Chapter Text
Ilsa Faust met Ethan Hunt at the Vienna Opera at the grand opening of Turandot when she was meant to be assassinating the Austrian Chancellor.
She did not understand the assignment this time, but to her repeated frustration and dismay, she rarely understood the ramifications of the targets Solomon selected. It was a frequent topic of discussion on nights like these, as Ilsa made very good time to her hideaway in the prop tower, settling in to wait for her cue.
As she waited, she tucked herself into the side of her box, out of view of the stage lights. Her rifle rested on one leg, her nails tapping against it to the tune of the music. "Admittedly, the very act of removing a head of state is in of itself a destabilizing event," she commented quietly.
"Oh, of course," Benjamin said over the communication channel, clear enough he could have been sitting at her side, whispering to her in a quiet restaurant or on a too-early train. "But it does drive me a little mad trying to figure out what dominos he's got lined up. You must think about it too, how in hindsight all his little tasks and milk runs all add up to such intricate horsefuckery."
A smile curved her lips. "You could always ask him."
"Hey, I could always ask him," Benjamin agreed, bright and brittle as glass. "We still have the kevlar vest in the stash, don't we?"
"Bold of you to assume Solomon would aim for the heart."
"See, I think he would. Headshots create such a mess, and he's a fastidious little bastard. Wouldn't want to ruin the floors, would he?"
Her lips pursed as she swallowed her laugh. "Anything unexpected from where you're sitting?"
"Only the shockingly gorgeous costuming. I wish I were closer to the stage, I'd love your view. Although…"
Ilsa lifted her head, folding up the warm camaraderie of a shared radio channel and putting it away. "Problem?"
The pause was long enough, Ilsa held her breath. "I don't think so. I thought I saw something but there's nothing on cameras."
"I know you wanted to see this show, but—"
"Yes, yes, I'm keeping an eye out. Don't insult me, I know why we're here." He sighed over the line. "Perhaps you should get ready, your perch will move soon."
Lifting the rifle, Ilsa stepped forward, adjusting to brace on her bent leg, sighting the rifle down the correct gap in the ornate trellis. If all went according to plan, the tower would be moved forward and the correct balcony would slide right into her crosshairs.
She was waiting for her moment, listening to the… rather loud singing, when Benjamin made a noise over the line. "Nightingale."
Coppery adrenaline seeped into her mouth. "See something, Morning Glory?"
He was quiet again. It prickled anxiously along Ilsa's arms. She started to move, to lift her head from the scope when he finally said, "Hold position. I'm looking into it."
"Don't do anything reckless."
"Just don't miss your shot."
The lull over the line was suffocating. There was tension in Ilsa's eyes as she fought the urge to scan her surroundings. If she so much as let her eyes slip away, she knew she would continue to turn, would break her concentration.
The crescendo was building. It sounded like a good show. Her tower began to move, carrying her to her mark.
"Who the hell is that?" Benjamin asked. "Hang on, I'm in the control booth now, I've got him."
From the corner of her eye, she could see some of the lighting rigs above the stage moving with sudden speed. The motion was distracting, and she turned to look.
She was just in time to watch a man slam chest-first onto the metal rig, his hands gripping one of the bars tightly as he struggled to pull his dangling legs up to safety.
They were at eye level, and close enough she could see his were a verdant green.
He looked right back at her, blinking slowly as he absorbed the sight. Then, he uncurled three of his fingers from the grip, and waved them at her.
"Who the fuck is that?" she asked.
The man swung his hips onto the rig and touched a hand to his ear. When his mouth moved, she heard it on their goddamn channel. "I'm impressed you got a bolt action in here with the security. That dress doesn't look like it has many pockets."
"Glory—" Ilsa started.
"I think I heard you mention a Solomon," the man, who was unmistakably American, went on almost conversationally. "Would that be Solomon Lane?"
"Crash," Ilsa said, turning and heading for the ladder. "Crash, crash, crash."
"No shit," Benjamin agreed. "Uh uh, no you don't, stay the hell away from her."
