Mission: Impossible Gen Week 2025

Nothing Ethan had done could ever have prepared him for this.

Abseiling off the side of a building while bleeding out - fine. Fighting ten goons while armed with nothing but a stapler - fine. Driving a car off a cliff - fine. Disarming a nuclear bomb while handcuffed - fine.

The baby? toddler? small squirming thing that Rick had placed into his arms before rushing off stared up at him. Ethan stared back, feeling more anxious than he had that one time he’d had to carry a live bomb vest out of a civilian area.

Ethan stared bleakly down the road, hoping futilely that Julia’s brother would come back, would tell him this was all a joke, there wasn’t an emergency, and he didn’t actually need Ethan Hunt - IMF Agent and trained killer - to take care of Rick's new girlfriend’s small wriggly child.

All he could hear was the barking of a neighbour’s dogs in the distance. 

He looked down at the kid again. “Jesse, did your mom’s boyfriend know that when we told him to let us know if he needed anything, we didn’t mean like this?”

Jesse wriggled some more. “Dow’”

Ethan sighed and put the kid down on the mat behind him, giving the outside world one last longing glance before he shut the door. When he turned around Jesse was already tottering off on his little legs.

“Whoa hey hey hey-”

Misplacing a WMD would be less stressful.

Jesse - who, from his confidence, Ethan was quickly getting the impression must be left with strangers pretty often - seemed to find their living room very interesting. As Jesse investigated their coffee table, Ethan watched him like he’d watch a foreign agent, trying to understand their way of thinking, their next moves. At first, he wondered if this mission might end up being a milk run - opening and closing the video-cassette case Julia had left on the coffee table seemed to require a lot of concentration.

However, it turned out to be a good thing he was too well trained to let himself relax or his mind wander, because once Jesse had managed to sit himself on top of the coffee table and start digging his hands through Julia’s bowl of decorative marbles, giggling in delight, he suddenly tried to shove a handful of them into his mouth. Ethan was very, very grateful for his quick reflexes.

Jesse was not a fan of the marbles being disappeared in a magic trick, but he did seem to like it when Ethan made the TV remote appear instead. His small forehead wrinkled in concentration as he pressed the tiny buttons.

Then, he investigated the rest of the room.

Jesse liked the ornaments Julia kept on the bookshelves, particularly the little golden retriever figurine. He made it run around the shelf, yelling ‘woof, woof, woof’. It was one of Ethan’s favourites too. Julia had said how much she liked dogs when she’d bought it, and had said he’d liked them too, not adding that no matter how many times he’d been set upon by guard dogs, he still had fond memories of playing with the ones on the farm when he was a kid. Julia had asked him if he wanted to get one, a rescue maybe, but Ethan wasn’t sure yet, couldn’t shake the feeling that taking on that extra layer of commitment, in this nice life that wasn’t meant for people like him, would make everything fall apart.

Next, the kid wanted to have a look at the ornaments on the shelves above. He didn’t yet have the upper body strength in his chubby little arms to haul himself up the bookshelf like a ladder, but that was okay, because Ethan could help him, supporting him with one arm while the other caught a model of Lake Wanaka that Jesse wanted to move out his way and ended up sending flying towards the floor.

Technically, Jesse did seem to be wearing some kind of harness, one that some parents seemed to use to stop their kids running into a road, but Ethan didn’t think it was a very good one. If he held onto it and Jesse fell, then the kid would probably hurt his ribs, and despite the number of broken ribs Ethan had had over the years, they still hurt and were very inconvenient, so he’d never want the child to have to go through that, especially not so small. Ethan could probably make something better for him.

Jesse screamed when he reached the top and Ethan plucked him off, spinning him round in the air before depositing him on the ground. The boy looked up at him, giggling manically, eyes shining, holding his hands up in the air. “Up up! Agai’ agai’!”

Ethan obliged, tossing him up into the air as Jesse roared with laughter. Ethan found himself smiling too - maybe this whole babysitting schtick wouldn’t be as hard as he’d previously thought.

Once Jesse started to get a bit too overwhelmed from all the flying around, Ethan lay down on the ground and lifted him gently up and down above his chest like he would a set of dumbells. It was hard work, but no harder than he usually trained, and at least he wouldn’t have to go to the gym today. It was also a lot more satisfying - gym equipment never started laughing and saying ‘up, dow’, up, dow’. 

For a long time, Ethan had thought it better to keep people at arm’s reach. All he did was get people hurt or killed. Luther was an exception, and so was Julia - but only because he couldn’t stay away from her, he knew if he wasn’t so selfish he would have let her go instead of moving into her house and planning to buy somewhere with her. But, right here, right now, there was a small part of him that was wondering if maybe he was capable of making more people happy too.

-

They had grilled cheese for lunch - “yummy,” - during which Ethan tried to engage Jesse in conversation. The kid wasn’t a particularly good conversation partner, and couldn’t even tell Ethan how old he was. He tried various different languages, and Jesse babbled some of the sounds back at him, but didn’t seem to understand any of them. Maybe because he got dropped off with random people and they didn’t know how to talk to him? Ethan thought back to his own childhood - his earliest memories had been from when he was around the same height, maybe one and a half, two, and he could remember sitting up in a tractor, talking basic German to one of the people who worked for his parents.

Then again, he could also remember his mom laughing uncontrollably when he told her he was gonna start learning yet another language at college, telling him that she was told that he should be able to say about twenty words when he was eighteen months, and she’d stopped counting once she’d hit two hundred. He can also remember thinking the other kids were really stupid when he’d joined kindergarten, not being able to understand why they couldn’t just look at something and remember it. He’d also learnt that he’d needed to hide just how good his memory was very quickly.

So, maybe it wasn’t that Jesse wasn’t very good at talking, maybe he was just a normal toddler?

Still, after they had cleared up the sticky mess of cheese and crumbs smeared on Jesse’s face, hands, clothes and hair (Ethan had been the recipient of interrogation sessions that were less messy), he decided that he really should start getting the kid’s communication skills up to scratch. Jesse didn’t seem to appreciate Ethan’s attempts to teach him Spanish - the second most common language in the United States - and passed out on the sofa.

Still, that was normal, right? Small children were meant to sleep a lot. It also meant that he could put his plan into action and, among other things, start making Jesse a harness that would be better to climb in. So, he collected one of the de-activated bugs he had stored underneath Julia’s wardrobe, got the earpiece from behind the kitchen lightswitch, and connected them both together before leaving the bug next to the kid and putting the earpiece in. Now, if Jesse had any problems while he got what he needed from the garage, he would know immediately. 

-

When Jesse woke up an hour and a half later, the entire living room had been rearranged and Ethan was feeling very proud of himself.

However, before a mission, it was always best to have adequate food and hydration, so they sat at the coffee table, drank some water and ate a satsuma - remembering the marbles from earlier, Ethan carefully handed Jesse the segments that didn’t have pips in them. At the start of their snack, as the kid came back into wakefulness, Jesse looked around him, frowning at all the way the things in the room had been moved around, but as the time continued he grew twitchier, shifting around where he was sitting.

Jesse looked down, clearly very unhappy. “Oh dear.”

Ah. Still, on closer inspection, it seemed as if, even if Jesse wasn’t feeling very comfortable, the diaper was doing its job. Ethan’s mind raced, trying to think of a suitable replacement, but was unable to come up with anything. Hopefully, Julia’s brother would return soon - if not they’d either need to head to the shops or start walking around and asking the neighbours. He wasn't a fan of either option. He didn’t want to be out when Rick returned and he didn’t really want to be any more memorable to the neighbours than he had to be - Julia liked making friends, but it made him twitchy.

He ruffled the kid’s hair like the adults had used to do to him when he was little on the farm.

“It’s okay, it happens to everyone,” he said, which was true. At least Jesse was just little and it hadn’t happened because he’d been tazed or kicked hard in the lower stomach or locked in a tiny interrogation room for four days.

Anyway, what the kid needed was a distraction, so it was time for the mission briefing.

