and no less than millions of innocent lives on the line, when one misstep or second of hesitation had a body count in the hundreds. Or after the mission ended and he - miraculously - found himself back on solid ground, surrounded by the millions of innocent people who he had just saved, people who would never know what he had done. Who were just a faceless crowd of earsplitting chatter that engulfed him as he remembered every way they could be instead staring up at him through sightless, glassy eyes. Or after that, when he was alone and laying in another cold, unfamiliar bed in another temporary IMF safehouse and his brain would kneel at his bedside next to his stiff body and rambled off its nightly prayer of the names of every loved one he had ever lost.

Jack, Hannah, Sarah, Claire, Marie, Ilsa.

Julia.

At times like those, Ethan preferred to think of himself not as the man who bled and cried and misstepped and hesitated and got people killed, but instead as the straightforward, efficient weapon that the IMF used to save lives.

It was easier - Ethan would tell himself as his eyes began to blur from blood loss as he fumbled with a detonator that was rigged to destroy a civilian train - to imagine that the blood that made his grip slip was instead black oil that his body was quickly deploying more of from a tank placed neatly in his chest. That the muscles that protested against the strain of the knife wound under all the oil were instead weaves of thick Kevlar that could shift and pull itself back into place to cover up the weeping vulnerability of another wrong move. That he could run a little longer, fight a little harder, shoot a little straighter, because his body was built to do this. Built only this, out of metal and wire.

It was easier - he would repeat to himself like a mantra as the unbearable weight of a crowded park full of the people he almost didn’t save began to press down on him - that the shake in his hands was the hum of his engine running, potential energy controlled and dispersed by clenching his hands until the false skin would whiten to show his iron bones. That the silence ringing in his ears like a fire alarm was the ring of his systems working, nothing out of the ordinary, nothing ringing loose or faulty. That he could exist like this, alone and unseeingly separate in the crowd, with no issue. That his face was nothing more than a mask that the mask printer spit out for this very moment.

It was easier - he would say in between names of persistent ghosts - that the lump blocking up his throat was a bullet, just as easy to remove as when he loaded and unloaded his gun. He would replay in his mind as he lay there unsleeping. How he had meticulously disassembled and cleaned his handgun before he had finally admitted he couldn’t stall anymore and dragged himself to bed. He would remember the way he had unscrewed every screw, taken every piece apart and placed them in front of him on the worn old kitchen table before wiping them down and slotting them together again, better than new. He would imagine doing the same to himself; firmly peeling away the plastic skin and opening up the stiff silicone of his windpipe and digging out the offending lump of metal, loading it back in his hand where it belonged before cleaning himself out and putting himself together, neat and controlled once again. If he imagined it strongly enough, he could distract himself from the suspicious wetness that built around his eyes and seeped into the crows feet that glared his continuing age and decline at him in the mirror each day.

He was not a man, he was a machine. The singular successful prototype of the IMF’s short-lived attempt to create a fully robotic agent in the 90’s. There were just too many moving parts, he remembered overhearing some tech in the halls complain about as he waited for Jim to come out of an office meeting, it was too hard to make them all work together. And besides, the second tech walking with him had commented as they turned around the corner and out of earshot, none of their simulations had come up with nearly as effective solutions as the agent controls. Ethan had remembered the simulations they had referred to, he had been one of the agents that volunteered to act as a control. The simulation had been a pretty simple hostage situation involving bioweapons and a truckload of gold. He had managed to almost crash the simulations two separate times because he kept running out of bounds and activating pieces that weren’t - technically speaking - supposed to be part of the simulation. He had managed to save the hostages of course, at the cost of driving the truckload of gold, now with the addition of the bioweapons and three of the terrorists into a lake and having to swim his way to the surface. Ethan remembers feeling a pang of pride that his technique had done better than whatever computer the lab had cooked up to replace his, no matter how exhausted Jim had looked as Ethan came out of the situation. He had slapped him upside the head and commented that he was lucky they got that new hacker kid - Phineas or something - to actively update the simulations or he would have crashed the whole thing five minutes in when he punched the bellhop and took his uniform. And Christ, would it kill him to think about the consequences for his actions for once?

Ethan wonders if that wasn’t an actual memory of agent Ethan Hunt, but instead a faked simulation that the artificial asset Ethan Hunt had been given after he successfully completed his testing phase. If that empty, reaching void in his chest was nothing more than a sign of the hollow cage of cogs and gears that sat under his metal ribs. After all, machines don’t fail, machines don’t falter, machines don’t have to stop.

Machines don’t cry or wish for things they can’t have. Machines don’t feel the desire to sink into the arms of the quick hugs Luther gives him. Machines don’t track the movement of Grace’s hands in the air and feel the twitch in its own to reach out. Machines don’t remember the warmth of Julia's lips against his own and have to swallow back the bile of guilt and grief from a life he ruined with his love, a life he can never go back to no matter how much he wishes he could.

Machines don’t look at Benji - warm, brilliant Benji - as he stitches up a gash in his shoulder and want to ask him to never stop touching him, even if it's to pierce a needle through him. Machines don’t feel the heat of his hands as they ghost over his body checking for more injuries and think that the hit he took from a sloppy dodge was worth the bruise that spread across his left ribs in ugly blues and purples, just to have the heat stall and sink into him for a moment longer. Machines don’t pull their gaze away from the bruises and get caught on the way up on Benji’s lips, so close to him from where he’s leaned in to examine him, and want so badly and so suddenly that he has to press down on the bruise Benji hasn’t yet found on his right thigh to keep himself from doing something very, very selfish and dangerous.

Unfortunately, even machines wear down slightly with use. The force-stops Ethan had installed in himself after Julia, blocks and barriers that stopped the cogs in his brain and his heart from whirring the wrong way and doing something stupid like falling in love again, were beginning to slacken under the onslaught of Benji and his - everything really. Ethan would watch Benji talk Paris through her latest round of field medic training and feel the way the blast doors creaked at the hinges as Benji laughed and corrected her kindly in French. Ethan would slap Benji on the shoulder and watch as his own hand hesitated before pulling away a second too long.

