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People tended to underestimate Benji Dunn. He seemed to have far too placid a demeanour for an IMF agent. An out and proud nerd with a fashion sense not dissimilar to a high school geography teacher hardly painted the picture of a covert agent.
Paris had to admit that she had formed a similar initial assessment of agent Dunn, back when they first came face to face in a high security Austrian prison. He seemed the total antithesis of Hunt, who had arrived calm and collected, brandishing his gun like it was second nature. Dunn looked somewhat out of place holding a weapon. His eyes were too kind, scanning over her as though she were not a blood-thirsty psychopath but someone worthy of sympathy. It felt strange to be on the receiving end of such a look.
Perhaps that was what made her agree to trust him so quickly.
She had expected, having joined them on their insane suicide mission to prevent nuclear destruction, that Dunn would trail Hunt around like a lost puppy. Hunt had this commandeering nature about him. He was also highly compassionate of course, as she had learnt on the Orient Express, but he had this way of taking stock of every situation that held her in awe. She had always considered herself more of a loose cannon, preferring to refute others from taking charge, but there was something about Hunt that made her give in. She had assumed, with him having that effect on her, that he would render someone as mild-mannered as Dunn as even more meek.
He had thoroughly taken her by surprise.
Dunn talked back to Hunt. He called him out when things got too extreme. She couldn’t tell if it was his inherent personality, or if they had just known each other for a very long time, but damn, he had some serious backbone.
And he was never wrong. It was like he knew Hunt better than Hunt knew himself. He could tell when the other agent had taken things too far.
So she continued to place complete trust in him when Hunt appointed him as team leader. Hunt had shoved a confusingly drawn out and horrendously complicated plan at his chest and ran off into the night, leaving Dunn and his newly acquired group of waif and strays to pick up the pieces. Somehow, he almost immediately knew what to do, fixing them a plane to Norway the next day.
That was the second thing she noticed. His brain. It seemed to work at the speed of light. She had risked a glance over his shoulder at Hunt’s plan a few times on the plane, which even with her limited knowledge of the English language, she could tell was almost incomprehensible.
Apparently not to Dunn, who managed to decipher exactly what Hunt needed within a matter of hours. He outlined the plan to the team in thorough detail, effortlessly translating between English and French for her benefit.
The plan was, to put it lightly, ridiculous. She had never heard something so implausible in her life. The exact timing required to rescue Hunt from the glacial waters was just too inconceivable. But Dunn seemed to have such unbridled faith in Hunt’s ability that she couldn’t help but go along with it.
He was right, of course. Well, mostly. Hunt seemed a bit worse for wear the next time she saw him. She wasn’t entirely sure what happened, but he somehow managed to retrieve the Podkova. With the team reunited, she certified that Dunn was in no way a subordinate to Hunt, but something of a kindred spirit. They were able to communicate with each other through mere glances and always seemed to understand what the other was thinking.
She had found herself growing quite fond of Dunn. It was an unfamiliar feeling. After her ordeal with Gabriel, she had expected to be very wary of older men who held a degree of authority over her. Perhaps it was because it never felt like that with Dunn. Despite his exceedingly proven competence, she didn’t perceive him so much as her team leader, but as her friend. Or, at the very least, as someone safe and comfortable.
Until, suddenly, things were neither safe nor comfortable. It had become easy to think of Hunt’s team as invincible, with Dunn’s resounding confidence and Hunt’s inane ability to cheat death. The bullet was a staunch reminder that, despite everything they’d achieved, they were still human.
She’d seen, and unfortunately inflicted, a fair share of injuries through her lifetime. But nothing had ever felt like this. She had watched the blood pool in his hands as they clutched at his chest, all the warmth and vigour of life that had drained from his face. She felt an abyss of dread pool in her stomach. She knew what a fatal bullet wound looked like.
She was sure, had it been anyone else (except perhaps Hunt, who was apparently superhuman), they would have accepted their fate and bled out a slow death on the floor of the bunker. But not Dunn. Because even through inordinate pain, he insisted on being dragged to the server room. He already felt like a dead weight propped up under her arm as she carried him through the corridor, blood having now fully permeated his wrecked shirt as he tried to stifle grunts of pain. She was careful to place him down opposite the server with the highest level of caution. It was so opposed to the way she had ever previously treated a dying man.