“Agent Jesse,” Hunt said seriously, picking him up and pointing out the various parts of the obstacle course to him. “1 hour ago, an unknown group of criminals seized the TV remote. They have placed it in a secure vault. This vault is guarded by a high wall and a laser grid. The vault itself has a pressure sensitive floor - to access it, you will need to rappel down from the ceiling. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to recover the TV remote and escape. As always, should you be captured or killed the- the Virginia Department of Transportation will send its best agent to rescue you.”

Agent Jesse didn’t seem to understand that when you broke into a secure site, you had to do it chronologically. He made a beeline towards the laser grid that Ethan had made behind the couch out of bits of string from the garage, crawling under and over the lines. He also didn’t seem to understand at first that you weren’t meant to touch the bits of string, so Ethan made loud alarm noises and started tickling him to emphasize the fact that he’d tripped the security measures and the air vent had been electrified. This didn’t really seem to teach Jesse to avoid the lasers, as he broke out into peals of laughter and started touching the string on purpose.

Still, Ethan figured, Jesse was having a good time, and it was still a great feeling to be able to make someone happy who wasn’t Julia or Luther, and also Julia would be so pleased at what a great job he was doing at babysitting her brother’s girlfriend’s kid.

When Jesse got bored of being ‘electrocuted’, Ethan got him into the harness and helped him scale his way up the bookcase again. This time, the bookcase had been emptied, moved away from the wall, turned around, and secured to the floor so it definitely wouldn’t fall over. He’d also secured a hook into the ceiling, through which he could attach the climbing rope. Jesse made his way all the way to the top, supported by Ethan and the rope, and then Ethan helped him to jump off the other side, playing the part of the slow automatic belay getting him safely inside the compound.

Jesse made it very clear that he wasn’t too big a fan of climbing a lot, but he did want to belay inside the compound again and again.

Finally, they made it to the vault itself.

Slowly, using the other hook he’d drilled into the ceiling (he hoped Julia wouldn’t mind as long as he filled the hole in and painted over it again), he lowered Jesse off the display cabinet and down towards the shoe box he’d balanced the remote onto.

Jesse was grinning at him, waving his arms and legs about in excitement and chanting ‘dow', dow', dow'!’.

Behind him, the front door clicked open. Making sure to keep a firm grip on the rope, he turned around to see Julia pushing the door open, keys in one hand and work bag in the other.

“Hey babe,” she shouted. “I’m h-”

She caught sight of Ethan, her eyes met his, her eyes were drawn to the scene behind him. Her mouth dropped open.

Luther has known Ethan Hunt long enough to know that the man will keep going until he runs himself into the ground if nobody’s there to rein him in. There was a time when he had taken vacations, taken time off, traveled, relaxed, but that version of Ethan hadn’t been present in quite a while. He’ll rest, when he’s not on missions, when he can’t convince anyone to send him back out into the field immediately after he’s finished another job, but it’s perfunctory.

This is not how Luther Stickell operates. Luther values his time off, and he makes the most of it. He loves what he does, and he’ll always drop whatever he’s doing to help Ethan if he asks, but he actually has a life outside of work. He enjoys his vacations. He catches up with his cousins, brings gifts to his nephew, even goes to concerts every now and again. Nobody in the IMF knows about this, and he likes to keep it that way. But they do know that he takes his free time seriously. Luther figures it’s about time to get the rest of his team to do that, too, if only just once. So when a mission ends on the coast north of Los Angeles, Luther takes advantage of this and somehow manages to convince Ethan, Benji, and Ilsa to join him on an outing to a secluded beach.

“Okay,” Luther says as he drops his bags on the sand, the others following suit. “I got food, I got drinks. Help yourselves, but leave some for me.”

“You got it,” Ethan says, grinning. He starts to set up a few umbrellas and beach towels.

Benji focuses on placing his beach chair in the shade of an umbrella Ethan just finished opening and proceeds to plop down into it, hands behind his head. There’s a streak of white on his neck where he didn’t rub his sunscreen in enough.

Ilsa tosses her bag onto a towel and immediately begins to strip off her clothes, already wearing her swimsuit underneath. She eyes Benji and Luther, who has also settled into a lounge chair in the shade. “We’re at the beach, and you two are just going to sit here?”

“This is a day off, and I will enjoy it how I please,” Benji proclaims, crossing his legs, somehow making the movement look defiant. He picks up a book from his backpack and opens it up. Luther casts a surreptitious glance in Benji’s direction to try to glean the title. It appears to be some sort of science fiction novel, judging by the typeface.

Luther just gives Ilsa a look, and she stifles a laugh. They both know she was poking fun at Benji, not him. She knows better than to do that to Luther.

“Suit yourself,” Ilsa says, striding towards the ocean.

“You’re the one who keeps complaining about being stuck behind a computer screen, Benji,” Ethan says while he takes off his own shirt, idly throwing it over his bag and slipping out of his sandals.

Benji makes a face. “Do you see a computer screen here, Ethan? No. I’m quite happy to be on a beach with my book, thanks.”

Ethan shrugs, grinning cheekily. “Whatever you say. I’m going to enjoy the water. Have fun with your book.”

“Are you making fun of me for reading?” Benji shouts after Ethan, affronted.

“Not at all,” Ethan calls back. “Just pointing out that you can read anywhere else. Can’t exactly swim in the ocean whenever you want to.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Benji grumbles, opening his book again with a cross expression.

Luther chuckles. “Don’t mind them. I’m just glad you all came out here. I think this’ll do you good.”

“I expect it will,” Benji says. “I needed a proper holiday.”

Luther smiles and leans his head back against the chair. He watches as Ethan jogs after Ilsa, the two of them wading into the water together. She dives beneath the waves, and Ethan follows. A few minutes later, the two of them are distant dots in the blue-green Pacific, gently bobbing up and down.

It always surprises people when Luther tells them he has no trouble unplugging. Doesn’t mean he never gets caught up in a project or works too many hours. It just means that when he takes the time to relax, he actually relaxes. Luther closes his eyes and lets the sound of the waves washing up on the shore draw him into a hazy half-sleep, enjoying the heat radiating up from the sand and the light breeze rustling the fabric of the umbrellas overhead. Seagulls chatter somewhere above. He lets time slip by easily, not worrying about wasting the hours, because there are no hours to waste, no obligations to miss.

And then a disgruntled yelp jolts Luther out of his reverie and he blinks his eyes open to see Ethan and Ilsa hauling Benji up by his hands and feet, laughing as they ignore his struggles as they drag him towards the ocean.

“Hey, you can’t just– for fuck’s sake, put me DOWN!”

Luther raises an eyebrow and sits up in his chair, observing with amusement.

Benji’s panicked eyes catch Luther’s and he tries to twist around to call out to him. “Luther, tell them to put me down!”

“I don’t think I will,” Luther says, enjoying the aghast expression on Benji’s face. “I’d like to see how this plays out, actually.”

“Bloody traitor!”

Luther just shakes his head and watches as Ethan and Ilsa unceremoniously throw Benji into the water. He gets fully consumed by the waves and emerges sputtering indignantly, utterly soaked. Ethan laughs and easily dodges Benji’s attempt to splash him. Ilsa remains unfazed as Benji tries to get her, too.

“You bastards! You couldn’t have just– just– asked? I might have said yes!”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Ethan asks, and this time Benji does manage to splash him. He spits out some of the sea water, still grinning. “You need to let loose.”

“I am letting loose!” Benji clambers to his feet, looking thoroughly put out.

“You are now,” Ilsa remarks, earning her another splash. “Come on, Benji. Might as well join us now that you’re here.”

A seagull almost solved that problem for her, swooping down to make a grab for the flake, but her reflexes extended towards dodging opportunistic birds as well as bullets. She started eating the ice cream before any more of them could make an attempt, looking across to Benji who was quickly chewing through his own flake so that he could reply.

"Don't be such a downer," Benji said firmly. "We've got to make the most of this, the IMF is only doing this because of the clusterfuck that was last mission. They definitely owed us some time off."

The idea that the organisation owed them anything was another foreign concept. In Ilsa's experience, if a mission had gone as far off-plan as their last one had done, it would be on her to go back and grovel for any kind of leeway in the aftermath, not the other way around. It wouldn't have mattered if she'd completed the objective or not.

