Fic: Bionic Assistant (Devil Wears Prada/Bionic Woman)
Bionic Woman is a piece of trash. The dialogue stinks, the delivery stinks, the plot logic stinks. Michelle Ryan is hot but wooden, but I've seen her in other stuff, and she's really quite gorgeous, so I'm waiting for her to surprise me. Plus the idea of bionic body parts is kind of cool.
Title: Bionic Assistant
Fandom: Devil Wears Prada (movie)/Bionic Woman (2007 TV series)
Pairings: Andy/Miranda
Rating: PG
Description: Andy goes bionic.
Disclaimer: Nothing is mine.
Notes: Set some time after episode 2 of Bionic Woman, and ignores everything that happens after it.
Everything that could have gone wrong that day seemingly had gone wrong. First Andy had gotten Miranda's coffee order mixed up, so Miranda had spent the entire morning acting like her ass was hemorrhoiding. Then, the car broke down right outside of Elias-Clarke, just as it had arrived to pick Miranda up for a meeting across town. When Roy ran outside to tinker with the engine to see what was wrong, he stepped in a pile of dog shit and didn't realise it until Miranda pointed it out to him, later, when they were stuck in traffic.
Miranda was wholeheartedly urging Roy to speed up. Andy didn't really think they could go any faster, but she wasn't about to say so right in front of her boss.
"No one in this city can do anything right," Miranda grumbled, glaring at her second assistant, as if the entire day was somehow all her fault. Andy, withering under the glare, wanted to crumple into a little ball and shatter into a million pieces. She looked miserably out the window, staring at the cars moving at a slow crawl around them.
At the intersection ahead of them, a light blinked amber. There was a small break in the traffic, and Roy, perhaps agitated by Miranda's insistent prodding, suddenly floored the accelerator.
In a split second, it occurred to Andy that she was staring straight at a ten-ton truck barreling down the intersection right at them, but she didn't have time to alert Roy that he'd made a fatal mistake before the truck smashed into them. Andy heard the crunch of metal and the screech of tires before she felt her legs snap and her arm tear out of its socket. Before she could scream, she blissfully lost consciousness.
~~~~~
Neon bright lights. Voices. Blurry images. The smell of sanitary bleaching product and blood. Pain, a whole lot of pain.
She couldn't move her body. People were talking very loudly at her, and she wanted to tell them to shut up.
She tried to blink.
"Should she be awake?" she heard a voice say in concern, and she must have been imagining things, because the person sounded like Miranda.
"You shouldn't be here right now," someone else said curtly, and the first person grumbled something and left. Now Andy knew she had to have imagined it, because Miranda would never have taken orders from someone else. She didn't have time to dwell on the matter though, because someone stuck something in her arm (wait, her arm? It didn't feel like her arm) and after a few drowsy moments she zoned out again.
The next time she woke up, she found herself alone in a hospital bed, in a rather crappy looking hospital room. The first thing she did was check her arms and legs. To her surprise, they were fine -- not a single blemish on them. She moved her toes experimentally; they wiggled cutely back at her.
There was a middle-aged, caucasian man with a receding hairline sitting across from her, head buried in his hands. When he noticed she was awake, he sighed. "Every single time. All I want is a decent subject, and all we get are car crash victims."
"Excuse me?" Andy said, her voice coming out a croak.
"Ah, where are my manners. You must be quite confused; after all, you were just in a terrible accident." The man stood up, poured a glass of water, and approached Andy's bed. "My name is Jonas. Jonas Bledsoe. I'm in charge here."
Andy reached for the cup eagerly before the man could react. To her surprise, it shattered in her grip, the glass cutting into her hand. "What the hell?" she exclaimed, but even as she stared at her hand, the cuts began to heal themselves until there was no trace of any wound.
She turned to stare at the man. "Did I just die and get revived as some kind of weird science experiment?"
Jonas Bledsoe opened his mouth in surprise. "You're surprisingly sharp. Maybe you won't be as dumb as the last one."
"I was just KIDDING," Andy shouted. "What the hell is going on?"
Immediately, a door was kicked open, and in burst a slender brunette woman, about Andy's age; behind her followed a man of East Asian descent with his hair tied into a ponytail. "Stand down," said the Asian man, pointing a gun at her, while the brunette turned to Jonas Bledsoe and yelled, "What do you mean by as dumb as the last one?"
"Whoa, whoa," Andy scrambled into a crouching position, needles and tubes dangling from her body, "there's no need to get violent."
"Everyone, calm down," said Jonas, waving his arms in exasperation.
"You are not to touch a single hair on her body," said a cold, familiar voice that sent chills down Andy's back. "She represents a full thirty million dollars investment, and if someone so much as scratches a fingernail on her hand, I will make it so that no trace of your organisation ever existed on this planet."
Andy tore the remaining needles out of her arms. "Miranda? What are you doing here?"
"Why did hers only cost thirty million and mine fifty?" hissed the brunette.
"Oh, she's got the complete package," Miranda said airily. "Bionic arms, bionic legs, one bionic eye and ear, plus a bionic nose, tongue and all the brain implants. Plus, Jonas and I go way back." She put a hand lightly against Jonas' back, who looked extremely uncomfortable and moved away.
"Well, we started mass-production in bulk -- parts from China -- drives costs down, you see," he coughed. From the look on his face, Miranda must have had some really good dirt on him.
"Will someone just tell me what the hell is going on?" Andy screamed. "A truck hit me -- I felt my legs break. But now I'm fine! And I just broke a cup without trying! And I cut myself! And I healed! And why are you completely uninjured? Where's Roy?"
Asian guy with a gun cocked the safety.
"Oh, for heaven's sake, put that thing away." Miranda went up to him and pushed the gun down. He stared at her before sheathing his gun. Then she walked up to Andy. "Andrea, first of all, calm down. Please refrain from accidentally swinging one of your limbs."
A mysterious, classically-conditioned reflex within Andy made her snap to attention at Miranda's voice and overrode a deeper, baser instinct to scream and flail like a baby.
"Good. Now." Miranda lifted her silver bangs from her scalp, revealing a white bandage over her forehead.
"We were in a car crash and all you got was a cut on your forehead?" Andy gasped. Well, perhaps it was possible -- Andy was completely unharmed, after all.
"Roy's dead, so unfortunately they couldn't do for him what they did for you. I'll let Jonas explain."
Andy's face crumpled. "Oh my god, that's horrible," she whispered. "Wait, so how the hell did you only get away with a scratch?"
"Ah, details. Luck of the draw." Miranda waved her hand dismissively. "Roy's family will be well compensated. Jonas, will you?"
