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In the first month of Ethan’s retirement, he sells his apartment. He’s been away more often than he’s been home for the last ten years or so anyway, so it hardly feels lived in.
There’s this feeling of resolution. The end of one chapter and the beginning of another. He doesn’t really want to live out the rest of his days in the city, where the walls are too cold and the place is too empty.
That and, despite the defeat of the Entity, the thrum of the technology littered through the place all feels too much. It’s choking, like smog, and cloying too. It had been so close to the end for him - to the end of all of them, really.
He needs to get away; to build new structures and plant seeds. To sit in his grief, and find more beyond it.
He needs a fresh start.
Will helps him pack. There’s not actually a whole lot of things to pack. Ethan’s been to his apartment. It’s a lot busier, with many more knick-knacks and pictures of his life. Will’s always been able to find moments to live, though.
For Ethan it’s been about chasing the thrill, and surviving everything else, for so so long.
Maybe he needs to learn how to live too.
“Do you know what you’re going to do now?” Will asks. “With the cash out the Agency owes you, you could do basically anything you like.”
Ethan raises an eyebrow at him. “And you know this how?”
“I’m a good analyst.” Will replies, unruffled. “And with the amount of time you’ve been with the IMF? I made a guess.”
Two months down the track he’s moved into a smallish house in the forest. He runs everyday, and hikes, and goes to dinner with his friends, has horrible nightmares about Benji morphing into the Entity, drinks some wine and feels guilty about Ilsa’s death.
Two months and two days later, the first hit attempt on his house happens. He fights the two hitmen off, cuffs them to a metal railing in the garage, and calls for a team to pick them up.
Two months and three days later, there’s a second hit attempt when he’s out in the forest. A gunshot rings through the trees and he ducks just in time.
Two months, three days later and forty minutes later, he gets a phone call. It’s Benji. “Ethan. Ethan!” His voice crackles uncannily through the secure line. “You’re going to get a call from the office any minute, but there’s a hit out on you-”
“I guessed.”
“-you guessed? Anyway. You and I. I meant to say. The last of the Entity’s group trying to mop up loose ends. You should come back for a bit. Till it’s all sorted out.”
Ethan sighs, his mind already whirring. He’s hardly interested in spending the next few weeks trapped in an Agency safehouse. “You ever get tired of running, Benji?”
“Me? No. Never.” Even at times like this he has time to be sarcastic. “Seriously though, Ethan.”
“I have a better idea. I’ll email you in five.”
He rings off the secure line, and hunts down his laptop. The Agency calls, and he politely rebuffs their offer of a safehouse. He’s so tired of it all. Having to hide. The Entity. The nightmares. He’s got a better idea.
Two months, three days and one hour since Ethan bought his house in the forest, there’s an email in Benji’s inbox. The subject line reads: Travel Plans.
It's a very long flight, but it allows Ethan to get his thoughts in order. They'd picked up new covers, new passports, new everything, and it would be a long time before anyone even knew where to look for them.
It's two cross country flights before they get to the plane that'll take them internationally. "This is really nice, Ethan. You didn't have to." Benji exclaims, somewhat awed even though he's definitely flown business class in the past.
"You want to fly for 13 hours in economy?" Ethan asks, and settles down into his seat.
"Well. Not really." Benji still looks somewhat awed, though, and Ethan takes the moment to bask in it. Though Benji's hero-crush on him has absolutely thawed, it's still nice to get hints of it back occasionally.
There's champagne, and surprisingly good first class food, and Ethan finally has a chance to relax. Sure, the plane could drop out of the sky at any minute if their enemies find them, but he's fairly sure they're not going to go quite that far.
An assassination in a forest is one thing.
Covering up the deaths of 300 passengers in a Delta flight is quite another.
Soon enough, they're stepping out of the airport in Auckland, New Zealand.
The air is hot, thick and moist. It’s still early morning, and the sun just peeks across the tops of the trees to the east. Sure, they’re surrounded by the bustle of the airport, but the city’s surprisingly quiet. It’s nice. Peopled, but not peopled. A gentle pressure in his head.
Benji looks bedraggled next to him. “I could sleep for a week. How are countries so far apart?”
“If you sleep now you’ll feel worse later.”
“Mmm, don’t care.” Benji says, and yawns again. In all honesty, Ethan almost wants to do the same thing.