"Come on, Ilsa," Benji said. "I can feel you overthinking this. An ice-cream isn't that complicated. All you have to do is eat it before it melts." He looked pointedly at where the last of it was starting to drip down onto her fingers.

She followed his advice, only a little reluctantly, mulling things over as she chewed on the last of the cone.

"I can't remember the last time I was on a beach like this outside of a mission," she finally spoke up.

"Me neither." Benji offered her a small smile, one that quickly fell. "You know, I think the last time was when we had to infiltrate a compound at night and the only option had us swimming up to it in scuba gear. Not a fun one, that one. That's why I say we've got to make the most of this, you know?"

As he spoke, his hand slipped down to cradle his other arm, rubbing over the bandages. Ilsa tried not to follow the movement, but knew that they were both thinking the same thing. They needed to make the most of this, yes, not only because downtime was a rarity, but also because who knew what day may be their last? As happy as they were now, sitting together on the beach, they'd come far too close to death last mission. If it had struck just a few inches to the right, the bullet that had grazed benji could have hit an artery instead.

Benji shook himself. "That's enough of that, though," he said. "Come on, what do you do when you go to a beach for fun? Are you a surfer or something? I bet you're a surfer."

It was an obvious distraction, but Ilsa decided to play along. By this point she could accept the change of subject for what it was; an act of mercy instead of manipulation.

"Not right now, I don't think," she replied. "You?"

"God no," Benji laughed, then pulled out a tablet. It was already loaded with one of the many games Ilsa had seen him playing between missions,

Still, she smiled. "You're a man after my own heart, then."

"Really?" Benji blinked. "You play videogames?"

"Not quite, no," she laughed, and pulled out a book, something she'd picked up in the shop they'd gotten the ice cream from. "But I also enjoy having somewhere different to spend my time. The change of scenery is nice." She paused, leaning back and closing her eyes against the sunshine. "You know, I never did go to the beach much before all of this. And when I did, I remember that it mostly just rained."

Benji smiled. "That does sound pretty typical for the British seaside, yeah."

It was an exceedingly normal conversation, and had done the job of getting Ilsa to feel a little less out of place. Maybe she was capable of being a normal holidaymaker. She could relax, sunbathe, and enjoy her book. Later on, she could go for a swim, and there would be no pressing matters to attend to that would interrupt her.

The two of them quickly settled down and got absorbed into their respective reading or gaming endeavours. Benji had even had the idea of buying a windbreak, making their already-secluded corner of the beach even more protected from prying eyes. Even if most of the looks directed at her had no real hostile intent behind them, it was nice not to have to worry about constantly gauging potential threats.

As it is, she manages to get one whole chapter in before being interrupted.

Distant shouting had the both of them tensing, Ilsa freezing mid-page-turn while Benji's grip on his tablet tightened. Instinct had them turning towards the source of the commotion, checking for danger. Ilsa could see the crowd of people along the seafront reacting first, a ripple effect of moving bodies trying to get away from whoever it was who was shouting.

Then, out of the crowd, burst a figure all in black. A familiar figure. A frustratingly familiar figure.

"Is that…?"

Benji trailed off, the two of them standing up and watching as another group of people also made their way out of the crowd, running off down the seafront after the man.

"Ethan?" Ilsa finished, casually. "I believe so, yes."

The group of men disappeared from sight, following Ethan's trail deeper into the town.

"Should we do something?"

"Probably."

In the distance, coming from the direction that they'd seen Ethan running towards, came the muffled sound of an explosion.

"Okay, make that definitely," said Ilsa, the two of them already pushing past the windbreak, leaving the blankets and beachwear behind them.

It looked like they wouldn't be getting their beach day after all.

—

Later, Ilsa turned to Benji, the two of them finally able to catch their breath now that Ethan was having his injuries seen to and his assailants had been subdued.

"Do you still think that the IMF left us here for some downtime just to be nice?" she asked.

"Nope."

"...Do you think we'll be going back to that beach?"

"Again, nope," Benji said, then scowled. "Actually, screw that! It can't be that difficult to hack into their system from here. I have most of the clearance you'd need anyway. Not only will we be going back to that beach, we'll be taking this guy with us–"

He gestured to a point through the emergency room doors where Ilsa assumed Ethan was still being seen to.

"With a break like that," he continued, "there's no way that Ethan can physically go out on another mission anytime soon. Or at least, there shouldn't be."

The two of them shared a look. Even with a broken leg, when it was in his best interests to give it time to heal, Ilsa knew that it would be a challenge to keep Ethan in one place for long. Maybe it would be a good thing if the three of them could hole up nearby for a while, if only so they could have two people watching him instead of whoever the IMF would have provided back in their own medical facilities.

"Surely someone will notice all three of us being taken off active duty pretty quickly, though?" she had to ask. "Even if you're covering our tracks."

“How kind of you to join us.”

Ethan knows that voice. Rasping and calculated and cruel. Unmistakable. He opens his eyes and curls his lip with disgust at the sight of Solomon Lane. He wants to attack him, but he meets resistance. Metal digs into his wrists, his ankles. A rag has been shoved into his mouth. All he can do is snarl wordlessly at Lane as he paces before Ethan, hands folded behind his back.

“I was so hoping you would wake up on time to see this.”

To see what? He glares at Lane and struggles against his restraints. It’s useless. He’s been stripped of anything that would be useful to him, no hidden lockpicking gadgets, no conveniently placed paperclips. It’s just Ethan, handcuffed to a cement column, and Lane, walking free.

And then a door on the other side of the dingy, windowless room opens, and a newcomer is roughly shoved inside, stumbling forward and nearly falling flat on his face. Ethan’s mouth goes dry. It’s Benji.

He tries to shout around the rag, but there’s nothing he can do. He chokes on his own saliva in the attempt, gagging until he can calm himself enough to focus on breathing through his nose.

Solomon Lane saunters over to Benji. Benji has a strip of duct tape sealing his mouth shut, and he makes muffled noises of protest as Solomon grabs his face with a hand, sizing him up like he’s an animal, a show horse being evaluated. Ethan makes eye contact, and the fear in Benji’s eyes guts him, how Benji tries and fails to hide it, trying to put on a brave face, to resist. His hands are tied behind his back, his ankles shackled, and Lane forces him to sit at a table in the center of the otherwise barren room. Benji’s chest heaves as he hyperventilates, his focus fixed on the metal table in front of him decked with a neat array of scalpels and knives and harsher implements Ethan recognizes all too well.

Blood trickles down Ethan’s wrist. He has been straining so relentlessly against his handcuffs that they’ve broken through his skin. The pain means nothing to him. He continues to stare daggers at Lane, who only smiles.

“You’re wondering what it is that I want,” he says, strolling idly around the table. “There’s no information I wish to extract from you, or from your friend here.”

Ethan glowers.

“No, the thing I want is much, much simpler. I want to see you suffer.”

When Lane turns back to Benji, Ethan’s blood runs cold. He screams despite the gag in his mouth, screams until his throat grows ragged and hoarse, resists his cuffs, ignores the hot blood trickling down his hands and feet.

“No use resisting, Ethan,” Lane says, tutting with disapproval. “You’ll only hurt yourself.”

All Ethan can do is watch as Lane picks up a slim, cruel-looking knife and holds it to Benji’s cheek, standing to the side so that Ethan can get a clear view. Benji is visibly trembling. He tries to give Ethan some kind of comforting look, but it only increases Ethan’s dread as Lane carves a terrible, deep wound into the side of Benji’s face, slow and deliberate and uncompromising, cutting through too many layers of skin and muscle. Even muffled by the tape, Benji’s muffled screams are enough to wreck Ethan, to fill him with fury and with the anguish that Lane had been wanting him to feel. Ethan puts his full weight into his efforts to break his bonds even though he knows it’s futile, his wrists and ankles lacerated, his throat hoarse from shouting, tears streaming down his cheeks in a never-ending flood.

“I want you to hear this,” Solomon Lane says, and he rips the duct tape from Benji’s mouth.

“Ethan, don’t listen to him!” Benji gasps, but his voice comes out thick and slurred, his head lolling forward, the pain and blood loss already making him woozy, and the gouge along his cheek making it difficult to speak.