"Jae, Jaime," Jonas nodded at the Asian man and the brunette. "You're no longer needed here." The Asian man nodded and left the room; the brunette lingered at the doorway.
"Can I stay?" she said.
"Why do you need to?" said Jonas without turning to look at her. "I'm sure you'll eavesdrop on us anyway."
"That's true," grinned the woman, "so why not just let me hang around?"
"Have it your way, Jaime." Jonas shook his head, cleared his throat and turned to Andy. "Ms Sachs."
"Andy, please," said Andy automatically.
"Andy. As you remember, you were in a car accident. It was a terrible accident. A man died, and you very nearly did too. Your legs, arms and face suffered irreparable damage, your heart was failing, and you'd lost a dangerous amount of blood. There was no way conventional surgery techniques and medicine could have healed you. So, you were brought here, to our secret underground research facility." He paused for dramatic effect.
Andy stared at him. "So... what kind of secret research do you do ... underground?"
"Bionics," Jonas said. "Enhanced biological cybernetic body parts and computer systems -- for many purposes, but mostly for combat. You, Andy, have been fitted with our state-of-the-art bionic body parts, giving you extraordinary speed, strength, and perception -- your sight, hearing, sense of smell and taste have been greatly enhanced. In your brain we have implanted computer chips to support their operation, and part of your blood has been replaced with anthrocytes to speed up your healing process. You'll notice that there's not a single cut on your face anymore."
Unable to process all the information being thrown at her, Andy felt like her brain were being fried in a saucepan. She worked her jaw, trying to ween the facts into some kind of logical progression.
Andy Sachs was now a combat-ready cyborg -- with a computer in her brain -- super fast healing -- and super strong limbs.
"These aren't mine?" she mumbled, touching her arms and legs, finally able to form a sentence.
"They're mine, technically," said Miranda.
Andy turned in shock. "You paid for this?"
"Well, you certainly don't have enough money to pay for this sort of operation."
Andy knew how much her boss made, and although Miranda was rich, even she couldn't have that kind of disposable cash lying around. But she didn't have time to worry about that now. "So ... what? Do I belong to you now?" Andy said.
"In a sense, yes," Miranda sniffed. "I will deduct a fixed amount from your wages every month for the rest of your life until you pay me back in full."
Well, that answered the question "What was Andy to do with her life from now?" She let her head sink onto the bed, defeated. "You should have just let me die," she moaned.
"You should have mentioned it earlier," snapped Miranda, "it's a little late for that now." She brushed past Jaime and stormed out of the room.
"Miranda! You are not to go wandering around this facility without supervision!" shouted Jonas, chasing after her.
Andy gulped. "Oh shit. She looked mad."
"Yeah, I think you hurt her feelings," Jaime laughed.
"Who are you?"
"Oh, excuse me. I'm Jaime. Jaime Sommers." Jaime held out her right hand. Andy reached out to shake it, until she remembered what she'd been capable of and she pulled back quickly. "Don't worry, I'm the dumb last one Jonas mentioned," Jaime smiled. "I can take it if it's this hand. Just be careful though."
Andy grasped Jaime's hand gingerly. "So you're like me?"
"Sort of. I only have one bionic arm and one bionic eye, and none of the fancy nose and tongue stuff. I didn't even know they made those. I guess your face must have been pretty smashed in." She threw her head back and laughed.
Andy decided this girl laughed way too much. "I guess it was too much for them to make me look like Angelina Jolie."
Jaime laughed again. "You're cute enough."
Andy wasn't sure if she should interpret that as a come-on or not.
"If you're well enough to worry about your looks, you must be doing fine. If you feel like you need someone to talk to, though, we can have you meet with Ruth. She's kind of like our team psychologist."
"I think that won't be necessary, for now," said Andy. "The first thing I probably should do is figure out how to control these arms and legs without killing someone or myself."
"That'll come in time," said Jaime cheerfully. "What you really want to beware of is when --"
All of a sudden, it felt like someone had turned the volume dial on every one of Andy's five senses to maximum high sensitivity. Andy screamed, unable to withstand the assault of sensation. The room grew extremely bright; a cacophony of sounds had gone off in her head, she could taste a million coppery flavours on her tongue, and she was filled with the urge to sneeze. She keeled over, buffeted by ten different kinds of nausea in all directions, and threw up.
"-- your eye and ear systems come online," Jaime finished. "From the looks of it, your nose and tongue systems just kicked in too. Girl, I feel for you." She patted Andy on the back for a long time, until the waves of nausea passed and the sensations reverted to normal levels. "Feeling better now?"
"Barely," Andy croaked.
"Good, because your life's about to get a whole lot more complicated," said Jaime sympathetically.
"Why do you say that?"
"This technology is one-of-a-kind -- you don't want people finding out about it, or everyone will be after you."
Great. Not only was Andy a fighting cyborg, she was about to become a targeted fighting cyborg.
"You'll need to learn to control your strength and your bionic senses so that people don't suspect you. We'd be happy to help you with that, but --"
"Is there a problem?" Andy said.
Jaime tapped her chin thoughtfully. "In my case, the Berkus Group -- that's the people behind this shady underground secret research facility -- paid for my bionics, so I sort of work for them now, and they train me. You, however, technically belong to that Priestly lady, so I think Jonas and his team can't keep you here if she doesn't want you here." Jaime leaned in and whispered conspiratorially. "If you ask me, I think you're better off not working for these assholes. The pay sucks, the hours are terribly irregular, and the boss is a total control freak."
"That doesn't sound so different from my current job." Andy looked around and shuddered. "But I guess it beats working underground."
"And you get to wear really swanky clothes," Jaime grinned.
"Yeah. That too."
Jaime tossed her head in the direction of the exit. "You should go talk to her. Come on, let's go."
"Who? Miranda?" Andy climbed off the bed. The tiled floor felt cold under her bare feet, and she suddenly felt comforted. Even though they weren't her feet, the senses were still hers.
"Yeah. I think she somehow feels responsible for your accident." Jaime led Andy out of the room and through the corridors.
"How do you know?" said Andy doubtfully.
"I used to be a bartender," said Jaime confidently. "We hear things."
Andy stared at her. What did she even mean by that? Did she mean that she'd heard rumours about Miranda when she'd worked as a bartender? But that wasn't possible; perhaps she meant that being a bartender had taught her how to read body language and covert signals. Or maybe she just meant that she'd overheard Miranda saying something of the sort with her super hearing, except Miranda wouldn't be caught dead admitting guilt. Andy shook her head, thoroughly confused. Maybe Jonas was right -- this Jaime was a dumb one after all.
