Started off as your typical 'five things' drabble list & then seriously got out of hand. Still not happy with it, but refuse to edit it anymore.
Ever since I watched the Hitman movie (like an eternity ago), I really wanted some post-movie Nika/47 written premise for me to springboard deliciously indulgent daydreams. Unfortunately Aftermath very quickly went off into a direction I didn't like & In Ascension looked like it'll take too long. So even though I didn't intend it, looks like this is the closest thing I've got to such a premise. If I ever write any continuations in this fandom, it'll probably be using this fic. Sorry to those who were reading those stories (all 1.5 of you, heh).
Strictly movieverse (I have zero game knowledge). Oodles of sappy angst. And yet, against these odds, mature feedback still hoped for.
One
When he touches her on the train, just after he tells her she has to leave, it is the first time he's touched her voluntarily without dragging her off somewhere or throwing her out of gunfire range. She clutches at him and he does that weird intense thing where he touches the dragon on her cheek and in that heartbeat of odd, fleeting tenderness, Nika remembers that this man may be one fucked-up killer but he is also her saviour, and it may be pathetic but no one has ever been kind to her in the way he has. 47 keeps looking at her in that dark, hungry way and she is trying to get the words past the heart in her throat when he turns around and walks off without a backward glance.
Right then, it felt like she'd never see him again.
Two
She opens the envelope and there it is, staring straight at her: you've won the lottery, surprise, ha fucking ha – Jesus Christ, holy shit...
A vineyard, a vineyard, the hitman gave her a fucking goddamn vineyard. He had listened, and he had done this, and this must have cost a fucking fortune - no one has ever – no one –
Nika can't help the stupid grin on her face. She wants to do something stupid, like dance and shout in the streets or lie in the middle of the sidewalk and laugh and laugh until she cries, or even scream up into the beautiful blue summer skies for him to join me, come join me you stupid wonderful fucker, as if the wind would carry her voice to wherever he is right now, probably whole continents away; but of course, she doesn't. Instead she closes her eyes, breathes in clean and deep, and tries to imagine a life without whoring.
It takes a while, but she gets there.
Three
Then reality bites and she realizes she's a city girl with thirty acres of treacherous, unfamiliar land and only the blurred memories of her childhood to guide her. She comes this close to selling the whole godforsaken land and using the money to fund her old life of hotels, stoned parties and shopping, except even without the raping and abuse it makes her feel slightly suicidal whenever she thinks about it seriously. Nika curses and drinks while working and breaks far too many of her fingernails trying to figure out how to work the land, and that cold sonofabitch must have been goddamned insane for thinking she could do this when she clearly fucking couldn't.
Then Nika discovers that she doesn't have to let the workers push her around.
Then Nika discovers that she's the motherfucking boss for once, and a goddamned fast learner at being one too.
Five months and two weeks after receiving her second chance in a white envelope, Nika has one of the most promising vineyards in the northern region. When she realizes this, the dizziness steals her legs from under her and she has to sit where she is, dirt-stained and shaking. She realizes that she hasn't worn make-up in weeks. She remembers that she hasn't had sex in months. And she doesn't really think this, because even some things you can never really get used to, but what she doesn't think is this: I am the richest person in the nearest five towns right now. Oh my fucking god.
Nika sits in the middle of one of her fields and tries to believe.
And the thing is this: Nika knows this should be her happy ending – the girl who went from whore to riches – hooray honey, dreams do come true, roll the credits...
And the thing is this: Nika is happy, she really is, because she is grateful – she has a vineyard and she owns herself and everything is perfect, just unbelievable; and it doesn't hurt when she tries to imagine a future like this, so bright and perfect and empty; there isn't a hollowness in her chest like a wound gaping, a treacherous heart wishing...
And the thing is this: Nika is happy, and yet she is not. She has a vineyard, and yet she is still waiting.
Say what you like about her, but after a lifetime of listening to bullshit, Nika has never lied to herself.
More importantly, she has never been very patient.
Five months and three weeks after a certain white envelope is opened by a whore, there is a new contract out on the streets. It is a capture-and-deliver order, and the target's name is Nika Boronina.
Four
She's out of practice, so she takes to the streets. (No, poor choice of words – she goes out dating. Like any normal, ordinary woman who maybe wears her makeup just a little too dark and wild; who has silk dresses that are perhaps a little too scarce in material... But it's what she's used to and what she's comfortable in, so fuck her staring neighbours and fuck what they think of her impractical shoes, Nika is doing this her way.)