Her admiration of him had continued to grow since the prison break, but now she considered it must have peaked. Because, apparently, not even a collapsed lung could stifle his impenetrably sharp mind.
She watched, awe-struck, as he lay slumped against the wall with a pen haphazardly jutting out of his chest, continuing to give eloquent orders to herself and Grace. She couldn’t quite fathom the way he switched between languages despite the surely exorbitant amount of brain fog. His French was remarkably colloquial for an Englishman. It somewhat managed to qualm her nerves through the impromptu surgery.
She had used various weapons to kill. Guns were easiest, but she was no stranger to swords or even suffocation. She was probably most familiar with knives. She had lost count of the assassinations she’d carried out by stabbing. It felt like starting a journey towards rectification, using such a weapon to try to save a life as wonderful as his.
The terrifying thing was, even though she’d managed to get him breathing again, his life still hung in the balance. The blood loss was getting too severe to function and he kept drifting in and out of consciousness. Even after the mission had been declared a success, she couldn’t consider them to have succeeded yet. She needed to make sure he’d be safe.
He had passed out completely now. He had warned his blood pressure would suddenly drop. She lacked his extensive medical knowledge but assumed it must have happened. His mouth hung open and every breath was ragged. He had fully collapsed against her, and she used her position to soothingly run her hands against his chest, noting that he still had a trace of a pulse. Faint, but still there.
His hair was sweaty and matted with blood, with a few stray strands clumping down onto his forehead. She used one hand to gently stroke them back, the other still gripping him close against her. He looked almost restful, as though he were simply in a deep sleep, devoid of the turmoil they had just experienced. She wanted to think he felt as comfortable with her as she did with him. She couldn’t help but doubt that he did.
She lost track of how long they remained there, time seemingly paused on that moment as she held him against her, feeling the dull thrum of his heartbeat under her palm. The medics arrived eventually and whisked him away. She offered him a weak goodbye, despite the certainty that he could not hear it. She wasn’t sure she’d ever see him again.
The next day, she waited with bated breath as Hunt answered the phone call. His face remained solemn the entire time, and she readied herself for the inevitable news that Dunn was gone. However, when he hung up, he gave the team a gentle, closed-lip smile.
‘He’s going to be ok.’ She understood enough English to know what that meant.
A few days later, they were permitted to visit him in hospital. She arrived armed with a bouquet of flowers and a card, which she had clunkily written in English with some aid from Hunt.
For all his prior stoicism, Hunt had been very shaken up by the news of Dunn’s injury. He hadn’t seemed like one to wear his emotions on his sleeve. She knew he had lost a close friend and teammate shortly before their rendezvous on the plane, and while he was evidently hurting, he seemed to keep his grief private, remaining intensely focused on the mission. Unlike Dunn, who had openly wept against Hunt’s shoulder at the news. Yet another reason she couldn’t help but warm to him.
Perhaps it was the aggregative effect of losing two close friends, or a culmination of the events of the mission, but Hunt seemed particularly perturbed. When the team had reunited, he immediately confronted her about why Dunn was missing. She watched a slew of emotions flash through his face, from shock, to fear, to confusion.
He clocked quite early that Dunn must have been shot before he’d left to pursue Gabriel. Confusingly, that seemed to be the part that agitated him the most.
The severity of his injury meant the nurses requested they go in one at a time, thus, naturally, Hunt went first. She remained in the waiting room, seated on a plastic chair beside Grace and Degas. None of them spoke, just stared vacantly at the door to the hospital room. Hunt stayed in there for a while, returning with bleary eyes which he thought she wouldn’t notice.
There was a shared understanding among the team that she’d built up a good rapport with Dunn, so she was offered to go in next. She clasped the flowers tight against her chest as she entered the room, offput by the clinical white walls and chemical smell.
He lay in a hospital bed in the centre of the room, his head propped up by an uncomfortable looking pillow. He was hooked up by various tubes to monitoring machines and he was still much too pale, but he was alive. So wonderfully alive. He raised his head a little to offer her a smile as she reached his bedside. The inertia was clearly a bit too much, as he was forced to slump it back down onto the pillow almost immediately, giving a light chuckle.