When Solomon Lane looks into his eyes and makes another incision deep into Benji’s already bloodied skin, Benji cries out again through gritted teeth, and his attempt to stifle it only makes Ethan’s heart ache more, only adds fuel to his burning fury. Ethan hurls himself forward with so much force he thinks he might break an arm.

“Ethan!”

Ethan wakes with a start, drawing his gun from beneath his pillow and sitting up in one fluid motion, sweat running down his back, panting heavily. A hand closes over his wrist, and Ethan is ready to retaliate until he blinks and realizes that the hand belongs to Luther.

He’s on the floor of a safehouse, on a bedroll. Ethan swallows the blood in his mouth from the ragged inside of his cheek he’d bitten in his sleep, the metallic taste lingering on his tongue. Luther is kneeling beside him, a worried look on his face as he gently prises the gun from Ethan’s hands. “Maybe you shouldn’t sleep with that if you’re gonna aim it so carelessly like that.”

“Safety was on,” Ethan mutters. He rubs his eyes and slumps forward, resting his elbows on his knees. He wipes tears from his face with the edge of his shirt. “I wouldn’t have shot you.”

“Yeah, well, you know as well as I do that you should never point a gun at anything you don’t intend to shoot.” Luther verifies that the safety is in fact on, and then he stows it in Ethan’s bag. He sighs heavily and waits for Ethan to raise his head so he can meet his gaze. “Nightmare?”

Ethan nods.

“Julia?”

He shakes his head.

Luther purses his lips. “One of us, then.”

He nods. “Benji,” he whispers. “It was Lane.”

Luther draws in a deep breath and nods slowly. “You dreamt that he took Benji again.”

“He was torturing him. And I couldn’t do anything.” Ethan pinches the bridge of his nose and tries to put the image out of his mind, tries to forget the sound of Benji’s screams, the terror in his eyes.

“Ethan, none of that was your fault. And Lane is long gone. He can’t hurt any of us anymore.”

“I know.” Ethan releases a shaky exhale. “Sorry if I woke you up.”

“Nothing to be sorry for,” Luther says, laying a steady hand on Ethan’s shoulder. “We’ve all got our ghosts. That’s to be expected in our line of work. And it’s almost morning anyhow.”

“Yeah,” Ethan says with a bitter semblance of a smile. “I should have a better handle on it by now, though.”

“Please.” Luther scoffs. “That’s not how this works, and you know it. I’ve known you for decades now, and I know you’ve only gathered more shit to have nightmares about as time has gone on, same as the rest of us. As long as you don’t actually pull the trigger on anyone, I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“Thanks, Luther,” Ethan says softly. He clasps Luther’s forearm, and Luther pulls him into a hug, slightly awkward at this angle on the floor, but comforting all the same.

“Any time, brother. You’d do the same for me.”

—

When the paramedics brought Ethan back, Ilsa had thought he was dead. He was so limp on the stretcher, so bloodied and broken. Benji had tried to rush to him, but the medics had fended him off, telling him they needed to get him stabilized, and he and Ilsa could do nothing but watch as they carted him off to the medical tents. Later, a paramedic told them he’d been stabilized and should wake up in the next couple of hours when his anaesthesia wore off. So Ilsa and Benji retired to another tent to wait while Luther caught up with Julia.

There are a few cots in this tent, and to Ilsa’s surprise, Benji actually managed to fall asleep on one, still fully clothed, shoes and all. She knows that habit all too well, knows the paranoia behind it. She knows he hadn’t really expected to fall asleep, either, but she’s seen the exhaustion on his face, in his battered body. She knows she should rest, too, but she can’t bring herself to lie down. So she busies herself with reorganizing her kit, taking inventory and cleaning weapons and making everything orderly and neat. The methodical task keeps her hands and her mind busy, keeps her from thinking about anything other than what she’s working on. Anything other than Ethan, one of the few people on earth she might call a friend, barely clinging to life in a nearby medical tent.

She’s finishing up taking stock of her ammunition when a flash of movement catches her eye. Ilsa looks over to where Benji’s curled up and immediately goes to him, because he’s kicking out in his sleep, his hands scrabbling at his throat, gasping for air, his eyes squeezed shut. 

“Benji!” Ilsa hesitates before touching him, not wanting him to lash out or panic further, but she doesn’t know what else to do, so she places a hand on his forearm, trying to prevent him from hurting himself. He sits up in a violent start, wheezing and coughing, his eyes unfocused. Ilsa squeezes his shoulder in an attempt to ground him, and he whips his head around to look at her.

His face is streaked with tears, his eyes red and puffy. Benji manages to focus his gaze on Ilsa, and his breathing gradually steadies. “What… wh– Ilsa…”

“It’s okay, Benji. You were dreaming.” She keeps her hand on his shoulder, adding pressure, some kind of external force to remind him of what’s real.

Benji blinks rapidly and slowly lets his body relax, leaning into Ilsa’s touch. “Sorry. I get nightmares sometimes.”

“I think most people do,” Ilsa says, gently as she can. “I’d be surprised if you didn’t.”

Benji gives her a sad smile. “I think most people don’t have nightmares about getting hung, though.”

Looking at Benji’s distraught expression beneath his attempt at a smile, Ilsa can’t bring herself to smile back. She just looks at him evenly, studying him. “Perhaps not. But most people don’t survive that, either.”

“I wouldn’t have, if not for you.” There it is – the fear just beneath the surface, rising up again, panicked and desperate. She can’t blame him for it. She knows that fear intimately. Ilsa has been in life threatening situations time after time after time through her years of experience, but every time she’s faced it up close, every time she’s been brought low, had her vision darken at the edges, felt the cold and unfeeling nothingness call to her in its sick siren song, she’s felt true terror. Ilsa may not fear death in the way that most people do, may risk her life without much thought for the right reasons, but there is a difference between taking those risks and being confronted with the real thing in the moment that it nearly gets you.

Ilsa releases a small sigh. “And I wouldn’t have, either, if not for you. We’re even, I’d say.”

Benji rubs at his face with his hands. He looks as bone-tired as Ilsa feels. The bruise marks on his neck are slowly turning a darker shade of red. And Ilsa knows that there are many more bruises hidden beneath layers of clothing, just like her, and he hasn’t even been looked at by a medical professional yet. Neither has she. Benji meets Ilsa’s gaze again, his expression weary and sorrowful. “What about you, Ilsa? I imagine you’ve mastered the art of making nightmares disappear by now.”

An airy chuckle comes up from Ilsa’s throat before she can stop it. “No, Benji. I’m not quite that good. I have nightmares sometimes, too.”

He looks relieved, which makes Ilsa laugh again. “Well. I’m sorry to hear you still have to deal with that just like the rest of us, but it’s nice to know there are some things neither of us have mastered.”

Ilsa shakes her head with amusement. “Benji, please. I’m not superhuman.”

“I know. Sorry. It’s just…” He closes his eyes again, face twisting with discomfort.

“It’s overwhelming,” Ilsa finishes for him, and he looks back up at her. “The fear. I know. You feel out of control.”

He nods silently, and Ilsa squeezes his shoulder again.

She isn’t used to this. Ilsa doesn’t do this. It’s been so long since she’s spent this much time with someone, a group of people, enough time that these moments present themselves to her, moments where people bare their hearts and hope that she’ll understand and offer some kind of salve. Well, Ilsa isn’t sure how to fix this, but she does understand, so she’ll try. She has to try, so she says, “It’s normal. I’m not going to tell you it’ll get better, because I can’t guarantee that. But we all have to learn to live with it. And you’re not alone.”

“Neither are you,” Benji says, smiling at Ilsa. “I know I’ve been slow to trust you, and, well, you have shot at me several times and hit me with a defibrillator once, but I’m still glad to have you on our team.”

Ilsa smiles back. She has grown fond of Benji, despite herself. He’s a bit strange, a bit funny, but he’s so relentlessly loyal to his friends, so full of heart, that Ilsa can’t help but like him. “Thank you, Benji.”

“Thank you,” Benji says. “For waking me up from that. And for being here.”

She nods, then cocks her head to one side. “What do you normally do? When you have these nightmares.”

