The Quiet Ones
Title: The Quiet Ones
Series: Agents of Inception (#1 - After The Fall, #2 - Easing The Transition, #3 - Unexpected Losses)
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Rating: PG-13 for violence.
Pairing: Ariadne/Arthur
Warning/Spoilers: Winter Soldier/AOS spoilers, violence, minor character death. Written in response to the Tumblr prompt "Who do you think you are?" for Still Worth A Shot, our AA Fest there. The AO3 Collection is here.
Summary: They lose one ally but gain another. Time to head toward Cybertek labs...
Saito called in a few favors to get access to a SHIELD safe house that hadn't been tracked down and raided by the US military yet. "Not all my contacts are within SHIELD," he had told Ariadne when she asked him how that was possible, then refused to answer any further questions. She supposed it wasn't important; he had copied the information he had downloaded so that each of them had a copy, and was intending to have it analyzed as soon as he could. "I have a few friends I could probably call," he said vaguely.
When Saito left their little group, it was to meet with a tall muscled Caucasian man dressed in purple and black, carrying a quiver and bow. "You know," the man began, not really talking to the rest of them as he took the briefcase Saito offered him. "Nearly getting knifed in the back while on an undercover mission just sucks. We were supposed to be on radio silence when that shit show happened." His eyes narrowed a bit at Saito, but Ariadne had gotten the feeling that the two agents knew each other very well. "I got here as fast as I could, and I still need to track down some friends of mine. You owe me one hell of a story and at least a couple beers."
Smiling, Saito had merely nodded. "Scotch would work better."
"Aw, man, no," the brunet agent groaned. "I hate those kinds of stories…"
The two had left after that, and Ariadne hadn't even caught the other agent's name. Arthur and Eames settled into a diner with Ariadne for brunch, but she could feel the tension thrumming between them. "We have some gear and some info now," Arthur began in a low voice.
"I heard from Yusuf," Eames reported. "No intention of going back into the field, and right now I don't blame him. But he can give us stuff if we meet up with him. Knock out gas, some icer rounds for some of the pistols we have, that kind of thing. Most tech is being held on the down low, but some techies have started turning their eyes elsewhere, hoping to make a quick buck or get out of the government's radar by going private."
"Shit, already?" Arthur asked with a wince. "It's been a week since the Triskelion fell, not even two. Jesus. Talk about desecrating the body before it's even cold."
"US military," Eames reminded him pointedly.
Arthur snorted. "Agent Romanoff is testifying in front of Congress today, too. You think she'll be able to get out of there without cuffs?"
"Uh… yeah," Eames replied with an eyeroll. "Even if they tried to slap a pair of cuffs on her, do you think they'd actually stay on?"
"Point," Arthur allowed. He saw Ariadne's blank look. "High level clearance, training as an assassin and spy before SHIELD brought her in. You can't believe half the rumors they tell about her, but she worked with the Avenger Initiative for the Battle of New York to bring down the Chitauri during their invasion," he explained.
"I remember that, yeah," Ariadne said with a nod. "All of us in the office were glued to the TV when it happened." With a pang, she remembered that half of her coworkers were dead. The other half were in hiding now.
"Whatever happens, we're still stuck on the run," Arthur told Eames.
"Yeah, we're not like the tech bunch that can sell out to Cybertek or Vanadyne."
"Wait… I've heard of those companies," Ariadne said, looking at them in surprise. "We've crunched numbers for them and had to interpret stats they sent to us. Cobb had put their files on high priority status..." Her voice trailed off, and her eyes widened. "Oh my god… Do you think those techs were Hydra? Or just didn't know?"
Arthur and Eames exchanged tense glances. "Those places are not going to be easy to break into. Security is going to be tight..."
"Well, we have several different main office branches to choose from," Eames said after a moment, looking at his phone. He had been checking on Cybertek's publicly known locations as Arthur spoke. "Ohio is smack dab in the middle of the country, so we can go just about anywhere." Scrolling through the web page, Eames started reciting cities in the continental US.