The rural men like her despite themselves – she can tell from the way they watch and the way the women glare when she walks across the Sunday market courtyard. The young ones are lean and tan from working the fields, and they treat her with a mix of suspicion and patronization and hungry-eyed desire. Nika knows they are intimidated by her, which suits her just fine; one Sunday, she struts up to the pack of them lounging in the shade, eyes them carefully, and picks the most likely one – the largest, silent one who never seems to smile. She asks him out on the spot, bold and smirking. Even with his friends around him, he doesn't stand a chance.
He doesn't even make it past the day; by Monday, she's out hunting for the next challenge. The second one goes down with barely a fight; the third is a mistake. Then the fourth – a bright-haired, bright-eyed man she picked on a whim because there are only so many silent and strong types in a small town – turns out to be the one she's looking for. He is as different from 47 as two men can possibly be, but underneath his easy laughter and sleepy smiles, there is something she recognizes. A wall, a distance, a brutal indifference to touch. He doesn't mind her but doesn't want her; he is pleasant enough but he never tries to find her.
In short, he is perfect. So Nika throws herself in it. She flirts and she teases and she sulks and she simpers. She is silly and she is serious; she is sexy and she is naive. She throws every goddamned trick in the book at him. And still, the damned man doesn't come to her. By the end of a fortnight, Nika is in irritated panic. By the end of the next week, she is crying from frustration.
(Don't look at her like that; it's her stupid period and her goddamned hormones. For once in her life, she's eating enough to actually start getting periods and look where it gets her: curled up in bed and breaking her heart over the fact that some men will never want her. That for some men, she will never be good enough. It's fucking pathetic.)
In the end, she gets sick of crying and gives up. She crawls out of bed and finds him by the local stream, where no one has ever caught any fish but the local men never seem to stop trying anyway. He greets her, and she sits by him, and after a few minutes of ignoring his chatter, Nika interrupts: Why?
What?
Why don't you want me?
He splutters. I don't—Nika, what are you talking about?
You don't want me. You never touch me. Why?
I don't... I...
His hesitation lengthens, grows awkward. In the spaces between, Nika thinks she hears something breaking.
You fucker. I hate you.
She is horrified to realize that she is crying again, tired wet streaks. Her mouth gasps on, all on its own,
I hate you. I hate you. Why won't you find me? I hate yo--
She cuts herself off, presses her palms hard against her mouth. The man is staring at her. Nika closes her eyes and counts to ten, and thinks bitterly on the stupidity of hormones and hope and heartbreak.
When she opens her eyes, he is still staring. Nika takes her hands away carefully, then gives the staring man a perfect, practiced smirk. She gets up and goes home, and doesn't look back.
In the morning, she makes a call, makes a new contract, and doubles the reward. If she was optimistic, she would say it represented a leap of faith; instead, if feels more like a suicide note.
Five
Then it happens, and it happens without warning. She barely realizes that it's happening at all until her last breath of consciousness: ohfuc—
She wakes up tied to a chair. A dim room, splintering boards, yellow light staining through the window. A shock of déjà vu, acrid as terror – then Nika is too busy gagging on the rag stuffed in her mouth to care about flashbacks or poetic justice. Spots whirl in front of her eyes, and on her first desperate inhalation, she seems to take in more dust than air. Nika sneezes and gags and sneezes, and is thinking wildly that she never thought they'd kill her this way when the gag is abruptly taken away and replaced by something else. It is cold and hard, and it feels sickeningly familiar against the back of her head.
A gun, of course. Nika realizes this even as she sucks in lungfuls of sweet air, even as she tries to make her thick tongue say I didn't mean it, I hired this hit, please god don't kill me oh god please—
She even wants to say, tell the man named 47 that I'm sorry, because she really is.
Nika realizes that she is going to die.
Then the pressure against her head lifts, pulls away. There is a brief, rough warmth on her left cheekbone. Her tattoo. The chair screeches as it is forced around in one sudden move, and suddenly Nika is staring at the man who has haunted her dreams for the last half a year.
"Nika", 47 says flatly. "If you tell me that you still haven't found a reason to live, I will kill you."
And six
"You came."