His chest was strewn together with a myriad of bandages, crisscrossing neatly over the spot where she had jammed the pen into his failing lung. It reminded her of a safety blanket, that he was still here, he was breathing again. His hair still looked very miskept, in fact, probably worse than when she had last seen him. She couldn’t imagine having been cooped up in this room for as long as he had.
He already had a small collection of gifts on a table in the corner of the room. A similar bouquet from Ethan and various cards. One of which was from the president, he’d told her with gleaming pride. Apparently, Hunt had friends in high places. It made her feel a little second-rate about what she’d brought him, but he insisted on her placing both the card and bouquet at the forefront of the pile, right next to Hunt’s.
He had opened the card there and then. She had expected him to laugh at her jilted English, and still had the niggling thought in the back of her mind that anyone would brush off any attempted compassion from a former assassin. But his face broke into a wide grin when he read the contents, his eyes crinkling at the corners.
‘Merci beaucoup.’ He voiced, with unfettering eye contact and that same warm smile. ‘Tu m'as sauvé la vie’.
But she hadn’t really saved his life. He had saved his own life, with his expansive surgical knowledge and inability to falter under the most extreme pressure. He had saved the lives of eight billion people with his phenomenal intellect. And, before doing so, in a way, he and Hunt had saved her life.
She decided against telling him so, finding she couldn’t quite find the words to do so. It was all still so new. Instead, she took his hand gently in her own, tracing soothing circles along his palm.
The nurse came in after a few minutes, telling them her time was up. She kept her eyes trained on him as she left the room, giving him a small wave goodbye.
She went back to see him every morning for the next five days, after which he was officially discharged from the hospital.
About a week after they saved the world from the brink of nuclear collapse, she was offered the choice. She chose to accept.
There were a few complications. She had to pass the field exam, which with her skills in combat turned out to be pretty straightforward. The main problem was the language barrier. She had a very rough grasp of a select few essential phrases in English, but not enough to properly engage in conversation. The IMF had her attend daily classes, where she sat in a language lab with bulky headphones, repeating phrases she was sure she would never need to use.
When Dunn was given the all clear to return to work, he was relegated to desk duty for a good month or so. The doctors said he’d made a surprisingly speedy recovery, but he was still in no way fit for field duty. She thought he might find it a nice change of pace after the intense past few weeks. Again, he surprised her.
Dunn and desk duty, apparently, could not be more dichotomous. The mundane computer work seemed to be insufficient to stimulate his brain, as he seemed unusually jittery. A few times, when she passed by his desk, he was engaged in some sort of combat video game, which to an uninformed observer would make it seem like he was slacking off. She knew better; she’d seen his weekly reports and knew he was somehow still working his way through tasks faster than the other desk agents.
In between her English language sessions, she frequented his desk. The first few times she kept quiet, watching his dexterous fingers work away at the keyboard a mile a minute. She hadn’t wanted to disturb him, just was keen to be a near a friendly face amidst the coldness of the office. After a while, she began to realise he liked being disturbed. He welcomed the distraction.
She showed him the English worksheets she’d been tasked with completing outside the language lab, at which he’d scoffed and said something in English about schoolwork that she didn’t understand. She began filling the sheets out at his desk while he alternated between work, his game, and helping her out when she got stuck. Eventually, helping her out somehow took precedent, and whenever she was given a new worksheet, she would go straight to him.
After a while, they ended up ditching the worksheets in favour of attempting to converse with each other. The subjects were not particularly deep, simply the sorts of topics she had covered in the classes. Where they grew up, the sorts of food they liked, interests outside of work. She had no idea whereabouts in England Gloucestershire was, but the way he spoke of it was so comforting. She found herself seeing him in a whole new light yet again, gaining little glimpses into his life through his own mother tongue.
She felt quite self-conscious at first, trying to respond in English. The worst parts were when he said something which sounded like it should be simple, yet she couldn’t wrap her head around the words and had to abashedly ask him to repeat himself. Or, occasionally, to switch back to French. Somehow, whenever it happened, he acted almost as though he were at fault for making things complicated, offering her gentle words of encouragement.