~~~~~
Miranda was sitting inside what looked like an interrogation room at a shoddy metal table; Jaime let her in, promising, "I won't eavesdrop, talk as long as you want," and left.
"I don't understand why they won't let us leave yet," Miranda said without looking at her. "You're in working condition. I've paid them. What could possibly be the problem?"
Andy eased into the chair across from her. There was a faint trace of blood being emitted from Miranda's direction; Andy supposed it was her bionic nose and brain processing the information about the origin and nature of the smell. Noticing for the first time the bandages around Miranda's shoulders and neck peeking out from under her blouse, Andy thought of Roy all of a sudden.
"Thank you for not letting me die," she said sincerely. "I didn't mean what I said back there. I'm glad to be alive."
"Glad to hear it," Miranda sniffed.
"Thirty million dollars, though," Andy said, incredulous. "I'm certainly not worth that much." Curiously, Andy found that if she cocked her head at a certain angle, she could actually hear Miranda's heartbeat, pulsing steadily and confidently. A grin spread over her face. These powers were seriously cool.
"You're the last person I expected to put a value on human life."
"Well, I normally don't, but in this case I can because it's mine." Andy said. "Seriously. My entire family's combined worth, and my extended family's, added to all the future money I could possibly make in my job and investments, including accumulated interest when I retire, probably wouldn't come close to hitting thirty million." She shook her head after making the mental calculation. She wasn't sure, but she felt like her brain might have gotten a little smarter at math. "Guess you really didn't want to let me die." Andy smiled absurdly at the thought.
Strangely, the air in the room seemed to change. It took Andy a moment to realise that Miranda was giving off a different scent. It was slightly tangy, not unpleasant, but it made Andy uncomfortable. FEAR, her brain tingled suddenly.
That couldn't be right. Andy looked at Miranda again, the perfect picture of efficiency and competence.
"It's just thirty million dollars, Andrea," Miranda said, "nothing I can't afford," and Andy's ears picked up on the faintest, tiniest, most inconspicuous of tremours in her voice; certainly they would have been audible to a normal human ear.
The door slammed open, and in burst Jonas Bledsoe, trailed by Jaime Sommers and a blond woman in a suit Andy didn't recognise.
"Turns out it's not something you CAN afford though, Miranda," barked Jonas, eyes boring straight into Miranda's.
"Ruth Treadwell." The blond woman introduced herself. "We did some digging around. This thirty million you transferred to us -- we discovered it came from a pretty interesting source."
The room sounded and smelled pretty busy at the moment, but above the din Andy could make out Miranda's maybe-fear-scent and two distinct heartbeats -- one was Miranda's, and the other was Jonas'. To her surprise they were beating nearly synchronously in time. Jonas was giving off an odour too, but he smelled angry. It struck Andy that both of them had to be controlling their blood pressure and breathing rate at will. They both must have been pros at sneaking past lie detector tests, Andy marveled.
"The money you transferred to us hadn't been in your bank account for more than two hours at the time of the transaction," Ruth said. "It set off a flag, so we looked into it. We eventually found that the money originated from an account belonging to Elias-Clarke -- which you have access to -- for Runway-specific operations."
Andy's jaw dropped in shock. "Miranda, you -- embezzled money, from Runway -- for me?" She felt dizzy, and it wasn't from the computer in her head.
"I was going to pay back the money eventually," Miranda said, looking at her nails.
Jonah placed his hands on the table. "Miranda, I'm ashamed of you. The act of embezzlement can get you arrested, or worse, fired."
The Miranda-fear-scent (for Andy definitely knew it was fear, now) was growing by the minute. Andy oddly thought of little Ron Weasley, from the first Harry Potter movie, sighing to Harry, "She needs to sort our her priorities."
"What do you want?" Miranda said evenly.
"We want her." Jonas pointed at Andy.
"You can't have her," Miranda snarled. "You've already been paid."
"Then we'll just return the money; we won't owe anyone anything, and she's ours because we have to bear the costs of the operation."
"Hey, don't I get a say in this?" Andy interrupted. Behind Ruth, Jaime sadly mouthed 'sorry' at her.
"Why would you refuse money like this?" Miranda stared. "At first I had to twist your arm to even get you to operate, and now you're telling me you want to keep her?"
"That was before we realised what a perfect fit she was," Jonas nodded at Andy. "No one's systems have come online so soon, and as well as Andy. Against all expectations, Andy has taken to her bionics like a duck to water. She's practically mastered them perfectly, without training or even thinking about it."
"How do you know?" Andy said in surprise.
Jonas tapped his head. "We're monitoring your systems right now. There's a direct feed that broadcasts everything back to us."
"Wait a minute, wait a minute," Andy protested, feeling violated. "You can read my thoughts?"
"Not quite," Ruth explained. "We receive a realtime stream of the input to your bionic systems."
"We see what you see," said Jonas. "We hear what you hear. We smell what you smell." He leaned towards Andy. "Right now, you're telling us that Miranda Priestly is emitting fear in cubic metres."
Andy shot a quick glance at Miranda, whose eyes were fixed rigidly on her, pupils dilated to about 6mm in diameter. Andy looked away quickly. She knew there was no way she could have known, but she felt like she'd betrayed Miranda somehow.
"Come on, Miranda," Jonas cajoled. "You didn't do this so that you could have your personal bionic combat-able bodyguard. All you wanted was for the girl to live -- and she lives! Just take back the money, walk away, and leave the girl to us."
Andy heard Miranda's heart beat faster. Something inside Andy, which had been holding something dark and fierce and primal at bay, suddenly snapped.
"I really think I should get a say in this," Andy growled, and she flung the metal table across the room. It crashed into the far wall, shattering a two-way mirror. While everyone was momentarily stunned, Andy charged.
Jonas had been wrong about Andy having complete mastery over her bionics. Instead of simply shoving him to the ground, like she'd intended, she accidentally propelled him through the door, blowing its hinges right off.
"Crap, I didn't mean to do that," Andy said apologetically. Everyone else in the room gaped at her, except for Jaime, who grinned and gave her a thumbs up.
"I'll go make sure he's alive," Jaime called as she jogged off.
"Okay! Now that I have your attention," Andy turned to Ruth, "I hope you're important enough to make all the big decisions around here, because I think I just knocked your boss unconscious. And there's more where that came from."
Ruth opened her mouth to speak, shut it, then opened it again. "Okay, you've made your intentions clear. What do you want?"
"I'm not really sure, but I KNOW I don't want to work for you people," Andy declared.
