Work Text:
15 April 2017
John takes his time enjoying the short walk from the hotel to the restaurant across the street. Other than meeting the team for breakfast and the flight home later in the afternoon, he has nothing to do today. It’s a pleasant morning; warm but not yet hot. He’s well rested, the mission that brought them to Las Vegas having ended relatively early with relatively little action.
As he takes his seat beside Harold, he realizes that Root and Shaw might not have taken the easy-going approach to their downtime that he has.
Root’s head is buried in her arms on the table. She’s slumped over, leaning heavily against the side of the booth, muttering something to the Machine, or maybe just moaning in pain. Beside her, Shaw too seems a bit worse for wear. She looks a bit pale, has dark circles under her eyes, and seems to be a bit sluggish. It’s probably the most hungover John’s ever seen her.
“Rough night?” he asks Shaw, not bothering to hide his amusement.
Shaw glares lightly in response, while Root makes a noise that’s definitely some sort of pained groan. She lifts her head up a fraction of an inch, whimpers, and drops back down.
Shaw shakes her head, but takes pity on her and slides a pair of sunglasses over to her.
Once the glasses are firmly in place, she sits up properly and looks at him. “I’ll have you know, John, that it was the best night of my life.”
This is when he notices it, right there on her left hand, all bold and shiny.
John is a smart man. He knows the kind of things people do in Vegas. But Root? She can be… spontaneous, but this doesn’t seem to be her style. The Machine wouldn’t let her do something too stupid, and she’s too dedicated to Shaw.
And Shaw. She’s far too casual. There’s no way she hasn’t noticed.
The only plausible explanation that comes to mind is if there was a mission he didn’t know about. But then why would they have allowed themselves to get so drunk?
He looks over at Harold, obliviously sipping his tea. John nudges his leg under the table.
“Mister Re-” John cuts him off with a quick shake of his head, then subtly nods towards Root. She’s back to hiding her face, and Shaw is perusing the menu, so neither notices this. It takes a moment for Harold to notice, but when he does, his eyes widen almost comically.
Their coffee arrives shortly after this. Root lifts her head up long enough to snatch a cup. She inhales a deep breath of the steam rising off it, takes a small sip, then drops her head back down on the table.
Too focused on Root, John misses the waiter talking.
“We’re ready to order now,” Shaw replies. “I’ll have a number two and a number six, one with hash browns and one with pancakes. She’ll have one of those chocolate cake things,” Shaw adds, gesturing first toward Root, then the desert menu on the table.
The waiter then turns to him. He’s about to order when a second, matching it catches his eye. This one on Shaw’s finger.
Accessing footage…
Earlier that morning:
Shaw is woken by a persistent knocking at the hotel room door. She fumbles on the nightstand for a gun, until Root stirs beside her.
“Jus’ John,” she mumbles, then rolls over and goes back to sleep.
“Alright,” Shaw calls out. “Fuck. Just gimme a minute.” She rolls off the bed and almost falls to the floor. With only her underwear on, she grabs the first piece of clothing she reaches. It’s Root’s pajama shirt, but she shrugs and pulls it on. She briefly searches for some pants as she buttons it, but decides it’s good enough when she finds none.
When Shaw reaches the door, she yanks it open, revealing a casually dressed John who was about to knock again.
“What.”
John is unfazed by her flat demand. He takes note of her state of undress and whose shirt she’s wearing, but wisely chooses not to say anything. “Finch wanted to invite you to breakfast, but neither of you were answering your phones.”
“Guess the Machine must have silenced them.”
“You coming?”
“Yeah, I just gotta get Root up. That same place across the street?”
“Yep.”
She shuts the door in John’s face, then locks it and closes the bolt for good measure.
Crossing the room soundlessly, she glances over at Root. She’s now sprawled across the bed, face down, with a pillow over her head. “Lightweight,” Shaw mutters. She pulls the curtains shut, just because it will be easier to get Root up if it’s a bit darker.
Then she gets a bottle of water from the little fridge and digs some painkillers out of her bag. She sets them down on the nightstand, then takes a moment to look at Root.