She learnt he preferred coffee over tea, which she found baffling. His movement was still a little limited, so she occasionally brought him a cup to his desk. He took it black, with no sugar, which really didn’t seem to fit him at all. He also seemed to have a liking for cinnamon gum. He kept a large pack of it in his desk drawer, which he immediately offered to her when she pointed it out. She found the taste repulsive and spat it out into the trash, apologising as he laughed at her screwed-up expression. She didn’t understand how he could chew through so much of the stuff. She supposed that anything to alleviate his obvious boredom was a plus.
Her English was getting better by the day. The need to revert to French whenever she spoke with him was gradually dissipating, and she was starting to pick up on the delightful expressiveness of his voice when he spoke in English.
She decided she wanted to really impress him and learnt a few English idioms outside of work hours, so that on a particularly miserable day, weather-wise, she tapped him on the shoulder and said it’s raining cats and dogs, with a proud smile. He took one look at her and burst into a full bellied-laugh, which was apparently not good for his recovering bullet wound, as he had to lean to one side and clutch his chest. She apologised profusely, but he shucked it off, telling her it was well and truly worth the pain. After that, she tried to keep laughter to a minimum until he was fully recovered.
One of the worst things about recovery, he told her, was not being able to visit the gym. She hadn’t taken him for much of a gym rat. She knew he was surprisingly toned, from when she had to undo his shirt in the server room, but she had assumed his priorities would be more technology based.
He told her about his early days in the IMF, when he worked as a technician. She managed to translate enough to understand that, after Hunt showed up at his desk, his world transformed. He developed a healthy fixation on getting in shape, and a taste for the adrenaline Hunt always seemed to be chasing. Hunt’s name came up a lot, as he emphasised his early phase of hero-worship.
He said he assumed she’d find him crazy for joining the field for Hunt. Turning his life around so dramatically because he had been so awe-inspired by another agent. She didn’t find it crazy at all.
It wasn’t until their first mission back in the field together that she realised something pretty crucial about Dunn’s relationship with Hunt.
Hunt had fallen back into his role of team leader for this one. Dunn had been cleared to return to field duty, but given the severity of his injury, he was considered by the IMF too much of a liability to be appointed team leader for his first few missions back. She, unfortunately, lacked the authority to question it.
Dunn seemed much more in his element back in active duty. A mischievous glint had returned to his smile the moment they had set off for Spain, tasked with intercepting an arms dealer. They all knew nothing could ever compare to the scope of their previous mission, but she found herself enthralled by returning to the throes of danger.
One thing led to another and they found themselves needing to infiltrate a security system to gain an access key. An underwater security system. She found this setup perplexing, but Hunt and Dunn seemed none too phased, apparently having encountered a similar system a few years ago in Casablanca. Dunn, as ever, had unwavering faith in Hunt.
‘He can hold his breath for six minutes. I’ve seen him do it.’ She didn’t doubt him, after Norway.
Still, Hunt insisted on getting some practice in, and luckily their safehouse was equipped with a pool. She stood on the side with Dunn and the others. He held an electronic countdown timer, watching as Hunt remained submerged in the chlorinated water for longer than seemed humanly possible. She could practically feel her airways constricting in sympathy. She didn’t want to imagine how Dunn must feel, considering his still minorly weakened lung.
The alarm on Dunn’s timer made her jump as Hunt burst through the surface of the water, gasping for air. He took a moment to collect himself before offering the group one of his trademark smiles, leading Grace and Degas to dissolve into guffaws of astonishment. She just stared blankly at the pool, somewhat in shock. Dunn gave a friendly nudge against her side.
‘Told you he could do it.’ He beamed, lacking the bewilderment of his teammates, clearly accustomed to Hunt’s death-defying physical abilities. She wondered if she would ever get used to it too.
The others remained distracted as Hunt made his way to climb out of the pool, the water rippling off his muscular physique like something out of a raunchy advertisement. They hadn’t anticipated an underwater heist, so they hadn’t brought appropriate swimwear, meaning Hunt was clad in just a tight-fitting pair of black boxer shorts. She felt the need to avert her gaze, offer him a bit of privacy, so she turned her attention back to Dunn.
