Ilsa Faust

A/N: From the beginning of MI: Rogue Nation, when Ilsa's perception of Ethan is still very much "outsider."

It was odd, you see. Because she had been prepared to do it.

Infiltrating the Syndicate had been an ugly job from the beginning. She had seen and heard and ignored and facilitated terrible things, things that would wake her up at night if she weren't already sleeping too shallowly to dream, hand on her knife-hilt and back to the wall. She still wasn't trusted. Not that anyone in this organization actually trusted anyone else, what with the ranks being filled with turncoat agents and rogue operatives, the treacherous and greedy and sadistic. They all side-eyed each other; every mission was double- and triple-backed, and not as a gesture of support. In that, at least, Ilsa was no different. But she needed some level of seniority, at least, if not trust, to get intel—the intel that would be her ticket home.

So when Solomon Lane—Solomon Lane himself, for once getting his hands dirty (and shouldn't that have been a warning?)—brought in American IMF agent Ethan Hunt and set her the task of questioning him, she saw both the test before her and Vinter's anticipatory face and she steeled herself for what she would have to do.

In foresight of just such a pass, Ilsa had purposely established her preferred method of influencing prisoners as more chemical and less physical. She collected from the lab vials of hallucinogens and truth serums and poisons that burned like fire in the veins but caused no lasting harm, and reluctantly entered the room containing Ethan Hunt.

She was clothed, free (or seemed so), and in charge; he was chained, half-naked, and under her power; yet as she entered the room he eyed her with the same assessing look she gave him, the same search for points of weakness or strength. From under the fog of sedative he was coming out of his gaze was quick and intelligent, which, given Lane's fixation with him, was hardly a surprise. But it was also mobile, expressive, and that was surprising: she would have expected either blank stoicism or harsh bravado from a man of his reputation, not this perceptible mixture of apprehension, curiosity, and determination.

But then Vinter swaggered in. Ilsa challenged him but knew it was useless; whether here with Lane's sanction or not, the Bone Doctor would have his way. He taunted Hunt, who now did respond with what might be called bravado. But she could see it was bravado for a purpose, used to gather information and confuse his captors, not the empty snarling of a pinned predator.

Vinter's blows to his chest was sharp, the kind that were hard to bear on a body already struggling for adequate breath as his was, arched with his arms chained to the pole behind his head. Ilsa knew better than to protest this brutality or the worse to come, but she surreptitiously snatched up the key to his manacles, for she saw in Hunt's eyes that Vinter was not wrong: this man would die before he turned. And she knew better than to wince; but something in her eyes must have betrayed her, for as Vinter was selecting his gruesome tools and she hurriedly running possibilities through her mind, the need to keep her cover warring with the sudden and fierce desire to save Hunt from this butchery, the agent turned to her.

"You should go," he rasped, "before it gets ugly."

Who was Ethan Hunt, to care about the discomfort of someone who had been about to torture him, merely because now he would be tortured in a more brutal way? Who was Ethan Hunt, to care about her?

She tilted her head, studying him: the strength in every line of his body not diminished by his captivity and Vinter's blows, the determination in every line of his face not undercut by his understanding of whatever he had seen in her eyes.

Her decision was made.

Concealed from the guard by the door, she opened her hand, showing him the key. His eyes flashed over her in confusion, and she knew what he was thinking: is this a trick, is she taunting him; but their eyes met behind Vinter's head in sudden, perfect understanding, and in the next moment they were fighting together as though they'd done it all their lives.

A momentary lull—he fell backward, head landing on her stomach; she laid an instinctive hand across his chest, touching him with a gentleness she had not used on another human being since the start of this awful mission. She stared down into the face of this man she suddenly, unaccountably but unavoidably, trusted more than anyone in the world.

"We've never met before…right?" he asked once all their enemies for the moment were unconscious or dead. And she might have laughed, except for the urgent pounding on the doors, because she wanted to ask him the same thing. Every beat was familiar as though she'd trained by his side, every joint move as smooth as if they'd partnered in the field for years.

She'd never had a partner, before.

Then they were running, and she told him to leave, leave though she had to stay and salvage what she could of her cover.

"Who are you?" he asked, and she couldn't answer. Gunfire chased him down the hallway, away from Vinter, away from Lane—away from her.

And as she bore the brunt of Lane's anger and suspicion, as she fought to regain his trust, as she once again touched no human being except to give pain or receive it, she thought of Ethan Hunt—and hoped.