"Fair enough. So how do you intend to pay us for the work we've done on you?"
Ah. Good point. "I didn't think that far ahead," Andy admitted.
"You already have the thirty million," Miranda said to Ruth. "If you haven't already canceled the transfer, just keep it."
"No!" Andy exclaimed. "I can't let you risk getting arrested ... or fired." She looked at the floor. "I know Runway's important to you."
"I know you know." Miranda turned to Andy, who tried to look away, but Miranda grabbed her chin and fixed her head in position, staring straight into her eyes. "I have no intention of being found out. Do you hear me?"
"Yes, we understand," said Ruth before Andy could answer, and Andy realised Miranda was addressing the operators monitoring her bionics. "We have no intention of blackmailing you either. That's not what we do. Although we reserve the ability and possibility to do so."
Miranda's unblinking, flinty blue eyes never left Andy's. "State your terms." The smell of fear had mostly subsided, to be replaced by something Andy couldn't place.
"We would like to call upon Andy as a, shall we say, independent contractor if the need arises," Ruth said.
"That sounds fair," Andy said quickly. Andy had never noticed the flecks of grey in Miranda's eyes before. She wondered if the guys watching her optic input could convert the feed to an image file or something.
Ruth looked relieved. "We won't force you, Andy, but if we run into any situation that requires us asking you for help, the livelihoods of entire cities or small countries usually might be at stake. Given the danger and risk involved in the kind of work we do, I think it's best if you come back here occasionally for training. It would be a waste of your body and thirty million dollars if something happened to you the first time we sent you out."
Andy blinked. What had she gotten herself into?
"We can work out the details later," Miranda said impatiently, finally releasing Andy. "Can we leave now?"
Ruth's mouth quirked. "We just need to have a technician do some last minute briefings for Andy. He can make sure she's in shape, show her how to turn off the feedback to our monitoring systems, turn off the GPS tracking device in her head, that sort of thing."
"I'd like that," said Andy, relieved, before she realised. "Wait a minute, I have a tracking device on me?"
~~~~~
"Did you even read the manual before having them put all this crap in my body?" Andy muttered to Miranda as Ruth led them through the maze of underground hallways.
"If you'll recall, I didn't have a lot of time to decide," Miranda said through gritted teeth. "You were dying, remember?"
"They put a tracking device in me!" Andy hissed.
Suddenly, Miranda grabbed Andy's hand and stopped walking. Andy was so surprised that she nearly jerked her hand away, and would have succeeded if Miranda's grip had not been so strong. A body on a stretcher, covered in a white cloth, was being wheeled towards them.
"Is that Roy?" Andy said, throat clenching.
"Yes," said Miranda in a low voice.
Ruth noticed that they were no longer following her. "Do you need a moment?"
"I've already had mine." Miranda's eyes were closed. "Andrea, if you need to."
Andy could smell the foul stench of death from the body. "No, I don't." Her stomach churned, and she felt ashamed of herself. She'd hardly known the man, and now she never would.
They came to a room filled with all sorts of machines and equipment, and Ruth stopped. "Right in here. Nathan, our technician, will be with you in a minute."
"Can she wait with me here?" Andy said, realising she was still holding Miranda's hand. Miranda must have just noticed it herself, because she pulled her hand away.
"I don't see why not," Ruth said thoughtfully. "She might as well see what she got for her money. If you have no more questions --" Ruth inclined her head and disappeared.
Andy sat down on something that looked like a patient's chair in a dental office while Miranda looked around. Silence permeated the room for a few minutes.
"I wonder how long it's going to take me to pay back the thirty million," Andy said, trying to lighten the mood.
"They asked for sixty million originally," Miranda said heavily.
"Wow, I guess I dodged that bullet, huh," Andy grinned. "But really -- sixty, thirty -- at that point, what's the difference?"
"Thirty was all I could come up with," Miranda growled.
Andy stopped grinning, fast. She didn't need super hearing to know that Miranda was about to cry, and suddenly she realised why.
Jaime Sommers had cost fifty million. It shouldn't have cost sixty to save Andy, which meant --
"Were they asking for sixty million for the both of us?" Andy swallowed, a cold heavy dread settling in her stomach. "For Roy and me?"
"Thirty million measly dollars, and that was already at a discount," Miranda mumbled, pressing her palms to her eyes. "All my life I've worked -- everything I worked for, everything I own -- didn't even amount to enough to save a man's life --"
Andy felt tears springing to her own eyes.
"If only I could have been more patient -- we ended up missing that stupid meeting anyway --"
"It was an accident, Miranda -- it wasn't your fault."
"You were both so badly hurt -- I thought I had no choice, I had them bring both of you here -- but maybe if I'd left one of you there, let an ambulance take you to the hospital, the way real people do it --"
Andy's brain was going haywire, Miranda's quiet sobs reverberating in her ears like thunder, the scent of her grief so strong that Andy was nearly knocked over.
"They told me they could only afford to do one of you," Miranda choked. "How was I supposed to choose, between an employee who's been with me for more than a decade, and -- oh god, I let him die."
"Because of me," said Andy hoarsely, feeling faint and happy and guilty all at once. "Because you chose me."
Faster than the eye could blink, she'd rushed to Miranda's side and with only 2% of her full strength, she wrapped Miranda in an embrace, pressing her lips to Miranda's cheek. She could taste the lysozymes, the protein hormones in the tears --
Oh, fuck it. Fuck all the extraneous information filtering through her brain. The guys monitoring her could read it all they wanted; she had no use for any of it.
Miranda's tears were warm and salty. She smelled wonderful, like Chanel perfume. Her breaths were loud in Andy's ears, and her mouth -- oh god -- sweet, and soft, made Andy think of warm apple pie --
"Ahem," came a knock at the door.
Andy and Miranda jumped apart, like children caught with their hands in a cookie jar.
"I hate to interrupt this really sweet moment, but you guys have kind of been taking a while, and we figured you'd probably want us to show you how to disable the feedback to our central surveillance servers before you went any further, soooooo if you're ready now --"
"Are you Nathan? I'm ready," Andy laughed through her tears. "Yeah, I'm ready."
It had been quite a rough day, all in all. She'd started off stuck in traffic, nearly died, and ended up kissing Miranda. Things could have been worse, she supposed. She could have been Roy. Or Roy's wife. Or Roy's childen.
She took Miranda's hand in her own, gently, and Miranda didn't pull away.
"Thank you for saving my life," Andy said.
"It occurs to me that even if I retain 90% of your paycheck every month, you'll still never be able to reach thirty million," Miranda replied. "We'll have to spot the difference somehow. You understand this is just between you and me, right?"
