The question cuts deeper than the ones about killing. Because this is the thing that haunts me in the quiet moments, the question I ask myself when sleep won't come and the memories press too close. Did I maintain the line? Or did I blur it so thoroughly that finding my way back is impossible?
"Some days I knew exactly where the line was," I whisper, the admission scraping my throat raw. "I could feel it, this bright boundary between Marissa Vale and Nocturne. Between the woman I was and the operative I pretended to be." My hand presses against my ribs, feeling the ache beneath the fresh bandages. "Other days the line disappeared. I'd be in the middle of an operation and realize I wasn't pretending anymore. I was Nocturne. The lies felt true. The performance felt real."
Archer doesn't respond immediately. The jet engines hum around us, steady white noise filling the quiet between us. He's still leaning forward, near enough that I notice the stubble shadowing his jaw, the way his eyes track every micro-expression crossing my face.
"What brought you back?" he asks finally. "When the line disappeared, what made you remember who you really were?"
My fingers find the crystal bracelets again, the weight of them familiar and grounding. "These. I bought them in Prague before I went under. Before I became Nocturne and embedded myself in the Iron Choir's organization." The stones are warm against my skin, worn smooth from years of unconscious touch. "Every time I felt myself slipping, every time I couldn't tell the difference between cover and truth, I'd touch these and remember. Marissa Vale wore these bracelets. Marissa Vale had a mission. Marissa Vale was going to bring them down from the inside."
"And now?" He shifts forward, his knee almost brushing mine in the confined space. "Now that you're out, now thatyou've handed over the evidence, do you still need them to remember who you are?"
The question shouldn't feel as intimate as it does. Shouldn't make my breath catch, shouldn't make me hyperaware of how he's sitting, how his attention focuses on me with an intensity that has nothing to do with tactical assessment.
"I've been Nocturne for so long, I'm not sure Marissa exists anymore." The admission comes out barely above a whisper. "The woman who went under five years ago was idealistic, convinced she could maintain her integrity while swimming in moral compromise. The woman sitting here now has blood on her hands and gaps in her soul where pieces of herself used to be."
Archer's gaze doesn't waver. If anything, he leans in, his voice dropping to match mine. "Then we'll find out."
"Find out what?"
"Who you are beneath all the layers. Beneath Nocturne and the missions and the compromises." His hand reaches out slowly, deliberate. When I don't pull back, his fingers brush against my wrist where the crystal bracelets sit. The touch is careful, intentional. "You spent five years becoming someone else. It's going to take time to remember who you were and to figure out who you want to be now."
The warmth of his hand against my wrist sends heat radiating up my arm. I should retreat. Should maintain professional distance. Should remember that this man is Cerberus's precision instrument, the one they send when failure isn't an option and questions aren't welcome. Getting tangled up with him is tactically unsound and emotionally dangerous.
But I stay still.
"Why do you care?" The question emerges rougher than I intend. "Why does it matter to you who I am beneath the operative? You need me functional for the Berlin operation. Youneed me to make contact with Koval and verify the intelligence. You don't need to understand my existential crisis."
His thumb traces the edge of one bracelet, the touch so light I might be imagining it. "Maybe I need to know the person I'm protecting is worth protecting. Maybe I need to believe the woman I vouched for is salvageable." His eyes meet mine, holding my gaze with an intensity that makes it hard to breathe. "Or maybe I'm just tired of treating people like assets and mission parameters instead of human beings with complicated histories."
My throat tightens. This isn't interrogation anymore. This is confession, vulnerability meeting vulnerability in the space between us. And that scares me more than facing the Iron Choir ever did.
"I'm not sure I'm salvageable," I say quietly. "I'm not sure there's enough of the original Marissa left to build from. She died somewhere in the past five years, piece by piece, compromise by compromise. What's left is scar tissue and survival instinct."
"Then maybe we build from that." His hand hasn't moved from my wrist, his fingers warm against my pulse point. "Scar tissue and survival instinct. Sounds like a solid foundation for an operative who's been through hell and came out the other side with evidence that could bring down a criminal empire."
I want to believe him. Want to trust that there's something worth salvaging beneath all the layers of performance and lies. Want to think that the exhaustion and pain and bone-deep weariness might eventually fade into something resembling peace.
"You don't know what you're asking," I say. "You don't know what I've done. What I've become."
"Then tell me." The challenge in his voice is clear. "Stop hiding behind vague confessions and show me. Make meunderstand what it cost you to gather that evidence. What you sacrificed to maintain your cover."
Anger flares again, defensive and sharp. "You want the ugly truth? Want to hear about the times I smiled at men who disgusted me? Pretended passion I didn't feel? Watched people die and did nothing because intervening would have blown my cover?" The words come faster now, fueled by years of buried rage and shame. "Want to know about my handler who was executed because someone sold him out? The assets who got burned because the Cardinal fed the Iron Choir their identities? The operations that failed because I was feeding intelligence to people who were using it to kill the very people I was supposed to protect?"
"Yes." His voice stays steady, unflinching. "I want all of it. Every ugly truth. Every compromise. Every moment where you had to choose between the mission and your conscience."
"Why?" The question breaks on something that might be a sob. "Why does it matter? Why do you need to know?"
"Because I need to understand what I'm protecting." His other hand reaches up, fingers brushing my jaw with the same careful deliberation he showed touching my bracelets. "Because you're not just an asset with useful intelligence. You're a person who's been alone for too long, shouldering too much, and I need to know if you're going to break under the weight or if there's enough steel left in your spine to see this through."
The touch against my jaw should feel threatening. Should trigger every defensive instinct I've honed over years of survival. Instead, it anchors me. Like he's offering me something I didn't know I needed—someone who sees past the operative to the wreckage beneath and isn't running away.
"I'm afraid that there's nothing salvageable left," I admit, the confession scraping past defenses I didn't know I still had. "Afraid that when we finish this mission and the adrenalinefades, I'll look in the mirror and see Nocturne staring back. Afraid that Marissa Vale died somewhere in Prague and I'm just a ghost pretending to be alive."
His thumb traces my jawline, the touch impossibly gentle for hands I know are capable of lethal efficiency. "That’s nothing. I just vouched for someone who's going to get herself killed trying to prove she's worth saving. I worry that I'm developing feelings for an operative I should be treating as an asset, and that this mission is going to end badly."
The words hang between us, raw and honest and more than either of us should be sharing while flying toward danger. But exhaustion and pain and proximity have stripped away the professional distance we should be maintaining.
I turn my head slightly, leaning into his touch. The movement's small, barely perceptible, but it carries weight—permission, acknowledgment, maybe the beginning of trust.