He sucks in air through his teeth, then releases it in one short, heavy exhale. “Oh, I don’t know. Wake up in a cold sweat, usually. Or I don’t sleep at all. Why? Do you have some strategy I should know about?”

“I’m afraid not,” Ilsa says.

“Pity,” Benji says sadly. “Suppose we’ll just have to muddle through. As always.”

“As always.”

Ilsa sits beside Benji on the cot and lets him lean against her side, and for a few minutes, things feel oddly peaceful, the two of them alone in this sterile little tent, noises from outside muffled and indistinct, the tent panels flapping gently in the wind. And then Luther bursts in through the opening at the front and tells them Ethan’s waking up, and the three of them hurry to see their friend.

—

Flames lick at the edges of bookshelves, tables, curtains. Fire is loud. It snarls as it devours fabric and wood and anything else in its path, ferocious and deadly and insatiable. It eats the oxygen and replaces it with cloying smoke, it distorts vision and clogs noses and throats and fills the atmosphere with sweltering heat. Theo Degas chokes and coughs and struggles for air, suffocating on the fumes.

Then he hears ticking. It comes from everywhere, nowhere. Inside, outside, both, neither. It is pervasive. Not deafening, just loud enough that it can’t be drowned out by the sound of a house being burnt to the ground. Out of the corner of his eye, Degas sees Benji crushed beneath a bookshelf, knocked unconscious. He sees Paris with an assault rifle jammed against her throat, cutting off her air supply. Donloe is somewhere, trapped behind burning timber, lost in the inferno, probably dead. And all Degas can focus on is the incessant ticking, which feels far more important than anything else, even as his skin begins to sear in the intense heat.

Wires. There are wires on the floor. Multicolored, impossible to untangle, leading to a digital timer with two minutes and twenty six seconds left on the clock. A bomb. A nuclear bomb. Degas doesn’t know how to disarm this. He could maybe disarm a regular explosive, maybe, maybe, but not this. He looks about frantically for help, and finds none. His friends are dying, dead, gone. He will be, too, if he doesn’t stop this, and the fallout will extend far beyond just him.

He stares at the clock. It’s gone down another minute.

The flames roar closer. He can barely breathe. He tries to think, tries to act, and all he can do is stare, frozen, as his clothes catch fire and the timer goes down, down, down, until–

“Degas! Jesus, man, you’re gonna give me a heart attack.”

Degas gasps like he’s been holding his breath and finds himself sitting in the seat of an airplane next to Jasper Briggs. He blinks, trying to reorient himself. “What?”

“You must have been dreaming,” Briggs says, voice gruff as always, but his eyes flick over to Degas, betraying his concern. “You were talking in your sleep.”

“Oh.” Degas rubs his eyes. It’s dark out; the sun must have set while he was out. He doesn’t even remember falling asleep. “I was?”

“Yeah. Something about a bomb.” Briggs examines Degas out of the corner of his eye. “You dreaming about the vault?”

“Something like that,” Degas says, casting his gaze out the window, focusing on the swath of inky sky flecked with stars, and the expanse of dark, indistinct countryside far below interspersed with pockets of light and car headlights like tiny pinpricks along empty highways.

“Something like that,” Briggs repeats.

The silence drags on. They’re the only passengers on this private jet taking them back to DC; Kittridge had remained behind to continue tying up loose ends. He folds his hands in his lap and breathes slowly.

“Listen, kid.” Degas looks over at Briggs, eyebrows shooting up. Briggs looks profoundly uncomfortable, his eyes trained purposefully on the unoccupied seats across from them. “You good? I mean, if you’re… having nightmares, or whatever… it’s a miracle you survived everything you did. Makes sense you’d be a little fucked up about it.”

Degas blinks. How is he supposed to respond to that? This is as close as Briggs is going to get to an olive branch, to some kind of comfort, he knows, but, well. That doesn’t make it any easier to process or to figure out how to react to. He bites at his lip. “I, uh… I’ll be fine. Thank you, sir.”

Briggs nods curtly. He keeps looking straight ahead. “Good.”

What had motivated Briggs to even bring this up, Degas wondered? He rarely volunteered to engage in any sort of emotional conversation, let alone anything close to a heart to heart. Maybe he cares more than he lets on. He’d expected Briggs to be angry when he discovered Degas had switched sides, but when they’d finally reunited, Briggs had merely given him a firm handshake, like he’d just been on an impromptu vacation. Part of him had wanted to apologize, but then he’d realized that he wasn’t actually sorry about the choice he’d made. He just wants Briggs to understand.

“Degas,” Briggs says, and something in the quality of his voice has shifted, less gruff, more cautious, almost compassionate. Degas turns back to regard him carefully. “I’m glad you’re still with us.”

“Uh. Yeah. Me, too,” Degas says. He clears his throat. He doesn’t know where he’s supposed to be looking.

“Hunt,” Briggs says suddenly, brow furrowed. “What was he like when you were with him?”

Degas frowns. “He was… intense. Obviously.”

Briggs narrows his eyes, and Degas abruptly realizes what he was actually asking.

“He didn’t take me hostage!” Degas says quickly. “He was respectful. Kind. I just, you know, didn’t want the world to end, so… he seemed like he knew what he was doing.”

Another minute of tense silence. Briggs nods slowly, his expression stony. Clearly, Degas hadn’t given him the answer he had expected. Degas figures it would have been easier for Briggs if he’d said Ethan had been cruel, but that wasn’t the truth.

“Sir, if you don’t mind my asking…” Degas swallows, entirely unsure as to what the reaction will be to this question. “Why do you hate Ethan Hunt so much?”

For a moment, it looks like Briggs is going to snap, the way his face reddens and his lip curls, his hands clenching into fists, but then he sighs and leans his head back against the headrest. He still looks distinctly disdainful when he says, “I don’t hate him. I find him aggravating. He thinks he’s better than everyone else, he never follows orders, he has no regard for hierarchy, and he thinks he can do whatever he wants. But I don’t hate him.” His expression tells Degas that he wishes he did.

Degas inspects Briggs with interest. He still can’t quite figure it out. There’s something else going on here, he can feel it in his bones. “But why does he get to you like this? I mean, is this some kind of personal grudge?”

Briggs turns to Degas with anger brewing in his eyes, as though he’s about to tell Degas he’s crossed a line, that this is no way to treat his superior, but instead, he just massages his temple with one hand, his jaw tensed, before saying, “No. Not really.”

“Not… really?”

“You know that nightmare you just had? About a bomb, based on what you were babbling about in your sleep?”

Degas is taken aback by how serious Briggs suddenly becomes, steely, direct but not unkind. He nods.

“I don’t have nightmares about bombs,” Briggs says. “But I do have nightmares about my father. And don’t get some bullshit idea in your head about me having daddy issues, that’s not what’s happening here. I’m telling you this because Ethan Hunt was working under my father when he got killed back in 1996.”

That certainly wakes Degas up. His head spins as he tries to understand what Briggs is telling him, and why he’s telling him now? “Wait, so your dad was in the IMF?”

Briggs nods stiffly. “Yeah. Had them all fooled into thinking he was some kind of hero, too.”

Okay, not quite where Degas thought this was going. Briggs glances at him and sees his confusion.

“He got killed because Ethan figured out that my father had framed him for the murder of his entire team. Not exactly an honorable death, but, you know.”

Turbulence rocks the plane slightly. Degas watches as Briggs makes a conscious effort to keep his face neutral. He feels the strange urge to reach out and comfort him somehow, but he quickly puts that thought from his mind. “Still. He was your dad.”

“Sure was, the damn bastard.” Briggs sighs heavily. “Guess it’s harder to let go of that kind of thing than you’d like, isn’t it.”

“Yeah,” Degas says. “I can only imagine.”

“For your sake, kid, I hope you only ever have to imagine.”

“Tell me what you and Jim were planning,” he replied, settling himself calmly down on the floor across from her, feeling himself wondering at the fact that that within a space of half an hour he was once again using every inch of his acting skills to lie to someone he’d never once dreamed of deceiving. Still, if he wasn’t very careful about what he said, he wouldn’t get the answers he needed.

Claire laughed nervously. “Ethan, what are you talking about?”