Ethan had been a field agent long enough to be able to tell when something was about to break, he just hoped that when it happened it would be him and not Benji.

—

In order to do the things he needed to do during missions, Ethan had trained himself to ignore what his teammates would consider common sense.

Whether that be free climbing the Burj Khalifa to intercept the sale of nuclear codes or losing his diving suit and drowning himself in the Bering sea to acquire the Podkova, Ethan often had to do things that seemed impossible. Something he very much couldn’t do if he believed they were genuinely impossible. As a general rule, Ethan refused to believe that there was nothing he couldn’t do. If there was nothing he could do then he had lost. If he had lost then he would be forced to stop and sit in the horror of his failure, and - much like a shark - if Ethan stopped moving he would die.

It was this instinct that found Ethan standing in the bedroom door to an admittedly lavish safehouse in Morocco after a successful mission, watching Benji putter around the kitchen making them both tea and feeling the final force-stop at his disposal snap under the unbearable weight of the domesticity of it all.

“Did the techs ever mess around to blow off steam after missions?”

Benji immediately stops stirring the tea he was making for Ethan to stare at him, movements halting so suddenly that he knocks a bit of the tea out of the cup and onto the marble countertop. Ethan watched the dark stain of tea shimmer in the harsh light of the stove’s cover light, latching onto anything that would distract him and allow him to act casual. If he didn’t act casual then he would never be able to convince Benji to either go through with this or ignore it as a joke, and he needed Benji to do either one of those two things, Ethan would not allow himself to think about any other reactions that Benji could and probably should have to his longtime friend and team leader asking him about casual post mission related sex just after they come off a mission.

Putting down the spoon with a loud clatter, Benji ran his hand down his face, giving Ethan a pensive look.

The tea he had been making for Ethan would be exactly to his liking, he knew. Tea had never been his preferred drink, much preferring the boost that a coffee with an ashamedly large amount of sugar gave him. But Benji preferred tea after a mission to calm his nerves and had refused to not include Ethan in his after mission ritual. He had tried just about every type and combination of tea in order to figure out what Ethan liked, eventually finding a perfect combination of oolong and a spoonful of honey. From that moment on, there was a little box of oolong tea and a jar of honey next to the usual stash of chamomile and vanilla extract in Benji’s medical bag. Ethan almost hadn’t wanted to admit that he had found his - as Benji put it - “after mission ideal” as he had been so happy to just sit next to Benji in whatever corner of the Earth they had found themselves in and let the warmth of the tea soak into his hands as a replacement for Benji’s hands. His companions bright eyes on him and slightly squinted as he observed Ethan, cataloging his reaction to each and every combination.

“I can’t say we did. Though I wasn’t exactly close enough to anyone for them to suggest it if they did.” Benji’s reply pulled Ethan's attention back to the present. He hasn’t moved from where he was leaning against the island’s countertop, keeping the distance and barrier between them. Ethan wasn’t sure how he felt about that. “Why do you ask?”

“Would you want to?” Ethan asked, crossing his arms and leaning his shoulder against the door, trying to appear as confident and appealing as possible. He was wearing some thread worn sweatpants and a soft maroon sweater he had stolen from Benji yesterday after he had ripped his last shirt in an unexpected fight when the target they were tailing caught on to them. He sort of wished he had forgone the sweater and just hoped that the large yellowing bruise on his hip didn’t put Benji off too much.

“It’s…been a while.”

“Given that we’ve been living out of each other's pockets for the last month and a half I would certainly hope so.” Benji huffed. “Unless you decided to climb out the window just to chase some tail at some point. Which you better not have, by the way, Luther would never let me live it down if my security perimeter was bad enough to let you do that without my knowing.”

Ethan allowed himself a genuine laugh at Benji’s played up indignation, grabbing onto the feeling of normality it provided with both hands.

“No breaking of your security perimeter from me, don’t worry, your reputation is safe. No I just-” Ethan’s words got caught up in his throat at that. He curled his hands under his crossed arms and removed the bullet from his throat. “It’s just been a while. If you’re into it?”

He tilted his head at the question, dropping his voice a bit and giving a slight smirk that he knew from experience gave people exactly the right idea. It felt a little dirty to use honeypot tricks against him but Benji’s not immediate refusal was a door cracked open and Ethan, in the face of everything he had wanted so badly for so long and with no more force-stops left to save him, was nothing more than a stray tom cat loitering outside a backdoor, ready to grab opportunity by the balls the second it presented itself to him. They had been tracking drug kingpins for the last month and a half, three hours ago Ethan had had to dump a minor player into a train car heading out of town to avoid altering the cavalry and two days ago he had had to bite into his wrist so hard he almost drew blood to keep himself quiet as he jerked off in the show to the sound of Benji waking up in the next room.

If he died tomorrow, at least he would have this.

Benji just looked at him for a heart stopping long moment, eyes distant and hands placed firmly on the island counter that separated them. Ethan liked to think that he could read Benji better than anyone. He had known Benji for long, had been with him through so much - both for better and for worse - that he had an extensive catalog of every look he had ever seen on Benji’s face. The one directed through him right now was one that he hadn’t seen on Benji’s face many times. It was one that Ethan had caught him directing at him during honeypots and - in one memorable occasion - at an old, portly cat sunning on a window sill of an old cottage in England after a particularly long, taxing mission.

Ethan wasn’t sure what this particular look meant.

Ethan had awaited potential torture that was less nerve wracking than this.

“Just blowing off steam, yeah?” Was what Benji finally settled on, the distant look clearing mostly - but not entirely - from his eyes.

Ethan swallowed around another lump in his throat. He had kidnapped the British prime minister for this man, had held him close as he broke apart when they learned about Luther's cancer diagnosis, had sewn him up after gunshots and stab wounds. He had burned under his watchful eyes, had pressed his hands to wounds Benji had dressed just to try and hold in the feeling of his touch, had woken up with his name on his lips for years. And now he was standing in front of Ethan asking if it was nothing more than blowing off steam.