Well. Some things didn't change. "Maybe Jonas pays well for those side jobs," Andy said in resignation.
"You better hope he does."
~~~~~
Thanks for reading, as always!
Title: Bionic Assistant
Fandom: Devil Wears Prada (movie)/Bionic Woman (2007 TV series)
Pairings: Andy/Miranda
Rating: PG
Description: Andy goes bionic.
Disclaimer: Nothing is mine.
Notes: Set some time after episode 2 of Bionic Woman, and ignores everything that happens after it.
Everything that could have gone wrong that day seemingly had gone wrong. First Andy had gotten Miranda's coffee order mixed up, so Miranda had spent the entire morning acting like her ass was hemorrhoiding. Then, the car broke down right outside of Elias-Clarke, just as it had arrived to pick Miranda up for a meeting across town. When Roy ran outside to tinker with the engine to see what was wrong, he stepped in a pile of dog shit and didn't realise it until Miranda pointed it out to him, later, when they were stuck in traffic.
Miranda was wholeheartedly urging Roy to speed up. Andy didn't really think they could go any faster, but she wasn't about to say so right in front of her boss.
"No one in this city can do anything right," Miranda grumbled, glaring at her second assistant, as if the entire day was somehow all her fault. Andy, withering under the glare, wanted to crumple into a little ball and shatter into a million pieces. She looked miserably out the window, staring at the cars moving at a slow crawl around them.
At the intersection ahead of them, a light blinked amber. There was a small break in the traffic, and Roy, perhaps agitated by Miranda's insistent prodding, suddenly floored the accelerator.
In a split second, it occurred to Andy that she was staring straight at a ten-ton truck barreling down the intersection right at them, but she didn't have time to alert Roy that he'd made a fatal mistake before the truck smashed into them. Andy heard the crunch of metal and the screech of tires before she felt her legs snap and her arm tear out of its socket. Before she could scream, she blissfully lost consciousness.
~~~~~
Neon bright lights. Voices. Blurry images. The smell of sanitary bleaching product and blood. Pain, a whole lot of pain.
She couldn't move her body. People were talking very loudly at her, and she wanted to tell them to shut up.
She tried to blink.
"Should she be awake?" she heard a voice say in concern, and she must have been imagining things, because the person sounded like Miranda.
"You shouldn't be here right now," someone else said curtly, and the first person grumbled something and left. Now Andy knew she had to have imagined it, because Miranda would never have taken orders from someone else. She didn't have time to dwell on the matter though, because someone stuck something in her arm (wait, her arm? It didn't feel like her arm) and after a few drowsy moments she zoned out again.
The next time she woke up, she found herself alone in a hospital bed, in a rather crappy looking hospital room. The first thing she did was check her arms and legs. To her surprise, they were fine -- not a single blemish on them. She moved her toes experimentally; they wiggled cutely back at her.
There was a middle-aged, caucasian man with a receding hairline sitting across from her, head buried in his hands. When he noticed she was awake, he sighed. "Every single time. All I want is a decent subject, and all we get are car crash victims."
"Excuse me?" Andy said, her voice coming out a croak.
"Ah, where are my manners. You must be quite confused; after all, you were just in a terrible accident." The man stood up, poured a glass of water, and approached Andy's bed. "My name is Jonas. Jonas Bledsoe. I'm in charge here."
Andy reached for the cup eagerly before the man could react. To her surprise, it shattered in her grip, the glass cutting into her hand. "What the hell?" she exclaimed, but even as she stared at her hand, the cuts began to heal themselves until there was no trace of any wound.
She turned to stare at the man. "Did I just die and get revived as some kind of weird science experiment?"
Jonas Bledsoe opened his mouth in surprise. "You're surprisingly sharp. Maybe you won't be as dumb as the last one."
"I was just KIDDING," Andy shouted. "What the hell is going on?"
Immediately, a door was kicked open, and in burst a slender brunette woman, about Andy's age; behind her followed a man of East Asian descent with his hair tied into a ponytail. "Stand down," said the Asian man, pointing a gun at her, while the brunette turned to Jonas Bledsoe and yelled, "What do you mean by as dumb as the last one?"
"Whoa, whoa," Andy scrambled into a crouching position, needles and tubes dangling from her body, "there's no need to get violent."
"Everyone, calm down," said Jonas, waving his arms in exasperation.
"You are not to touch a single hair on her body," said a cold, familiar voice that sent chills down Andy's back. "She represents a full thirty million dollars investment, and if someone so much as scratches a fingernail on her hand, I will make it so that no trace of your organisation ever existed on this planet."
Andy tore the remaining needles out of her arms. "Miranda? What are you doing here?"
"Why did hers only cost thirty million and mine fifty?" hissed the brunette.
"Oh, she's got the complete package," Miranda said airily. "Bionic arms, bionic legs, one bionic eye and ear, plus a bionic nose, tongue and all the brain implants. Plus, Jonas and I go way back." She put a hand lightly against Jonas' back, who looked extremely uncomfortable and moved away.
"Well, we started mass-production in bulk -- parts from China -- drives costs down, you see," he coughed. From the look on his face, Miranda must have had some really good dirt on him.
"Will someone just tell me what the hell is going on?" Andy screamed. "A truck hit me -- I felt my legs break. But now I'm fine! And I just broke a cup without trying! And I cut myself! And I healed! And why are you completely uninjured? Where's Roy?"
Asian guy with a gun cocked the safety.
"Oh, for heaven's sake, put that thing away." Miranda went up to him and pushed the gun down. He stared at her before sheathing his gun. Then she walked up to Andy. "Andrea, first of all, calm down. Please refrain from accidentally swinging one of your limbs."
A mysterious, classically-conditioned reflex within Andy made her snap to attention at Miranda's voice and overrode a deeper, baser instinct to scream and flail like a baby.
"Good. Now." Miranda lifted her silver bangs from her scalp, revealing a white bandage over her forehead.
"We were in a car crash and all you got was a cut on your forehead?" Andy gasped. Well, perhaps it was possible -- Andy was completely unharmed, after all.
"Roy's dead, so unfortunately they couldn't do for him what they did for you. I'll let Jonas explain."
Andy's face crumpled. "Oh my god, that's horrible," she whispered. "Wait, so how the hell did you only get away with a scratch?"
"Ah, details. Luck of the draw." Miranda waved her hand dismissively. "Roy's family will be well compensated. Jonas, will you?"
"Jae, Jaime," Jonas nodded at the Asian man and the brunette. "You're no longer needed here." The Asian man nodded and left the room; the brunette lingered at the doorway.
