i dunno man maybe the fact that benji fulfills all the classic damsel in distress leading lady tropes in the mission impossible movies while ilsa becomes the narrative parallel and has a somewhat more complex/symbolic relationship with ethan like many men in fiction appeals to me because it’s such a role reversal in such a mainstream film Instead of having homoerotic tendencies with the morally ambiguous right hand man and eventually choosing the sweeter loyal girl from the beginning of the film ethan does the opposite and both—he chooses both of them and it works and everyone survives and idk man something something i love rogue nation and also why isn’t there more poly ilsa/ethan/benji?? i feel like we as a fandom are really missing out on the potential
I've been looking through my old files at all the things I've written and never finished and then I thought why not post some of them?
Context: You Make Me Feel (Like I Am Home Again)
This is my first Mission Impossible work, a post-Fallout story that's supposed to take place in the context of a much larger story, which I could swear I wrote some of, or at least wrote notes for, but I can find no such thing in any of my files.
The basic premise was that after Rogue Nation, Ethan still wouldn't come in and kept living off the grid, and started appearing in Benji's apartment, at the end of his rope, and piggybacking on his missions with nobody else knowing he was there, and they were sort of friends with benefits -- Benji believes himself to be aromantic at this point and Ethan is emotionally available because of Julia.
Somehow a lot of my story ideas -- the ones that I don't write anyway -- end up with everyone settling down and adopting pets or raising kids and being unbearably domestic.
So: a snippet with Benji and Ilsa. Awkward pre-first time.
“So, this is probably going to be a bit of a disaster.”
She sits up at the bed, puts her phone down. “What’s that?”
Benji comes into the room, collapses beside her. He’s being deliberately casual, she can tell. “I don’t know what Ethan told you...” A lie, she thinks, although she always has trouble telling with him. “But I’ve never actually been with a woman. I’m not sure that I know how all the parts work, and all that.”
She shifts closer. “I can show you, you don’t need to worry about that.”
“Then there’s the part where I might be ruining a perfectly good friendship, because what if it’s shit and I don’t like it after all?”
“Benji. Do you think you’d be here if you didn’t think you’d like it?”
He looks at her then and there’s real conflict in his expression. She sighs softly and reaches out for his hand. He takes hers and presses the back of it to his cheek, the way she’s seen him do so many times with Ethan. Countless times. After a moment he turns her hand and kisses her palm, then lets it go.
He sighs softly. “You’re right, of course. I think I will. But I’ve been wrong before. And there’s more than just that to think of. There’s you and Ethan. Me at Ethan. There’s the baby...”
“Ethan and I have talked about this. We’re all squared away. And I’ve never known anything that could separate you and Ethan, not even me.”
“What about us, then, Ilsa? What about our friendship? I don’t want us to be people who merely tolerate each other for Ethan’s sake.”
“I wouldn’t be. I couldn’t be, Benji. I love you.”
She looks at him, pleadingly, despite the fact that she knows that her eyes give her away every time. Despite the fact that she knows that he’s already made up his mind, or he wouldn’t be here, in her bedroom.
“Ilsa. Ilsa.” He wraps an arm around her waist and pulls her in. She doesn’t have much of a bump yet, but her stomach pushes against his, prevents them from meeting flush, but it’s her breasts he’s looking at. “That’s, ah, new,” he says, a flush darkening his neck.
She laughs. “We can take our time, if you want. No need to do this now.”
“Oh, no, um. Rip the bandaid off and all that. Do you think you can take your shirt off? Unless you actually don’t want to... god, did I even ask if you wanted to have sex with me?”
Benji/Ilsa fic indeed! Admittedly, the idea came around mostly because of Simon and Rebecca's friendship and chemistry in the pictures and videos off the MI7 set, but I've loved Benji and Ilsa's dynamic for ages. Like even in RN, when Benji says he was wrong about her (right before she shocks him), you can see the flicker of guilt on her face before she turns away to change, and then there's the thought of how long they were waiting at that table together; what was said?? And their dynamic in Fallout was great, especially during the Benji scene.
The fic itself would have spanned both films and functioned as MI7-8 speculation - what if they had to go into hiding together? - with them dealing with their Solomon Lane-related trauma and slowly figuring out their feelings for each other (possibly with background Luther/Ethan??). Regrettably the idea never got off the ground, but we'll see if the (eventual) release of MI7-8 will prove inspirational!