Who apparently did not feel the same need to do so.
His glance remained somewhat surreptitious, but she noticed it nonetheless, as his eyes briefly trailed up Hunt’s body and the tips of his ears turned red. It was all within the blink of an eye, and he was very quick to recompose himself, as if he had trained himself to remain covert. But she caught it. And something began to click into place.
She stifled a giggle, which she was sure he noticed, as he turned to face her looking slightly aghast. He hastily grabbed a towel from the poolside and passed it to Hunt, who thanked him and wrapped it around his waist.
‘Think we’re ready.’ Hunt affirmed, at which the team headed back inside to collect their gear and get set up.
She kept focused on Dunn the entire time, who didn’t falter again like he had at the poolside, but she couldn’t help but notice subtle warmth in his eyes whenever he looked at Hunt. It was the sort of thing that, observant as she may be, she wouldn’t have noticed previously, but it was now impossible not to read into.
She confronted him about it later on, after they’d successfully extracted the access key. She found him sitting out by the pool, tinkering with some gadget from his supply bag. The others were inside, catching up on rest after the exhaustion of their day. She took a seat on the lounge chair opposite him, perched against the edge, leaning forward so she could whisper close to him.
‘You like him’. He sharply looked up from his gadget, his eyebrows furrowing quizzically.
‘What do you mean?’ She rolled her eyes jovially.
‘Hunt. You like Hunt.’ He gave her a broken laugh, continuing to look mildly confused.
‘Of course I like him. I wouldn’t have been working with him for twenty years if I didn’t.’
She knew they’d known each other for a while, but damn, that was over half her lifetime. No wonder they could communicate through unspoken glances. She briefly wondered whether he had felt like this for their entire time together.
She quirked an eyebrow at him, leaning a little closer forward, attempting to give him a clearer indication that she had figured him out. The true implication of her words seemed to finally dawn on him, as he seemingly resigned himself to confessing, leaning back with a sigh. His usual confidence vanished with a snap. He had completely broken eye contact with her, looking dejectedly down at his hands as he twiddled his thumbs over each other.
‘Ok, fine. But please don’t talk tell anyone about it. I’m not exactly out to any of them yet.’ It was her turn to look confused.
‘What is “out”?’ She questioned. He looked back up from his thumbs and offered her a soft smile, the same as he usually did when English words evaded her. His gaze then flickered towards the door of the safehouse, inside of which the rest of their team was resting.
‘Ils ne savent pas que je suis gay.’ His eyes kept shifting up and down as he said it, refusing to look directly at her. She shifted back a little on the deck chair, giving him more space.
‘Ah’. She spoke gently, watching as he went back to playing with his thumbs. He kept eyeing his gadget which now lay discarded on the floor, as though he wanted to go back to fixing his tech and forget this conversation had ever happened. She felt guilty for having made him uncomfortable. She drew in a steely breath, realising that as he’d opened up to her, she may as well do the same.
‘Moi aussi’. She told him, with a compassionate nod. He finally managed to face her, his eyes widening gradually and his mouth quirked to the side. He remained that way for a good moment as he processed her confession, before closing the space between the lounge chairs to pull her into a hug.
‘I won’t tell anyone.’ She whispered against his shoulder. She felt him grip onto her a little tighter.
‘Moi aussi.’ He replied.
A few months later, the team felt fully back on its feet. They were sent on a reconnaissance mission to Paris, which Benji led, as Ethan was off on some classified solo project.
She wasn’t sure when they became Benji and Ethan. It sort of slipped into place gradually.
On the flight over, she sat next to Benji, who was engrossed in a sci-fi movie she had never seen. When she saw the credits start to roll, she tapped him on the shoulder and told him that, despite her namesake, she had never actually been to Paris before. He looked at her as though she had just said something completely absurd.
‘How have you never been to Paris?’ She shrugged. She mockingly told him that there’s more to France than just Paris, at which he scoffed and jokingly retorted that of course he knew that.
Still, he didn’t seem to have taken it lightly, because in a rare moment of downtime amidst the chaos of the mission, he insisted on taking her round the city. He didn’t exactly make for the best guide, having only visited a couple of times himself, but he seemed to have a decent enough grasp of the basic tourist hotspots.