Nika can't tell if she's smiling or scowling. She is aching all over, in her throat and eyes and heart, and yet she thinks she might be smiling; she is so happy. Her killer is here and she is so dumbly, wildly happy.
47 is not smiling.
"You are a bigger fool than I thought," he says. His eyes are so dark that they are nearly black; Nika thinks she can see herself in them. "What the hell are you doing? Do you want to die?"
"No," she says, dazed. He looks the same as ever, all hard angles and smooth planes, the blood-red river of his tie like an afterthought of colour. He looks-- "You're angry," she says, wonderingly.
For a second, she thinks he might shoot her. "No," he bites out. "I'm fucking furious." Then he slams his gun down on the table, the sound ringing like a gunshot, and covers his eyes with one hand. It happens in under a second, and when 47 looks at her again, that dark and wild shadow is wiped from his face and she almost thinks she imagined it all: he looks as calm and dispassionate as ever, the only hint of tension in the line of his shoulders.
"Nika," he starts again, evenly. "Why did you order a hit on yourself?"
"I wanted to see you." She tries a smirk, but somehow a smile keeps peeking through. "How else was I supposed to get you to come?"
47 stares. "What made you think I'll come?"
"You're here, aren't you?"
"Yes," he says flatly. "But only because I was given this hit this morning. The man who took this assignment died last night."
Nika's smile freezes.
The hitman continues, relentless, "Imagine my surprise when I found out who the target was. Fortunately for me, I didn't have to waste time on tracking you down." His jaw tightens. "I don't have time for this, Nika. If you want to get killed, then just do it. Don't waste your time playing games."
"I just wanted to see you again," she says numbly. She doesn't see him flinch. "I thought --"
"No," he cuts her off. "You don't think."
"You sonofabitch!" There is a dead hollowness starting to seep through her, a kind of white hurt, but Nika is too angry to care. He may have been kind to her once, he may be a murdering bastard, but no one talks to her like she's some goddamned stupid whore anymore. And he doesn't care. "Who the fuck do you think you are? How would I know that even you could be so goddamned cold, you bastard!"
"I kill people, Nika," 47 says acerbically, as if speaking to a particularly slow child. "I don't protect them. You should have known better before you decided to pay for your own death--"
"It was a great fucking plan, I would have been delivered to myself even if you too damned heartless--"
"Except you gave such a pathetic rate for your capture order that no professional would touch it—"
"How the hell would I know--"
"—and then you changed to a kill order –"
"THREE FUCKING DAYS AGO! I was going to change it back, you arrogant--"
"—all because you got rejected and you couldn't handle it."
A ringing pause, and then 47 continues, precise and deliberate as an insult: "After years of living with men like Bellicroft, you throw your freedom away just when you finally own your own life." His fingers tighten around the silver grip of his gun, as if in reflex. "You didn't think. And one day is more than enough time to kill you twice."
Silence like the aftermath of a slap. Nika can barely bring herself to look at him. He is exactly as she remembers him – shorn head, clipped tones, all calm and deadly competence – but somehow there is a vicious edge to him that wasn't there before, like restraint cracked through. He has known her as a whore, she thinks distantly, and yet this is the first time he's ever seemed to want to hurt her. It is absurd to think that she ever hoped he might want to see her too.
And she is about to say something bitter to match the taste in her mouth, something to go down fighting with in this dim room of trapped dust and recycled history when – she thinks –
"How?"
"What?"
"How," Nika says slowly, "do you know
The room suddenly sounds like a breath held. 47 looks at her, and is very still.
"And how," Nika says, as if testing each word, "do you know he... rejected me?"
Still 47 doesn't say anything. He closes his eyes.
Nika thinks he might be listening to her heart thundering. It's certainly loud enough. She says, unsteadily, "You're lying. You were watching me."
Please, she does not say. Tell me, she does not ask.
There is a long agonizing beat. Then--
"I wasn't lying."
Nika's heart sinks.
47 opens his eyes. "The man who took this assignment died last night. He was shot." He stops, then says unwillingly, as if swallowing bullets – "And I've killed five others who have tried before."
Another man might have brought her flowers. 47 killed six men for her. A normal woman, Nika tells herself, wouldn't catch her breath this way.
On the other hand, a normal woman wouldn't be in this situation either.
She whispers, "can you get me out of these ropes?"