She must have tossed around a bit before pulling the pillow over her head because the sheets are down around her waist and her hair splayed out wildly. Shaw traces her fingers lightly down Root’s spine, then maps out the scars on her back. She doesn’t have as many Shaw, but there’s a few. Mostly fairly minor; grazes, a couple stab wounds, a burn, that time Shaw shot her, and the one between her shoulder blade and her spine. Even more than a year later and with Shaw’s care, the mess of the exit wound is clear across her skin. “Still too close,” she whispers, running her fingers over the knotted scars.
Then she runs her fingers back down Root’s back, and jabs her finger into her ribs hard.
“Time to get up.”
“Uh, fuck you,” Root groans, still not moving.
“Maybe later.” Shaw rubs the spot she poked, then taps out a particular sequence. “Come on, you’re not going to let me go to our honeymoon breakfast without my wife, are you?”
This draws Root out. She flips over and sits up. Smiles for a moment before it turns into a pained grimace, and she squeezes her eyes shut.
“Take these,” Shaw says, dumping two capsules out of the pill bottle into Root’s hand. Root pops them into her mouth, the takes the opened bottle of water Shaw gives her and drinks almost half.
“Thank you, Mrs Shaw.”
Shaw shakes her head, but smiles. She then starts looking for her own clothes again. “Alright, haul your ass out of bed. I want to eat.” She spots her t-shirt draped over the back of the couch and goes to grab it.
“You know babe, I like seeing you in my clothes.”
Shaw turns around, facing Root, and smirks at her. Then she slips off Root’s pajama shirt.
Root chokes on her water. She’s still spluttering when Shaw turns her back on her to grab her own shirt.
“That’s fine too.”
Last night:
When Sameen has to grab Root after she stumbles and almost faceplants in the doorway of the all-night wedding chapel, she’s pretty sure the guy dressed like Elvis is going to try to refuse them service. But apparently the Machine has properly bribed everyone already, since she doesn’t even need to threaten to knock his teeth out.
She doesn’t really focus on whatever he’s blathering about, paying more attention to scanning the chapel for threats. Maybe staring at Root a bit, too. She looks good in the dress the Machine got for her. (Like Sameen’s suit, it fits far too well to be something She arranged last minute, like they claimed. Not that Sameen is complaining about a little scheming.)
At one point, Root drops Sameen’s hand which she’s been holding since they got out of their ride to wrap her arms around her.
“I’m gonna wife you so hard,” she whispers right into Sameen’s ear.
Then Sameen realizes that Elvis and an assistant are looking at her expectantly, the assistant holding a pen out to her. There’s some sort of form on the desk in front of them. Apparently, she was meant to be paying attention to his blather.
After a brief awkward moment, the Machine indicates it’s okay to sign, so Sameen scribbles something vaguely like her name. They seem to expect Root to sign as well, so Sameen hands her the pen.
“You can’t just make a fucking slash, okay?”
Root gives her an exaggerated eye roll. She signs, somewhat sloppily, Root Thornhill.
Sameen narrows her eyes at the last name.
“What? I can’t exactly use yours yet” Root winks badly. “Besides, it was your idea to get me an actual ID with that name.”
“Whatever. Can we get on with it?”
When Elvis seems to want to talk more, so she grabs Root by the arm and drags her into the chapel proper.
Elvis and his assistant catch up to them near the front, and hand both of them bouquets.
“Um,” Sameen says. It’s not obnoxious and frilly, just some tasteful white flowers. Still, she didn’t sign up for carrying around flowers. She thrusts the bouquet firmly at Elvis, then turns to face Root.
“Okay, if you’re ready to, uh-”
“Shut it.” Sameen cuts off Elvis without looking at him. “I’ll tell you when you can talk.”
“But-”
“I will make eat those stupid flowers.”
“She will, she’s not just saying that,” Root adds helpfully.
When Root’s attention is back on her and Elvis seems to be keeping quiet, Sameen begins. “If we’re going to do this, I want to do it right.”
Root raises an eyebrow at her.