In return, when they ended up in a traditional patisserie, she pointed out to him the best pastries, which they bought and shared in a cobbled side street. He told her she had exceptional taste, to which she replied that he’d have to show her the nicest English food if she ever visited with him. He, for some reason, found that highly amusing.
‘You’d probably be disappointed. English food is kinda shit.’ She wasn’t sure what that word meant. It hadn’t come up in any of the IMF language exercises.
They ended up in a posh Parisian restaurant for dinner, sipping expensive red wine as they waited for their entrees (the IMF budget, she was starting to learn, was certainly extensive). It was all a bit too extravagant for her taste, and she got the impression that he shared a similar sentiment, but the wine was good and she enjoyed his company, so she couldn’t complain.
She asked him when he’d last been to Paris, at which he grew a bit wistful, and she realised she’d struck a nerve. It seemed to choke him up for a moment, which he tried to cover with a cough, but she noticed. His eyes had glazed over a little.
‘She was here.’ He said, sombrely. She didn’t need him to elaborate further. Guilt slashed through her like a knife and she recoiled back in her chair slightly. He seemed to notice, blinking rapidly and placing his hand delicately atop hers.
‘I think she would have liked you.’ He reassured her. She wasn’t so convinced. She felt a sharp concern that perhaps, if not for her, she would be with him here now instead. She wasn’t entirely sure how close they had been. She knew she and Ethan had shared a deeply engrained bond, but Benji didn’t talk about her much. She assumed there must have been some element of affection between them, knowing him.
‘I’m sorry.’ She said it as earnestly as she could manage. She knew it would never be enough.
He was quick to divert the topic, telling her stories of a trip to Paris in his youth with his parents and sister. She hadn’t known he had a sister. She decided not to enquire further about his family, with family being more of a sore subject for her personally. She noticed that he generally spoke quite positively about his childhood, for which she tried to subdue a pang of jealousy.
Having a moment to just the two of them, she managed to finally switch over to the subject of Ethan, which had him blushing and stuttering like a schoolboy in a way she found wholly endearing. She learnt he had, in fact, found him attractive for the full twenty years, which placed a whole new perspective on his technician desk story from a few months ago. At the time, he admitted, it was simply attraction. Once he started field work, and Ethan entrusted him on every mission post their Kremlin break-in, it apparently morphed into something more.
She imagined, for someone who seems to give love so freely, that it must be hard keeping that bottled up for all this time.
‘Would you ever tell him?’ He shook his head.
‘Think it’s been too long now. It would just make things weird, you know? Besides, he probably already knows I love him, one way or another. I kind of doubt it’s reciprocated.’
For once, he’s completely wrong. She had noticed subtle tells from Ethan, typically in the lull between missions, when he wasn’t so intensely focused on getting the job done. She’d really noticed it when he learnt of Benji’s injury. If only Benji had been there to see that. There’s love there, from Ethan. She could almost certify its existence, but she couldn’t quite determine its nature, platonic or otherwise.
‘Maybe you should.’ He looked at her contemplatively, before shaking his head again with a resigned chuckle.
‘Would you ever “come out” to any of the others?’ She pressed further, brandishing the words ‘come out’ with air quotations. He laughed more openly at that.
‘Maybe I should.’ He threw back at her. ‘I dunno, it’s just never really come up. Would you?’
‘Yes. I think I trust them.’ She tilted her head to the side, offering him a sly smile. ‘But I’m glad I told you first.’ He quickly returned her smile and gave her a wink.
A few hours later, they returned to their accommodation for the night, arms interlinked, full on rich stew and slightly drunk from the wine. Grace and Degas (Theo, she had eventually learnt) openly gawked at them. Benji made some quip about being a terribly unprofessional team leader (which, of course, she found horrifically untrue), before retiring to his room with a slightly slurred goodnight. Grace followed suit, trailing him sleepily along the corridor. She was about to set off to do the same, grinning stupidly, until she was stopped by a touch on the shoulder from Theo.
‘You and Dunn, huh? Gotta say, he’s a bit old for you, but he’s a nice guy. Good for you!’