"Wait," Ariadne interrupted. "We did some work for the LA office, but most of that was security analysis and projected costs of T1 and T3 dedicated lines. Nothing terribly interesting, I don't think. The actual hard data was from the Chicago and Dallas offices."
"Chicago is closer," Arthur reasoned.
"And Yusuf is on the way. Chicago it is," Eames replied with a smile, putting down his phone.
***
Yusuf's lab was comfortably cluttered with piles of folders, journals and bits of machinery that Ariadne couldn't identify. He had a holotable, above which schematics for icer rounds and flash bombs hovered. He and Eames chatted amiably enough, though even Eames didn't seem to understand or know about the contents of the lab. Arthur stuck close to Ariadne, and mentioned that he wanted to have Ariadne practice with the Beretta a bit more once they left Indianapolis to head to Chicago. "You didn't seem very confident with the weapon," he told her when she pulled a face at him. "I understand if you aren't comfortable with the idea of shooting people, but I do want you to be able to use it if you really have to."
"It makes sense," she sighed. Maybe then she could have shot someone in Ohio, prevented Darren from dying. Or farther back, disabling Cobb and saving Mal from him.
Arthur's hand slipped along her back and rested in the curved hollow there, a comforting presence that she leaned into. "It's just one avenue to take. How's your hand to hand?"
"Let's put it this way... I'm a petite woman working in a male dominated field. I've taken self defense courses since I was twelve."
His smile was crooked and sad at once. "Yeah. Well. Unfortunate reality of the world we live in, I guess. Most self defense courses emphasize taking down an opponent and then running away." He waited for Ariadne's nod. "Instead of running away, you're going to have to disable and possibly kill whoever it is you're fighting."
She didn't even blink, and blamed Hydra for that. "Yeah. Somehow, that doesn't bother me as much as shooting someone. I guess I need to be in the middle of things. I could've stayed away, but… Here I am. And I mean to contribute."
Now Arthur's smile was genuinely pleased. "I'm glad you didn't run."
"Look at that ego," she teased softly, an answering smile on her face. "Did you think I stayed because of you?"
He laughed, drawing Eames' and Yusuf's attention. "I hope I was at least part of the allure."
"Maybe," she hedged, seeing the other two men approach them. "So what's the deal?" she asked Eames, making sure her expression was only wide-eyed curiosity and not the flirty one she had given Arthur.
"This, Ariadne," Eames said with entirely too much glee, "is the deal." He gestured toward Yusuf and had a broad grin on his face. "While he doesn't generally go into the field, he's willing to make an exception in this case."
"Really? Why?" Arthur asked with a frown.
"Cybertek's been absorbing ex-SHIELD agents for some time," Yusuf told them, an intent look on his face. He looked as though he would be equally at home wearing a white lab coat in the Science Department as he was in the current neutral-toned cardigan over a batik shirt. He even had a pair of glasses dangling from a chain. Ariadne was tempted to look around for a cat curling around his ankles, because he reminded her so much of one of her professors from school.
"I want first crack at their R&D, because I'm sure there are choice bits of SHIELD tech that they've absorbed from us. I've been suspicious of them for a while now, especially since I've seen one of the early versions of my designs on their product line."
"Ah," Arthur said with a sage nod. "It's personal, then."
"Isn't all of this personal?" he challenged. "Or perhaps you don't wish to see?"
"I definitely see it that way," Ariadne told him with a nod. "So when can you leave? Because apparently I should get in some target practice."
"Oh. Well. I have my own little practice space for that," Yusuf said with an amiable grin. "Virtual range, keeps the skills sharp and the noise levels low. No need for police to come crawling into my den looking for weapons that technically shouldn't belong to the average citizen." He extended his arm toward Ariadne in a gallant manner. "Let's go downstairs, shall we?"
Ariadne flashed Arthur an amused smile as she took his arm, and let him lead her further into his home. Arthur and Eames followed, curiosity evident on both their faces.
