Ethan didn't care much for flying. A wrecked car or train, you might walk away from. A sinking ship, you might be able to swim away from. A passenger plane plane falling out of the sky was little more than an aluminum coffin with engines, and highly combustible fuel surrounding it. While he would fly if needed, he tried to avoid it.
That being said, when doing protection detail, flying was actually the most secure way to travel. Discounting some highly experimental, and absurdly dangerous, ideas, there was no way to infiltrate a jet aircraft at thirty five thousand feet. It gave him one of the few times that he could relax during one of these jobs. Granted he didn't look all that relaxed to Rock.
Rock had to admit though, the mercenary cleaned up well. Gone were the typically greasy jeans and t-shirt, in their place a five thousand dollar custom tailored suit from a small shop in Milan. Long wild hair cut in a more business like style. The wild and differing pistol carries for a simple Sig Sauer in a neat professional shoulder holster, that you wouldn't even see as long as he had his jacket on. Were it not for the face, he wouldn't even believe that this was Ethan Haines anymore.
"Rock, you staring at me like that is making me a little nervous for my asshole. I didn't think you swung that way, though I have to admit, I am damn good looking," Ethan chuckled as he noticed Rock staring at him.
"I just can't believe you are the same person I drink with most nights. I thought most mercenaries were rag-tag like the ones Roanapur is filled with, you look like you should be leading a political protection detail," Rock explained.
"I have done that. Honestly, what passes for a mercenary in Roanapur I have noticed, are mainly failures, those who couldn't adapt. Back in '89 the U.N. passed a resolution that pretty much criminalized nations hiring mercs, and while it hasn't gone up for ratification yet, it pretty much spelled the doom of those like them. Most of the more solid ones, they joined up with PMCs, and the rest like me, we went into mainly protection work. It isn't as glorified as what I used to do much of, but it kept me working and bringing in money. Though you already know I don't need money all that badly."
"I never thought about what kind of people were in the city. I just assumed that was a mercenary generally, especially given my one encounter with a PMC wasn't all that great. Believe it or not, we shot a helicopter down with a torpedo. In mid air."
Ethan snorted at that, "How the fuck would you shoot a helicopter down with a torpedo, let alone in mid air. And Revy called my story about what ever the fuck that thing in Chechnya was bullshit. Honestly though, even though I live there now, I recognize Roanapur deserves to burn for those that have made it their home. Granted I would rather it not since my stuff is there, and if anyone decides to, please give me a weeks notice to get the hell out of there."
"Hey, Ethan. Could you do something for me?"
"What's that?"
"Could you teach me to shoot?"
"What?"
Rock swallowed hard, "I, I just don't want to have to rely on Revy to protect me all the time anymore. I want to be able to watch her back, just like she does mine."
Ethan swiveled his seat around to face the younger man, "Do you want me to teach you to shoot, or do you want me to teach you to kill? They are not the same thing."
"What do you mean," the look in Ethan's eyes made Rock shrink back into his seat.
"Any idiot can pull a trigger and shoot a gun, it isn't that hard. Killing? That is a different matter. It is something you either have the ability to do, or you don't. It doesn't bother me all that much to walk up to a man crying on his knees, and a put round between his eyes, it's just something I do. Cut a throat, tie a man up with a chunk of C4 with a timer hooked up to the blasting cap, or throw them in a lake tied to a cinder block. Killing doesn't mean anything to me. So I ask again, do you want me to teach you to shoot, or do you want me to teach you to kill?"
Rock felt his chest tighten up,"I, I, I..."
"Thank God you can't answer. Trust me Rock, you are better off without a gun in your hand. Even if it means nothing to me, every life I take, is a bit of my soul that is lost. I don't know how much I have left to lose of it, and what is waiting for me at the end of it all. One thing I know for sure, I ain't seeing no pearly gates. There won't be any streets of gold, or heavenly choirs. I am damned, I can tell you that for sure, and there is no amount of repentance that can change that. I will tell you this Rock, if you see me or Revy die, don't cry for us, cause that would just be an insult."
"I just don't want to be weak anymore. Look at how often I get used against everyone, how could I not want to leave that behind. I am the weakest link in Lagoon Company."
Ethan sighed as he sat back, "Rock, you may be one of the strongest people I have ever met. Look at where we live, and the fact you have never taken a life. It doesn't take a strong man to kill another man, it takes a weak one. I have been doing this most of my life, and I do wish that I might have had a better chance. But my start in life, it made me weak."
Rock kept thinking about what Ethan had said to him earlier. Killing made a person weak? He couldn't quite understand what the mercenary was saying with his words. He wouldn't call Dutch or Revy weak, and he couldn't count how many he had seen them kill. Ethan himself was far from weak in Rock's eyes, and he had seen the cold expression in his eyes as he killed.
So what was strength then? He had never stopped to think about that, he never had a reason to stop and think about it. It was a very important question for a person to consider though, one that if you didn't, you never would understand yourself.