“Unless you’ve got a ring in that bag I don’t know about.” Ethan said, flashing a grin he hoped didn’t waver at the edges. “Morocco is a lovely honeymoon spot, you know.”

Benji laughed, low and huffing, at that. Ducking his head and moving around the countertop, walking towards him with a slow and purposeful gate that had Ethan pressing his back against the half closed door at how caught it made him feel.

“No ring.” He hummed when he finally stopped in front of Ethan, close enough to feel the warmth radiating off of him, just far away enough to not actually touch.

Benji glanced him up and down, settling on his lips with lidded eyes. Ethan felt the look like a physical touch. Leaning forwards but still not touching, Ethan felt Benji’s breath against his ear.

“Though I bet you’d look lovely in nothing but one wrapped around you.”

He hooked his finger on the waist of Ethan's pants, tugging it open just a bit to punctuate. The action, plus the low commanding voice that Benji used to whisper to him, had Ethan shivering where he stood stock still against the door jam. His casual, alluring front slowly dissolving under the mental image of him laid out in front of Benji, naked and leaking around a cock ring, begging Benji to let him cum.

“Maybe next time.” Ethan managed to force out, his voice breathy.

Benji pulled back from him, a look of disbelief flashing over his face quickly as he scanned Ethan's face. It took a moment for Ethan to realize that he had just suggested that he was hoping that this would be a repeated thing. He was already out of control without even a taste of the real thing, revealing more than he wanted to to only a mental image. If he wanted to get through this without royally fucking everything up, he would have to find a way to keep his mouth shut, and quick.

Ethan dragged Benji down and kissed him before he could say anything.

Kissing Benji was like dipping into a freefall without a parachute. It was a rush of adrenaline and awareness that had Ethan’s eyes dilating and pulse thundering in a second flat. All of Ethan’s focus and attention zeroed in on every place that Benji was touching him, all of it zinging with electricity. One of Ethan's hands migrated from Benji’s face to rake through the hair on the nape of his neck, the other roaming down to his chest, groping at everything he could. Benji’s hands had taken to rucking up Ethan's shirt as he pressed him against the now fully opened bedroom door, running his finger tips along the seam of his pants and up his sides, making Ethan shiver and press back into Benji.

Ethan didn’t realize he had been rocking into Benji mindlessly as they kissed until he felt Benji’s thigh press itself between his own harshly, pinning him in place and making him gasp into Benji’s mouth. An opportunity that was taken full advantage of as Benji shoved his tongue into Ethan’s mouth, tracing along the inside of Ethan's teeth and teasing against his tongue. When they finally had to break for air, Ethan busied himself with kissing his way down Benji's neck, nibbling at the point near the base of his throat that made him let out a particularly loud moan.

“That better not be visible, Ethan.” Benji warned around another moan as Ethan bit down, lavishing his tongue against the bite in apology afterwards.

It wasn’t, Ethan hadn’t let himself linger too long in any spots that would have shown above the tight button up shirts that Benji loved to wear and Ethan loved to sneak glances at. It wasn’t his place. He was allowed to offer Benji this; this no strings attached pleasure in the safety of the dying light of an anonymous apartment, but he would not allow himself to stake a claim he didn’t deserve.

“Oops.” Ethan teased anyway. “Surely there’s a way I can make it up to you?”

A firm hand grabbed a fistful of hair, yanking his head back and away. Ethan let out a surprised moan at that, louder than he expected in the quiet of the apartment. The sound echoed off the high ceilings in a way that made Ethan’s ears head up and Benji’s eyes darken as he tilted Ethan's head up with a hand firmly against his chin. A thumb brushed against his bottom lip and Ethan instinctively sucked it into his mouth, lavishing his tongue over it and biting it lightly, looking up at Benji from under his lashes.

He had an idea of how to keep his mouth shut.

Apparently Benji had the same idea because he sucked in a breath at the display.

“I’m sure I can think of something.” He leaned back, raking his eyes over Ethan where he was still pressed against the door by Benji’s thigh, ruffled and breathing heavily. Ethan preened shamefully at the desire that shone through on Benji’s face as he looked at him, like Ethan was a safe he was deciding how to crack open. Ethan wanted Benji to put his hands back on him, strip him bare and take and take and take until Ethan had nothing left to give.

‘Benji deserved it’, Ethan thought deliriously as Benji tugged the sweater over Ethan's head, ‘only right for him to take what was his. What was always his.’

Two fingers pushed back into Ethan's still open mouth while the other hand wrapped around his chest, thumb stroking one of his nipples in slow circles. Throwing his head back with a thunk against the door, both of Ethan's hands wrapped around the one teasing at his nipple as he put on a show of running his tongue in between Benji’s fingers. Trying to lure him in more with a little display of enthusiasm that he hoped Benji wouldn’t think too hard about.

“Look at you, responding so well to me.” Benji muttered, voice distracted before his focused expression faltered and his thumb stopped its systematic picking apart of Ethan's composure. “Ethan I- You’d tell me if I was doing something you didn’t- You’re okay with this right?.”

Like Benji could do anything Ethan wouldn’t like, wouldn’t want enough he was basically gagging for it. He trusted Benji to lead him anywhere, to do anything to him. The stubborn part of him that landed him here purred at Benji’s care.

‘See,’ It whispered, ‘Benji will take care of us. Benji always knows exactly what we need.’

Ethan couldn’t say that, couldn’t say any of that without basically cracking his chest open and showing the bleeding wounded thing where his heart lied beating out Benji’s name in morse code. Instead he moaned his approval and renewed his lapping at Benji’s fingers, grinding down into his thigh in an attempt to draw him closer, to get even more of Benji before his time ran out.

“Let me suck your dick.” He murmured. ‘Please’, he didn’t say out loud.

