Work Text:
There is a big difference in age between them and, more importantly, in experience. Ethan reminds himself of this every time. When he sees Brandt — Will — flirting with the nurse strapping up his shoulder. When he notices him straightening the ribbon on a bouquet in the car park while he waits for her. Annie, Ethan reminds himself, her name is Annie. She has long fair hair, brown eyes and a sweet smile. Brandt must like that sort. All the more so since Annie works for the Agency and knows perfectly well who William Brandt is. He and Ethan have a big difference in age, more importantly in experience and, of course, in taste. It's obvious.
Ethan gets the team together at his place. Nothing special, no assignments, no plans, just a barbecue. They missed the Fourth of July trying to head off yet another — how many was that this year alone? twenty? — catastrophe in the Middle East. But they laugh anyway, drink beer and set off fireworks. Will is the last to join them, but he does join, and makes up for lost time with a sort of grim determination. The alcohol especially. Ethan senses something is off almost straight away, but he trusts the instinct droning at him to wait a little longer. Ethan watches the team and thinks: nursery school. He isn't used to running from his own wants, but he doesn't want to repeat the mistake — the way it went with Julia — either. So he just watches. The way his throat moves when Will tips his head back and finishes off another bottle of beer. The way the fingers close tight round the neck of the next one. The way the mouth shapes a smile in answer to another of Benji's unfunny jokes, while the eyes stay unreadable.
"I'll get more beer." Ethan gets up from the table.
They collide on the way out of the kitchen. The cramped little corridor doesn't leave much room to manoeuvre when you're holding — trying to hold — several packs of beer at once. Will presses back against the wall, but Ethan stops directly in front of him. Brandt is a little lost, a little drunk, and studying the doorframe with great concentration, then the toes of his own shoes, the light glancing off the lamp. Anything but Ethan.
"What's going on?" Agent Hunt's instincts are a legend in the Agency, but a blind man could see something is wrong here.
"Troubles in my personal life." Will finally lifts his head.
"And here I was hoping for cake and champagne," Ethan says with a grin. Not that he finds it funny; rather the opposite. But sympathy and moral support come with running a field team. "Annie's a nice girl, but—"
"What's Annie got to do with it?" Brandt looks at him in surprise, then snorts. "Astonishing capacity for drawing the wrong conclusions."
Ethan wants to drop the beer. Which he does, reaching for Will to check the guess. He even gets as far as kissing him on the chin. Because Will tips his head back and hisses through his teeth. In the narrow space of the corridor the pack of beer has landed squarely on his foot.
"Sorry." Ethan can't make himself let go of Will's shirt. As though that would stop him pushing away, or refusing, or saying Ethan has got it all wrong.
Will nods without a word and puts his forehead against Ethan's shoulder. He is shaking with laughter. Ethan laughs too. And somehow that convinces him better than anything else that this is right. That it will be all right, whatever the difference in experience, age or taste.