"I heard what you asked Ethan earlier," Revy broke him out of his thoughts.
"You did, and you heard what he said? So what shit are you going to throw in my face over this one," he asked not really wanting her company at the moment.
"I'm not. Honestly a year ago if I heard you ask someone something like that I would be ripping you a new one like you wouldn't believe. This ain't a year ago, I have changed some since Ethan popped his sorry ass around. Don't get me wrong, I ain't going to stop killing people, but I am starting to think about things a lot like he does," the woman he saw for a moment didn't match his memory of her.
"Revy, you can't be serious, your personal motto is live fast and leave a good looking corpse. How would you ever see killing people as weak?"
"Because I will kill a person without even thinking about it. I know how scary I am to so many people, I don't know how many people I saw piss themselves as I put a gun to their head. I thought it was great at the time, but looking at him, and seeing the parallels between him and me, Ethan has given me a new perspective. Why did you ask him to teach you to shoot?"
"I don't...," Revy cut him off.
"Why not me, why not Dutch? Why him? What is different about him that you would go to him first," there was a slight thing Rock saw in her face he wasn't sure how to process, betrayal.
Rock took a breath, "Because I knew neither one of you would do it. Ethan might, or I thought he might."
"Dumbass, that doesn't mean that it wouldn't make me feel better for you to have asked me first. I have known you for years now, I am your partner. I ain't all that good with the emotional bullshit, but I am still human, at least I can still get drunk like one."
"That sounds like the Revy I know, but I don't, where is this even coming from? I haven't ever heard you speak this, I hate saying this because I know you will probably hit me, but intelligently," he braced himself for the fist that never came.
"Rock, I know I am stupid. The only thing I am actually good at is killing, I used to be proud of that. Who needs smarts when a gun will get you all you need, but then we meet Ethan. He is basically the guy me, and look at him. How often does he even fucking smile? Is that where I want to be in five years, a mother fucking washed up gunner, who can't even fucking smile? Rock, like he said, there is a difference in shooting, and killing. I didn't realize it myself for a long time, but never fucking pick up a gun that you don't have to, never fucking do it," she got up.
"Re..." he never had a chance to finish speaking.
Revy let her fist open, "You were right though, I was going to fuck your face up for pointing out I am stupid, you limp dicked asshole."
Balalaika and Ethan sat in the front cabin of the plane listening to the exchange. Ethan didn't let anything show through on his face, at times like this you couldn't. However Balalaika couldn't help herself.
"Are we sure that Two Hands wasn't abducted and replaced before we took off? I have honestly never heard her talk that much, with that little profanity," the older woman was amazed.
Ethan took a breath, "Sofiya, even with that body, Revy is still mentally a child in many ways. She never had a reason to grow up, and listening to her words, I doubt she ever expected to even make it to twenty. Hell, I honestly didn't get like this until the bullshit that put that walnut in my skull, and had everyone of that rebel cell get killed around me while I could escape, that is when I grew up. I had planned for Bugakov to be my retirement. A nice cushy security job with a half decent boss. I don't know how many of the mercs I worked with would have given their left ball for that kind of retirement plan. I don't know how many would have given both balls just to have a chance to retire. I don't know how many I buried that I thought of as friends. I watched the man that basically raised me into who I became, well he actually tried to raised me better than I turned out, die in the middle of the road in fucking Columbia. I don't know how many times I have been at death's door, and didn't have the huevos to knock. Sofiya, I am coward. I am so much of a coward, that I can't even admit and keep doing the same thing that makes me a coward."
"Then that means that Roanapur is simply a city of cowards. I can't find any fault with that thought. Mag, may I ask you something?"
Ethan looked at the woman, "What it is?"
"You never gave me a clear answer as to why you turned me down all those years ago. I stood in front of you in the middle of the desert in my full glory, ready to give myself to you, the least I could give in exchange for my life, and you took one look at me and said no. I know I was more beautiful back then, I didn't have these scars. I know how many of my own men looked at me when they thought I couldn't see them. Why," the question was direct, with no real room to avoid it.
Ethan leaned forward and rested his arms on his legs, "Because, even though you annoyed the ever loving fuck out me, you deserved to be touched by much better hands than mine even then. You were beautiful, and I might say you are even still more now. Those burns, that you endured them, that you don't try to hide them, that makes you all the more beautiful now. But even if I watched your clothes fall on the floor right now, I would still do the same as I did then. You deserve much better than I could ever be, and I hope that you still have a chance to find a man good enough for you. It will never be me though, I am just another washed up merc waiting to finally close my eyes."
"Mag, I can't deny that I have some feelings for you, but when you say it, I can't deny that somehow I know that you are right. Then again I shouldn't be too surprised, Russians aren't known for being romantic," while she wouldn't admit it, the shifting in her seat was due to his words, and thankfully she always over packed for her business trips.