As she exited the tower, she glanced up and saw the rigging the man was on tip suddenly to the side as one end of it abruptly lowered. The American just barely managed to work his arm through one of the spokes before he slid off the entire thing to plummet to the floor. "Not again," he said over their private channel, breathing labored.
"Radio silence," Benjamin said. "I'll meet you at the thing."
"Which one?" Ilsa said, hauling herself up the metal spiral staircase with both hands pulling on the railing, turning her head to keep an eye on the interloper.
"Up," Benjamin said simply before the radiant hum of his background went dead. Nodding, Ilsa tapped her own communicator, cutting the live mic.
She ran for the roof. Pelting across the upper floors, she noted that their original plan to distract security wasn't necessary; the guards weren't activated because they hadn't actually killed the bloody chancellor.
So the upper level above the lobby was empty.
So it was easy to hear the door slam open behind her.
She ran faster, relief pulsing in her chest when Benjamin stepped out ahead of her, his head already turned towards her.
Her heel caught on an imperfection in the overly lush red carpet and she hopped awkwardly as she regained her footing. When Benjamin offered a hand, she clapped hers firmly into it, leaning on him as she reached down and tore the stupid fucking shoe off and hurled it aside. It careened off the edge of the stone railing to the lobby below.
Kicking off the other with a little more care, she sprinted on the balls of her feet, Benjamin at her side keeping pace.
"Solomon is going to be such a prick about this," Benjamin said.
Rolling her eyes, she said nothing because Benjamin was right and she didn't want to think about it yet. At the roof access, she climbed up before him, shoving the heavy door open.
"What the hell, he's chasing us," Benjamin managed.
"Don't look back, just go," Ilsa snapped, reaching down to grab a fistful of his tuxedo jacket and dragging him along. They had a head start; it was extremely unlikely someone would catch up quickly enough to be a problem.
On the roof, they made for the escape route. Benjamin had planted it a week ago, at the same time as he'd planted her rifle. Hanging from the edge of the building, just in the shadow of the lights, was a anchor and line.
Her feet pounded against the roof. She was confident enough in the speed of their exit that she turned her head to look.
The agent was not behind them; he was running across the pointed roof above them at a ridiculous pace.
"Shit," she said. "Ben, go, go, go."
Clipping the grips onto the line, Benjamin jumped, sliding down at a fast but not knee-breaking speed. Ilsa gave him only two seconds before she joined him on the line, glancing back to see the American sliding down the angled roof towards them.
"Cut it!" she said before she even landed.
Hitting the ground in bare feet was not her idea of a fantastic getaway, but the adrenaline on her tongue and in her muscles didn't care much for a graceful exit right now.
Benjamin pulled his phone out, tapping one of his many delightfully paranoid panic buttons. Over their heads, a charge ignited, severing the line and letting it drop to the ground next to them in a coiled pile.
They both looked up and met the eyes of their pursuer. He examined the anchor with a perturbed frown, then looked down at them. "That's a neat trick."
"Thanks," Benjamin said automatically, finally yanking his earpiece out. Ilsa did the same before Benjamin hooked his arm in hers and marched them away. "We'll get the hell away from here, then… figure out what we're going to say."
"You're driving," she told him with a tense sigh. "I hate driving barefoot."
"We should have something back at the bolthole," he soothed. "Nice pair of trainers."
Getting the car from the narrow service alley they'd stashed it in, they pulled out onto the street, along the opera house.
They were just in time to watch the American lower himself from the roof with a rope. Bouncing back onto his feet, he adjusted his jacket, tugging the lines of his tuxedo straight, and made unerringly and unnervingly direct eye contact with them as he approached the street.
A second later, the flagpole he'd dropped from slammed noisily to the ground, making the man wince and break out into another run.
"Where do they get these lunatics, are they just growing in some cornfield in the Midwest?" Benjamin asked, putting his foot down and speeding away.
