Work Text:
The tarot cards had been a welcome opportunity to blend in after he gained the target’s bodyguards’ attention, nothing more. While the sunset painted the Moroccan sky above him orange and pink, he’d had his palm read by the fortune-teller, who then insisted on letting her tarot cards guide his way.
Under normal circumstances, he would’ve politely declined and moved on, but the bodyguard had been watching them, so he’d feigned enthusiasm and picked three cards, for the beginning, middle, and end of the path ahead.
Knight of Cups. Page of Wands. Two of Cups.
The fortune-teller had spent almost twenty minutes explaining their meaning to him, and he’d somewhat paid attention between Diana’s commentary in his ear and his duty of keeping an eye on the target’s movements.
Still, he’d think back to that moment a lot in the following years, retroactively finding meaning in grubby cards on a colourful bazaar, as if his life wasn’t more complex than that.
He’d spent all his life as someone else’s weapon to wield. The last thing he needed was another layer of lack of agency or free will, poorly disguised as fate.
Then why did those cards matter to him, years later? Why couldn’t he forget them and their meaning?
Knight of Cups. Fervour, zeal, moodiness, illumination. Superstition, nothing more.
Page of Wands. Enthusiasm, eagerness, confidence, validation, affirmation. He didn’t need cards to tell him what to do.
Two of Cups. Union, attraction, combination, affection. Words that meant nothing to him.
Until they did. Until that changed.
After his brother had injected him with the antidote to the devilish substance that’d locked him out of his memories and emotions for as long as he could remember, everything changed. Not all at once, of course. It was as if his brain had to remember how to remember, and his soul had to get a feeling for how to feel.
The worst memories came back first, and with them the worst emotions. He could get used to it, maybe, if he just learned how to push through. It wasn’t easy to be confronted with strong emotions after a lifetime without any at all, apart from ever-present fear and a dull sense of loneliness, and the gratefulness and loyalty he felt towards Diana, which turned out to be so much more than just that, now that he could feel it all.
It wasn’t easy to handle this. He had never learned how, he had no reference points, so everything he felt for Diana was so intense he feared it might crush him. She couldn’t know about this; he had to keep his fervour a secret if he didn’t want to lose her. She’d cut ties with him, without a doubt, should she ever find out that his feelings towards her had changed, evolved, grown into something he couldn’t control, didn’t even want to control if he knew how. He loved her, and she could never know.
47 grew moody over this, torn between wanting to spend time with her and wanting to stay as far away from her as possible, wanting to hear her voice and wishing she would stop living in his head all the time. It had been easier before, when the only thing he felt towards her was gratefulness and loyalty and something he couldn’t put his finger on, back then; like a very bright light that could illuminate his entire world, but it was dulled down by the curse that kept him in check for all those years.
Now the veil was lifted, the clouds disappeared, and the light was too strong for him to handle; instead of illuminating his world, it kept drowning everything out, taking away the colours and the nuance, erasing everything else but her. She was the only one he could see, the only one he could think about, the only one he wanted, and it was scary, because he knew she didn’t feel the same for him.
After a while, he got used to it. She cared, she really did, and he knew it; but every time she asked him how he felt, he tried to evade her question. In her eyes, he could see that she knew he was cutting her out, and he could see the hurt over it, but telling her the truth would hurt her so much more.
She hadn’t asked for this, she just wanted to be a friend, and maybe not even that. Maybe their friendship was just one of the risks she had to take when working for a cloak-and-dagger organisation, which led to not having many people to trust in her life; or maybe it was just the risk that came with treating an emotionless clone with kindness instead of the cold leadership and the short leash he remembered without remembering it.
There had always been flashes, moments when the fog lifted just enough to show him he shouldn’t wish for remembering his childhood, his time at the sanatorium, the things they made him go through in their plan to make the perfect, obedient killer out of him. Pain and fear, the only two things he was allowed to feel, because they made it so easy for them to control him.
If only they had known that love was worse, unrequited love, the only love he’d ever feel.
It was both pain and fear, but at the same time tempting and sweet, and it made him crave more, more pain and fear, made him look at her or think about her and yearn for her touch, knowing that it would never be real. Like a hot stove, he couldn’t keep his fingers off, touching it repeatedly, over and over again just to see if it still hurt; and yes, it did.
He couldn’t get away from her even if he wanted; his eagerness to please her and hear her praise was too strong. What worth was there in living without her? They’d been apart before, and those had been the worst years of his life. He craved her validation, needed her to look at him and see the human in him, a person she could trust, a friend, because without that, he’d be nothing again.
After a while, he found his old—no, an entirely new—enthusiasm for his work. It was the only thing that kept Diana and him together, honestly. She didn’t have one other reason to put up with him, if not for their shared work. He relied on her a lot, but she also relied on him.
Work was the only thing giving him confidence, the only thing he was truly good at. Everything else was just a farce, a facade he put up for those who didn’t look too closely, but killing, that was what he was made for. Literally. He knew it, and she knew it as well. She didn’t seem to mind. After all, it helped her shape him into the perfect weapon he was created to become.
She had a larger impact on him than he’d been aware of before the antidote. He had to rely on her judgement, her help to navigate the moral aspect of things he couldn’t understand, but over the years, he’d learned to predict her thoughts on issues, acted the way she wanted him to act in the field without needing her gentle reminders, most of the time.
Diana cared more than he thought. When he finally dared to look at her openly instead of trying to hide his stolen glances, he realised that she would hold his gaze, as if she knew, as if she could see something in him that he wasn’t yet able to see.
She would smile at him when they were in the same room of their safehouse, she would appreciate when he brought her coffee to her makeshift desk at the kitchen table, she would sit with him in comfortable silence when he couldn’t find the words he didn’t know he was looking for.
47 dared to show signs of affection, smile back at her timidly, think of her when he went to make coffee for himself and get one for her as well, sit closer to her than he’d normally let anyone near him, when the work was done and it was time to relax. He’d never had a work-life balance, but living with her, even if it was stolen time and not to last forever, taught him how to just sit there in silent contentment.
Had she noticed? He wasn’t sure. She never sent him away, but she also never took another step towards him. He realised that he’d have to be the one to confess his attraction, one way or another. It scared him. What if he misread the signs? He wasn’t used to any of this, he didn’t know how to flirt, how to confess, how to win a heart.
But she just sat there and looked at him, and he knew he had to take the chance.