It was like Ethan had taken a match to the hesitation on Benji’s face at the speed it went up in smoke, back into desire and need. Pulling his hands away from Ethan - and Ethan ignored the way he chased after him without a thought - to put his attention into removing Ethan's pants as fast as physically possible. This unfortunately meant that he had to withdraw the thigh that Ethan had been grinding against. Instead of dropping to his knees at the loss, Ethan busied himself with attacking Benji’s clothes with the same fervor.

They had both seen each other undressed more times than they could count, it was hard not to in their line of work (and with Ethan’s penchant for losing his shirts), and Ethan had savored each and every time Benji shed a layer or two around him. But Ethan wasn’t allowed to look before and had to suffice himself with secretive glances from the corner of his eyes, never lingering for too long. Now, Ethan could look freely, at least for a little bit longer. His hands explored each and every inch that he uncovered like a man in the desert finding an oasis, every pale scar and mark memorized before he moved on to the next. There was no guarantee that he would ever get to have this again, he already felt like a thief in the night, and he wanted to be able to recall this in as vivid detail as possible if he never got this again.

Benji was beautiful. He had always thought so but here, with Benji’s pale skin glowing in the last fading rays of sun that peaked through the bedroom blinds, it almost took his breath away. As a tech Benji had been softer around the edges in a way that could sometimes make Ethan's stomach hurt with how domestic it made him look, like he was a safe place removed from the dangerous world that had carved Ethan's body into a machine. Now, years in the field had robbed Benji of his softness and his body was lithe and held a quiet strength with his lean muscles. It was a body that spoke of Benji’s dedication and bravery. Every scar had a story behind it of Benji facing down the evils of the world and not flinching, of him putting himself in front of innocents and his team members when things got dangerous.

Ethan wanted to mouth his thanks over each and every one.

“Alright, that’s enough.” Benji interrupted Ethan's fantasy of laying him out on the bed and worshiping every inch of him. “We can’t all be carved out of bloody marble.”

“Oh yeah?” Ethan grinned at him rakishly, pushing him back until he sat on the plush bed. Leaning in so Benji could look down the line of his body, eyes eventually falling to where his dick was leaking its enthusiasm against the lines of his abs. “You’re complaining?”

He received a hum in response as he slid to his knees in front of Benji, not able to hide the way he eyed Benji’s cock hungrily, licking his lips at the little twitch it gave at the action.

“I will be if you don’t hurry up.” Benji quipped at him, his breathing growing heavy as Ethan reached out to give him a few cursory strokes before leaning in.

Benji let out a deep, low noise at his touch, head falling back as Ethan repeated the motion just to hear him make that noise again. Benji’s cock was an average size, curving a bit to the left, and at the moment it was the most delicious thing he had ever seen. Running his tongue along the length of it earned Ethan a long moan and a hand in his hair, outlining the raised vein near its base earned him a tug that stung his scalp encouragingly, and swallowing him down whole earned him his own name choked out like a prayer above him.

Ethan’s father had been a religious man when he was alive. Half of his memories of the man involved kneeling in a church pew and listening to a far away voice speak of redemption and worship and the divine. Ethan remembers looking over at his fathers face once during those sermons, and seeing the look of a man so desperate to believe. Eyes closed and hands clasped tightly against his forehead, face screwed up as he searched for that divinity. Ethan had never felt the same holy desperation that his father had felt.

Now, on his knees in front of Benji, cock heavy in his mouth, Ethan wondered if he just hadn’t found the right god to worship yet.

He took to his task with the same vigor that he took to every mission: with a life or death intensity that drove him through the impossible. Usually the goal was saving the world; Ethan considered the way that Benji swore and chanted his name just as worthy a reward. Hollowing his cheeks, Ethan plunged down until he was nosing at the coarse hairs at the base of his dick, taking in the lingering smell of the safehouse’s sandalwood body wash and Benji’s own alluring musk. Flattening his tongue against the underside on the upstroke and running around the base of his tip teasingly before going back down again. Every tool in Ethan’s playbook was on the table and dispatched with enthusiasm to the tune of Benji slowly falling apart above him.

A particularly hard thrust took him by surprise on the next downstroke, hitting the back of his throat unexpectedly and causing Ethan to pull back and sputter slightly. Benji was quick to remove his hand from Ethan's hair and flutter them around him nervously.

“Oh my god Ethan I’m so sorry.” He said, still breathless. Benji flushed all the way down to his chest, Ethan thought deliriously. “You just felt too good and - and you down on your knee’s just - god Ethan - I got carried away is all.”

Ethan had to brace himself for a moment under the stuttered mess of praise that Benji probably didn’t even realize he had just given him. A lightening blot of arousal going straight to his dick at the idea of Benji getting carried away, fucking into Ethan’s mouth while telling him how good he felt.

A quirk of Ethan’s eyebrows was all Benji got before he was diving back down to his dick, renewing his pace with doubled vigor.

Luckily, years of working together had made it so Benji knew exactly when Ethan was about to do something stupid from just a look, and it only took him a moment - with the help of Ethan pulling his hand back into his hair - to get with the program.

The first few thrusts were careful and slow, testing if this was truly what Ethan was asking for, and when reworded with a long moan that vibrated in his throat. Benji placed his other hand in Ethan’s hair and pulled him down with more force than he had shown since they started.

“Look at me.” Came a stern command that had Ethan’s eyes snapping open before he even realized they had closed.

Benji’s bright blue eyes were nearly black with arousal when they locked eyes and he began to thrust in earnest. Fucking into Ethan’s mouth with deep, fast movements that had Ethan slobbering and moaning around the length pistoning in and out of him.

“God, look at you.” Benji said, voice deep and just this side of uneven. “Taking me so well. So good. So good.”

Ethan’s head was lighter and lighter with each word, his body lighting up like the circuit boards that Benji so expertly took apart and put together. His dick strained against his thigh, desperate for any attention and Ethan took one hand away from where he had braced himself against Benji’s legs to pull at it feverishly.

“Slow down.” Benji commanded, and Ethan stopped all together. “With me. Match me.”