"I've never been to the Midwest. Isn't that the center of the country or something?" Ilsa shut her eyes, pressing her knuckles against her brow. A tension headache was beginning to brew behind her eyes.
"I don't even remember."
They lapsed into silence. Ilsa was reeling from the complete disaster the night had been, and assumed Benjamin was as well.
They were going to have to tell Solomon. She was not looking forward to it. Already, the steady rhythm of his hoarse, quiet queries filled her mind, and she didn't have many answers to them.
"Perhaps we could kill him another way," Benjamin eventually said. "It wouldn't be as flashy as an opera assassination, but there's extenuating circumstances."
"Unless Solomon's point was for it to happen at the opera specifically for some reason neither of us are clairvoyant enough to predict," she drolled.
"Well, if he deigned to explain anything at all, then—" The car swerved suddenly and violently. "What, what now?!"
Another jolt came, accompanied by a terrible metallic noise. "The tires," Ilsa said, planting her hand on Benjamin's shoulder to twist and look behind them. With the vicious glare of headlights, it was impossible to ascertain what was following them.
Not headlights. Singular. The car jolted again, and Benjamin swore, both hands gripping the wheel, white-knuckled as he struggled to steer.
The single headlight darted to the side, coming up on them.
The same madman from the opera was on a motorcycle, pulling up alongside. As he came up to the driver window, he waved at them.
It wasn't an open hand or a gun; he was holding Ilsa's fucking shoe.
She did not know how to handle this situation at all.
"Okay, he is getting on my nerves now," Benjamin said, reaching over to grab his door handle, swinging it sharply open.
The agent swerved away from the door, dropping back a bit. Ilsa reached up to grab the emergency handle just in time for Benjamin to hit the brakes, trying to clothesline the open door into the motorcycle.
The son of a fucking bitch matched their speed, swinging in dangerously close and reaching out to grab Benjamin by the lapel.
"Ben!" She grabbed the wheel with one hand, turning it so they pulled away, her other hand grasping Benjamin tightly. She found the agent's hand and dug her fucking nails into his skin.
He let go, but too many things were happening at once, and the car scraped against the side of a building, grinding loudly as Ilsa tried to direct them away only to find a fucking wall in the way.
"I hate this guy, whoever he is," Benjamin said as their speed was throttled to nothing.
"Brake," she told him, and climbed out across his lap, hitting the ground before the car even shuddered to a stop.
The motorcycle took a wide circle around them and slowed, looping back. The rider wore no helmet, his dark hair a wind-blown mess.
Putting his foot down, he came to a full stop. A gun pointed over the handlebars at her.
"Ilsa," Benjamin gasped.
"If he wanted to kill us," she said firmly, holding the American's eyes, "he could have two minutes ago when he pulled up alongside."
The gun lowered. "That's very observant, actually," he said, warm with good humor. "So, if I overheard you correctly…" He pointed to her. "Nightingale, you're Ilsa? And Morning Glory— Oh, I get the name now. You're Ben, right?"
Turning her head, Ilsa exchanged a grimace with Benjamin joined her. They were mutually dreadful at sticking to codenames. "You have us at a disadvantage," she said coolly.
"Yeah, seems I do." The agent made no attempt to introduce himself. "So you both work for the Syndicate? What'd Lane want with the chancellor?"
Benjamin scoffed, and Ilsa smacked him with the back of her hand. The agent observed this with a lift of his eyebrows.
"One, we are part of the Syndicate, not working for them," Benjamin said. "It's not like your CIA."
"I'm not CIA," the agent said with a very handsome smile, as if the very notion was deeply funny.
"Two, we actually have no idea what the big picture is here so you can run along now," Benjamin went on.
"If you're not CIA, who are you?" Ilsa asked. "Independent?"
"It's complicated," the agent said after a beat, his sterling smile dimming just slightly. "Jurisdictionally speaking."
"Oh fuck off," Benjamin sighed. "A errant knight leftover from the IMF dissolution? Seriously? And I thought MI6 was bad. I feel sorry for you."
"It'll be back," the agent said.