She’s unsure if it’s the effects of the alcohol, or whether she genuinely is becoming fully comfortable around the team, but she practically doubled over in fits of laughter.
‘Oh, you’re so wrong.’ She snickered, before stumbling her way along the corridor to her room.
They worked well together in the field. Their styles were polar opposites, herself far more brawl while he brought the brains. Perhaps that was why they complemented each other so well.
Benji had been delegated as team leader for several further missions and his apprehension in doing so had nearly faded. While he had truly solidified his leadership skills, they were still occasionally deployed as a team under Ethan’s lead. Officially, at least. Unofficially, the two of them sort of shared the role between them, preferring to formulate their plans in collaboration with each other.
She was quickly learning that Ethan’s plans had more of a penchant for on-foot pursuit, much to the chagrin of her cardiovascular system. She was in exceptional shape and could impeccably handle high levels of physical combat, but keeping pace with Ethan’s running was near impossible. She considered it further proof of his superhuman abilities.
Herself, Ethan and Theo, as the three most physically strong, were chasing through the streets of London in pursuit of their mark, who was in possession of a detonator. They had planned to split off down separate side streets to cut him off from every side, but when she arrived at the clearing of the street, they were nowhere to be seen. Fearing they’d been caught in an ambush, and dead set on fulfilling their objective, she kept pace further down the street, until she came face to face with the mark.
Acquiring the detonator was simple enough with her prowess. A few well-timed kicks to the stomach and a mean right hook to his nose had her in possession of the detonator in no time, with the mark laying in a bloody heap against the wall. She reached for her comms, noticing a dull ache flair up across her shoulder.
‘Ethan? Benji? Come in. I got it.’ The same ache pulsed again through her arm, this time with a sharper intensity. She forced back a groan of pain, turning her head to inspect the back of her shoulder. She couldn’t help but wince.
Amidst their fight, the mark had somehow managed to get a good slice of her shoulder with his knife. Blood was pooling rapidly from the wound and had begun to trickle down her upper back. It paled in comparison to her stab wound on the Orient Express, but nonetheless she felt bile collect in the back of her throat. She gently pressed a hand against the incision, which proved to be a mistake, as the edges of her vision turned cloudy. With a stifled gasp, she stumbled back against the wall opposite the mark. The cloudiness crept further in, encompassing the entirety of her sight, before she succumbed to the blood loss and collapsed completely, grimly mirroring the mark’s position.
It didn’t feel like she was out for long. She could vaguely recollect being gently hoisted up and hearing vague murmurs of concern. She couldn’t be completely sure if she had imagined it or not.
She woke up in the back of a van, blearily blinking the cloudiness out of her eyes. The dull ache persisted but the prior sharpness had somewhat diminished. In her disorientation, she was slow to realise her arm had acquired a new weight, and in delirium she took a moment to consider why that could be. Eventually, her head cleared, and she looked across her shoulder to realise it had been wrapped tight in a rather sweaty shirt.
She cautiously attempted to lift her head from its resting place, which she began to register had been atop someone’s shoulder, with the way it stirred slightly from her movement. Her head felt sluggish and heavy. She couldn’t help emitting a low groan of pain.
‘Easy there, Paris. You’re alright.’ He sounded hazy, but it was certainly Benji’s voice. She pressed her head a little deeper into his shoulder.
‘Collant.’ She mumbled, her voice sounding alien to her own ears. The syllables sort of crackled and there was an undeniable undercurrent of pain. He stilled against her for a moment, evidently unsure of what she meant, before it clicked.
‘Ah, the shirt? Sorry about that, its mine, we didn’t really have anything to stop the blood flow.’ Her observational skills really had been impaired. She only just discerned the thin seams of his undershirt pressing against her head. She managed a muffled chuckle, before raising her eyes slightly to meet his.
‘Thank you.’ She murmured.
‘Any time. I guess we’re even now, huh?’ He joked, fixing her a warm smile. She didn’t really see it that way. He’d saved her more times than she could count by now.
He carefully cradled a hand against the back of her head as she pressed her face closer into his neck. He gently caressed his fingers up and down across her forehead, the soothing pattern providing a digression from the pain. Eventually, she let the exhaustion overtake her. She allowed herself to return to a state of rest, feeling safe to close her eyes as she leant against him, the rise and fall of his breath lulling her back to sleep.