***
The shooting range was an eye-opening education, Ariadne had to admit that. The basement room was quiet, and there was a moment with the VR goggles on that she felt a dizzying sense of vertigo, as if standing on the edge of a set of stairs that gaped over an impossibly deep drop. Yusuf had held onto her elbow for a moment, and urged her to breathe, which helped her acclimate to the sensation. "The brain doesn't like the tricks I play on it," he had said apologetically. "Give it a few minutes, and you should be fine." She had been, and they got in a solid two hours of practice. Her arm ached, but it was well worth it. Her groupings were much tighter now, though her aim still pulled a little to the right.
"I think you'll be fine enough for self defense," Arthur had told her encouragingly.
"Off to Chicagoland, then," Eames had said with an almost manic grin.
Ariadne slept through most of the drive to Chicago, just because she could. Arthur and Eames wound up bouncing ideas back and forth for trying to do an extraction on Cybertek's R&D labs, and Yusuf sighed a lot. None of that had been enough to keep her engaged enough to stay awake during the drive, and there wasn't a lot to look at by the side of the road.
They had called Cybertek ahead of time and Yusuf had inquired about their open recruiting policy mentioned on the website. That gave him an interview slot, and the others planned to sneak into the building to cause a distraction that would allow Yusuf to start poking around. Ariadne wasn't exactly a gifted hacker, but she was better than Eames and Arthur and was able to get plans of the building that were stored online. They were dated two years before, and none of them assumed that the plans would resemble current configurations.
Looking a little ill, Yusuf managed to duck out of his interview partway through. Arthur and Eames had already snuck into the building and were poking about the server room, and Ariadne had gone separately and was skulking about the stairwells near Yusuf's location. He eased open the stairwell door, allowing her entry onto his floor, which was locked on her end. She tapped her earpiece twice, which made a soft clicking noise, alerting Arthur and Eames that she was in position. Then, once Yusuf was back in his interview room, Ariadne pulled on the fire alarm and ducked into a storage room to wait out the chaos.
There was the sound of pounding feet past the door, of shouts and confusion. Ariadne kept her breathing even and her earpiece open on their frequency. Arthur was making a soft humming noise and clicking his teeth erratically; she didn't think he even realized he did it as he concentrated hard on something. Eames was utterly silent. Yusuf was being escorted out of the conference room where he had his interview, though he again begged to visit the restroom before leaving the building, he was really too ill at the moment to wait until the lobby. A guard was sent to escort him, and the interviewers scurried away.
Ariadne was supposed to wait until Yusuf gave her the all clear, but by the sound of it, the guard was harder to take down than he had anticipated. She snuck into the men's room and immediately struck the guard on the back of his neck with the side of her hand. He let go of Yusuf to spin around and confront her, but she ducked low and punched him solidly in his solar plexus and then grabbed him by the balls and yanked.
He howled, and she used the opportunity to take out her Beretta and pistol whip him across the temple. The guard crumpled to the floor, out cold, and Ariadne looked up into Yusuf's stunned expression. "Who do you think you are?" he cried, amazed.
She smiled sweetly and then nudged the guard with her foot. "Backup. Now let's park this guy in the stall over there and find the R&D stuff you wanted."
Once they were out of the men's room, Yusuf looked over at Ariadne. "You know, it really is the quiet ones that you have to watch out for."
"Maybe because everybody goes after the quiet ones," she replied in a gentle voice. "They avoid the loud ones, because they'll attract too much noise. They think quiet equals weak, that silence is shame, and that they can get away with anything."
Yusuf nodded slowly. "I can see that. I think you like being underestimated, too."
Ariadne lofted an eyebrow in his direction. "I think it's more that I underestimated myself for too long," she corrected. "I'm not going to do that ever again." Nodding toward the hallway Yusuf had directed them to, she gave him a slight smile. "Shall we?"
He returned her smile. "Let's see what mischief we can manage."
***
Arthur's worried expression eased as soon as he saw Ariadne enter the restaurant with Yusuf at her side. He was wearing a brown leather jacket over a simple button down shirt and jeans. Eames had elected to stay hidden, as he had been a bit more visible during the breakin at Cybertek. Ariadne slid into the booth beside Arthur and gave him a soft and brief kiss on the lips before looking away with a slight curl to her lips. "You were worried."
"Well, I heard fighting a couple of times over the comms."