"Can I stay?" she said.
"Why do you need to?" said Jonas without turning to look at her. "I'm sure you'll eavesdrop on us anyway."
"That's true," grinned the woman, "so why not just let me hang around?"
"Have it your way, Jaime." Jonas shook his head, cleared his throat and turned to Andy. "Ms Sachs."
"Andy, please," said Andy automatically.
"Andy. As you remember, you were in a car accident. It was a terrible accident. A man died, and you very nearly did too. Your legs, arms and face suffered irreparable damage, your heart was failing, and you'd lost a dangerous amount of blood. There was no way conventional surgery techniques and medicine could have healed you. So, you were brought here, to our secret underground research facility." He paused for dramatic effect.
Andy stared at him. "So... what kind of secret research do you do ... underground?"
"Bionics," Jonas said. "Enhanced biological cybernetic body parts and computer systems -- for many purposes, but mostly for combat. You, Andy, have been fitted with our state-of-the-art bionic body parts, giving you extraordinary speed, strength, and perception -- your sight, hearing, sense of smell and taste have been greatly enhanced. In your brain we have implanted computer chips to support their operation, and part of your blood has been replaced with anthrocytes to speed up your healing process. You'll notice that there's not a single cut on your face anymore."
Unable to process all the information being thrown at her, Andy felt like her brain were being fried in a saucepan. She worked her jaw, trying to ween the facts into some kind of logical progression.
Andy Sachs was now a combat-ready cyborg -- with a computer in her brain -- super fast healing -- and super strong limbs.
"These aren't mine?" she mumbled, touching her arms and legs, finally able to form a sentence.
"They're mine, technically," said Miranda.
Andy turned in shock. "You paid for this?"
"Well, you certainly don't have enough money to pay for this sort of operation."
Andy knew how much her boss made, and although Miranda was rich, even she couldn't have that kind of disposable cash lying around. But she didn't have time to worry about that now. "So ... what? Do I belong to you now?" Andy said.
"In a sense, yes," Miranda sniffed. "I will deduct a fixed amount from your wages every month for the rest of your life until you pay me back in full."
Well, that answered the question "What was Andy to do with her life from now?" She let her head sink onto the bed, defeated. "You should have just let me die," she moaned.
"You should have mentioned it earlier," snapped Miranda, "it's a little late for that now." She brushed past Jaime and stormed out of the room.
"Miranda! You are not to go wandering around this facility without supervision!" shouted Jonas, chasing after her.
Andy gulped. "Oh shit. She looked mad."
"Yeah, I think you hurt her feelings," Jaime laughed.
"Who are you?"
"Oh, excuse me. I'm Jaime. Jaime Sommers." Jaime held out her right hand. Andy reached out to shake it, until she remembered what she'd been capable of and she pulled back quickly. "Don't worry, I'm the dumb last one Jonas mentioned," Jaime smiled. "I can take it if it's this hand. Just be careful though."
Andy grasped Jaime's hand gingerly. "So you're like me?"
"Sort of. I only have one bionic arm and one bionic eye, and none of the fancy nose and tongue stuff. I didn't even know they made those. I guess your face must have been pretty smashed in." She threw her head back and laughed.
Andy decided this girl laughed way too much. "I guess it was too much for them to make me look like Angelina Jolie."
Jaime laughed again. "You're cute enough."
Andy wasn't sure if she should interpret that as a come-on or not.
"If you're well enough to worry about your looks, you must be doing fine. If you feel like you need someone to talk to, though, we can have you meet with Ruth. She's kind of like our team psychologist."
"I think that won't be necessary, for now," said Andy. "The first thing I probably should do is figure out how to control these arms and legs without killing someone or myself."
"That'll come in time," said Jaime cheerfully. "What you really want to beware of is when --"
All of a sudden, it felt like someone had turned the volume dial on every one of Andy's five senses to maximum high sensitivity. Andy screamed, unable to withstand the assault of sensation. The room grew extremely bright; a cacophony of sounds had gone off in her head, she could taste a million coppery flavours on her tongue, and she was filled with the urge to sneeze. She keeled over, buffeted by ten different kinds of nausea in all directions, and threw up.
"-- your eye and ear systems come online," Jaime finished. "From the looks of it, your nose and tongue systems just kicked in too. Girl, I feel for you." She patted Andy on the back for a long time, until the waves of nausea passed and the sensations reverted to normal levels. "Feeling better now?"
"Barely," Andy croaked.
"Good, because your life's about to get a whole lot more complicated," said Jaime sympathetically.
"Why do you say that?"
"This technology is one-of-a-kind -- you don't want people finding out about it, or everyone will be after you."
Great. Not only was Andy a fighting cyborg, she was about to become a targeted fighting cyborg.
"You'll need to learn to control your strength and your bionic senses so that people don't suspect you. We'd be happy to help you with that, but --"
"Is there a problem?" Andy said.
Jaime tapped her chin thoughtfully. "In my case, the Berkus Group -- that's the people behind this shady underground secret research facility -- paid for my bionics, so I sort of work for them now, and they train me. You, however, technically belong to that Priestly lady, so I think Jonas and his team can't keep you here if she doesn't want you here." Jaime leaned in and whispered conspiratorially. "If you ask me, I think you're better off not working for these assholes. The pay sucks, the hours are terribly irregular, and the boss is a total control freak."
"That doesn't sound so different from my current job." Andy looked around and shuddered. "But I guess it beats working underground."
"And you get to wear really swanky clothes," Jaime grinned.
"Yeah. That too."
Jaime tossed her head in the direction of the exit. "You should go talk to her. Come on, let's go."
"Who? Miranda?" Andy climbed off the bed. The tiled floor felt cold under her bare feet, and she suddenly felt comforted. Even though they weren't her feet, the senses were still hers.
"Yeah. I think she somehow feels responsible for your accident." Jaime led Andy out of the room and through the corridors.
"How do you know?" said Andy doubtfully.
"I used to be a bartender," said Jaime confidently. "We hear things."
Andy stared at her. What did she even mean by that? Did she mean that she'd heard rumours about Miranda when she'd worked as a bartender? But that wasn't possible; perhaps she meant that being a bartender had taught her how to read body language and covert signals. Or maybe she just meant that she'd overheard Miranda saying something of the sort with her super hearing, except Miranda wouldn't be caught dead admitting guilt. Andy shook her head, thoroughly confused. Maybe Jonas was right -- this Jaime was a dumb one after all.
~~~~~
Miranda was sitting inside what looked like an interrogation room at a shoddy metal table; Jaime let her in, promising, "I won't eavesdrop, talk as long as you want," and left.
