MI5 Integration -
Ethan's first briefing inside Thames House felt like stepping into another universe. Scotland Yard dealt with murders, gangs, and crime families. MI5 dealt with threats that rippled across continents.
In a sterile conference room, surrounded by suits who spoke in clipped, coded phrases, Ethan listened. Human trafficking rings funding extremist groups. Arms deals routed through European ports. Silent financiers slipping money from London to warlords abroad.
He spoke little, but when a map appeared on the projector, red lines threading across Europe, he leaned forward. "That port in Calais—if the traffickers are funneling through there, they're moving product under EU customs. They'll use bonded warehouses. That's your blind spot."
Silence followed. A senior officer finally said, "Who trained this man?"
Rowe smirked beside him. "America did. We just borrowed him."
From that day, Ethan was seconded to joint operations.
First MI5 Operation: The Docklands Sting -
The mission was deceptively simple: intercept a shipment of illegal arms disguised as agricultural machinery entering the Docklands. But MI5 suspected the buyers were connected to a terror cell planning attacks in London.
Ethan was embedded as a dockworker, coveralls and grease-stained hands blending seamlessly. He knew the routine from his undercover days in New York. The trick wasn't pretending—you had to become.
When the truck arrived, Ethan's sharp eyes caught the detail others missed: the serial number on the crate's stenciling had been altered with solvent. A fake.
He signaled subtly. Within moments, the sting erupted. Armed units moved in. Chaos followed. One suspect fled toward the water. Ethan chased, tackling him before he could dive into the Thames.
Pinned, the man spat in Albanian: "You'll drown with the rest."
Ethan responded in flawless Albanian, voice like ice: "Not today."
The intel extracted cracked the cell wide open. Attacks were stopped before they began.
The MI6 Crossover -
His linguistic skills drew the attention of MI6. Where MI5 handled domestic security, MI6 looked outward. And Ethan, with his mastery of European and Asian tongues, was invaluable abroad.
One assignment took him to Istanbul, tracking a financial courier funneling money to terror networks. Disguised as a French art dealer, Ethan moved through glittering auctions and backroom deals, his silver eyes sharp, his tuxedo immaculate—his mother's design, of course.
When the courier finally slipped, Ethan was there. A brief chase through the Grand Bazaar ended with Ethan pinning the man against an ancient stone wall, switching between French, Turkish, and English until the truth spilled.
The information disrupted a weapons sale in Syria. Lives were saved. Ethan returned to London without fanfare, slipping back into his flat as if he'd never left.
Isolation Deepens -
The deeper Ethan went into the shadow world, the more isolated he became. Friendships were fleeting, contacts temporary. Even Rowe saw him less, their paths diverging as his work left the confines of the Yard.
Nights were the hardest. He composed music no one would ever hear—strings heavy with longing, piano laced with fire. Sometimes he played until dawn, fingers aching, mind spinning with faces of men he'd brought down and those he couldn't save.
He dressed impeccably still, his armor against the world. But beneath the suits, scars multiplied. A knife slash from a Marseille dock fight. A bruise that lingered too long from a near capture in Warsaw. His body carried the ledger of his choices.
And yet, the vow never dimmed: Never again powerless.
The Berlin Incident -
Berlin, winter. A joint op with German BKA and MI6. A Russian syndicate was funneling enriched uranium scraps through the black market. Enough material to build a dirty bomb.
Ethan posed as a broker, his Russian flawless, his demeanor cold. He sat across from men who would kill him without hesitation if they suspected deception.
For hours, he played the game, negotiating, drinking, matching their toasts shot for shot. His stomach burned, but his expression never faltered.
When the final exchange was set, the takedown began. Chaos exploded in a hotel suite. Gunfire. Shouts. Ethan disarmed one, dropped another with a clean strike, and pulled a wounded MI6 officer to cover.
The uranium was seized. The bomb never built. But Ethan carried the image of the syndicate leader's smirk as he was dragged away, as if promising they'd meet again.
Recognition and Doubt -
By his fourth year in London, Ethan was a name whispered in both Yard and MI5 halls. The American who spoke every language. The one who could move from tuxedo to tactical gear without missing a beat.
But with recognition came doubt—his own. The line between cop and spy blurred. He had joined the police to protect, to serve, to bring order to chaos. Yet now, he lived in shadows, dealing in lies and half-truths, his hands dirtied by necessity.
One night, after a particularly brutal op in Marseille that left three traffickers dead and two children rescued, Ethan sat at his piano, fingers trembling. He played not for beauty, but for survival, each note a plea to keep hold of himself.
Am I still a cop? Or have I become something else?
The question lingered, unanswered.
