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It was supposed to be easy, a quick in&ex - sneak in, install some trackers on some servers in a quasi-abandoned compound, and get out. A stealth op, with sniper support for the unlikely case of contact. At least, that's what the mission briefing told them.
So Adam and Miller boarded the VTOL, and Adam watched Miller check his rifle and equipment, watched him going through the routines probably embedded in his subconscious with steady hands. He didn't think about anything else these hands could do, and especially not how they'd feel on his skin -
"See you in an hour," he said before jumping out.
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The briefing was a pile of horseshit, Adam decides, when he's halfway across the roof and a shot from a high-power rifle rents the air. He dives behind a piece of wall, flattens himself against it. Not a second too late. The stones where his head was only fractions ago pulverize under the impact of a big caliber bullet, the clouds of dust tickling his nose and blurring his vision.
He opens the comm, dormant except for a bit of static now and then. "What the fuck? Had a misfire?"
There's a bit of silence where Adam tries to rein his racing heart in, and pulls the TITAN up on stand-by. It hums and skitters under his skin like a swarm of angry bees.
"Fuck." The answer is quiet, controlled. Like Miller hasn't much breath to spare, can't afford to break his rhythm while sighting down his scope. And that means he has sights on an enemy.
Adam can only whole-heartedly agree.
Another two seconds of silence. The adrenaline buzzing through his veins is slowly fading to its usual trying-to-not-getting-killed-on-a-mission level.
The comm crackles again. "They weren't supposed to have snipers." Under the calm tone, Adam can hear the barest hint of unease in Miller's voice. Shit. Miller's usually the embodiment of unshakeable, especially behind a rifle.
"Intel's fucked, then, again? Anything else I need to know before going in?"
"No." A heartbeat's pause. "I'll try to take them out."
"Good. Good luck, then."
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He's closing the hatch leading to the vent system behind him, when Miller's in his ear again, a murmured Stay safe, barely audible over the hum of metal and nerves.
You too, he thinks, or maybe subvocalizes, because Miller's concern for him makes something warm coil in his chest, under kevlar and his reinforced sternum. He's not used to this anymore, and it fucks up his focus.
He can't help his thoughts straying to Miller behind his rifle, just as he can't help them straying back to London - to rainy days in sparsely furnished hotel rooms, butter chicken and dim sum and cheap beer and Miller's eyes on him, fond and with a hint of smile, when he tried to arrange too many boxes of takeout on too little table. And Miller, loose and relaxed in a worn T-shirt and grey sweatpants, didn't look like Director Miller anymore when he put his hand on Adam's forearm, warm and sincere, and said, "Thanks, Adam". They lingered, dangerously, the air thickening around them -
- until one or both of them remembered who and where they were, and Jim became Miller again, and Adam stayed Adam despite not feeling like himself anymore.
Adam hadn't caught a wink of sleep that night, and more than once thought of Jim's - no, Miller's - hands on him, and what he'd taste like underneath the beer and takeout, but it always ended in this can't be and it's impossible, he's your boss, while he listened to Miller's soft, too-even breathing.
Now, he managed to return to his usual sleeping pattern (which means, not much at all), but the thoughts remain.
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Finding the server room is easy, maybe too easy, in the eerily empty compound, but as far as he can tell, there aren't any traps or pitfalls. He short-circuits the cameras and uploads the trackers, and now it's up to Chang and his tech wizards, dismantling the security and siphoning intel from their enemies. Running a smuggling ring won't be so easy with all your contacts and suppliers lost to Interpol, and Mac and the team will have a grand time bagging them.
He's already halfway through the vents again when the next shot cracks, echoing hollowly over the narrow valley, and half a minute later, another one. Seems like Miller found their sniper.
"Got 'em?"
He doesn't get an answer, just static. Unease flits through his chest, and he tries to calm himself with the explanation of possible interference, with all the servers and equipment around.
The comm stays silent though, even when he repeats his question the moment his feet hit the roof again - the unease grows into nagging worry. He sets Wayfinder to trace back Miller's last known position, pings him again and again, with the hope of a gruff voice in his ear telling him to knock off the bullshit.
It doesn't come.
The worry multiplies, restlessness electric under skin and carbonfibre; usually, Miller's extremely pedantic on comm discipline, and almost every agent has already gotten an earful for not adhering to it.
He checks his systems, checks TESLA, the nanoblade and both of his guns, and stares at his flickering HUD while columns of coordinates scroll through so quick they're a blur even for his augmented eyes. It seems like an eternity until Wayfinder pings, and when it finally does, Adam is already halfway across the roof in a flash of sparks.