His hand restarted its movements at the instruction, matching the deep, dirty pace that Benji had set. Ethan's skin felt like it was a size too small for him and bursting at the seams, his organism building up in his core alarmingly fast. He felt like he had finally found where he had needed to be all those times it had been too much; he just needed to be here on his knees for Benji, doing everything he was told like always -

“Good boy Ethan.”

There were moments just after a bomb went off where everything went silent, where the ringing in his ears was the only sound and the feeling of weightlessness overtook him. Shock and heat and pressure all building up and collapsing in one perfect moment that shook Ethan to his core and lifted him off his feet into full body freefall. This moment, cuming with his hand stripping his cock in time with Benji fucking into his mouth, didn’t feel all that different. Ethan’s ears rang with the words as he moaned, loud and long, painting his thighs and the floor in front of him with ropes of cum that seemed to go on forever. The brutal pace that Benji had set faltered for a moment before resuming with a vengeance, movements getting sloppy as Benji neared his own release. When he finally finished, pushing Ethan down to the root to shoot off in his throat, he could do nothing but moan weakly and try to suckle around him as the salty taste of him erupted in Ethan's mouth.

They stayed like that for a moment, panting and shivering in the afterglow, before Benji gently pulled Ethan off his dick, that had begun to soften in his throat. He chuckled slightly at the quiet whine that it earned from Ethan, pulling him up and on to the still made bed. Benji whispered sweetly to him as he pulled the covers back and deposited them both into their warm embrace, nothing that Ethan could understand with his head still full of cotton, but he didn’t concern himself with that. Benji was here, and Benji would take care of him, just like he always did. All Ethan had to do was listen to what he told him, like a good boy.

The last thought Ethan had as he drifted off, was of how safe and comfortable he felt in this moment, and how much he would miss it when it was gone.

—

Love, in all of its forms, had always snuck up on Ethan.

The one enemy he has never been able to see coming, no matter how often it seemed to find him vulnerable and off balance and far too convincible for his tastes.

Friendship was, somehow, the most familiar form to Ethan. Ethan will never stop being surprised when his fellow agents turned to him with a smile and called him a friend. It was a crushing weight and a touching gladness every time. Here was another person who he could put in danger, who he could fail to protect, who could be used against him. Yet he could not deny that he felt relief every time that these brilliant, brave people viewed him as a friend. Not a day went by where he didn’t double check that Luther’s cancer hadn’t returned, no matter how long he had been in remission. He owed Luther his life, and will be forever grateful that he had him to lean on throughout everything. Luther was his lighthouse, his safe harbor in any storm he found himself in, and the one person he trusted with everything no matter what.

Grace hadn’t been around as long as Luther or Benji or Ilsa or even Brandt. There wasn’t the same decades-long trust and comfort with the young thief, but Ethan always felt a zing of excitement whenever she could be pulled into a mission. He loved the ways she challenged and matched him. How she would always impress him with her pickpocketing, especially after she got into the habit of attempting to pickpocket him when he least expected it. After a mishap where she had managed to nick his gun right before an ambush that almost got him run over on the streets of Hong Kong, they had wordlessly agreed to keeping the game to a small ‘I <3 Hong Kong’ pin that Luther had frustratedly bought from a nearby souvenir stand after the whole almost getting runover incident. Ethan had almost forgotten what the rush of getting to know a new friend had felt like after all the years of running.

Lust was the easiest form to deal with, despite the many adverse effects he had experienced because of it. Phelps had used honeypots liberally as Ethan's team leader. It was one of the most straightforward ways to get to a target other than a bullet to the head, he had told Ethan once. He had always been good at them, though he had never found the same enjoyment and smug satisfaction that Jack had. It wasn’t as if he was unaware that he was handsome, and he would be a poor spy if he didn’t know how to be charming and convincing and sell an act. Let no one say that Ethan wasn’t a born performer and delighted in a satisfied audience. It was just that it always felt so hollow, just like any other mission only more empty because he wouldn’t be able to climb or run or punch or drive the hollow feeling away. His body was a tool and a honeypot was just as worthy a problem to use it for as any other, especially when people were counting on him, but he could never quite bring himself to look the target in the eye once they pulled him into bed. It felt too close - too vulnerable - and he knew he wouldn’t like what he found when he looked, so he just made sure they wouldn’t notice when he didn’t.

With Julia it had felt like more than just lust, even at the beginning. Julia took his breath away and knocked him off his feet as tenderly as she had caressed his face and pulled the blankets over his shoulders afterwards. Julia was gentle with him, slow and meticulous, going over him with the precision and mastery that only a nurse and a woman in love could have. It made Ethan feel safe and protected. It grounded him to his body when she put hers on top of his. He only had a problem looking her in the eye when she would ask about the scars and bruises, when he remembered everything he had to keep from her to keep her safe and his.

His lust for Benji wasn’t something he liked to look at straight on. It was easier to let it happen with some amount of plausible deniability. Excusing the wet dreams that plagued him between missions and, humiliatingly, occasionally on mission as well. Swirling scenes where Benji would look at Ethan and find something worth taking, maybe even keeping. Benji’s even, confident voice in his ear guiding his hand on his dick with the same near omnipotent knowledge of how to get Ethan screaming towards an edge he didn’t even know he needed to be heading towards. Or Benji laying him down after he put him back together with gaze and medical thread and taking him apart again with his hands and his mouth, scolding Ethan when he thrashed too much at a clever flick of the wrist with the gentle voice he used when Ethan was moving too much for him to get his stitches straight. He always woke up spent and sticky and feeling like his ribcage was cracked open and his beating heart was on display for all to see Benji’s name scratched into it.

Romantic love was the phantom that haunted Ethan. Rarely seen but always reminding him of its presence in quiet, earth shattering moments. His brain was a haunted house. The home he had shared with Julia and the apartment he had shared with Marie; the cabinets thrown open with a crash when he turned his back, the door held closed from the other side. Love made this place, and it would be damned if it let him forget it. He fell in love with Julia so much that it felt like his heart was removed from his chest and placed in her capable hands, beaten and bloody and oozing poison and oil as may it be. He was willing to do anything just to stay with her for a single day longer, to keep her safe for just a single moment longer. He would lie, cheat, and steal a super dangerous, unknown weapon for a terrorist for her without a second thought. It didn’t matter the cost for those extra days and moments to Ethan, he could die tomorrow anyway, he would die without her anyway.