"I could hear them on your end, too."
"I've had a lot more training," he replied in a reasonable tone. "You and Yusuf didn't have missions with that focus in mind before."
"She did admirably, Arthur," Yusuf interrupted, grinning. "Saved my life, honestly, and helped get my part of the job done. I've got a trunk full of things that Cybertek shouldn't have, and it's all thanks to Ariadne's help. Quite the sight to see, as if she'd been part of operations instead of intel."
Ariadne visibly preened under the complement, and Arthur relaxed a little further. "I think your worry is adorable," she said, pressing a kiss to his cheek. "I'll still need training, not to worry," she teased, a slight pink flush to her cheeks.
"Should I leave?" Yusuf asked dryly.
Usually this kind of thing would embarrass Arthur, but for once he didn't care. They weren't SHIELD operatives any longer. For all intents and purposes, they were vigilantes, so any of the unspoken regulations regarding fraternization didn't apply anymore. There was no reason to be self conscious about his emotional connection to Ariadne. She obviously felt the same way about it, too.
"No, it's okay," she told Yusuf as Arthur shook his head.
"Are you going to stick with us to find another target? Or head back home?" Arthur asked.
Yusuf pondered that as their food order was taken, and he finally responded after their waitress left. "You know, I think I'll stay with you a bit. There are bound to be items you'd need to get past Cybertek and Hydra, and their R&D rooms looked as though they've rifled tech from many researchers, not just SHIELD." He gave Ariadne a conspiratorial grin, and Arthur had to squelch a twinge of jealousy ruthlessly. "The quiet ones have to stick together, right?"
"Absolutely," Ariadne chirped happily, even as her hand slipped under the table to rest possessively on Arthur's thigh. "We'll get them right where it hurts, until SHIELD gets its act together. Because we can't be the only ones doing stuff like this."
"I'm sure we aren't," Arthur said with a firm nod. "They're all just biding their time. Or flying low under the radar so Hydra can't take them out."
"This is a start," Ariadne said, sounding confident. "Let's see how far we can take it."
That definitely sounded like a plan Arthur could get behind.
The End
Series: Agents of Inception (#1 - After The Fall, #2 - Easing The Transition, #3 - Unexpected Losses)
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Rating: PG-13 for violence.
Pairing: Ariadne/Arthur
Warning/Spoilers: Winter Soldier/AOS spoilers, violence, minor character death. Written in response to the Tumblr prompt "Who do you think you are?" for Still Worth A Shot, our AA Fest there. The AO3 Collection is here.
Summary: They lose one ally but gain another. Time to head toward Cybertek labs...
Saito called in a few favors to get access to a SHIELD safe house that hadn't been tracked down and raided by the US military yet. "Not all my contacts are within SHIELD," he had told Ariadne when she asked him how that was possible, then refused to answer any further questions. She supposed it wasn't important; he had copied the information he had downloaded so that each of them had a copy, and was intending to have it analyzed as soon as he could. "I have a few friends I could probably call," he said vaguely.
When Saito left their little group, it was to meet with a tall muscled Caucasian man dressed in purple and black, carrying a quiver and bow. "You know," the man began, not really talking to the rest of them as he took the briefcase Saito offered him. "Nearly getting knifed in the back while on an undercover mission just sucks. We were supposed to be on radio silence when that shit show happened." His eyes narrowed a bit at Saito, but Ariadne had gotten the feeling that the two agents knew each other very well. "I got here as fast as I could, and I still need to track down some friends of mine. You owe me one hell of a story and at least a couple beers."
Smiling, Saito had merely nodded. "Scotch would work better."
"Aw, man, no," the brunet agent groaned. "I hate those kinds of stories…"
The two had left after that, and Ariadne hadn't even caught the other agent's name. Arthur and Eames settled into a diner with Ariadne for brunch, but she could feel the tension thrumming between them. "We have some gear and some info now," Arthur began in a low voice.
"I heard from Yusuf," Eames reported. "No intention of going back into the field, and right now I don't blame him. But he can give us stuff if we meet up with him. Knock out gas, some icer rounds for some of the pistols we have, that kind of thing. Most tech is being held on the down low, but some techies have started turning their eyes elsewhere, hoping to make a quick buck or get out of the government's radar by going private."
