Chapter Text
After getting rid of 48, they moved quickly down the building, getting out as fast as they could to put distance between them and their pursuers. 47 was sure Diana wouldn't take long to send more after them, if she hadn't already.
They needed to get out of Singapore immediately, but they were both exhausted and, even with his genetically enhanced stamina, 47 had still taken a bullet to save Katia's life.
As soon as they were out of the building he began explaining his plan to her. They would find someplace to hide for tonight, and first thing tomorrow they would book tickets to somewhere far from here. Somewhere where they could plan their next step in order to make it impossible for the ICA to track them down.
"No fucking way!" she shouted in protest as she hurried to keep up with his pace, earning inquisitive looks from several passersby.
"We're taking you to the hospital! You're wounded, you're in need for medical treatment!"
He sighed, keeping his eyes straight ahead, "I'll be fine, Katia. I can take the bullet out myself and I'll heal in no time."
Outrageous. How on Earth could he remain this calm with a bullet stuck in his body, she didn't know. But it sure did make her furious how insensitive he was to such a serious injury. He wasn't immortal, for God's sake!
"It's not the same thing, it could get infected! You must see a doctor, 47, it's important-"
He sharply turned around, so fast she almost crashed against his chest, but he steadied her, grabbed her by her arms.
"Listen to me, Katia."
His eyes were intense, his voice serious but less composed now. They were attracting attention to them and they didn't want that.
"We don't have time for this. Diana has sent her men after us and we need to find somewhere to hide before they manage to detect us."
He was shaking her, trying to make her realize how critical the little time they had available was to reach safety.
"Appearing at any public place right now would mean our death, more so a hospital. Do you understand?"
All protest about to come out of her mouth vanished. She kept silent but nodded, knowing he was right. In her worry for his wellbeing she hadn't thought about that. Ironic, if you think that mere minutes ago she had a gun aimed at his face.
"Good. Trust me when I say I can make it. All will be okay."
She highly doubted that, but chose not to reply. He let her go as quickly as he had caught her and continued his way. Once again, she scurried to match his long strides, following him as he rounded the next corner.
They managed to find a taxi and 47 requested that the man take them to some motel. Not that they couldn't afford something better, but it would be easier for them to stay under the radar that way.
The driver couldn't help but glance at them a handful of times, taking in their disheveled looks. There was still blood on 47's face and head coming from minor injuries. Thankfully, obviously deciding it was to his best interest, he didn't ask any questions regarding them and Katia silently thanked the man.
The ride to the motel was quiet, the only noises coming from the buzzing world outside. Cars, people, bars coming alive in the night under bright neon lights. Katia would even come to think of the city as beautiful, had it not been a place that from now on would haunt her dreams.
When they finally arrived at the motel, it was the clerk's turn to give them strange looks.
"Are you two alright?" he asked, suspiciously looking at them with drawn eyebrows through his glasses.
"We're fine, thank you." came 47's instant reply, in his usual emotionless tone. "We need a room, two single beds."
She turned to face him, but he ignored her. She was hoping for some personal space and segregation from his watchful eye to deal with the situation herself, without him observing every little move she made.
"None available." said the old man idly, with a dismissive wave of his hand.
"A double bed will do, then." was 47's answer.
Great. She clenched her fists and bit her tongue to keep from objecting.
The clerk gave them the key and indifferently wished them a goodnight as they ascended the stairs to find their room.
47 unlocked the door and made way for her to step in first. "We could have gotten two separate rooms, you know." she remarked, irritated.
"We need to stay close." he explained as he locked the door behind them again.
"Men from the ICA could find us any minute. We should be able to defend ourselves if that happens, and we'll do that better if we stick together. "
She had to admit he was right.
"Fine," she huffed "but I'm taking the bed!"
A faint smirk graced his lips, barely there "As you wish, princess." he said sarcastically.
"Look at that! Mister frosty-ass cracking a joke! I can die in peace now!" she teased, fascinated to learn he actually had the ability to smile. Sort of.
He didn't say anything but she saw him smirk again. Incredible.
"What a shithole." she mumbled as she took the room in and set their bags down. They were only able to carry some basic things like money, clothes, gear and gadgets 47 needed.
"Patience." he sighed out. "It's only for one night."
A light pant of discomfort coming from 47 drew her attention back to him. He was already shrugging his coat off and, seeing his blood stained dress shirt, she abruptly remembered his wound again.
"Let me help you with that. I'm gonna go wash my hands and I'll be right back." she said as she made her way to the bathroom.
She looked around the small space for a first-aid kit. There had to be one somewhere there, no matter how shitty this godforsaken place was.