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He’s about forty-five meters below Miller when the shot comes. He half jumps, half dashes to a ledge on the next wall, meagre cover better than none, with TITAN shields already forming around him. Just in time.
The bullet ricochets off his back, the shock of the impact knocking the wind out of him even through the TITAN.
Fuck.
Dread plummets into his stomach like a pound of ice. They're still out there, shooting, and Miller's gone silent - fuck, it can't be, he has to get to him now -
Maybe, the earlier shot wasn't Miller. Maybe -
Adam refuses to think about it.
Maybe that's why the building was so empty - they knew, and burrowed out here, with long-range rifles and sheer number's advantage.
Fuck. It unpleasantly reminds him of GARM, a sour taste spreading on his tongue.
Damn it. He hates being on the defensive.
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Adam finds a dead guy halfway up a crumbled stairwell to the floor where Miller's supposed to be. Shit. Seems like Miller had to fight a whole lot more during Adam's crawl through the vents -
When he checks the next corner, Adam immediately recognizes the scuffed boots Miller keeps in his office. Miller's lying motionless behind his rifle, and for a split-second, heart-stopping moment Adam fears he's too late -
- when Miller's finger curls around the trigger, just a hair's breadth from pulling. Something uncoils in Adam's chest, and his hands lose their tension, their hair-triggers on the blades.
Miller's shoulders shift with a slow, controlled exhale. Adam counts the heartbeats, one, two -
Now that he knows what's coming, the shot doesn't jar him as much as before.
"You okay?"
Miller doesn't answer, still sighting down his scope.
Adam crosses the room, anger replacing the worry - "What the hell happened, I couldn't get you on comms -"
Finally, Miller looks up from the barrel, eyes bloodshot and a bruise blooming on his cheek. "Got their snipers. Both of 'em." Miller's voice is hoarse, shaky. "Least I could do with such fucked up intel."
His teeth are bloody from a split lip, and some of it drips from the corner of his mouth, clings to five o' clock shadow and the thin white scar.
He tries to get up, struggling to get on his hands and knees, and that's when Adam sees the growing puddle of red under Miller. Shit.
Miller collapses back down, breathing heavily, with something absolutely dreadful rattling deep in his chest.
Adam kneels next to him. "Sir, let me -"
Miller grimaces, waves dismissively. "It's nothing." He tries again, works himself up on one elbow - wobbling for a moment before he manages to turn on his back.
Fuck, if Adam had known, he wouldn't have let Miller take that last shot, wouldn't have wasted any seconds - he eyes the puddle, the fresh trickles of red from between kevlar plates.
"Sure bleeds a lot for nothing." He opens infolink while already working on the clasps of Miller's body armor. "Strick, Chikane, I need medevac ASAP at the following coordinates..."
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The fatigue shirt underneath the armor is already drenched with blood, and it gets more with every heartbeat -
"They got me. Fuck, they got me like a fucking rookie." Something like a laugh forces itself out of Miller's throat, raspy, unsteady. Shit. He sounds halfway to shock already.
Adam peels the shirt away. The bullet tore through Miller's side, hopefully just flesh, but that's - that's still too much blood. His hand closes on the wound before his brain has a chance to catch up, feeling it jump with Jim's surprised hiss and inhale.
Jim's skin is warm and slick with blood, and it sticks to Adam's fingers, dulls the gold of his knuckles and the shine of carbonfibre. Under his hand, he feels the shallow rise and fall of Jim's ribs, his too-fast, thready pulse.
Fuck. He hasn't much time, has to stem the bleeding -
He fumbles one-handedly for the first-aid kit, tears open bandages and packages of gauze with his teeth.
The first wad of gauze is almost soaked through in a matter of seconds. Adam stuffs a second into the wound, watches crimson seep into it, but thankfully, already slowing.
"Could've been a set-up." He folds another gauze over the wound, binds it tightly with a bandage around Jim's chest.
"Maybe. Everything feels like one lately, though. First Dubai, then GARM and -" Jim's eyes widen, almost imperceptably, but it's obvious what he's thinking, "- Apex."
And goddamn, it's just like they're back in London, Adam kneeling at Jim's side, with his hands fluttering over Jim's body while holding his desperate panic at bay. Not knowing if Jim'd pull through. Only this time, he has no ace up his sleeve, no miracle antidote. He can only sit and wait, keeping the pressure on the wound as if it'd mend by his touch alone, and hope he'd done enough to keep Jim alive.