"I don't understand why they won't let us leave yet," Miranda said without looking at her. "You're in working condition. I've paid them. What could possibly be the problem?"
Andy eased into the chair across from her. There was a faint trace of blood being emitted from Miranda's direction; Andy supposed it was her bionic nose and brain processing the information about the origin and nature of the smell. Noticing for the first time the bandages around Miranda's shoulders and neck peeking out from under her blouse, Andy thought of Roy all of a sudden.
"Thank you for not letting me die," she said sincerely. "I didn't mean what I said back there. I'm glad to be alive."
"Glad to hear it," Miranda sniffed.
"Thirty million dollars, though," Andy said, incredulous. "I'm certainly not worth that much." Curiously, Andy found that if she cocked her head at a certain angle, she could actually hear Miranda's heartbeat, pulsing steadily and confidently. A grin spread over her face. These powers were seriously cool.
"You're the last person I expected to put a value on human life."
"Well, I normally don't, but in this case I can because it's mine." Andy said. "Seriously. My entire family's combined worth, and my extended family's, added to all the future money I could possibly make in my job and investments, including accumulated interest when I retire, probably wouldn't come close to hitting thirty million." She shook her head after making the mental calculation. She wasn't sure, but she felt like her brain might have gotten a little smarter at math. "Guess you really didn't want to let me die." Andy smiled absurdly at the thought.
Strangely, the air in the room seemed to change. It took Andy a moment to realise that Miranda was giving off a different scent. It was slightly tangy, not unpleasant, but it made Andy uncomfortable. FEAR, her brain tingled suddenly.
That couldn't be right. Andy looked at Miranda again, the perfect picture of efficiency and competence.
"It's just thirty million dollars, Andrea," Miranda said, "nothing I can't afford," and Andy's ears picked up on the faintest, tiniest, most inconspicuous of tremours in her voice; certainly they would have been audible to a normal human ear.
The door slammed open, and in burst Jonas Bledsoe, trailed by Jaime Sommers and a blond woman in a suit Andy didn't recognise.
"Turns out it's not something you CAN afford though, Miranda," barked Jonas, eyes boring straight into Miranda's.
"Ruth Treadwell." The blond woman introduced herself. "We did some digging around. This thirty million you transferred to us -- we discovered it came from a pretty interesting source."
The room sounded and smelled pretty busy at the moment, but above the din Andy could make out Miranda's maybe-fear-scent and two distinct heartbeats -- one was Miranda's, and the other was Jonas'. To her surprise they were beating nearly synchronously in time. Jonas was giving off an odour too, but he smelled angry. It struck Andy that both of them had to be controlling their blood pressure and breathing rate at will. They both must have been pros at sneaking past lie detector tests, Andy marveled.
"The money you transferred to us hadn't been in your bank account for more than two hours at the time of the transaction," Ruth said. "It set off a flag, so we looked into it. We eventually found that the money originated from an account belonging to Elias-Clarke -- which you have access to -- for Runway-specific operations."
Andy's jaw dropped in shock. "Miranda, you -- embezzled money, from Runway -- for me?" She felt dizzy, and it wasn't from the computer in her head.
"I was going to pay back the money eventually," Miranda said, looking at her nails.
Jonah placed his hands on the table. "Miranda, I'm ashamed of you. The act of embezzlement can get you arrested, or worse, fired."
The Miranda-fear-scent (for Andy definitely knew it was fear, now) was growing by the minute. Andy oddly thought of little Ron Weasley, from the first Harry Potter movie, sighing to Harry, "She needs to sort our her priorities."
"What do you want?" Miranda said evenly.
"We want her." Jonas pointed at Andy.
"You can't have her," Miranda snarled. "You've already been paid."
"Then we'll just return the money; we won't owe anyone anything, and she's ours because we have to bear the costs of the operation."
"Hey, don't I get a say in this?" Andy interrupted. Behind Ruth, Jaime sadly mouthed 'sorry' at her.
"Why would you refuse money like this?" Miranda stared. "At first I had to twist your arm to even get you to operate, and now you're telling me you want to keep her?"
"That was before we realised what a perfect fit she was," Jonas nodded at Andy. "No one's systems have come online so soon, and as well as Andy. Against all expectations, Andy has taken to her bionics like a duck to water. She's practically mastered them perfectly, without training or even thinking about it."
"How do you know?" Andy said in surprise.
Jonas tapped his head. "We're monitoring your systems right now. There's a direct feed that broadcasts everything back to us."
"Wait a minute, wait a minute," Andy protested, feeling violated. "You can read my thoughts?"
"Not quite," Ruth explained. "We receive a realtime stream of the input to your bionic systems."
"We see what you see," said Jonas. "We hear what you hear. We smell what you smell." He leaned towards Andy. "Right now, you're telling us that Miranda Priestly is emitting fear in cubic metres."
Andy shot a quick glance at Miranda, whose eyes were fixed rigidly on her, pupils dilated to about 6mm in diameter. Andy looked away quickly. She knew there was no way she could have known, but she felt like she'd betrayed Miranda somehow.
"Come on, Miranda," Jonas cajoled. "You didn't do this so that you could have your personal bionic combat-able bodyguard. All you wanted was for the girl to live -- and she lives! Just take back the money, walk away, and leave the girl to us."
Andy heard Miranda's heart beat faster. Something inside Andy, which had been holding something dark and fierce and primal at bay, suddenly snapped.
"I really think I should get a say in this," Andy growled, and she flung the metal table across the room. It crashed into the far wall, shattering a two-way mirror. While everyone was momentarily stunned, Andy charged.
Jonas had been wrong about Andy having complete mastery over her bionics. Instead of simply shoving him to the ground, like she'd intended, she accidentally propelled him through the door, blowing its hinges right off.
"Crap, I didn't mean to do that," Andy said apologetically. Everyone else in the room gaped at her, except for Jaime, who grinned and gave her a thumbs up.
"I'll go make sure he's alive," Jaime called as she jogged off.
"Okay! Now that I have your attention," Andy turned to Ruth, "I hope you're important enough to make all the big decisions around here, because I think I just knocked your boss unconscious. And there's more where that came from."
Ruth opened her mouth to speak, shut it, then opened it again. "Okay, you've made your intentions clear. What do you want?"
"I'm not really sure, but I KNOW I don't want to work for you people," Andy declared.
"Fair enough. So how do you intend to pay us for the work we've done on you?"
Ah. Good point. "I didn't think that far ahead," Andy admitted.
"You already have the thirty million," Miranda said to Ruth. "If you haven't already canceled the transfer, just keep it."