Except he didn’t die. Even though he had told Luther to take the file on Julia’s disappearance and burn it without even looking at it, he couldn’t risk trying to find her, no matter how much he wanted to. He had to survive to keep the world safe for her, and he couldn’t do that if he was constantly aware of how close or far away he was from her.

He had survived because of Julia, he had learned to live again because of Benji.

Benji had been there, pushing food into his hands and dragging him towards the bed when he felt that Ethan had done long enough without either. Benji seemed to decide Ethan's health and wellness (when he wasn’t directing Ethan out of windows or telling him that he could easily hold his breath for an unspecified upwards of three minutes) was his top priority and nothing, not even Ethan himself, would keep him from his mission. Usually Ethan was better at putting up a fight, would insist that he couldn’t let his body fall into disuse even a little bit, but something about Benji’s intelligent blue eyes and firm hands made him fold under the slightest hint of pressure.

Benji’s attention on him, Benji’s care, felt good. Very good. It felt like how he imagines Icarus felt in those moments after he put on his wax wings, like the fall was more than worth those moments of divine warmth and light on his skin. Like the wax that will inevitably burn his skin will be a simmering, desperate reminder of something that burned so much more deep and sweetly than pain ever could. There are times when Benji smiles at him, crows feet crinkling around eyes like the clearest skies and the sun lighting up his hair light burning gold, and Ethan can feel the phantom burns melting their way through his chest and into his heart. He thinks about Benji’s hands leaving scars and has to excuse himself to go on a run to give him an excuse for his flushing face and racing heart.

Sometimes he looks back on when he first met Benji, deep in the bowels of IMF’s sprawling research and development department, surrounded by half finished prototypes and wires. Benji had been blindingly brilliant and endearing even in those first moments when Luthor had introduced him as a man who might be able to solve their little equipment problem. He had been able to talk and joke with Benji with an ease that he hadn’t felt since Luther. Benji’s mind was fascinating, and Ethan had delighted in letting him ramble and explain every thought that whizzed through his mind at lightning speed. He had leaned against the desk Benji had been spreading out one of his potential blueprints covered in messy notes and somehow completely missed that Luther and everyone else in the tech department had slowly packed up and left as the minutes turned to hours without his notice.

Ethan wonders if that was the moment that love decided to string its bow and shoot him straight through the heart with its slow acting poison. He never had a chance when it came to Benji.

—

The morning after found Ethan waking up slowly for the first time in a long time. A single strip of pale morning sunlight fell across his eyes where he laid in the plush king bed facing the window.

His senses came back to him slowly as he blinked in the offending light. His body was pleasantly warm and relaxed, curled up slightly as he tended to find himself and, against his back, was the warm line of a still sleeping body. An arm was slung loosely around his hips, laying on the top edge of his yellowing bruise, resulting in a slight ache that wasn’t actually unpleasant enough to do anything about. A warm breath hit his neck, and Ethan craned his neck to find Benji’s peaceful face laying on the pillow next to him.

A feeling tightened in Ethan’s chest at the sight. Benji looked so peaceful next to him, so sleep warm and comfortable in the low light of sunrise. Another glimpse into a kinder, softer life that he could never have.

Back before Benji was a field agent, when he was still somewhat safe from the dangers that nipped at Ethan’s tail, he used to look at him and wonder what his life was like after he finished being the voice in Ethan’s ear and the invisible hand that reached out to him through all his equipment. Did he have something to go home to? A partner or a family or even a pet of some kind? Benji struck him as a cat person.

But the thing was: Ethan didn’t know, did he? Even now, there was so little he knew about Benji when he wasn’t on mission. He never got to see Benji when he could have a lay in instead of having to get up to take watch or spring into action. This view before him was as close as he had ever let himself come to see.

It was… heartbreakingly warm and comfortable.

Benji’s eyelids fluttered in the offending light, eyelashes glowing gold and face smoothed out of its worried lines. The even breath on Ethan’s shoulder raised goosebumps down his arms and the line of Benji’s body against his glued him in place even as Benji’s eyes cracked open.

“Mornin’ Ethan.” Benji mumbled groggily. His accent got deeper when he felt the sleep deprivation of an especially long night or in the early morning when he just woke up. Ethan had always loved to hear it. It made Benji seem softer somehow, more vulnerable. Sometimes his accent would slur around the hard ‘t’ of his last name in a way that made it sound like “Hun” and Ethan could indulge a fleeting fantasy where Benji could lean against him before bed and call him pet names.

“Morning Benji.” He said mildly. Watching as Benji blinked blearily in the slight light that made it past Ethan's head, slowly shaking himself awake and taking stock of his situation. Ethan got to see the exact moment that Benji noticed how he was holding on to Ethan, suddenly very awake as his eyes went wide in realization.

“Um.” Benji stuttered, pulling back from him slightly as his face flushed and his eyes flitted around the room, anywhere but Ethan.

“Uh.” Ethan responded in kind. Both of them avoiding eye contact while they lay inches from each other, stock still and blatantly unsure of their next moves.

A moment passed like a drip of molasses.

“...How’s about breakfast?” Benji offered with a tense smile.

“Sounds good.” Ethan was moving as quickly as the sentence ended.

—

Breakfast was silent.

Benji had taken one look at the cold tea on the kitchen counter, went bright red at the ears, and walked out the door. Ethan had followed him without question - like always - and they walked lockstep to a small cafe a few blocks away from their safehouse, not saying a single word.

And now Ethan was hunched over a half eaten breakfast sandwich and coffee across from Benji, also hunched over as he slowly finished off an egg and sausage. Both of them stealing glances at each other across the table, quickly glancing away when they caught each other's eyes. Ethan's eyes kept straying to the collar of Benji’s loose graphic t-shirt, remembering how he teased him about a hickey he hadn’t allowed himself to leave.