"You're Ethan Hunt," Ilsa said as the facts finished linking in her head.
Ethan Hunt nodded, draping his arms across the handlebars. "I'm looking for Solomon Lane."
"You won't find him," Ilsa said. "We don't find him. He finds us."
"Huh. Good to know." His fingers drummed on the console, his eyes flicking between them both. "If the whole point of the Syndicate is being fed up with fighting for governments who hide the truth from you, it's interesting that neither of you know why you were sent to kill the chancellor."
The motion of the eyeroll moved Benjamin's whole body. "God, what a thorough and complete summation of the entire ethos of our organization that I never considered before! Suppose I'll just handcuff myself to the nearest embassy and turn myself in."
Ilsa's lips pursed as she deliberately did not smile. "Ben. You're being dramatic."
"Very," Ethan agreed, openly grinning at the display.
"I'm tired and I missed out on the rest of Turandot," Benjamin said. "Are you going to shoot us or what?"
"No," Ethan said.
Because they were assets, Ilsa realized. He was looking for Solomon, and Solomon would find them.
"Then excuse us," Benjamin said, his hand brushing Ilsa's shoulder. "Shall we?"
"'Til next time," Ethan called at their backs.
Squeezing Benjamin's arm, Ilsa urged him along. Together, they left, walking away. Straining her hearing, Ilsa listened for anyone following them.
"What do you think he meant?" Benjamin eventually asked.
"About what?"
"The Morning Glory thing."
Their arms linked, making it easy for Ilsa to stroke her thumb along the side of his hand. "Your eyes, Ben. I picked it because you have those striking blue eyes."
"Did you really?" Ducking his head, he looked away. "Not sure how I feel about a rogue agent noticing that, but I guess it's flattering."
Lifting their hands, Ilsa briefly pressed his knuckles to her cheek. The presence of a legendarily batshit-out-the-belfry IMF agent was disconcerting, but so long as they were together, they could handle it.
Benjamin Dunn still recalled vividly how he wound up here, with Ilsa, and with Solomon.
He'd been the remote support agent for Ilsa when she was in MI6. For years, his life existed in a five mile radius of her, a constant satellite that provided logistical support, and then fire support, and eventually emotional support as the toll of the work began to wear heavy grooves into Ilsa's soul.
There was a mission to trigger an explosive charge in the foundations of a suspected terrorist hideaway. The time window they were given was so small, and there wasn't enough to infiltrate and confirm the intel. When Benjamin had contacted their handler to ask them if MI6 wanted to push things back, to give them time to fully assess the situation, he was told in no uncertain terms to do the fucking job.
So they set off the charges, and they did take out the terrorist cell. And twenty-six more people, all acceptable collateral.
After that, they went off the grid together for a while, to a decommissioned safehouse in Berlin, where they drank.
They drank a lot.
"Can you tell me," he had drawled from where he lay on the floor, "why I shouldn't just blow my brains out in this fine flophouse?"
Ilsa, draped across the sofa with one arm dangling off the edge, her fingers stroking his hair, her eyes red, had smiled and said, "If you can't take out a good chunk of the monsters back in London, what's the point? Waste of a bullet."
It had been a fair point, and the first time they had ever spoken the idea out loud. It was treasonous. They'd be disavowed for saying it in proximity of any recording devices.
It felt true though. That was the dangerous part.
While they'd still been astoundingly inebriated, someone had arrived at their destitute little hovel. Solomon Lane had walked into their lives with two cardboard cups of incredibly strong black tea and foil-wrapped breakfast sandwiches. While the two of them had sobered up, he had floated the idea of the Syndicate to them.
"Kindly go fuck yourself," Ilsa had told him at the time. And so, Solomon Lane left.
A month later, the seed of discontent had grown into a fucking redwood tree in their chests, so when Solomon asked again, they'd said yes.
Which led them both here, to a sparsely appointed suite. Funnily enough, it was Berlin again. Espionage capital of the world.
Ilsa and Benjamin sat by the enormous windows overlooking the city around them. There was a glass table between them with a platter of fine china and more black tea.