The cab ride into the city is almost as quiet. The driver talks, but clearly doesn’t necessarily need an answer, and his quiet chatter is so disarming that Ethan almost feels his eyelids slipping closed.
He nudges Benji awake as they pull up outside the hotel. It's five star and desperately nice inside, but not at all pretentious. Benji still seems suitably wowed, which is ridiculous. "You've stayed at the Burj Khalifa, Benji. How is this still exciting you?"
"The Burj Khalifa was on the Agency's wallet." Benji replies. He wanders out to the balcony to take in the view of Auckland's harbour and the giant bridge spanning across the water. "This is very nice, Ethan."
"Well, we need to lie low. Why not do it in a place like this?"
Benji nods. He still looks exhausted. "I'm going to... pass out, I think. For a long time. If that's okay?"
"We're on holiday, Benji. You don't need to look at me like I'm about to give you orders."
He chuckles. "I know. It's just a bit different. I'll get over it once I've had a nap."
Benji falls asleep easily, spread out all across one of the large beds in one of the suites, but Ethan stays awake. He's always found sleeping to be a luxury, one of those things that people did for a certain amount of time. He's traveled enough to deal with jet lag too.
His thoughts turn to the assassination attempts. There's not a chance anyone's going to find them. For all anyone knows, Ethan Hunt and Benji Dunn are being kept in a basement in the depths of the Agency's offices, never to be seen until their assailants are brought to justice.
Stephen and Brook Bennett, however? They're off on their honeymoon to New Zealand, very happy and very wealthy. A handsome couple, slightly older, and very much in love.
No-one will expect a thing.
Benji drifts in and out of sleep for a few hours. Ethan uses the time to check through all his dark web connections for any intel about the hit attempts. He's retired, sure, but considering the attempts were made on his life, he feels at least a little responsible for dealing with them.
His search turns up nothing, and he's almost startled when Benji slips onto the bed next to him, and leans in, a warm line up his side.
"Sleep well?" Ethan asks.
Benji yawns. "I guess. Nightmares, but who doesn't get them. What are you looking for?"
Ethan explains his mission in the simplest of terms. Benji furrows his brow, for a moment. "Is this all this is? Big fact finding crusade? Cause I could have just stared at my laptop for hours at home."
It's not what it is at all, so Ethan closes his laptop. "No. I'm retired. You and I are having a well-earned break. I just wanted something to do while you were resting."
Benji just stares at him for a second, then says, "Ethan, we're in a five-star hotel. They've got things for you to do."
By dinnertime, Ethan's thawed a little more towards the idea of actually being on holiday. It's not quite a holiday, the threat of assassination is still very much present, but it's certainly more of any kind of break than he's had in years.
Or potentially ever.
Ethan has trouble being idle. It's been a problem maybe ever since he learned how to walk. Instead of watching concerts as a teenager, he had to work at them. Instead of going to the beach, he'd always preferred to help out with the lifeguards. He has trouble switching off.
It's something his partners have always called him on.
Not something he's ever been able to change, though. Now that he's retired, maybe he can find the time to just... be.
He has his doubts.
"Dinner? At six thirty?" Benji interrupts his workout at around four.
He's doing pilates on the balcony, draped in the warmth of the sun. Pilates are a newer thing, but they're definitely necessary for mobility and strength. "I could go for dinner. Where?"
"I was thinking we avoid being complete hermits, at least for the first night." Benji says. "They've got a really nice restaurant downstairs?"
"It's a date."
He refuses to think about how Benji's face changes pleasantly, almost imperceptibly, at that.
Pilates leaves his muscles feeling well used and he lies down for a couple of hours. Maybe fifteen years ago he could do a day of travel and bounce back immediately afterwards, but loathe as he is to agree with it, he's aging. The pilates are helping, and so are the plans from his doctors and trainers, but time comes for everyone at a point.
Retiring was maybe for more than one reason, if he thinks about it.
When he wakes up, Benji's emerging from the bathroom, wearing just a towel. His hair is damp, chest too, and the faint grayish hair smattered across his chest catches his eye for a second. They've seen each other in less, of course, but there's a world of difference between stripping off layers to clean off blood, and seeing Benji comfortable and loose-limbed.
For as long as they've known each other, Ethan could count the amount of times he's seen Benji relaxed on one hand. It's a very pleasant sight. One that he could get used to.