“Taking your time with that?” Benji asked the table, nodding his head toward Ethan’s plate. This was a regular song and dance with the two; Benji poking at Ethan to eat and Ethan ducking his head and obliging with less fight than he would usually put up. It was an olive branch, no matter how awkward.

“Yeah, just-” A glance over at Benji, who looked up at him in turn, both of them deciding to be brave by not looking away. “-savoring the taste.”

The blooming redness on Benji’s ears is what keys Ethan onto the double entendre. Ethan swallows back the saliva that he suddenly feels like he’s choking on.

Neither of them look away.

“That good, huh?” Benji asks, eyes just this side of half lidded and voice dropping slightly.

There were times during missions, in the calm before the storm, when Ethan would be laughing with his team and think I hope I’m doing this right. The issue with living most of your adult life as an agent for the IMF is that you get so used to playing into a role that when the time comes to take the mask off, sometimes it catches at the neck and leaves Ethan struggling to remember what he’s supposed to be like without it. It often felt like Ethan was just a step behind in the flow of natural conversation, his jokes just a touch too deadpan and unrelated. Luther seemed to find it funny, and Benji had taken to playing up his indignation that Ethan couldn’t land a joke to save his life. It helped that his chosen friends also weren’t the most normal conversationalists in the world. But when Grace first joined the team, the charismatic thief took some time to stop side eyeing Ethan awkwardly each time he answered a question in a conversation he wasn’t a part of from across the room or forgetting to smile as he poked fun at something. It made him feel inept, just another reminder as to how far behind he had left his chances at a normal life.

This moment had him feeling the same way. In his mind, Ethan saw a dozen winding crossroads branch out in front of him at what should, most likely, just be a simple flirtatious quip. He couldn’t fall back on his tired and true honeypot tricks, not only because he felt oily enough using them to get Benji into bed, but because for a honeypot to work you needed to know your end goal. What you wanted from the other person. And right now, Ethan was stuck at the crossroads, hopeless as to whether he wanted to push Benji away again to keep him safe, or give in to the choking need to have him close enough that he could hold Ethan together.

Ever the out-of-the-box thinker, Ethan decided to throw himself off the splitting path and straight over the nearby cliff.

Which is to say he stuffed the breakfast sandwich in his mouth and took a large gulp of his coffee, which happened to be still a bit too hot for comfort, leading to Benji struggling not to laugh too loudly as Ethan choked and coughed into his arm, getting crumbs on Benji’s navy half zip. Ethan really had to start packing more shirts on missions.

“Alright, alright, calm down. And here I thought I wouldn’t have to worry about you almost killing yourself once we’re done with the mission.” Benji snickered at him as he waved down the waitress for the check. They woke up early enough that they were the first ones in the cafe, so it didn’t take long for the half asleep waitress to give them their check and wave them on their way out the door and back to their safehouse. They walked back in a similar silence as before, only this time with far less tension between them. Benji watching the city slowly wake up around them and Ethan watching Benji in between scanning for any lingering threats.

It was only once they made it back to the safehouse and began tidying up that the air thickened again with uncertainty. Less and less missions had been coming Ethan's way since they had defeated the Entity, something that he had a suspicion was Erika trying to keep him from causing her any more headaches for as long as she could. When Benji wasn’t tagging along with Ethan for missions, he had been taking on a more mentorship role, seeing Paris through her training towards becoming a field agent and trying to wrestle Degas away from other team leads since he seemed to work best with the standoffish assassin. While Ethan had made a habit of popping in unannounced to lean over Benji’s shoulder during his mentoring sessions - much to Benji’s annoyance and Paris’ amusement - it was often a long time between when the two could see each other. Ethan keeping himself out of the way of the respectable career as a team leader that Benji was building for himself.

After last night, Ethan didn’t know how he could bear tearing himself away from Benji for long enough to not raise suspicion, and an old familiar terror began to worm its way into his throat.

“I’m all packed.” Ethan said, standing in the living room with his sparse duffel bag slung over his shoulder. He had considered trying to find a shirt without blood or bullet holes in it to change into so he could give Benji back his shirt, but had found himself unable to. He had stood in the bathroom for a few long minutes, hands bunched in the fabric of it ready to pull it off and breathing in the lingering scent of Benji’s cologne.

‘One more indulgence.’ He had eventually conceded. ‘One more selfish act he was taking from Benji.’

“Guess I’ll see you on the next mission.”

Benji looked up from where he was double checking through his medical bag, furrowing his brows with a touch of hurt that Ethan couldn’t look directly at.

“Are you not coming back to headquarters with me?” He asked, stepping away from the still open bag.

“No I-” Ethan swallowed and curled his fist around the bag strap. He had been electrocuted with a car battery before, he could handle this.

It’s just pain after all.

“I’ll get out of your way. You have better things to do at headquarters than- than worry about me hanging around.”

“Hanging around?” Benji huffed, crossing his arms. “You mean helping me wrangle the new recruits? What? You’re just going to leave me to take care of the kids all by myself?”

There was humor in Benji’s voice, another olive branch extended, and Ethan couldn’t help the flinch he gave at it. At the insinuation that the mentorship was a joint effort and not Ethan lingering pathetically around, getting in the way of the stable life Benji was building for himself.

“You're the team leader now, Benji.” He said to his feet, missing the tilt of Benji’s head and the squint in his eyes as he took in Ethan's tone. “And a better one than I ever was. I’d just get in your way.”

With that, Ethan turned on his heel and picked his feet up - one step at a time - towards the safehouse door and into the wind for as long as he could keep himself away. Before he came back, regular as clockwork, to Benji’s door like a stray dog looking for shelter from the storm in his mind.

“Ethan!” Benji called out to him and Ethan, without a thought, stopped mid step in the doorway. There was an anger in his tone that Ethan couldn’t quite square in his brain.