The Shadow Brotherhood
Despite the isolation, Ethan found a strange camaraderie among operatives who lived like him. Men and women who knew the cost of silence. They respected him—not for his legend, but because he survived.
In quiet bars in London, in backrooms in Paris, in safe houses in Warsaw, they toasted not to victories but to survival. Ethan never drank much, but he raised his glass all the same.
He never spoke of home. Never of New York. Never of his vow. Some truths were his alone.
The Raid in Marseille -
The Marseille docks at midnight smelled of salt and diesel, the air thick with anticipation. Ethan crouched in the shadows with a mixed team of Yard, French RAID, and MI6 officers. Their target: a shipment of trafficked weapons bound for North Africa, escorted by a cartel with blood on their hands.
The op was supposed to be clean—surveillance, interception, takedown. But clean ops never stayed that way.
When the first breach went off, the night erupted. Gunfire snapped through the air, bullets sparking against containers. Shouts in French and Arabic mingled with the roar of engines.
Ethan moved with practiced precision. He dropped one gunman with a double tap, rolled behind cover, and barked directions in French to RAID officers pushing forward. His eyes never stopped scanning, calculating, adjusting.
Then the explosion came.
A grenade tossed wild, bouncing near stacked containers. Ethan saw it before anyone else. He shoved two men aside and dove, but the blast caught him anyway. Heat and fire ripped through the night, throwing him across the dock.
He hit hard, pain detonating in his chest. His ears rang, his vision blurred. Blood ran warm down his side. For a moment, the vow flickered—Never again powerless—as darkness threatened to take him.
But Ethan refused. He dragged himself upright, chest burning, ribs cracked, arm numb. His weapon was gone. So he grabbed a knife from his belt and pushed forward into chaos.
He found the cartel lieutenant near the water, fleeing with a case in hand. Ethan tackled him, knife pressed to his throat, growling in perfect Spanish, "It ends here."
By the time backup reached him, Ethan stood bleeding, but alive, the case secured. Inside: documents that dismantled the cartel's European network.
The mission was a success. But Ethan had nearly died to secure it.
The Hospital Room -
Ethan woke in a sterile hospital room in Marseille, ribs wrapped, shoulder stitched, breathing shallow.
Rowe sat beside his bed, her sharp eyes softer than he'd ever seen. "You should be dead," she said flatly.
Ethan smirked faintly, though it hurt. "You'll have to try harder to get rid of me."
But when she left, the smirk faded. For the first time in years, Ethan questioned whether the vow was enough. He had survived too many bullets, too many knives, too many nights in shadows. How long before survival ran out?
The music in his head was darker than ever.
The Whisper of Home -
Recovery was slow. Weeks of pain, physical therapy, frustration. But in that silence, a thought returned again and again: New York.
He remembered his father's garage, the smell of oil and leather. His mother's laughter, the sound of scissors on fabric. Duke's bark. Lady's soft purr. Even the ridiculousness of the Nine-Nine, the precinct he'd barely known but had heard whispers of from contacts back home.
He had left to sharpen himself, to gather every tool, every scar, every lesson. And he had.
But what was the point of being forged steel if it never returned to the fire it was meant for?
The Final Assignment -
Before leaving, MI5 asked for one final operation. Not a raid, not an infiltration—an advisory role. Ethan spent his last months in London teaching, transferring everything he had learned: breaching tactics, interrogation strategies, psychological analysis, linguistic nuance.
Recruits listened as if he were myth. But Ethan made it clear: "I'm not a ghost. I'm not a legend. I'm just a cop who refuses to be powerless."
The words stuck.
Farewell to London -
On his final night, Rowe met him at a pub near Westminster. They shared a drink, silence heavy between them. Finally, she said, "You made London sharper, Cross. Don't you dare forget what you've built here."
Ethan raised his glass. "And don't forget me when the Americans claim I was never here."
They both laughed softly, though it carried a sting.
Later, alone in his flat, Ethan packed his suits—always his mother's design—his father's tools, his notebooks filled with coded music. He stood by the window, the Thames glittering beneath the moonlight.
London had shaped him, carved him, nearly killed him. But it had also prepared him.
Tomorrow, he would return to New York. To the badge. To the vow.
The Man Who Returned -
Ethan Alexander Cross boarded his flight with a body that carried scars from three continents and a mind sharpened by every shadow. He was no longer the prodigy who had left at twenty-one. He was twenty-six now, steel forged in fire, fluent in worlds most men couldn't imagine.
As the plane rose above the clouds, Ethan closed his eyes. He saw the Nine-Nine waiting, though they didn't know it yet. He saw Rosa Diaz, a mystery he hadn't even met. He saw his parents, waiting with pride and worry.
And he whispered to himself, a vow renewed:
"Never again powerless. Never again."