"Shit, already?" Arthur asked with a wince. "It's been a week since the Triskelion fell, not even two. Jesus. Talk about desecrating the body before it's even cold."
"US military," Eames reminded him pointedly.
Arthur snorted. "Agent Romanoff is testifying in front of Congress today, too. You think she'll be able to get out of there without cuffs?"
"Uh… yeah," Eames replied with an eyeroll. "Even if they tried to slap a pair of cuffs on her, do you think they'd actually stay on?"
"Point," Arthur allowed. He saw Ariadne's blank look. "High level clearance, training as an assassin and spy before SHIELD brought her in. You can't believe half the rumors they tell about her, but she worked with the Avenger Initiative for the Battle of New York to bring down the Chitauri during their invasion," he explained.
"I remember that, yeah," Ariadne said with a nod. "All of us in the office were glued to the TV when it happened." With a pang, she remembered that half of her coworkers were dead. The other half were in hiding now.
"Whatever happens, we're still stuck on the run," Arthur told Eames.
"Yeah, we're not like the tech bunch that can sell out to Cybertek or Vanadyne."
"Wait… I've heard of those companies," Ariadne said, looking at them in surprise. "We've crunched numbers for them and had to interpret stats they sent to us. Cobb had put their files on high priority status..." Her voice trailed off, and her eyes widened. "Oh my god… Do you think those techs were Hydra? Or just didn't know?"
Arthur and Eames exchanged tense glances. "Those places are not going to be easy to break into. Security is going to be tight..."
"Well, we have several different main office branches to choose from," Eames said after a moment, looking at his phone. He had been checking on Cybertek's publicly known locations as Arthur spoke. "Ohio is smack dab in the middle of the country, so we can go just about anywhere." Scrolling through the web page, Eames started reciting cities in the continental US.
"Wait," Ariadne interrupted. "We did some work for the LA office, but most of that was security analysis and projected costs of T1 and T3 dedicated lines. Nothing terribly interesting, I don't think. The actual hard data was from the Chicago and Dallas offices."
"Chicago is closer," Arthur reasoned.
"And Yusuf is on the way. Chicago it is," Eames replied with a smile, putting down his phone.
***
Yusuf's lab was comfortably cluttered with piles of folders, journals and bits of machinery that Ariadne couldn't identify. He had a holotable, above which schematics for icer rounds and flash bombs hovered. He and Eames chatted amiably enough, though even Eames didn't seem to understand or know about the contents of the lab. Arthur stuck close to Ariadne, and mentioned that he wanted to have Ariadne practice with the Beretta a bit more once they left Indianapolis to head to Chicago. "You didn't seem very confident with the weapon," he told her when she pulled a face at him. "I understand if you aren't comfortable with the idea of shooting people, but I do want you to be able to use it if you really have to."
"It makes sense," she sighed. Maybe then she could have shot someone in Ohio, prevented Darren from dying. Or farther back, disabling Cobb and saving Mal from him.
Arthur's hand slipped along her back and rested in the curved hollow there, a comforting presence that she leaned into. "It's just one avenue to take. How's your hand to hand?"
"Let's put it this way... I'm a petite woman working in a male dominated field. I've taken self defense courses since I was twelve."
His smile was crooked and sad at once. "Yeah. Well. Unfortunate reality of the world we live in, I guess. Most self defense courses emphasize taking down an opponent and then running away." He waited for Ariadne's nod. "Instead of running away, you're going to have to disable and possibly kill whoever it is you're fighting."
She didn't even blink, and blamed Hydra for that. "Yeah. Somehow, that doesn't bother me as much as shooting someone. I guess I need to be in the middle of things. I could've stayed away, but… Here I am. And I mean to contribute."
Now Arthur's smile was genuinely pleased. "I'm glad you didn't run."
"Look at that ego," she teased softly, an answering smile on her face. "Did you think I stayed because of you?"
He laughed, drawing Eames' and Yusuf's attention. "I hope I was at least part of the allure."
