"I became what they needed me to be," I correct. "The seductress. The killer. The operative who delivered results and didn't ask uncomfortable questions. And piece by piece, operation by operation, Marissa Vale disappeared until I wasn't sure she existed anymore."
The confession settles between us, heavier than turbulence or danger or any of the tactical concerns we should be focused on. Archer doesn't tell me it's okay, doesn't offer platitudes that would ring hollow. He just holds my hand and lets the truth exist without trying to fix it.
"I had a mission in Kabul," he says after the silence stretches. "When I was still with British Special Forces, before Cerberus. We were extracting an asset who'd been compromised. High-value intelligence, critical to ongoing operations, worth the risk of a team insertion."
I open my eyes, turning to face him fully. Vulnerability for vulnerability, truth for truth. The exchange feels dangerous and necessary all at once.
"The asset had a family. Wife and daughter. Civilian targets who'd be executed the moment the Taliban realized he'd defected." His jaw tightens, the only sign of emotion breaking through his controlled exterior. "We didn't have extraction capacity for all of them. The helicopter could take the asset or his family, not both. And command made the decision before we ever landed: the asset was priority. The family was acceptable collateral."
"What did you do?" The question emerges softer than intended.
"I followed orders. Put the asset on the helicopter. Completed the mission. Filed the report that categorized hiswife and daughter as unavoidable casualties in an otherwise successful operation."
"But it broke you." The words aren't a question.
"I couldn't reconcile the operative who completed that mission with the person I thought I was," he says, voice rough. "For months afterward, I saw their faces. Heard the asset's wife screaming when she realized we were leaving them behind. Dreamed about the daughter who looked at me like I was her salvation, right before I turned away."
"How did you survive it?" The question matters because I need to know if survival is possible. If the pieces can be put back together after they've been shattered by moral compromise.
"Fitzwallace found me in a bar in Istanbul, drowning the memories in whiskey that wasn't working." His mouth quirks slightly. "He said Cerberus needed operatives who understood the cost of the work. Who'd been broken by impossible choices and learned to carry the weight without losing themselves completely. He said the best operators aren't the ones who never break. They're the ones who break and choose to keep going anyway."
"Did it help?" My thumb traces across his knuckles now, returning the grounding touch he's been offering. "Knowing that the break was survivable?"
"It helped knowing I wasn't alone." His eyes meet mine, dark and intense. "It helped having a team who understood that some missions cost more than others. That completing the objective doesn't erase the collateral. That carrying the weight is part of the work."
We're showing each other the broken parts, the compromises that haunt us, the moments when we chose the mission over our principles. The masks are stripped away, leaving only the damaged people beneath.
"I'm afraid," I whisper. "Afraid that I've been pretending for so long that I've forgotten how to be real. That when this is over, I won't know who to be when there's no performance required."
"Then we'll figure out who you are together." His free hand comes up to cup my jaw, thumb brushing across my cheekbone with devastating tenderness. "You don't have to have all the answers right now. You just have to keep going. Keep fighting. Keep letting me see you without the performance."
His face is close enough now that I can feel his breath against my lips. My eyes drop to his mouth, remembering the taste of him, the desperate way we kissed in that hotel room.
"This is a mistake," I whisper, but I don't pull away.
"Probably," he agrees, his thumb tracing my lower lip. "We're compromising operational security. Letting emotion override tactical assessment. Making decisions that could get us both killed."
"We should maintain distance."
"No." His mouth hovers inches from mine. "We're done pretending." Not a question. Not a negotiation. Pure alpha certainty.
His hand is still cradling my jaw, my hand is still linked with his on the armrest, and his mouth is so close that one shift forward would close the gap.
Then the pilot's voice crackles through the intercom, announcing our descent into Marrakesh. Archer pulls back slowly, reluctantly, his hand sliding from my jaw even as his fingers remain laced with mine. The boundaries we should be maintaining reassert themselves, but the vulnerability remains, the connection forged through shared truth and broken pieces.
"We should prepare for landing," he says, his voice rougher than usual. "Review the operational parameters. Establish our cover story for meeting the Conductor."
"We should," I agree, but neither of us moves to release the other's hand.
The jet descends through clear sky toward Marrakesh, the city sprawling below in a maze of red clay buildings and green gardens. Heat rises from the ground even at altitude, promising the assault of North African summer. The Iron Choir's gathering waits in that chaos below, the Conductor preparing to meet the traitor and her specialist, neither knowing that we're walking in with evidence that could destroy them.
What's growing between us makes every tactical decision more complicated. But as we step into Marrakesh's brutal heat, his hand steady at my back, I realize I wouldn't trade this complication for all the operational clarity in the world.
The customs agent waves us through without a second glance. Outside, heat shimmers off the pavement in waves, and the city sprawls before us in a maze of red clay and narrow streets.
"Ready?" Archer asks quietly.
"No," I admit, but I step forward anyway, into the heat and chaos and whatever comes next.
