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There are lots of nights on which at least one of them wakes up in a cold sweat or screaming.
This time, it’s Benji’s turn.
The short harsh shout is what breaks Ilsa from her own tranquil sleep, and she can tell from the way that Ethan stiffens in her arms that he’s been jolted conscious by Benji’s body jerking back against his chest.
In the next split second Benji is upright, shoving himself away toward the edge of the bed with a ragged gasp — both hands are clutching at his throat.
Ethan moves in instantly, quick and silent, posture open and both hands going to Benji’s shoulders, instead of trying to pry his hands away from his own neck yet. The words he says to Benji are quiet, hushed, and deceptively calm enough to hide his anxious concern. Anchoring him. Reminding him. Calming him, as Ilsa watches from the other side of the bed.
There are some nightmares she can help with, but not this one. Hearing her voice, when he’s stuck in this particular memory, never helps Benji snap out of it — it just reminds him of the real thing, of the fight and of her in danger and of a rope around his neck and of god damn Solomon Lane.
So, this is Ethan’s territory.
Within what feels like seconds, Benji’s breathing starts to slow, to level, to ease, under Ethan’s guidance, leading him through slow breaths in and out. The tension in his posture slumps out, as his hands drop from his throat into his own lap, and he leans forward with a shaky sigh to rest his forehead against Ethan’s, pressing in close.
“That was good, good job Benji,” Ethan whispers, now cupping his face and stroking both thumbs slowly along Benji’s cheekbones, continuing to soothe. “You’re safe now, I’m right here. We’re all safe. Just a dream.”
Benji nods, shakily, swallows hard, and croaks out softly but with great feeling, “Fuck.”
Ilsa leans over to lay a hand on Ethan’s shoulder, as she starts shuffling her way out of bed. “I’ll go make the tea.”
This is their new tradition, for the aftermath of nightmares. Three cups of camomile, with varying dosages of sugar, prepared by whoever is in the least rough shape on any given night. Ilsa could make this tea blindfolded and unconscious, but there’s no need for anything quite so drastic today. Instead she is just here, in her tank top and Benji’s tartan pyjama pants, barefoot in the kitchen of what is technically Ethan’s flat as she sets the water to boil and lays out the cups and the tray.
Technically, this is Ethan’s flat, but the idea that it was just his is something they more or less gave up some time ago. Not that he at all seems to mind.
It’s funny, the ways shared trauma can tie people together. The surprises that can come.
A connection with Ethan, that was something she always somewhat expected, the tension that had been building since their inauspicious first meeting bound to rise to a crescendo sooner or later.
She hadn’t expected Benji.
But then again, not much of life after freedom had really been what she had expected.
And there is something that ties you together with people, when you are among the few on the planet who have squirmed in the grasp of the devil, looked him in the eyes and wriggled free and lived to tell the tale.
Talking, after Kashmir, had pretty much been the only way to even begin to process The Everything Of It All, other than drinking. The years she’d spent undercover as a sheep in wolf’s clothing. Benji getting caught at Lane’s mercy again. Ethan’s umpteenth odds-defying near-death experience. All that wonderful shit.
Of course, the talking hadn’t come right away. Everything had started at the airport, arriving back in London, when they were supposed to be moving in separate directions but she let slip something about needing to go track down a place to stay.
Ethan had instantly shot Benji the kind of pleading look usually reserved for seeking forgiveness for doing something unspeakably dangerous with a motorcycle. Benji had sighed and half-rolled his eyes and acquiesced astonishingly quickly, perhaps a little worn down from the long flight and from arguing with Ethan for over a week about taking his pain medication. And Ethan had beamed like a small boy whose parent had just let him bring home a stray pet — and his enthusiasm was so genuine Ilsa couldn’t even muster up exasperation or much of a protest.
And so she had come with them, on their apparently pre-planned voyage to one of Ethan’s various apartments tucked away in a corner of London.
By the end of week of being tag-teamed by not just one, but two overbearing bedside nurses, she could tell Ethan had almost regretted it.