“About your plan to make money. If you’d just told me in the first place I would have helped you.”

“Ethan?” She was looking at him in a way that was obviously meant to convey that he was being weird and she was concerned about him.

“Come on,” he pressed. “What did Jim tell you about my life before I joined the IMF?”

Claire rolled her eyes. “Your parents were dairy farmers. You really liked acting and languages and martial arts, and anything exciting that would get you away from the farm. You’ve said before that Jim saw your potential and didn’t want you wasting your life in cinema.”

She fixed him with a flat look, her eyebrows raised.

“So he didn’t tell you about the jewellery theft, about Marie’s death,” Ethan countered seriously. It didn’t matter right then that it had been Gabriel who’d done the stealing, that Ethan hadn’t known until it was too late, and that Gabriel had killed her just to see the grief on Ethan’s face. It also didn’t matter that a part of his body that he was strenuously ignoring felt sick at the comparisons. What mattered is that she might draw the right conclusions. “If you had just told me, then I would have helped you.”

Claire frowned, and internally a part of Ethan seemed to relax - her confusion seemed genuine now, not a ploy to manipulate him. “So, what are you thinking will happen now?”

“Tomorrow, I think I’ll get the money from Max, and then I think you, me and Jim will be free to get as far away from the IMF as we want.”

“Jim’s dead, Ethan. You saw him die.” Her eyes were wide, full of hurt, and Ethan was sure neither of them were convinced.

“Both of us know I just met him at the station.”

Claire frowned at him, calculating. Cold. “I thought you cared about Jack, and Hannah, and Sarah.”

She wanted a reaction out of him. Ethan tried not to give her one, but couldn’t hide the wince. Okay, so he needed to lean into that. “I did. I still do, you know I do. But you know I care about you and Jim more. You know Jim’s been like a father to me since mine died. And you know- you must know- what I feel about you. And, I thought, you might feel the same way.”

Ethan swallowed, trying not to think about the extent of how true that statement was, or had been. Any feelings he’s once had for Claire now felt tainted. Poisoned. And the fact that he’d once been grateful for Jim’s guidance, and relished the moments he’d received his approval, now made him feel sick. Perhaps they had been slightly more important to him than the rest of the team, but he’d loved the rest of his team like they were his own family - certainly more than he loved his uncle Donald - and he would never have chosen money over their lives and the lives of countless other field agents. He knew for certain that, had he known what Jim and Claire were really like, he’d never have thought they mattered more to him than the rest of the team.

But, there must have been something about his words that was convincing enough for Claire, because a warmer and more genuine smile slipped over her face.

“You know my husband might have something to say about that,” she grinned, raising her eyebrows.

“You think he doesn’t already know?”

She grinned wider, dangerous, and Ethan felt sick to his stomach.

But still, he’d got his answer. And he knew he’d won. Or would win on the train tomorrow anyway.

There was no way he would let them get away with what they’d done to Jack, Sarah and Hannah.

-

As he heard the click of the safety behind him, Ethan began to think he might have miscalculated, and that he should have put on the glasses on his way to the baggage car.

He raised his hands.

“Jim.”

“Claire seems to think you’re on our side, Ethan.”

The condescending tilt to his head made Ethan’s blood boil, but he couldn’t show how much he wanted to punch him, not yet. 

“I am.”

The door behind him opened, the clack of heels told Ethan that Claire had arrived in the carriage. He tensed further.

“You don’t have it in you,” Jim scoffed, “I’ve seen you come down from enough goddammed ceilings so you don’t have to hurt any poor old security guard to know that.”

Ethan swallowed, and didn’t let himself think too much about the next words out of his mouth. “You’re the only people I have left.”

His former mentor’s expression suddenly turned assessing. Ethan tried to focus on that instead of the gun he was pointing at him.

“Well, I suppose that’s true enough,” Jim replied after several long seconds, a smirk on his lips. “No friends outside of us, no decent relationship with your family anymore.” 

Ethan couldn’t help but look away, gritting his teeth. In another life, one where it hadn’t been easier to just keep running from mission to mission after his father’s death, maybe he could have repaired the relationship with his family that the cancer had left in shards, maybe he wouldn’t have hid behind the excuse of not being able to talk to his mom about the Choice he’d made, maybe he wouldn’t have kept thinking that there would be ‘later’ where he could make everything right.

Life seemed to get a lot clearer when your mentor was pointing a gun at you.

“What’s the code for the case?” Jim asked.

“3, 1, 4.” There was no use arguing, they’d get into the case one way or another, and it was best to be cooperative for the moment.

“Figures,” Jim replied.

Ethan waited, listening to the clatter of the wheels on the tracks and letting his body sway from side to side, half watching Jim and the gun, half watching Claire open the case and reveal the 10 million inside. She closed it and turned the dials to 0 0 0 again.

“Well Ethan-” As he began bracing himself to spring for Jim in a last ditch and likely fatal attempt to overpower him, he hoped that when he was found with a bullet hole in his chest, and Luther told Kittridge that Claire was alive, that they’d track her down, and they’d track down Jim too, that they’d be brought to justice for killing his team- “I can’t say I trust you, but my wife seems to think you’ll be useful and I can’t say she’s wrong there.” Ethan put his plan on hold and waited. “But know that if you show an inkling of betraying us, or running off with our money, or touching my wife without my permission, I will kill you. And I will make it hurt.”

He felt a shiver, involuntary, wrack through his body. But still, he nodded. “I understand.”

They climbed out onto the roof - Claire first, then Ethan, then Jim. Then they stood there, stumbling in the high winds and vibrations of the train, and Ethan watched in horror as a line descended, Claire attached herself to it, and slowly climbed up into the helicopter. Surely, someone on the train would notice this. Surely, Kittridge would come.

The seconds ticked by and Jim was still standing out of reach, gun pointed steady at him despite the swaying of the roof, the handle of the briefcase hung over one wrist. Surely, the IMF would interrupt this.

But they didn’t, and the next thing Ethan knew he was attaching himself to the line and hauling himself upwards, feet slipping on the rungs of the rope ladder. He was getting himself into a helicopter with the people who had crushed Jack at the top of the elevator. His friend Jack, who always tried to play everything so cool, but got excited at every illegal piece of tech they came across. He’d died. Horribly. For money.

As he hauled himself over the side of the helicopter, he hoped that Claire and Krieger would think he was shaking with exhaustion instead of ice cold rage.

When he looked up, Claire was pointing another gun at him. Claire, who must have been the one to blow up Hannah. Someone who was meant to be her friend. He’d lost count of the times he’d seen them giggling over some gossip magazine together while he, Jack and Sarah had shrugged and rolled their eyes at each other. He didn’t understand how she could have done it, how anyone could pretend to be someone’s friend - or could maybe actually be someone’s friend and then do that. The betrayal was a jagged gouge through his chest, ripping him open and leaving an inferno in his wake.

“... even think about doing anything stupid,” Kreiger yelled, turning his head back slightly, so he could see him while still keeping half an eye on the controls, still managing to hold the machine steady over the high speed train. Ethan couldn’t actually hear him over the whir of the helicopter blades, but he could read his lips well enough, even from where he was kneeling on the floor. “You hurt me and we all die, even you.”

As he kept his gaze locked on the man who had stabbed a blade into Sarah’s chest over and over - Sarah who he’d left to try and help Jim, Sarah who he hadn’t been around to save - Ethan thought he didn’t much care. He’d gladly send himself into a fiery death if he knew the blaze would take Krieger, Claire, Jim and their money.

Unfortunately, all he could do was clench his jaw and pour all his hatred into the glare he directed at Kreiger, because Jim was still climbing up into the helicopter, and Jim had continued holding onto the money, and if he was gonna kill them all he’d make damn sure Jim was the most dead of them all.

Why hadn’t Kittridge noticed an entire helicopter hovering over the train he was on? Why hadn’t anyone else, and alerted someone? Was Krieger really that good at flying? Was the noise of the TGV really enough to drown out the helicopter blades?

He ground his teeth together hard enough that he thought they’d crack.