He was too nervous to have any. Sitting with his temple resting on his fist, Benjamin watched as Ilsa methodically prepared a cup of tea with one sugar and a squeeze of lemon, only to hold the saucer and idly stir it for five minutes, her eyes resting on Benjamin's knee, unfocused and flooded with thought.
"If he's not here in the next five minutes, I'll see you down at the hotel bar," he murmured.
"Please shut up, Ben," she replied tersely, without heat but tension thick in her tone.
"Cosmopolitan?" he asked.
Her lips pressed together; it was his favorite of her little tells. "Greyhound."
"Might as well suck a lemon."
"It's refined," she told him.
"I'll be a chav then, the drinks are better."
"Oxfordian."
"In of itself a very Oxfordian thing for you to say."
Her riposte never came, as Solomon finally arrived in his trademark Steve Jobsian uniform, his hands folded behind his back. "Vienna was a failure," he said by way of greeting, standing over them both.
Ilsa watched Solomon mildly. Benjamin did the same, with a little cayenne.
"Do you have anything to say?" Solomon prompted.
"You haven't asked a question," Benjamin pointed out. Now, at least, Ilsa took a sip from her cup, clearly hiding her expression. Still, she shot a quelling look over at him.
"Our failure was a week ago," she pointed out. "You already know what happened."
Solomon nodded. "Hunt."
"We had no intelligence about his presence."
Solomon nodded again with that tight-wound, inscrutable posture he carried everywhere. Which made sense. To Benjamin's estimation, there were only two options. Either the dissolution of the IMF had ironically made the task of tracking their operatives much harder or Solomon had known Hunt was going to be in Vienna and just chosen not to inform them. The first would be an admission of fault. The latter would be an admission he'd set them up. Neither was great, honestly.
Everyone in the room knew it. So the silence stretched.
"I have another task for you." Turning away, Solomon walked to the wall safe in the suite, turning the dials to open it.
Meeting Ilsa's eyes, Benjamin smirked. She only shook her head back at him, setting her tea aside and rising to follow their leader.
And of course, Benjamin Dunn followed her.
Ethan Hunt stood on top of the Westminster Tower, looking across the river at Thames House. He was in head-to-toe black, a suit with special heat-dispersing mesh that would hopefully keep him from being detected too quickly as he considered how the fuck to get into MI6.
Things would be a lot easier if the IMF wasn't completely devoured by the CIA. Any liaisons he might've had access to in the past were gone now. And truly, it would have been nice to get his hands on more equipment than a heat-dispersal suit, twelve tranq rounds, and two grappling hooks with 100 feet of cord.
But he'd make it work. Luther hadn't been able to get him much, but he did pull a match from the sketches Ethan had sent him.
Ilsa Faust and Benjamin Dunn, both tragically lost off the coast of Cuba after their getaway vehicle capsized in a storm. Very sad. Very staged.
He needed a little more to go off, albeit unsure what official documents would tell him. It seemed unlikely that mission reports and psychological profiles would reveal why the two of them had lodged themselves in Ethan's mind.
Ilsa should have shot the chancellor before running. There was no reason for her to cut and run so readily.
Unless she had been consciously or subconsciously relieved for the excuse not to kill a head of state.
And her partner, Benji in the booth? He'd screwed around with Ethan, nearly throwing him off the lighting rig onto the stage below, but he hadn't taken the plainly obvious shot. Putting a bullet in Ethan would have been easy from his vantage point, and even if he were unarmed, he could have directed Ilsa to shoot Ethan.
It was interesting.
And honestly, Ethan didn't have any other leads on the Syndicate at the moment.
Idly, as he planned his infiltration, he wondered how this would all shake out legally. If he was with the IMF, breaking into Thames House would get him a slap on the wrist that left handcuffs behind for at least eight months, maybe a year. But there was no IMF, so really, he was kind of existing in a grey area right now.
The consequences could wait. He'd handle that bridge when it was burning.