Cinema by InSilva
Disclaimer: do not own any of these wonderful characters.
A/N: set pre-"The Empty Hearse".
There was a quirky little cinema not too far from where they lived and every so often they'd have a date night. Eat an early meal and then head to see a film and then fall back into their flat and let the evening continue.
They'd laughed at "Life of Brian" and she'd had to slip John tissues when they'd seen "A.I." and he'd put his arm around her through the scary bits of "Psycho" though that was more of a failed attempt to nick her popcorn.
She loved the ordinariness of doing something as simple as going to the cinema. Five years ago, nothing had been simple.
The job in Rome had gone so very, very wrong and thank any god that would listen that she'd realised in time.
One dangerous stop to Alessandro's to hack herself out of the system –
"Here, bella, let me." Hands flew over the keyboard, eating their way through records, storing it all on a USB. "Keep this safe. Some day, you might need it. Now ciao, ciao and go!"
- and then she was running like she'd never run before. No time to double back, no time to settle. Identities flying through her fingers. She was Mette Olsen and Dijana Ljubenovic and Kay West and Mireille Guiot and she didn't sleep and she didn't eat all the way to London and the hastily created Mary Morstan.
"Just wait. Just wait and she will show herself."
She could hear the voice, knowing and certain and there was only one option. To bury herself. No contact with her handler, nothing that would take her into the open, no trace of anything that would connect her to the woman whose life she carried round on a memory stick labelled A.G.R.A. – her sins, her past, her.
Mary Morstan wasn't looking for love but it found her as surely as any cheesy song. John Watson. Who loved her without reservation. Whose face lit up with that crinkly smile she adored. Whose nightmares, when they came, alternated between wardeathviolence and watching a man throw himself from a roof.
When she could, she woke him up before the dream took proper hold. Before he sat up, sweating, Afghanistan in his head or Sherlock's name on his lips. There were advantages to being a light sleeper.
She loved him. She would protect him. Whatever that took. Every now and then, there was a reminder that that wasn't an empty promise.
Like when they'd been to the cinema to see "The Long Kiss Goodnight" with Geena Davis, as an amnesiac assassin who regained her memory and understood exactly why she could handle a knife.
She could feel the blade in her hand and the weight was perfect and the man in the tuxedo had less than twenty seconds to live.
Or "Casino Royale" with the pre-credits fight to the death and the conviction that after the first killing, everything got easier.
Nothing was easier. She walked away from the man who was already dead and hadn't yet had the decency to collapse in the theatre foyer.
Or tonight with "Avengers Assemble" when she'd sat and watched Scarlett Johansson and tried not to think about how impractical the leather catsuit would be to operate in; about how pretty the violence was – where was the dirt and the blood?; about how much red was in her own personal ledger.
"You'd make a good Black Widow," John said on the way home and she caught her breath.
Keeping as calm as she could, she half-turned her head and saw nothing but the playful in John's eyes. She breathed again.
"Who would you be? And don't say Hawkeye. You're rubbish at darts."
"I let you win," John protested, opening the door to the flat and standing back to let her go in first. "Anyway. I'd be Dr Bruce Banner. Mild-mannered with a rage-monster inside."
Yeah. She could believe it.
She stepped inside and then she realised he was still stood on the doorstep. She turned and saw that John was wearing that fond little sad smile.
"Sherlock?" she asked softly.
"He would have been Tony Stark."
"Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist?"
John laughed.
"Genius, anyway. Brilliant and arrogant, all fast-talking and cutting and not caring what the world thinks and God, I miss him."
She put her hand up to his face and he caught it and kissed it.
"Come on." She pulled him into the flat. "Hot drink for Dr Watson."
Whatever it took. Even a cup of cocoa.