"No!" Andy exclaimed. "I can't let you risk getting arrested ... or fired." She looked at the floor. "I know Runway's important to you."
"I know you know." Miranda turned to Andy, who tried to look away, but Miranda grabbed her chin and fixed her head in position, staring straight into her eyes. "I have no intention of being found out. Do you hear me?"
"Yes, we understand," said Ruth before Andy could answer, and Andy realised Miranda was addressing the operators monitoring her bionics. "We have no intention of blackmailing you either. That's not what we do. Although we reserve the ability and possibility to do so."
Miranda's unblinking, flinty blue eyes never left Andy's. "State your terms." The smell of fear had mostly subsided, to be replaced by something Andy couldn't place.
"We would like to call upon Andy as a, shall we say, independent contractor if the need arises," Ruth said.
"That sounds fair," Andy said quickly. Andy had never noticed the flecks of grey in Miranda's eyes before. She wondered if the guys watching her optic input could convert the feed to an image file or something.
Ruth looked relieved. "We won't force you, Andy, but if we run into any situation that requires us asking you for help, the livelihoods of entire cities or small countries usually might be at stake. Given the danger and risk involved in the kind of work we do, I think it's best if you come back here occasionally for training. It would be a waste of your body and thirty million dollars if something happened to you the first time we sent you out."
Andy blinked. What had she gotten herself into?
"We can work out the details later," Miranda said impatiently, finally releasing Andy. "Can we leave now?"
Ruth's mouth quirked. "We just need to have a technician do some last minute briefings for Andy. He can make sure she's in shape, show her how to turn off the feedback to our monitoring systems, turn off the GPS tracking device in her head, that sort of thing."
"I'd like that," said Andy, relieved, before she realised. "Wait a minute, I have a tracking device on me?"
~~~~~
"Did you even read the manual before having them put all this crap in my body?" Andy muttered to Miranda as Ruth led them through the maze of underground hallways.
"If you'll recall, I didn't have a lot of time to decide," Miranda said through gritted teeth. "You were dying, remember?"
"They put a tracking device in me!" Andy hissed.
Suddenly, Miranda grabbed Andy's hand and stopped walking. Andy was so surprised that she nearly jerked her hand away, and would have succeeded if Miranda's grip had not been so strong. A body on a stretcher, covered in a white cloth, was being wheeled towards them.
"Is that Roy?" Andy said, throat clenching.
"Yes," said Miranda in a low voice.
Ruth noticed that they were no longer following her. "Do you need a moment?"
"I've already had mine." Miranda's eyes were closed. "Andrea, if you need to."
Andy could smell the foul stench of death from the body. "No, I don't." Her stomach churned, and she felt ashamed of herself. She'd hardly known the man, and now she never would.
They came to a room filled with all sorts of machines and equipment, and Ruth stopped. "Right in here. Nathan, our technician, will be with you in a minute."
"Can she wait with me here?" Andy said, realising she was still holding Miranda's hand. Miranda must have just noticed it herself, because she pulled her hand away.
"I don't see why not," Ruth said thoughtfully. "She might as well see what she got for her money. If you have no more questions --" Ruth inclined her head and disappeared.
Andy sat down on something that looked like a patient's chair in a dental office while Miranda looked around. Silence permeated the room for a few minutes.
"I wonder how long it's going to take me to pay back the thirty million," Andy said, trying to lighten the mood.
"They asked for sixty million originally," Miranda said heavily.
"Wow, I guess I dodged that bullet, huh," Andy grinned. "But really -- sixty, thirty -- at that point, what's the difference?"
"Thirty was all I could come up with," Miranda growled.
Andy stopped grinning, fast. She didn't need super hearing to know that Miranda was about to cry, and suddenly she realised why.
Jaime Sommers had cost fifty million. It shouldn't have cost sixty to save Andy, which meant --
"Were they asking for sixty million for the both of us?" Andy swallowed, a cold heavy dread settling in her stomach. "For Roy and me?"
"Thirty million measly dollars, and that was already at a discount," Miranda mumbled, pressing her palms to her eyes. "All my life I've worked -- everything I worked for, everything I own -- didn't even amount to enough to save a man's life --"
Andy felt tears springing to her own eyes.
"If only I could have been more patient -- we ended up missing that stupid meeting anyway --"
"It was an accident, Miranda -- it wasn't your fault."
"You were both so badly hurt -- I thought I had no choice, I had them bring both of you here -- but maybe if I'd left one of you there, let an ambulance take you to the hospital, the way real people do it --"
Andy's brain was going haywire, Miranda's quiet sobs reverberating in her ears like thunder, the scent of her grief so strong that Andy was nearly knocked over.
"They told me they could only afford to do one of you," Miranda choked. "How was I supposed to choose, between an employee who's been with me for more than a decade, and -- oh god, I let him die."
"Because of me," said Andy hoarsely, feeling faint and happy and guilty all at once. "Because you chose me."
Faster than the eye could blink, she'd rushed to Miranda's side and with only 2% of her full strength, she wrapped Miranda in an embrace, pressing her lips to Miranda's cheek. She could taste the lysozymes, the protein hormones in the tears --
Oh, fuck it. Fuck all the extraneous information filtering through her brain. The guys monitoring her could read it all they wanted; she had no use for any of it.
Miranda's tears were warm and salty. She smelled wonderful, like Chanel perfume. Her breaths were loud in Andy's ears, and her mouth -- oh god -- sweet, and soft, made Andy think of warm apple pie --
"Ahem," came a knock at the door.
Andy and Miranda jumped apart, like children caught with their hands in a cookie jar.
"I hate to interrupt this really sweet moment, but you guys have kind of been taking a while, and we figured you'd probably want us to show you how to disable the feedback to our central surveillance servers before you went any further, soooooo if you're ready now --"
"Are you Nathan? I'm ready," Andy laughed through her tears. "Yeah, I'm ready."
It had been quite a rough day, all in all. She'd started off stuck in traffic, nearly died, and ended up kissing Miranda. Things could have been worse, she supposed. She could have been Roy. Or Roy's wife. Or Roy's childen.
She took Miranda's hand in her own, gently, and Miranda didn't pull away.
"Thank you for saving my life," Andy said.
"It occurs to me that even if I retain 90% of your paycheck every month, you'll still never be able to reach thirty million," Miranda replied. "We'll have to spot the difference somehow. You understand this is just between you and me, right?"
Well. Some things didn't change. "Maybe Jonas pays well for those side jobs," Andy said in resignation.
"You better hope he does."
~~~~~
Thanks for reading, as always!