Sure, they’d all had their injuries, but Mr. “I Can Definitely Fly A Helicopter, Trust Me” was worst off out of the three of them, as well as the most determined to act like he wasn’t injured. Luckily there were to be no missions for at least a little while (saving the world for the umpteen-hundredth time bought you a lot of leave, as did the administrative shuffling of needing to replace the head of the IMF), so there had been plenty of time to nag him about it, bullying him back into lying down when he tried to get up and go for a god damned 6am run of all things, or to help with the housework.
“If you try to get up again, I will not hesitate to tie you to this bed,” Ilsa had threatened coolly, trying not to let that sentence conjure up images of the night they met, as he pouted up at her from the pillows on the second afternoon with a baleful, traitorous glare.
Then the look had shifted to something different, bright and mischievous with wry amusement twisting Ethan’s mouth. “Promise?”
A loud snort of laughter had escaped from Benji, knelt by the door cleaning up the remnants of the vase Ethan had taken out when he collapsed in his escape attempt.
It had been the first time he had laughed properly, since Kashmir. Perhaps he didn’t notice, but Ilsa and Ethan had shared a look, and she had seen something warm and soft in Ethan’s eyes that matched the unexpected feeling blooming worryingly close to her own heart.
It had been so frighteningly easy, to let herself fall in love with both of them. To let those absentmindedly fond moments temporarily erase every rule she had learned about being guarded, distant, cold.
Soon she catches herself laughing when she’s with them, light and happy and full-throated like she hasn’t in countless years. Falling into comfortable physical intimacy. Speaking about things she has never breathed a word of to anyone else. Even crying, once, hot angry tears paired with a bad memory, both of them wiped away by Benji’s thumb brushing gentle and hesitant across her cheek. He had looked a bit comically terrified, when he realized what he’d done, looking as he was scared she might break his hand — his entire face had gone crimson, helpless and sputtering, when she’d croaked “Thank you, Benji,” and kissed him on the cheek instead, Ethan laughing beside them on the sofa with an arm slung around her waist.
FWEEEEEEEEEEE-
In the present, the shrill whistle of the kettle jolts Ilsa from her fond reverie, sitting at the kitchen bar with her feet tucked up on the edge of the stool. Soundless as always she slips to the floor and pads over to the stove to lift it from the heat and pour the steaming water into the three cups where tea leaves are waiting. A glance at the clock on the stove gets a countdown going in the back of her head, and she settles back onto the stool to wait for the steeping time to pass.
Down the hall, she can hear her boys talking, soft hushed tones impossible to quite decipher even from here. Comfort, being given and taken. Hearing it, hearing them take care of each other, is her own kind of reassurance.
For Ethan, the reassurance is sleeping pressed between them, most often with Benji clutched haphazardly in his arms and Ilsa tucked up against his back, the two of them present and solid and alive and close. Knowing just for a little while that these small parts of his world are safe, present. Not in need of saving. Just here, at peace, kicking him in the ankles or snoring like a freight train.
For Benji, it seems to be the ordinary, mundane moments. Making fun of Ethan for his weird ultra-healthy minimalist cooking and meal shakes. Teaching Ilsa to play Mario Kart and whining when she immediately trounces him at it. Laughing when she complains about the two of them leaving the toilet seat up again. Taking it humbly when she and Ethan gang up to lovingly tease him for being a nerd, and only acting a little smug when he shows them Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan and they both end up a bit riveted. Sharing the couch. Sharing meals. Sharing the bed. Sharing tea.
It is in part because Benji values those moments that she is so grateful for him, for his presence here as she adjusts to her new norm. He has become a formidable field agent, but Benji is still a little bit different from her and Ethan. He hasn’t been at this game quite as long as they have, and for all it has put him through it hasn’t changed him yet. Not like them. Benji is still a little bit ordinary, and while Ilsa had struggled to relate to that at first, she finds his quirky normalcy reassuring now. He speaks his mind, views the world in straightforward terms, keeps his two more esoteric partners from getting lost in the quiet corners of their own heads.
She understands, now, why Ethan is so protective of him. She too, would tear half the world down to make sure that Benji’s sweet, strange, earnest humanity is never taken from him.
