Paris, 2015
12th December, 2015
Paris, France
Wakefulness came gently.
Cool fingers, delicate and deliberate, traced the lines of her spine. They dipped around and over the scars left by her implant surgery, the distinct sound of metal on metal clinking as her partner’s hand reached the implants themselves.
Ghost turned her head to look at her partner lying in the bed next to her.
In the yellow-white light of the Parisian morning, he seemed softer than usual. With his hair unbound and splayed around his head like a halo, she thought he looked similar to the archangels depicted by DaVinci, but for the sharp contours of his face; more masculine than the sweet faced creatures the master had painted. Sunlight pooled and illuminated the blueness in his gaze, making his eyes little chips of the sky. She thought perhaps they were warmed from within too, and the notion of such a thing made her giddy enough to smile at him, feeling a little foolish, even as he smiled in return.
He had a face for smiling, she mused, he seemed far better suited to it than scowling. She wondered if her own smile looked as easy. Probably not. Her cheeks were already starting to ache from it.
His hand glinted in the light, dazzling her for a brief moment, as he left her back to touch once at the scarring on her temples, before touching at fullest part of her bottom lip. “What do you want to do?” He asked quietly. Unconsciously, her gaze dropped down the length of him, unable to help herself. Her quick ogling look hadn’t been as subtle as she thought, because he laughed brightly, a little smugly. “Again?”
She could feel her cheeks warm, and huffed, turning to press her face into the pillow. The act did nothing to stop her blush, as she was reminded of being shoved down into the same position not half an hour earlier. “Can you blame me?” she muttered into the pillowcase.
“What was that?” He asked teasingly.
She grunted, knowing perfectly well he had heard her, and lifted her head to give him a baleful look. “Can you blame me?” She repeated anyway, narrowing her eyes at the smirk he gave her.
His own stare was even less subtle than hers had been, confidently so, and she felt that now-familiar heat run the length of her as he took his time looking at her naked form. “No, I cannot.” He said, a little breathlessly, and her resolve wavered and then snapped. She lifted herself up, and rolled atop him, the sheets tangling around their hips for a moment before he shoved them away impatiently, already stretching up to meet her lips halfway. “Ah, darlin’…”
They didn’t make it out of bed for another few hours.
The Avenue des Champs-Elysées’ wide, green-lined sprawl hid them effectively. To the hordes of tourists streaming to and from the Place de la Concorde, they were just another pair of lovers, strolling for the pleasure of it. Lovers. The word sent a shiver down her spine, just as the first taste of ice-cream did.
The City of Light had always inspired passion in others, and there was a faint satisfaction in adhering to the romance of the place. It felt – and here she had pause, for what did she know about it – like normality. Beside her, her partner matched her meandering pace, a thick woollen cap pulled low on his brow and covering his ears, which she knew was less of an aversion tactic than one of comfort. His ears and his nose always suffered in the cold, and he always pleaded ‘poor-circulation.’
It surprised her how much the sight of a pink nose and puppy-dog eyes made her belly flip and tighten. Normality.
They had made it past the US embassy opposite Le Chalet du Grand Palais, and in what she thought was an act of equal parts bravery and stupidity, lingered near the tall gates at a crepe stand to purchase a bottle of water. Behind them, the obelisk loomed, and she had a faint flash of memory; running, invisible and bleeding, across the cobblestones of the Concorde. She wondered if the Embassy had updated their security since their assignment there.
“It hasn’t changed much.” Her partner mused, licking distractingly at his ice-cream cone. She blinked at the pink of his tongue before she properly registered his words, nodding absently.
He was right; Paris still felt the same, and the streets had maintained their layout, and the tourist-traps were still crowded, and the locals were still impatient, and the food was still good. The last time they had been here, they had been passing through, sneaking from a mission in London by night. “I like Paris.” She said, scooping a bit of her blood-orange sorbet, and letting it melt completely in her mouth. She was unaffected by the temperature, the chill of the winter wind nothing to her, and though both her partner and the vendor had given her an odd look as she purchased her scoop, her partner had gamely bought a cone for himself too. “I always have.” She continued, nodding at the old, grand buildings that lined the street. He barked a laugh, and she narrowed her eyes at him. “What?”
“I seem to remember a certain someone saying; Если я больше никогда не увижу Эйфелеву башню, я умру счастливым.” If I never see the Eiffel Tower again, I will die happy. He mimicked her in a serious, clipped, husky voice, that she didn’t think sounded anything like her. The casual reference to the before, to a previous mission, jolted something in her.
Cautiously, she smiled with him. They didn’t speak often of their time in the field, but the light atmosphere had not been broken, and so she allowed herself to nod. She did remember the incident. It had been one of those missions that hadn’t ended well, and she’d been forced to cross the city on foot, invisible, and had waited two full days in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, bloodied and pained, for the extraction unit. “I have changed my mind.” She told him, a little snootily, and swiped her spoon across the top of his cone. He let her steal his ice-cream, snorting at her displeased scowl at the taste of vanilla. It was sweet and mostly tasteless. She didn’t understand why he liked it so much.