"Ethan, that bath is amaaazing." Benji says, utterly unaware of the quality of Ethan's thoughts in the moment. "You've gotta try it."
Bathed and five-o-clock shadow shaved - and yes, the bath is amazing - they go down to dinner together. It's not quite black tie, fortunately, 'cause neither of them have suits, but the restaurant is nice. Modern, with steel and wood polished furnishings, open-plan, but not pretentious. It's nice. The whole hotel is nice. Ethan's spent a lot of time in hotels, but this place is one of the best.
"My treat." Ethan says, before Benji can even say anything and go off rambling.
"You sure? You paid for everything else."
Ethan shoots him a withering look. "My soul has been owned by our employer for so long, Benji. In the nicest way, I'm not going to have to worry about money for a long, long time."
"Must be nice."
"Well, comes with the near death experiences."
They make their way through mussels, tarakihi, and crayfish. It's all fresh and light, clearly recently caught, and prepared excellently by people who know what they're doing. The vegetables alongside are farm fresh, too, and delicious.
“Something to be said about the marketing of this place.” Benji says, and knocks his flute against his.
The gentle fuzz of a glass of champagne is warming, and across the table, Benji looks pleasantly flushed, and more than a little happy.
Despite all his earlier consternation, Ethan feels strangely… content. Seeing Benji here, with a gleam in his eye and finally, finally no fear or danger or injury is… nice. There’s danger somewhere, but it all feels very far away, here, at the bottom of the world.
Benji looks longingly at the dessert menu, when it comes.
“Get something.” Ethan says, “If you want.”
“I shouldn’t…”
“I’ll split it with you.” He replies, ‘cause he’ll do anything to capture that look in Benji’s eyes. Genuine happiness, after so long.
“Ethan…”
“I’ll split it with you.” Ethan nods, and reaches across the table to tap Benji on the knuckles, just once. “Don’t let anyone tell you I don’t take care of my friends.”
Benji just stares at him for a second, and then laughs, smoothing a thumb across Ethan’s wrist as he does. “Ethan. We’re talking about you here.”
The dessert is incredible, a thick chocolate mousse that melts on his tongue, spiced with something Ethan’s never had before. Fine dining isn’t exactly rare for him, but it’s a world apart from eating vol au vents at a Serbian billionaire’s mansion.
This is far better.
Later, the moon is out, hanging low and full across the water. The waves are calm and flat, the heat of the day somewhat dimmed. It’s practically perfect, whatever perfect even means. Their breaths mingle in the air.
It’s almost funny that he hadn’t realised, but now, in the silence, the tension in his chest hums as it so rarely does. One moment, months ago, where he'd pressed his forehead against Benji's and told him to run, told him that he'd never see him again, echoes so heavily in his chest that it almost makes his teeth hurt.
It's funny. It's funny that he'd never once interrogated the depths of what he'd felt. But there hadn't been time.
And now they've got all the time in the world.
“I hadn’t intended for this to be a seduction.” He says, out towards the sea. It’s hard, intimacy. In life, it’s always been something that’s harder to reach. He can run a honeypot anyday, but reality… is more challenging. His desires haven’t always made much sense. Something like this is precious, and he doesn’t want to mess it up.
Benji slips in beside him, smoothing his palm across his back, his fingertips warm on top of his dress shirt. “Good, ‘cause I’m usually a much cheaper date.”
Ethan laughs. He can’t help it. It loosens some of the tension across his shoulders, makes it easier to breathe. “How long?”
“Oh, since the very beginning.” Benji replies, offhandedly, his thumb circling across the dip of Ethan’s back, making it so unbelievably hard to focus. “But mostly after we messed up at the Burj. Made it a lot easier to like you once I realised you’re just a person too.”
“Yeah, idolatry in relationships never works out.”
“Relationships?” Benji teases. “Now you’re just getting presumptuous.”
“Am I?” Ethan replies. “After seventeen years?”
“Point taken.” Benji says, and slips his hand up his spine to pull him into a kiss.
The rest of the Entity’s team get cleaned up, the assassination attempts slow and then peter out entirely, but Ethan’s still got his cabin, and he still has his morning sprints around the forest, and he still has his pilates.
He doesn’t really know where he’s going next. He has no idea what retirement could bring.
But for now, he’s got Benji, and he’s got this.