He is silent as he takes them off. A swift flick of a razor-knife releases her wrists and ankles; Nika rubs the red marks absently. She looks up at him.
Then she is moving up, off the chair, across the floor, reckless and unthinking. He doesn't quite catch her, but he doesn't push her off either -- she smashes into him like a bird against the windowpane, forehead hard against his chest and arms desperate around his waist, and he has to brace himself to keep from falling with her. Nika can't stop cursing under her breath, fierce spit-vulgar Russian, and her killer may be as silent as ever but she can feel his heartbeat under the thin shirt of his suit and it is answer enough. She leans into him and he holds her by default, and Nika wants to pretend that he wanted this even half as much as she always did.
They stand like this and Nika tries to remember how to breathe.
"Were you always watching?" she asks quietly.
"No." Then, quieter: "Not always."
"How did you know? About Nicolas?"
His hesitation is longer this time. Nika can hear his own breathing above her, even and too steady.
"I watch contracts with your name on it," he says finally. "I retire the ones who get too close. When a new contract came out last month, it had small details that gave away that client knew you well. Too well. It mentioned your father used to own a vineyard in the North. I thought that one of your neighbours may be a leak and so I came." His tone flattens, becomes strange and ironic. "Naturally this included investigating your many personal involvements."
"You were here all this time--"
"Only between my other tasks." He is curt: "I wasn't sure it was you till you were foolish enough to call the agency again. I had to track down the man who accepted your hit before he found you. You give too many clues even in your own hit, Nika."
She shakes her head unconsciously, the movement muted by his body, "I didn't—"
"I know." And there it is, that odd flat tone again – "You didn't know," her killer says, and he sounds bitter, he sounds resigned. He sounds, Nika realizes, like he doesn't want to be here except he is; like he wishes he wasn't touching her and yet he is still holding her. He is still holding her.
She tips her head to look up at him. His eyes are dark and guarded, but this close, she thinks she can see what she glimpsed in the train so long ago: a gentleness suppressed, a hunger hidden. A world promised, wordless and uncertain. He touches her tattoo with his thumb, light and careful.
"You should have--"
"No."
-- told me. Of course not.
"Were you going to--"
"No."
-- shoot me. I guess I always knew.
"Did you want to?"
47 doesn't answer. Instead he says, as if to merely change the subject, "That man--"
"No!" It comes out louder than she intends. Nika says, softer, "He's no one. Just... I just need to know something. I pretended he was you."
The stillness is like a heart stopped. And Nika adds, simply, "I missed you."
47 looks at her. The look is long and intense and unreadable, and Nika's throat closes up. He is close enough that they make their own confessional of darkness; close enough that she thinks he must be able to hear her heart breaking. Close enough that Nika can't help moving closer, instinctive; can't help tilting her face upwards towards his, and –
"I can't stay, Nika."
The moment breaks. She stumbles back. "What—"
"I have contracts to fulfil. I always will."
"Then let me come!"
"No." He says, not unkindly, "I can't have distractions."
That sonofa—
Nika swallows a curse, forces her heart from her mouth. She says, very steadily, "Then you can come visit me. For as long as you can. Whenever you can. And you can stop giving me no for a goddamned answer!"
He could have lied, she would realize later. She would have believed him. But he doesn't. Instead, he says nothing, just a fleeting warmth against her cheek again – once, twice; brief as a whim, careless as an afterthought. And it is something so simple and so unremarkable – just a man touching a woman, just the oldest scene in the world – but as always it is all takes to pull Nika back again, back past her new life and new home like a current dragging a swimmer down; back into that afternoon-lit train with the uncaring rumble of a hundred other passengers in the same carriage and still no one in the world but them. She is still cut open and naked in a way Bellicroft has never seen her, and there is still a murderer looking at her as if she is the problem and the answer, the eclipse and the moonrise, and hope is still treacherously tightening beneath her ribs, whispering maybe, maybe, please maybe... and any moment now he is still going to walk away and never look back.
Except this time, he doesn't.
Except this time, a second comes and goes, and he is still with her.
Nika stands in the ghost-memory of a train and this time, 47 does not walk away. In another second, this will be different; but right now, in this heartbeat of time, a new universe of infinite possibilities is being forged. Right now, in this heartbeat of time, Nika is almost smiling and 47 is almost human. And it feels like she is going to see him again.
It feels like she is going to see him again.