“Not this bullshit,” she says, waving around at the nauseatingly decorated chapel, “but something that will actually mean something to us. Not vowing to obey you or whatever. That’s dumb.”
Root cracks a smile at this, and takes Sameen’s hand.
“You know I think doing this in front of people and making it official is pointless, so I’m just gonna make a promise to you. I promise I’ll always listen to you, even when you’re being cryptic, unreasonable, or flat-out dumb. I’ll always have your back, and try not to call you a baby when I’m fixing your wounds. I’ll let you use all my guns, even the RFB, and I’ll remind you to take care of yourself when you’re being a nerd. I promise I’ll stop pulling self-sacrificing bullshit if there’s a better way, as long as you do too. And I promise I’ll murder back anyone who tries to murder you, if you don’t do it first.” Her eyes drop down to their joined hands briefly. “Is that good enough for you?”
Sameen looks up to see Root nodding mutely, biting her lip. There might be unshed tears shining in her eyes, and Sameen thinks Root is probably holding herself back for her sake.
There’s a long pause. The two of them just stare at each other, not at all uncomfortable with the silence. But Elvis and his assistant sound like they’re shuffling around awkwardly. They did come here for a reason, after all.
Sameen squeezes Root’s hand. “You’re supposed to say something now.”
“I – I didn’t really think of anything ahead of time.” She tilts her head, eyes focusing somewhere past Sameen momentarily. “Thanks babe, but I think I should do this myself.”
Sameen frowns briefly. The Machine’s always been a part of this, really, and that isn’t going to change just because it’s their wedding. She takes a step closer into Root’s space, cups a hand over her right ear. Root lets her briefly trace over the scar behind her ear before bringing her own hand up to cover Sameen’s. Gently, she pulls it down. Their hands drop down between the two of them, still joined. “I know. I want to, sweetie.” Sameen gives her a quick nod.
Root takes a deep breath. “Honestly, Sameen, you’re better at this relationship thing than I am. I’ve never really been one for commitment or monogamy. But I love you. I never expected to have this, to want this. You, and Her, you’re my home. I don’t want to make any promises to you because I don’t know if I can keep them. But I will try. To not hide things from you, to not run away if things get bad, to work with you and not try to take on everything myself. I’ll do my very best to make sure you and Her get an equal share of my attention, and to keep you fed and to keep your guns clean if I use them.” Sameen smiles a little at that. “I know it’s not quite up to yours, but it’s alright, I hope?”
Sameen nods. “It’s good.” Root, understanding the full meaning behind her apparently curt gesture beams. Then she waves to Elvis.
“Oh, um, rings?”
“Shit, I knew we forgot something.”
“No, in you pocket, sweetie,” Root says, patting Sameen’s side
Sameen reaches into the pocket and finds a small drawstring bag. She opens it and dumps two gold bands into her palm. Inspecting them briefly, she hands the one with an arrow crossed by a slash engraved inside the band to Root, hanging on to the one with 4AF engraved in Morse code.
“No babe, this one is yours,” Root says, trying to hand it back to Sameen.
“We’re supposed to put them on each other.”
“Oh. Right. I knew that,” says Root, who clearly didn’t. She leans in close to Sameen, and whispers loudly “You know, Sameen, I can think of some things I’d like to do with you fingers when we get back to the hotel.”
Sameen rolls her eyes, grabs Root’s hand, and shoves Root’s ring onto her finger. Root then takes Sameen’s hand, and with a bit more concentration, carefully slides her ring on.
Then they both turn to Elvis. He looks down at the book in his hands, then at the pair of them in confusion. Sameen gives him a get on with it gesture. “I – uh, I now pronounce you married. You may kiss the bride.”
Sameen smirks at Root. Root smirks back, and lunges at her. She pushes so hard into the kiss that Sameen takes a couple steps back. She quickly retaliates though, biting Root’s lip hard. This only encourages her, popping open the button of Sameen’s jacket. On hand sliding up her side, the other down to grab her ass.
“Oh, jeez.”
Sameen has the presence of mind to flip off Elvis with the hand she isn’t trying to choke Root with.