Before Jim arrived, Claire made another gesture with the gun. He nodded mutely and complied, placing his hands behind his head, and remained kneeling on the floor, seething at the fact he’d allowed himself to get into this situation. If only he’d put the glasses on earlier, then Jim wouldn’t be shoving the case through the door and scrambling in after it.

The case whose code was 3 1 4.

Jim shoved the door closed behind him, took his gun out his holster, and pointed it at Ethan’s head. Ethan wished that the cable had snapped and that he’d fallen, that he’d smashed his skull in the fields below instead of standing there, with the slight smile of a man who knew without a shadow of a doubt that he’d won.

He’d murdered people who’d trusted him with their lives. For money.

It was only the slight hope that came with the knowledge that they hadn’t killed him yet that stopped Ethan from his last ditch and definitely suicidal attempt to kill Jim himself. While they hadn’t killed him, there was still a chance.

Out of the corner of his vision, Claire was moving, rifling through a black bag and taking a case out of it. Ethan shut his eyes. He knew what that was. The drug inside it was guaranteed to knock anyone out, and the side effects weren’t pretty. But while they were going to use it on him there was hope. There was still hope.

He let Claire slide the needle into his neck, and in the last seconds of consciousness wished he could slide poison into her veins.

-

Ethan woke to the feeling of a sharp pain snapping through his head.

He shook his head roughly, trying to figure out what was happening. The floor seemed to be shaking, rocking from side to side. Everywhere was noisy.

He tried to curl up, to cover his ears and the agony in his head with his arms and hands. His arms wouldn’t move. When he pulled at them a sharp pain seemed to cut at his wrists and the muscles along his arms and in between his shoulder blades screamed in protest.

Something was wrong.

He opened his eyes.

It was too bright.

He tried to move his arms again.

He opened his eyes. Squinted. His head hurt. There was a rhythmic thrumming-cutting sound. His whole body was shaking. He wanted to be sick. The floor rocked again. His ankles wouldn’t separate, but he curled his knees to his chest.

There was something silver on the ground in front of him. He turned his body to look upwards and saw legs. People. There were two people above him. He couldn’t see their faces but they were angry. They were arguing with a third head. The floor rocked again. His head pounded. He felt the taste of bile in his mouth. He tried to open his mouth but there seemed to be something in it, fabric, cutting into the sides of his mouth. His cheeks hurt. He wanted to tell them to make it stop. His head hurt. His muscles shook.

He looked up at the people again. Jim. Jim and Claire. His-

His-

They’d-

A sharp pain spread through his chest as his heart hammered, a coldness through his arms and legs. They’d killed- They’d killed his friends. Crushed, detonated, stabbed. Jack, Hannah, Sarah. He opened his mouth to try and scream at them, to ask why the money in the silver case was better than his friends, but the fabric cut into his mouth and the whir whir whir sound was too loud.

Ethan tried to roll. He had to stop them, even if his legs and arms didn’t want to go anywhere he told them.

His head thunked against something. Silver. Metal.

The metal briefcase.

The floor rocked again - the helicopter. He was on the floor of the helicopter and the case had fallen on his head. Case combination: 3 1 4. He looked up. Jim and Claire were still arguing with- with Krieger.

The briefcase with the money - the money they’d got because they wanted to sell the list, and to get the list they needed to kill Sarah, Hannah and Jack. He hated them. He hated their money. They shouldn’t have it.

The case with the money was next to him. The numbers showed 0 0 0.

Carefully, he rolled onto his face and then his other side, his bound hands were behind him but now next to the case. He managed to convince his fingers to click through the numbers. Three times, one time, four times. Clicked the button next to them to open the lock. There was a gap in the case.

Ethan twisted his body again, looked up. Jim and Claire were still angry at Krieger. They had to stand close to him to yell at him because the helicopter blades were loud. They had not seen what he’d done.

The helicopter rolled again. Krieger was not paying enough attention to the controls.

Good.

Ethan hated them, hated them with a cold fire stronger than he’d hated anyone with before, even- even Gabriel.

They would not get the money.

His fingers did not want to obey him. The bonds cut into his wrists, but still he managed to scrabble the paper out the case, to grab it by the edge and scrunch it between his fingers so he could carry all the sheets to the door together.

He looked up. They weren’t watching him. Too bad.

Slowly, he shuffled himself into a sitting position and moved his way towards the door. His head spun. He didn’t want to be upright. Everything hurt. His stomach told him he wanted to be sick.

He wanted them to lose everything even more - like Ethan had lost everything, like Hannah and Sarah and Jack had lost everything. So. They would lose the money. No matter what Ethan’s body said.

He kept his eyes on them as he inched back towards the door. Once his back hit it he twisted his body around, seeing where the handle was. He’d opened this kind of door before. He knew what to do.

His feet didn’t like it, but he got himself into a crouch. Jim still wasn’t looking. He stood up, sheets of money clutched in one hand, found the door catch with the other, twisted it, pulled forward with all his weight.

There was a rush of air. The scream of helicopter blades was deafening. Ethan leaned backwards and opened his hands.

Jim grabbed him, hauled him back inside and flung him against the wall. Pain flared through his head and his arms and his back. But they couldn’t have their money, couldn’t ever have their money that they’d killed his friends for, because Ethan had let it go. The wind would take it away and they wouldn’t get it back.

Ethan grinned at them.

Jim shoved the door closed and turned back to face him, expression incandescent in a way that didn’t bother him in the slightest.

Movement caught his eye, Claire was looking down at the case, looking up at him in a fury that Ethan found funny even when she sprung at him, screaming, wrapping her hands around his neck. There was nothing he could do to defend himself, not with his wrists and ankles bound, but Ethan hardly cared.

Then Jim was pulling her off and Ethan could breathe again, but he was laughing, joy and relief fizzing through him even though he knew Jim was going to kill him himself. He continued to laugh even when Jim slammed him back into the window, head cracking against reinforced glass, teeth cutting into his tongue, lights spinning in front of his eyes.

Pain blossomed in his jaw as Jim punched him, and Ethan crashed against the back seats before falling to the floor, head spinning, still triumphant.

He continued grinning even when Jim’s boot came flying towards his face, connecting with his skull, sending the world into a blaze of pain.

It was quiet in the car.

They’d been driving for two hours under the hypnotising flicker of the highway lights, and still had many more hours left before they reached the safehouse. 

A sensible man would have relaxed, slept where he could, lulled by the monotony of it all, especially as there was no chance he’d be allowed to share any of the driving in the next eight hours or so. In the month that he’d known him, it was already clear to him that Hunt would only allow someone else to drive if he was actively bleeding out, and maybe not even then.

So, instead of driving, Briggs was thinking, re-evaluating, ruminating - all things he’d seemed to be doing a lot since he’d quit the CIA a month ago. To join the fucking IMF of all things.

It was a terrible decision. Potentially the worst decision of his life - voluntarily leaving the steady career he’d built for himself (well, what had been steady before the Entity at least) and joining the very organisation that had fucked his life over at seven years old when it had offered his father the Choice.

He was even working for fucking Kittridge for christ’s sake.

Briggs didn’t know exactly when he’d made the decision. Probably somewhere in amongst realising Degas was on Hunt’s side, Kittridge threatening Hunt’s team because apparently the man would never let anything happen to the people he cared about (a ‘fact’ that Briggs still didn’t exactly trust), and Hunt standing on top of that hill in South Africa, having actually put his money where his mouth was and saved the fucking world again.

He hadn’t followed orders, he hadn’t given his superiors anything they wanted, and yet somehow the world was all the better for it.

With the help of some strong liquor, Briggs had been evaluating his thoughts on spontaneity since then.

Excepting the time he’d spent tracking down Hunt, he’d never considered himself a spontaneous person. He’d kept his head down, followed orders, and done the job in front of him, because that’s what you were meant to do. People who didn’t understand responsibility, people like his father, who’d only be there when it suited them before walking out on you, one day for good, were the problem with the world, and Briggs knew it - had known it, anyway.

He glanced across at Hunt, whose eyes were still focused on the road ahead despite the endless lights and lack of music due to the broken radio. Briggs shook his head lightly and then turned to look out the window again, watching the shadows of the bushes as they flashed by in a dreamlike state.