She finally found her treasure box along with an old box full of sewing supplies that would come in handy. Surprising.
After thoroughly washing her hands and rubbing some alchohol over them, she went back to 47's side. He had removed his shirt and she could freely see the bullet hole adorning the side of his back.
"Let me see that."
"You don't have to. I can take care of it myself." he rejected with a shake of his head. "Give me the kit."
"No. I want to help you. And don't be fucking stupid because you couldn't possibly reach that far back unless you want to worsen the damage. You need help. So stop rejecting it. Now, let me see it."
Why was he being so fucking stubborn?
He sighed heavily through his nostrils but complied with her wish. She brought a nearby chair next to the bed and motioned for him to sit. He sat facing its back, so she could have a better look.
As she examined the wound she got anxious. Anxious and so very frightened. The bullet wasn't deep enough to kill him but still, she had never done this before.
What if she couldn't do it? What if she messed this up? What if she ended up pushing the bullet further inside, resulting in hurting him worse? She audibly swallowed and started by cleansing the surrounding skin with some Betadine that she poured on a piece of cotton.
"I'm gonna take the bullet out now." she stated but it was obvious she was unsure of whether she would make it and she internally cursed herself for being so afraid. There was no time for that now.
He breathed in deeply, surely doubtful of what she was going to do, but remained silent.
To take the bullet out, she would use a pair of tweezers. She grabbed it with a shaky hand and paused to take in a deep breath and steady herself. She hesitated.
"Katia" her name came quietly out of his lips. She raised her eyes to meet his and was surprised to see that they weren't steely nor cold as she was used to seeing them.
They were soft and gentle and she found herself struck by how much more handsome he looked when he wasn't acting all solemn and distant. It was strange. She never thought he was able to look like this. It confused but also endeared her.
"Trust yourself." his voice snapped her out of her thoughts "You can do this. Calm down and just focus." he earnestly encouraged her.
He held her gaze, intense and she couldn't look away. Why was she being like this? She had to return to the task at hand. She needed to concentrate. She could do this. So she nodded and turned to his injured back.
With a deep breath, she dug into the wound. He immediately flinched away from her with a pained hiss but steadied himself so she could work properly.
"I'm sorry. It can't be done otherwise."
"It's okay." he reassured her but she knew it wasn't. He had taken a bullet to save her life. If only she hadn't been so distracted. Such an idiot.
She put her best into it to be as gentle as possible. His pain was evident though, hands gripping the back of the chair so forcefully his knuckles had turned white. She bit her lip, feeling bad for him as this was her fault.
Thank God she had stopped taking her sleeping pills. As she got the grip of it, her movements became quick and meticulous and, finally, she managed to take the god damned thing out of him.
He let out a shaky breath, and took another one in, relaxing his muscles, relief etched in his features as she dropped the bullet into a paper handkerchief waiting open.
"There you go!" she sighed, satisfied with herself for succeeding to pull that off.
"Well done." came his reply, voice calm again but with a hint of what she swore was mirth in it.
"Alright, now I'm gonna stitch you up and we're done."
Thankfully, Katia was better at sewing than she was at removing bullets from bodies, but alas, it still hurt. Though her stitches were done precisely and swiftly, she could still hear him letting out pained huffs.
"Patience, almost done." she tried to comfort him, eyes sharp on her work.
When finished at last, she rigorously cleaned the wound again and wrapped some bandages around his torso.
"Done. Now let's take care of your face." she said as she moved to stand in front of him, taking the kit with her.
"You really don't have to-"
"47" she interrupted his protest. She hated that name. If you could call it that.
"I want to do this. It's the least I can do.. you did take a bullet for me." she murmured softly as she began cleaning his face.
He studied her for a moment.
"Thank you." was his genuine answer.
"No." she looked into his eyes, "Thank you." she said, offering him a small smile.
They held each other's gaze for what felt like eons to her, searching for what, she didn't know, until it was too much for Katia and she returned to tending to his gashes.
He hissed when the rubbing alcohol came into contact with a particularly deep cut on the right side of his forehead.
"Sorry for that." she apologized, lightly touching his skin so as to inspect it. 47 stiffened under her fingertips and, seeing that, she removed them at once, cheeks aflame with shame.
She knew he wasn't used to affectionate human contact. She doubted he had ever experienced it at all. Thus, he wasn't comfortable with it. She hated it. What he was. What they had made him into. No one deserves to be treated like a disposable thing. To be given a number for a name.
Gratefully, he once again didn't say anything but his eyes remained trained on her. Her face, her movements. He was trying to read into her, she realized.
She panicked, thinking he surely must have noticed her blush. But she tried to calm her nerves, tried to ignore him, her eyes fixed on his scrapes instead. She wished she could read his mind.