Angry footsteps sounded towards him until a hand on his shoulder forced him to spin around and look up into Benji’s face, indignant and disbelieving. Staring at Ethan like he was the most infuriating idiot in the entire world.

“How many times do I have to show you you’re it for me before you finally get it through your thick bloody skull!?” He cried out, voice raised in a way Ethan hadn't heard since Vienna.

“I mean, did you ever wonder why I became a field agent? Oh, little old nerdy tech Benny just decided to throw himself head first at a terrorist cell for fun? No you idiot! I only do missions with you! I only did missions for you! I’m in love with you, you fucking idiot! You had me wrapped around your finger over a bloody burner phone in Shanghai decades ago and it’s about time you take responsibility for that.”

Ethan had been punched, shot, thrown out of airplanes that had less kick than that. He stared at Benji, his shoulders squared and chest heaving after his outburst. It was the disbelief after every close call dialed up to a hundred. Ethan for a moment wondered if he had been mistaken, if maybe the Entity hadn’t actually been defeated and Ethan had just been living in a hallucination that it had designed for him to keep him out of the way, after all, how else could he explain getting everything he wanted on a silver platter.

“You’re in love with me?” Ethan's voice was weak and disbelieving.

“Yes! For fucks sake! Not like I’ve been very subtle about it.” Ethan had rarely heard Benji so exasperated, so truly and completely convinced that he was the world's biggest idiot. Ethan couldn’t help himself, starting with a breathless chuckle and ending with him half bent over with laughter.

“Ethan, I'm serious. Luther gave me a shovel talk years ago. Grace wouldn’t stop winking at me every time you took your shirt off. It’s a goddamn nightmare, honestly."

Benji was right, he realized. Benji was always right. All this time Ethan had been terrified of how his soft spot for Benji had put a target on his back, completely oblivious to the fact that Benji had been handling that target for years already. The life that Benji had been building for himself, one where he rightfully took the team lead role and could softly heal the wounds of IMF’s past corruption and drift off into retirement, wasn’t one that Ethan was intruding on. It was one that Benji had built with a space for Ethan from the jump. Benji wasn’t Julia, who he had to hide half of himself from; nor was he Ilsa, who was pulled away from him time after time by powers beyond their control. Benji was the man that had walked next to Ethan, side by side and step for step, for decades without missing a beat no matter the potholes and total collapses on the road that Ethan led him down.

‘Maybe,’ he thought to himself. ‘He can let himself be led instead.’

Ethan was delirious, he was ecstatic, he was disbelieving. He felt like he had just been thrown back in time to the man many tragedies lighter and marring the love of his life with toy rings in the emergency room of a hospital because he was too excited to wait for their wedding.

Ethan wondered how hard it would be to find a toy capsule machine and an ordained minister in the outskirts of Morocco in the next ten minutes.

“I really want to kiss you right now.”

“You bloody better!” Benji scolded him, not even trying to hide the grin splitting across his face.

Their second kiss wasn’t as heated as the first had been. It was slow and tender and slanted around the smiles that they couldn’t keep off their faces. Their first kiss had been desperate. With the implicit understanding that the clock was ticking, that this was something Ethan had to hold himself back throughout with gritted teeth and white knuckled hands. Here, there was no need to hide the way his heart was just about beating out of his chest to try and get to Benji.

The hands in his hair angled him as Benji liked as he deepened the kiss. Pulling Ethan's lip between his teeth, tugging it lightly and drawing a rumbling groan out of Ethan's chest. Benji’s tongue drives into Ethan’s mouth, pulling more sounds out of him as he molds their bodies together. Unfortunately, they did eventually need to come up for air and they panted into each other's mouths as they rested their foreheads together.

“Did Luther actually give you a shovel talk for me?”

Benji groaned halfheartedly, causing Ethan to fall into helpless laughter once again.

“Absolutely, just after I passed my field exam. One of the most terrifying things that’s ever happened to me, and I’m including having a bomb strapped to my chest. Though it’s not even the most embarrassing thing you’ve put me through. Ilsa actually tried to negotiate with me like you were a timeshare we could split.”

“Did she?”

It was Benji’s turn to laugh at Ethan’s dumbstruck expression. Looping his arms around Ethan's middle and rocking them back and forth slightly like they were dancing to a silent tune only Benji could hear. It was unbearably endearing.

“Oh yeah, very taken with you, our Ilsa was.”

“I’ve always kinda seen her as more of a little sister, honestly. What did you say to her?”

“Now I don’t believe that for a single second. And I told her I never stood a chance.”

“And what did she say to that?”

“Nothing, she just laughed at me until I left the room. Not my finest moment.”

They both giggled at that, slowing to a stop together in the fluorescent light of the safehouse, the blinds closed tight to block out the midday sun. Ethan felt a sense of deja vu, his mind superimposing their positions last night into the kitchen over Benji’s shoulder. They were so far away from each other not twenty four hours ago, holding themselves back while reaching out towards each other. And now here they were in each other's arms, telling each other they loved each other.

“So what now, team leader?” Ethan asked cheekily, resting his face into the crook of Benji’s neck and relishing in the shudder that ran through the taller man as his breath ghosted across the sensitive spot. Ethan considered the unblemished skin that Ethan had refused himself, he would have to do something about that. Highest priority.

—

“Si tu lui fais du mal, je te tuerai.”

It had taken Paris all of five minutes of watching Ethan and Benji try and keep their hands to themselves to push a knife that he hadn’t known she had to Ethan's chest and start threatening him.

Degas choked as he looked over in disbelief, glancing between the three other agents crowding around a now forgotten mask machine. Benji had insisted that he teach them how to fix it, given how often they tended to break no matter how much tinkering Luther and Benji had invested in them.

Chuckling nervously, Ethan glanced over at Benji, unsure how to proceed.

“Oh no! Don’t you look at me like that!” Benji pointed at him, a wide smile on his face, resolutely ignoring the light pink blush bloom across his cheeks. “If I had to go through this with Luther, you do too, love. Continuez, chère Paris, s’il vous plaît.”