"Maybe," she hedged, seeing the other two men approach them. "So what's the deal?" she asked Eames, making sure her expression was only wide-eyed curiosity and not the flirty one she had given Arthur.
"This, Ariadne," Eames said with entirely too much glee, "is the deal." He gestured toward Yusuf and had a broad grin on his face. "While he doesn't generally go into the field, he's willing to make an exception in this case."
"Really? Why?" Arthur asked with a frown.
"Cybertek's been absorbing ex-SHIELD agents for some time," Yusuf told them, an intent look on his face. He looked as though he would be equally at home wearing a white lab coat in the Science Department as he was in the current neutral-toned cardigan over a batik shirt. He even had a pair of glasses dangling from a chain. Ariadne was tempted to look around for a cat curling around his ankles, because he reminded her so much of one of her professors from school.
"I want first crack at their R&D, because I'm sure there are choice bits of SHIELD tech that they've absorbed from us. I've been suspicious of them for a while now, especially since I've seen one of the early versions of my designs on their product line."
"Ah," Arthur said with a sage nod. "It's personal, then."
"Isn't all of this personal?" he challenged. "Or perhaps you don't wish to see?"
"I definitely see it that way," Ariadne told him with a nod. "So when can you leave? Because apparently I should get in some target practice."
"Oh. Well. I have my own little practice space for that," Yusuf said with an amiable grin. "Virtual range, keeps the skills sharp and the noise levels low. No need for police to come crawling into my den looking for weapons that technically shouldn't belong to the average citizen." He extended his arm toward Ariadne in a gallant manner. "Let's go downstairs, shall we?"
Ariadne flashed Arthur an amused smile as she took his arm, and let him lead her further into his home. Arthur and Eames followed, curiosity evident on both their faces.
***
The shooting range was an eye-opening education, Ariadne had to admit that. The basement room was quiet, and there was a moment with the VR goggles on that she felt a dizzying sense of vertigo, as if standing on the edge of a set of stairs that gaped over an impossibly deep drop. Yusuf had held onto her elbow for a moment, and urged her to breathe, which helped her acclimate to the sensation. "The brain doesn't like the tricks I play on it," he had said apologetically. "Give it a few minutes, and you should be fine." She had been, and they got in a solid two hours of practice. Her arm ached, but it was well worth it. Her groupings were much tighter now, though her aim still pulled a little to the right.
"I think you'll be fine enough for self defense," Arthur had told her encouragingly.
"Off to Chicagoland, then," Eames had said with an almost manic grin.
Ariadne slept through most of the drive to Chicago, just because she could. Arthur and Eames wound up bouncing ideas back and forth for trying to do an extraction on Cybertek's R&D labs, and Yusuf sighed a lot. None of that had been enough to keep her engaged enough to stay awake during the drive, and there wasn't a lot to look at by the side of the road.
They had called Cybertek ahead of time and Yusuf had inquired about their open recruiting policy mentioned on the website. That gave him an interview slot, and the others planned to sneak into the building to cause a distraction that would allow Yusuf to start poking around. Ariadne wasn't exactly a gifted hacker, but she was better than Eames and Arthur and was able to get plans of the building that were stored online. They were dated two years before, and none of them assumed that the plans would resemble current configurations.
Looking a little ill, Yusuf managed to duck out of his interview partway through. Arthur and Eames had already snuck into the building and were poking about the server room, and Ariadne had gone separately and was skulking about the stairwells near Yusuf's location. He eased open the stairwell door, allowing her entry onto his floor, which was locked on her end. She tapped her earpiece twice, which made a soft clicking noise, alerting Arthur and Eames that she was in position. Then, once Yusuf was back in his interview room, Ariadne pulled on the fire alarm and ducked into a storage room to wait out the chaos.
There was the sound of pounding feet past the door, of shouts and confusion. Ariadne kept her breathing even and her earpiece open on their frequency. Arthur was making a soft humming noise and clicking his teeth erratically; she didn't think he even realized he did it as he concentrated hard on something. Eames was utterly silent. Yusuf was being escorted out of the conference room where he had his interview, though he again begged to visit the restroom before leaving the building, he was really too ill at the moment to wait until the lobby. A guard was sent to escort him, and the interviewers scurried away.