"Chikane's en route," he says, because anything is better than the deafening silence only broken by Jim's raspy breathing. His eyes have closed, head head lolled back against the wall. "He'll pick us up, and Strick's gonna stitch you back together."
At the sound of Adam's voice, Jim opens his eyes. They skitter over Adam's face - eyes, scars, nose, mouth - as if he'd seen him for the first time. They skate down again, linger -
They're close, even closer than back in London - Adam can see the cold sweat glistening on Jim's skin, can count every single eyelash - he follows the line of Jim's jaw, his mouth. Fuck, now's not the time -
It doesn't get easier when Adam checks Miller's pulse, rapid and thready under his fingertips. He just keeps talking, because he knows he'd do something irrevocably stupid if he stopped. "We'll get to the bottom of this. I know people with...resources. I'll call them when we're back home."
Jim studies him for a moment longer, critically, assessing, before he shifts under Adam's hands, wincing when he pulls himself into a more upright position against the wall. Another surge of blood wets the wad of gauze Adam has tightly packed against the wound, drenching it almost completely. Fuck, what's the idiot thinking?
They both speak at the same time.
"Don't move - "
"Adam -"
With a surprising burst of strength, Jim curls a hand around the back of his neck and pulls him down. Adam has to brace against the wall to avoid crashing into Jim, all awkward angles and twisted joints, while still maintaining the pressure on the wound. He can't afford to let up, won't let him bleed out -
Jim's lips are unexpectedly, shockingly gentle. He tastes of copper, and the smell of cordite sticks to his skin, but it's Jim, finally, at last - and Adam opens up for him with an embarrassingly broken noise from the back of his throat. Jim's thumb rubs soothing circles on his neck, the textured pad of his glove dragging on skin. He's kissing Adam with a slow, methodical tenderness, as if he needed to sear everything into his memory -
God it's - it's - if his mind wasn't preoccupied with keeping Jim from dying, it's everything he could want for a kiss.
Jim opens his eyes, slowly, dazedly, as if he couldn't quite believe what he'd done. The crease between his brows has disappeared, and he's almost smiling. A tired, wan smile that's more pain than joy. But still, it counts.
Adam wonders why he ever tried to convince himself he weren't completely and pathetically falling for Jim.
Jim's fingers stroke under Adam's jaw, cup his cheek, and Adam leans into it, allows himself a moment of weakness.
Jim takes a shaky breath. "Just - just in case." His voice is rough, pained, and his eyes flicker down to Adam's hand on his side. "I'm sorry, Adam."
A surge of red-hot fury bursts the bubble of content warmth in Adam's chest, clashes with the ice-cold dread that's dropped into his stomach again.
No. Jim doesn't get to do this. Not now, not with the exact same words he used in London, not after months of confusion and maybe-not-so-misplaced hope and a kiss that felt too fucking final, fuck, no -
Adam can't let that stand. He refuses to let Jim go, now that he got him, in spite of all -
Hell, he thought he had imagined, projected his own fucked up feelings into the casual touches, like Jim's hand on his shoulder after debriefs, or in the invitation for a drink after they stumbled from the VTOL after London -
And if Jim wasn't injured, Adam would throw him against the next wall and show him exactly how unbearable the thought of losing Jim is to him. It was difficult back then, seeing Jim on the knife's edge, but now, it's like someone stabbed a hot poker right through his heart. At least, he won't have to leave to face another Marchenko.
His mind has switched from this can't be to screaming don't let that be it!
He won't. Maybe he doesn't have the excuse of blood loss, but he won't waste another chance, not like he - they - did months ago -
He tilts Jim's chin up, wipes a smudge of blood away with his thumb.
"No." It comes out more as a snarl than he intended. "Don't fucking dare." Jim's eyes widen when he sees Adam's almost-bared teeth.
Adam leans in until their foreheads touch, Jim's skin clammy against his own. "You're gonna be okay."
He doesn't know who of them needs to hear it more.
"We're hauling your ass back to Prague, and you can chew me out for everything later, hell, I'm gonna chew you out later for all of this shit, but - you're gonna be okay."
He doesn't give Jim any chance to protest, captures his lips between his own, and damn, maybe he's too rough, but - Adam can't bring himself to care, it's all the desperation from seeing Jim nearly die twice. Jim makes a deep, pleased sound when Adam sinks his teeth into his lip, and that's when Adam knows he's irrevocably doomed.
Jim's lips still hold a hint of copper, but Adam kisses and kisses him, until there's nothing left except their breath between them, and the sky fills with the rumble of nearing jet engines.