He was no longer there the next time she woke up. Her head felt far less muddy, and she quickly recognised the oversized, itchy fabric of a hospital gown. The stark white walls burned her retinas and the smell transported her back to that terrifying day nearly a year ago, when she walked through the doors to Benji’s ward in trepidation.
A few moments later, she watched as he did the same for her, with Ethan close in tow. His face immediately broke out into a grin at the sight of her awake, which she enthusiastically returned.
‘You’re looking well!’ He beamed at her in satisfaction. She risked a glimpse down at her bandaged shoulder, which now barely ached, having been overtaken by an anaesthetic numbness. She shrugged back at him.
‘Of course she is. She’s a tough one.’ Ethan voiced from behind him, placing a hand atop his shoulder. She squinted a little at the gesture, noticing a tinge of pink cross Benji’s cheeks.
Before she had time to question it, a nurse came barraging into the room, chastising them for not going in to see her one at a time. They both offered him copious apologies.
‘You stay in with her first.’ Ethan insisted, his palm still resting on Benji’s shoulder. The eye contact between them was intense and, unusually, as equally openly affectionate on both sides. She narrowed her eyes a little further with the inkling that something must have transpired between them while she’d been out.
The nurse ushered Ethan out of the room as Benji moved closer over to her bedside. He seated himself on an uncomfortable looking stool beside her.
‘Yeah, we probably shouldn’t have both come in, we were just very keen to check on you. It was enough of a pain getting them to let us visit you at all. They said only immediate family were allowed in at this point, so we really had to nag them.’ He scoffed. She hesitated, drawing in a slow breath.
‘They should have let you in straight away, then.’ She stated. For a moment, he simply stared at her contemplatively, thoroughly taking in what she’d said. It appeared to really shake him, as his smile somehow widened even further and his eyes welled up a little. He clasped her hand tight around her own.
‘Yeah. They should have.’ He blinked the moisture from his eyes rapidly and gave her a curt nod. She felt a little choked up herself. They remained there for a while, him tracing circles around her palm with his thumb. She eventually grew a little put out by the silence, and her grin turned mischievous.
‘Something happened with Ethan?’ She gave her voice a sly edge and tilted her head a little, jovially taunting him. He rolled his eyes and laughed.
‘You really don’t miss a trick, do you?’ He muttered under his breath, shaking his head fondly. She caught it nonetheless. She remained fixated on him, imploringly. He sighed. ‘Something may have happened.’
She gave an undignified squeak, then attempted to sit up to pull him into an embrace. The numbness of her shoulder suddenly converted back into a sharp pain, forcing her to slouch back down onto the bed with a huff. He raised his hands in an attempt to subdue her.
‘Woah, take it easy there.’ She settled for the compromise of rejoining his hand with hers.
She knew it wasn’t really her business. They were both, but Ethan particularly, rather private people. Still, she couldn’t resist prying a little deeper.
‘What happened?’ He chuckled and shuffled the stool a little closer, placing his other hand atop their already conjoined palms.
‘I don’t know, sitting there in the van watching you, something came over me. I knew you’d have wanted me to open up to him a little.’ She furrowed her eyebrows at him, and he turned defensive. ‘Not that I thought that would be the last time I’d see you or anything, because it wasn’t a lethal wound and you’re obviously one of the toughest people I know, but seeing you passed out and in pain and everything it made me think of that night in Paris and what you’d said, and goodness now I’m babbling, I’m ever so sorry…’
She cut him off with a laugh, which sent an unfortunate ripple of pain across her shoulder. He grimaced, clutching her hand a little tighter.
‘You saved my life.’ She told him. He immediately deflected to doubt, an eyebrow quirking up to one side in confusion.
‘No, the cut wasn’t deep enough to be lethal, you would have lived. I just helped you out a bit.’ She nodded in affirmation.
‘I know. But it’s still true.’
For all his intellect, she wasn’t completely sure that he understood what she meant. She found she didn’t need him to. Just saying it was enough. She kept her hand firmly in his grasp until the nurse returned to escort him out. She was the most safe and comfortable she had ever been.