Ariadne was supposed to wait until Yusuf gave her the all clear, but by the sound of it, the guard was harder to take down than he had anticipated. She snuck into the men's room and immediately struck the guard on the back of his neck with the side of her hand. He let go of Yusuf to spin around and confront her, but she ducked low and punched him solidly in his solar plexus and then grabbed him by the balls and yanked.
He howled, and she used the opportunity to take out her Beretta and pistol whip him across the temple. The guard crumpled to the floor, out cold, and Ariadne looked up into Yusuf's stunned expression. "Who do you think you are?" he cried, amazed.
She smiled sweetly and then nudged the guard with her foot. "Backup. Now let's park this guy in the stall over there and find the R&D stuff you wanted."
Once they were out of the men's room, Yusuf looked over at Ariadne. "You know, it really is the quiet ones that you have to watch out for."
"Maybe because everybody goes after the quiet ones," she replied in a gentle voice. "They avoid the loud ones, because they'll attract too much noise. They think quiet equals weak, that silence is shame, and that they can get away with anything."
Yusuf nodded slowly. "I can see that. I think you like being underestimated, too."
Ariadne lofted an eyebrow in his direction. "I think it's more that I underestimated myself for too long," she corrected. "I'm not going to do that ever again." Nodding toward the hallway Yusuf had directed them to, she gave him a slight smile. "Shall we?"
He returned her smile. "Let's see what mischief we can manage."
***
Arthur's worried expression eased as soon as he saw Ariadne enter the restaurant with Yusuf at her side. He was wearing a brown leather jacket over a simple button down shirt and jeans. Eames had elected to stay hidden, as he had been a bit more visible during the breakin at Cybertek. Ariadne slid into the booth beside Arthur and gave him a soft and brief kiss on the lips before looking away with a slight curl to her lips. "You were worried."
"Well, I heard fighting a couple of times over the comms."
"I could hear them on your end, too."
"I've had a lot more training," he replied in a reasonable tone. "You and Yusuf didn't have missions with that focus in mind before."
"She did admirably, Arthur," Yusuf interrupted, grinning. "Saved my life, honestly, and helped get my part of the job done. I've got a trunk full of things that Cybertek shouldn't have, and it's all thanks to Ariadne's help. Quite the sight to see, as if she'd been part of operations instead of intel."
Ariadne visibly preened under the complement, and Arthur relaxed a little further. "I think your worry is adorable," she said, pressing a kiss to his cheek. "I'll still need training, not to worry," she teased, a slight pink flush to her cheeks.
"Should I leave?" Yusuf asked dryly.
Usually this kind of thing would embarrass Arthur, but for once he didn't care. They weren't SHIELD operatives any longer. For all intents and purposes, they were vigilantes, so any of the unspoken regulations regarding fraternization didn't apply anymore. There was no reason to be self conscious about his emotional connection to Ariadne. She obviously felt the same way about it, too.
"No, it's okay," she told Yusuf as Arthur shook his head.
"Are you going to stick with us to find another target? Or head back home?" Arthur asked.
Yusuf pondered that as their food order was taken, and he finally responded after their waitress left. "You know, I think I'll stay with you a bit. There are bound to be items you'd need to get past Cybertek and Hydra, and their R&D rooms looked as though they've rifled tech from many researchers, not just SHIELD." He gave Ariadne a conspiratorial grin, and Arthur had to squelch a twinge of jealousy ruthlessly. "The quiet ones have to stick together, right?"
"Absolutely," Ariadne chirped happily, even as her hand slipped under the table to rest possessively on Arthur's thigh. "We'll get them right where it hurts, until SHIELD gets its act together. Because we can't be the only ones doing stuff like this."
"I'm sure we aren't," Arthur said with a firm nod. "They're all just biding their time. Or flying low under the radar so Hydra can't take them out."
"This is a start," Ariadne said, sounding confident. "Let's see how far we can take it."
That definitely sounded like a plan Arthur could get behind.
The End