She understands, too, why it is so terrifying, to have something like this tied to your heart — why Ethan had to leave his wife or risk being driven crazy by worry and guilt. The little life they’ve tentatively built together in this apartment — the domestic routines, the laughter, the way it feels when they both kiss her, the way it thrills to watch them kiss each other, to move together in half-clumsy exploratory rhythms in the rumpled sheets of the big shared bed, the warmth that blooms in her heart when they wake up tangled together in the early morning sun — it feels so precious, so fragile. She knows she’d kill to keep all this safe. She is almost afraid of what she might do, to keep all of this safe.
The timer in her head finishes, and she slips off the stool again to begin adding the sugar to each mug, fetching a plastic serving tray down from the cupboard and arranging them on it in a neat little line as she continues to think.
It helps to remind herself, of course, that the two of them are far from helpless civilians. Benji spent the first week they were here splitting his time between fussing over Ethan, and disassembling a bunch of electronics to build warning sensors for the locks on the windows and the front door, plus a “couple other fun tricks” around the building that can be triggered in any trouble. Ethan has never been ordinary, was probably born reckless and dangerous and selflessly insane — he might not be literally un-killable, but as someone with firsthand experience in trying, she certainly thinks it feels that way.
They can take care of themselves, her boys. And most importantly, of each other. It’s one of the little things that helps her mind go to sleep at night.
It’s something she takes a moment to take in fondly now, standing just outside the bedroom doorway with the tray in her hands and watching them sit with their foreheads pressed together in meditative silence. “Tea’s here,” she murmurs, smiling a little as they part slightly and turn to look at her.
Benji’s eyes are red-rimmed in the hallway light. “Oh, thank god,” he croaks, wry but tired, shoulders slumped in relief. “My throat is killing me.”
She rolls her eyes and scoffs in exasperation as Ethan groans and ruffles up Benji’s hair as punishment, earning himself a half-hearted retaliatory elbow to the ribs. Eyebrow quirked, she waits with one hip against the doorframe for them to finish swatting at each other, failing to bite back her own smile. “I could take this tray and leave, if you’re going insist on being childish.” She doesn’t mean it, not even a little bit.
Ethan chuckles and shakes his head, the line of his smile crooked and sweet. “Nah, no need to get drastic. C’mon in.”
They settle into a sort of semi-organized pile of bodies, cups of tea distributed throughout. Ilsa props herself upright against the pillows, legs stretched out, and Benji slouches back against her shoulder under the shelter of her arm, one hand perching his cup on his thigh while the other cards over and over again through Ethan’s hair where the other man is stretched out semi-perpendicular to them with his head upon Ilsa’s lap. It probably shouldn’t be feasible to drink tea lying down like that, but leave it to Ethan Hunt to manage this impossible task too, balancing the mug on his stomach between sips.
It is Ilsa’s own training which allows her to carefully take Benji’s empty cup and relegate it with her own to the side table without waking him, when Benji’s hand goes all still in Ethan’s hair and he starts snoring softly in her ear. It sounds like Ethan must be asleep too, he’s gone so quiet, until she glances down and sees he has set his mug aside and turned so those dark eyes are gazing up at her, at both of them, all the lines of his face gone so soft and fond.
She presses her lips to the top of Benji’s head, and brushes her hand over top of his through Ethan’s messy black locks, smiling as Ethan shifts up to pillow his head on her stomach and sling an arm over them both, letting himself lean into her touches as he closes his eyes.
When he too has slipped into as deep a sleep as being Ethan Hunt allows, she stretches an arm over to turn the light off, snuggling back in under the warm weight of her boys as soon as darkness envelops them once more.
It has been a very long time since Ilsa has felt truly safe anywhere. Felt like she belonged anywhere. Like she wasn’t always the outsider, the undercover traitor-in-waiting or the black sheep agent who needed to earn back her place in the light. Years, since she was able to really let anyone this close.
A long, long time, since she has felt this kind of peace.
Holding them tightly, she falls asleep with a smile on her face.