It was quiet, too quiet.

“What was my father like?”

He cursed himself almost before the words had left his mouth, briefly entertaining the idea of just opening the passenger door and jumping out. Those weren’t the words of a 56 year old man, capable of putting the past behind him, they were the words of a needy little kid who couldn’t understand why his daddy left him. Christ. Several months ago he’d had some fucking self respect. Now he was in a car with Ethan Hunt and he seemed to have lost it all.

It was the fucking lights, and the lack of music, that was it, turning him into the kind of man Degas wanted him to be, one who talked instead of just having a drink and fucking getting on with it like you were meant to. It was alright for some, and maybe Degas could be one of these bullshit new-age men who thought getting things off your chest didn’t make you a sissy, but that wasn’t ever gonna be Briggs, he’d managed fine without all that crap.

Except maybe now he was. He’d started thinking and getting fucking philosophical, and now he’d started talking. That was great. Just great. Maybe he could convince Paris to shoot him when he next saw her.

He’d almost thought that Hunt was gonna do him the courtesy of ignoring him when the man spoke.

“He was great,” Hunt said quietly. “We’d have followed him to the ends of the earth, if he’d asked.”

Fucking fantastic, they were going to talk about it. Briggs groaned internally and shut his eyes, leaning back into the headrest.

“He had this way of making you feel valued, and everyone respected him. He was smart, decisive. He’d been in the business a while and he knew his stuff, and you never wanted to disappoint him, because it was the worst feeling in the world. He was like a father to me, after mine died.”

Do you think you hate him so much because he got to know your dad, and you barely even remember him? Degas had asked once, in another example of him being way too in touch with his emotions for a guy. Briggs had told him to shut the fuck up. He wished he could think of a way to tell Hunt to shut the fuck up without him looking like even more of a pathetic kid.

“It felt like we were a family. Me, him, Claire-” 

Oh yes, his father’s second wife - that he knew of, there may have been others - again, only a few years older than Briggs. A woman who he’d been fucking as they swanned around Europe doing whatever post-Cold War shit they did in the nineties, while Briggs’ own mother had been wasting away. 

“- Jack, Hannah, Sarah. But I guess I never really knew him, and he never even gave a shit about me or any of us, because he and Claire killed them all and let me take the fall for it, all for some fucking money.”

Briggs started, that was the first time he’d ever heard Hunt swear - normally, he was too good for it, just like he was too good to do what the government told him to do. He glanced over at him, feeling an unexpected feeling of kinship - or whatever it was when you got the sudden urge to drink a beer with someone and mutually stare fixedly at the football game on the screen above the bar, not discussing anything with the other person, but knowing they understood. Hunt was still facing straight forwards, eyes on the road ahead, but his knuckles were tight on the steering wheel.

Degas would have been proud. He’d got this empathetic shit down now.

“All for some fucking money,” Briggs agreed. Because that’s all it had ever been, hadn’t it? 

He didn’t remember much of his early childhood, but he did remember the constant moving about as his dad had moved job to job, or got involved in some new scheme, everything a new adventure. Sometimes they’d been living in the height of luxury, sometimes there’d been smiles and new toys, and other times they’d been staying in some cheap motel somewhere, most of those new toys sold on. He hadn’t really minded though, not while his dad had been around. He’d minded when he’d left them with nothing and never came back.

“What was he like with you?” Hunt asked.

Briggs rolled his eyes, because this was what you got for asking people about mushy stuff, they thought you were Degas. But still, the lights of the highway were flickering onto the rusted hood of the car, and he had asked for this.

“He was fun,” Briggs said, because that had been the truth, even if the truth was leaving a lump in his throat. “He was really fun. I loved it when he’d come back from work, we’d play cowboys and Indians, or some other shit that I guess you’re not meant to play anymore. I thought I fucking mattered to him. Well mostly, sometimes he could be-”

“Cold?” Hunt suggested, and Briggs couldn’t be sure whether he hated that Hunt said that, or if it came as a relief.

“Yeah,” Briggs said. “Like you were a fucking annoyance put in his way.”

Hunt snorted, which wasn’t what Briggs expected. “You know. I used to think that was my fault - I’d screwed up something in the field, I hadn't been good enough. So in the brief times that I wondered if he hated me, I guessed it was something I needed to fix, or we needed to fix, when it was all of us. Because it was Jim, and he could do everything, and we needed to be better for him.” Briggs could see Hunt shake his head out of the corner of his eye. “And then afterwards I wondered if it was actually a sign of who he was underneath, if I should have known what he was gonna do.”

“Yeah,” Briggs said, letting out a breath he didn’t even know he’d been holding. Perhaps there was something to be said after all about talking to the only other man alive who’d really known your father, someone one who’d been properly fucked over by the bastard too. “I thought if I hadn’t annoyed him then maybe he’d’ve come back.”

But he wouldn’t have, because his father had always been in it for himself, and Briggs and his mom and his little brother had only been a sometimes interesting distraction.

And then his lying and his fraud and his money-making schemes had got the better of him, and he’d been picked up by the IMF (not that Briggs had known that at the time), and they’d been left in debt, in the ass end of nowhere. His mom had worked two jobs to put food on the table and he’d been left trying to figure out how to take care of his little brother. 

He still remembered summer vacations. From ten years old, he’d walked five miles across baking hot fields to help out at a farm that didn’t give a shit about child labor laws and would pay him the dimes they needed to keep the power on. And he’d done it, because goddamit it had to be done, and because he’d had a responsibility to his mom and his younger brother - not that his brother had ever seemed to fucking appreciate this. Briggs had kept his head down, worked hard in school because it was the only way out, the only way he’d get a good, stable, well-paying job, but as soon as his brother hit high school it was like he thought the only way out of the place was to take risks and get drunk. There’d been nothing Briggs could do, no reasoning, no threats, that could stop him.

He’d kept sending money back to his family after he joined the CIA, hoped he could keep supporting them, that his brother would see the point of being in control, being responsible. All his brother had done was travel around, float from job to job, trying to emulate their asshole of a father for some reason that Briggs still didn’t understand. Eventually they’d lost contact.

Then his mom had gone and fucking died, slowly, exhausted. Since then he’d often wondered if maybe it had been the stress that had killed her so young, if she wouldn’t have been gone so soon without the burden his father had put on them all. She’d told him things before the end that he still wished she hadn’t, about the fraud, and the compulsive lying, and about how he’d even lied to her about which day he was born.

And so his brother was gone, his mom was dead, and Hunt’s team - who, despite the fact that Briggs really would have felt happier not knowing this, he’d described as his family - were dead too, so really it seemed they were the only two standing, the only two left in the wake of his father’s bullshit, the only two who knew what it was like. And here he fucking was, ruminating on things again, like it would do any damned good.

“He fucked us both over, huh?” He hadn’t been expecting to speak that time either, but unlike earlier, his words didn’t make him want to slam his head against the dashboard.

“Yeah.” Hunt’s voice sounded as grim as Briggs felt.

As the streetlights over the highway flashed rhythmically by, Briggs thought about how long he’d spent hating Hunt, someone who’d seemed to embody the chaos that ‘Jim Phelps’ had left behind. 

They hadn’t had the best of starts. Hunt had even clearly thought that Briggs was gonna fucking shoot him on top of that hill in South Africa, despite the fact that (even though it seemed like Kittridge would have let him) shooting someone unarmed wasn’t the kind of justice Briggs had ever been interested in. Hunt also hadn’t seemed like he was gonna try and stop him. Which was pretty fucked, but more the area of expertise of a guy who knew how to navigate that kind of emotional bullshit, which despite all the thinking and the talking Briggs had been doing lately, was still Degas, so Briggs wasn’t gonna tackle that any time soon.

“Do you want to get drunk, Hunt?” He wasn’t gonna apologise for pointing a gun at him, or saying whatever shit he’d said after Hunt had lost his best friend, because frankly, that wasn’t really his problem. But they could down a few beers, and then some stuff that was a good deal stronger, and then they’d both know that whatever had happened was water under the bridge, and that they were both in this together. Whatever the fuck this new feeling of kinship was.

“After the mission,” Hunt agreed. “And it’s Ethan.”