“Good! Because I booked a trip to the top of the tower.” He grinned earnestly, and she fought to smile back. “I’m kidding.” He laughed, and she scowled in earnest, shoving at his shoulder. “Your face…”
“Careful, or I’ll bring you to the Storsjön and drop you in.” Another mission gone awry, and it was her turn to laugh at his sour expression. Her partner had survived his accidental trip into the sub-zero waters of the frozen Swedish lake, but ever since, had approached large bodies of water with an amusing amount of caution.
He clutched at his chest, looking mockingly wounded. “You wouldn’t…you’d miss me too much.” It was said lightly, and yet her heart beat a stuttered staccato.
“I would.” She told him, unable to help the seriousness of her tone. “I would miss you.”
His wide grin sobered slightly, and he shifted his grip on his ice-cream in favour of taking her free hand in his. It was a simple gesture, the intertwining of their fingers together, and yet her heart raced again, and she looked around them instinctually, fighting the urge to rip herself from his grasp. “I know.” He said simply, and when her eyes had returned to his, raised her hand to press a kiss to her bare knuckles.
The moment was broken at the sudden outcry of a group of Japanese tourists outside the large Disney store. They slipped around them, and she ducked her head at the amount of camera phones being toted, that edge of warning sounding again. Ahead, the intricate carvings of the Arc de Triomphe began to take proper form, the foot traffic dying away as the well-traversed avenue gave way to the twelve-pointed spiral of busy roads dominated by cars and trucks and the occasional motorbike. Whilst she despised the Eiffel Tower, and the streets of Passy she’d been forced to occupy, she was caught with an excited curiosity at the prospect of the Arc.
“Do you want to climb it?” Her partner was watching her again, a knowing look in his eyes. “it’s not far to the top.” He blinked after he spoke, a faint cloud passing over his eyes.
“You have been before?” She frowned slightly, racking her brains for the memory of a mission that would have brought either of them to the peak of the monument. She came up empty, but the cloudy look in his eyes had given way to a familiar triumph. It was the look he got when he remembered something; something from before Hydra.
He nodded. “When I was stationed in Paris. I’m pretty sure we got drunk and broke in.” Not a bitter memory then. He grinned, in a cocksure kind of way. “I brought some locals girls up there. I don’t know why I thought that would impress them…”
She laughed with him, at the absurdity of the act. “I hope you didn’t try and give them a tour.” He winced, and she chuckled again, picturing him drunk and stumbling on his French, trying to wow women that had lived in Paris all their lives with one of the most well-known pieces of their city. “Oh, James…” she sighed.
His eyes sparked at his name, and his smile grew wider, pleased looking. “I swear I was good with dames.”
She looked pointedly at their interlinked hands. “I believe you.” She told him. She had shrugged off a lifetime of conditioning to run away with him, and whilst it was more complex than such a simple explanation, she had still been drawn to him in a way she shouldn’t have been. Surely, he could recognize that for the miracle it was.
He chuckled, and then looked worried. “You don’t- I mean it doesn’t bother you, does it?” he asked, a little vaguely, as they joined the queue of tourists waiting to buy tickets for the Arc. She shook her head slightly, wordlessly confused by his question. “Other girls. I mean- the ones that I, y’know.” She would have laughed at his bashfulness if he wasn’t trying so hard to be sweet and delicate about it.
“It doesn’t bother me.” She told him, truthfully. It didn’t. It was animal and selfish of her, archaic somehow, but she knew she had a claim on him. She had ties to him that couldn’t be voiced, and even if he did decided to walk away, if he decided to never kiss her again – she would content herself with what they had shared. Even the darkest, bloodiest, most painful parts of it.
He seemed to hesitate a moment, caught between desire and sense, and she swayed a little into him, curious. He looked down at her, searching her eyes for a moment before he moved. It was simple really, just the loose embrace of one arm around her shoulders, but it brought her close enough to him that he could press his lips to her forehead. He let her go quickly, and she writhed internally at the simple intimacy; old, ingrained feelings of recoil and horror making her twitch away from him. It still warmed her, and she forced herself to meet his eyes again and smile. “Okay?” he whispered, careful.
“Okay.” She echoed, meaning it with every particle of her being.
The rest of the day passed in the same fashion. They reintroduced themselves to the city, and played at being tourists, though their French was a little too good, and they ducked away from cameras, and flinched at sirens.
She did not know when his hand found hers again, and it was only as the sun was dipping behind the peak of Montmarte, that she realised they’d been walking linked. And of course, once she had realised, she was hyperaware of it, but wrestled the squirrely feeling of discomfort down, and held a little tighter. Afterall, she reminded herself, with a faint flush of heat, they had spent their previous night and the morning far closer and far more vulnerable.
They took the metro back to the 4th arrondissement and ate at a tiny bistro close enough to the Notre-Dame that from their seats facing the street – the waitress giving them a strange look after they’d brought both of their chairs to one side of the table – they could see the tip of the spires of the cathedral. They both had duck confit, and she resolved to find a recipe for it after the first bite, and he drank a beer, and she sipped at a glass of white wine that had been recommended but didn’t really like.
He took her hand again when they left, and on the metro back to their flat, she leaned against him and told herself she needed to in order to save space. The train car wasn’t near crowded enough for it to necessary. His hand found its way under her open coat, and splayed against the small of her back and held her there, and though he kept his gaze determinedly on the little blinking station lights above the door, she could see the way his lips kept curving into a small smile.