Since when was his presence putting her on edge? And why? They were close. Far too close for her -and she was certain, his too- liking. To the point where she could feel his breath fan her face.
With a final wipe of the piece of cotton she was holding, she concluded her work and briskly moved away from him so that he didn't have the time to catch up on her distress.
"All done. Alright, I'm gonna have a shower and get ready for bed. I'm fucking beat." Quite literally.
She didn't wait for his response, rushing to shut herself in the bathroom. She closed the door, resting her head against it and sighed. After locking it, she started stripping down, ready to step into the shower stall.
It wasn't like she believed he would burst into the room while she was taking her bath, but it added a bit to the illusion of personal space she craved. She turned on the faucet, letting the hot water flow over her body. It did wonders for her sore muscles.
Here, out of 47's observant gaze, she let her earlier thoughts swarm freely into her mind as she worked the shampoo through her hair.
She didn't understand. When did she start feeling nervous around him? Before she sassed him, all clever comebacks and snarky retorts. And from the moment she sat down to help him, she wasn't even able to look away from his eyes.
She was fully aware of their proximity the entire time she took care of him. Did it have something to do with how sheepish she felt? Certainly. And that look in his eyes? Her face was burning up and she felt like such an idiot for that. Had she so suddenly started seeing him differently?
She couldn't deny it. He was handsome. She thought of the blue of his eyes, resembling the sky. His strong jawline, his lean but well built frame. His sturdy muscles, rippling under her hands...
Shaking her head, she tried to push away those thoughts, lathering her skin with a good amount of body wash. Two hours ago she swore she was ready to kill him. For leaving her father behind, for providing him with the weapon of his death, for all the things he said to her, for fucking drugging her..
And yet, she didn't want to harm him. Not one bit. He did what he believed was right to do. He did what she would have done, were she in his shoes. He was only trying to protect her. Hell, he took a fucking bullet for her.
And, as she made her contemplations, she realized that this was it. The thing that made her regard him in a completely different way. He didn't think about himself when he did it. He only thought about her. He could have died. But he threw himself in front of her regardless. And she was moved.
That rumination, however, also made her feel like a moron. Like she was overreacting, like this shouldn't be a reason for him to be flooding her thoughts like he currently was, because they were in this together and they were supposed to have each other's back. They were partners.
But, somewhere in her head, Katia knew that this was a big deal to her. It wasn't everyday people jumped to their death to save her life. And maybe her thoughts were based on some silly notion that chivalry isn't dead yet. Maybe they were based on her desperate need to be loved by someone and she thought she found that in 47, after what could have been his sacrifice.
Or maybe based on the fact that such an act came from him. Someone raised and trained specifically to become an assassin. To kill. Someone with a mission and a target, one that was her. He was sent to kill her. But he had chosen against it. He had been selfless enough to put his life on the line for her, even though he hardly knew her.
Because she meant something to him.
At the seer thought of it, Katia shivered.
"Your brother", she remembered her father telling her the day they reunited. It felt so long ago.
She wasn't sure what her feelings towards him were. Judging by her earlier thoughts, she doubted they were sisterly. But that didn't matter. They were something. They were connected.
And Katia realized that, for the first time in her life, she too had found someone that meant something to her. It wasn't just that 47 was the closest thing to home she had had since forever, or that he was the last string attaching her to her past.
It was that, even in this little time they spent together, he had come to be someone she cared about. She had truly come to care for 47, no matter how angry she had been at him for everything his presence in her life had brought upon her. For years she had been all alone, isolating herself from people, chasing after an unknown to her man, only to find out he was her father and be dragged through Hell afterwards.
Nonetheless, he had proved, tonight more than ever, that he would protect her at all cost, something no one else had ever done for her, except for her father. And for that, she was grateful.
47 had deserted the ICA. His actions, letting her live, had rendered the opposite impossible. It wouldn't be easy. They would hunt them down.
She didn't care. She was tired of being alone. At least her life had now a new meaning. She had a chance to escape loneliness. To live, not just exist, even if it meant her death. Her adventure and near-death experiences of the past few days had opened her eyes.. For the first time in a long time, Katia felt alive.
Besides, even if she did choose to abandon 47 and try to make a life somewhere far away, she was sure they would still look for her. Not just men from the ICA, but also people like LeClerq. Like John. And, eventually, they would find her.
Better with 47 and running for her life than all alone, back to her dreary, miserable life, waiting to be found and killed... No, she wouldn't let this go. She couldn't. By the time she got out of the shower, Katia had made her choice.
She quickly toweled off and got dressed in some casual clothes she had brought. She was ready to announce her decision to 47.