Earlier last night:
“No, Sameen!” Root wheezes out, laughing. “It has to be something I can actually do.”
“Hey, you handed out those pamphlets.”
“I would’ve done that without the dare. And the liquor.” She cracks up again, bent almost double. “Did you see that woman’s face? And those poor nuns!”
Sameen sits back in her chair watching her, an amused smile on her face. “I don’t know, a couple of them looked interested.” This sets Root off again. Sameen is content to sit there watching her.
“Okay,” Root says, catching her breath. “Okay.” She reaches for the glass with her fruity mixed drink then seems to think better of it and grabs the one with water instead. She takes a long drink, and several more deep breaths. “Okay, if you aren’t going to play the game properly, I’m going to go.”
“I don’t think it works like that.”
Root waves dismissively. “I dare you – “
“And you’re supposed to ask me first.”
“Please. Even without the Machine, you’d tell me anything I’d ask anyway.” Sameen concedes this with a brief nod, then gestures for Root to continue. She spends a moment thinking, licking her lips and casting her eyes around the room, before breaking into a very dangerous smirk. “I dare you to marry me.”
15 April:
“Really? That’s your context?” Root subvocalizes into her arms, with her forehead pressed into the cool table. Quiet enough that it comes out as just an incoherent mumble to John and Harold. Even Shaw would need to be listening closely to decipher it. (Though she always is when Root is talking.) “My name isn’t Proximate.”
“Girlfriend problems?” Sameen asks.
“She’s fine, I think. Just being an artificial super dummy.”
“Jealous, Shaw?” John asks.
“No. I’m her wife.” Sameen holds out her fist, and with a little help from the Machine, Root bumps it, their rings clinking together.
Back to last night:
Sameen waits several seconds for a punchline that doesn’t come.
“Root, I proposed to you. You said yes.”
Root gives her a wildly exaggerated roll of her eyes. “No, dummy. Now! Here! In Vegas! Tonight!”
Sameen rolls her eyes at Root’s drunken phrasing, but actually considers. For quite a while. Root watches her raptly until she suddenly stands up. She crosses the space between them in two quick steps, then scoops up and downs the remainder of Root’s fruity drink.
“Hey!”
“If we’re doing this, you’re going to be – well, not sober. No more than moderately drunk.”
Root sighs dramatically. “Fine. But I need to cancel some plans first. Unless you’re up for a little celebratory burglary after?”
Yesterday afternoon:
Shaw is distractedly watching Root while John and Harold argue in circles about the finer points of their mission.
She’s sitting at the dining table in her and Root’s suite (Which they’re meeting in since it’s the largest, the Machine having placed them in Presidential suite.) with a laptop in front of her. She’s typing furiously, wrapped up in whatever she’s doing. Her face is doing that little scrunchy thing that happens whenever something is really challenging her. Which is what has caught Shaw’s attention – they broke into the hotel’s surveillance and several phones earlier, and none of them seemed terribly sophisticated. Whatever Root’s doing must be some sort of extracurricular activity, and those tend to blow up in her face at some point.
She glances back over at John and Harold.
“Seems like it would be easier just to let them do the robbery,” she interjects, stopping both of them in their tracks. John seems to be considering it, but Harold shoots her a sharp look. “What? We’re here to stop a murder, not a robbery.”
“Yes, but –” Harold looks to John for support. John just shrugs. He turns to Root.
Likely alerted by the Machine and brought up to speed, she says “What? You expect me to object to turning a blind eye to a bit of thievery?”
“No, but I was hoping the Machine might.”
“You taught Her to help you cheat at blackjack, Harry. I don’t think she’s going to care too much if someone liberates a bit of money from a casino.”
“You haven’t been – “
“Please,” Root says, somewhere between incredulous and mildly scandalized. “Like I need her help to count cards.”
Harold looks around at the three of them, then throws his hands in the air. “Fine, we’ll do it your way.”
They go back to planning, Shaw joining in more actively now that they’re on the right course, and Root goes back to her preparations.
The Machine seems to think everything will go smoothly with the mission now, so she’s setting up for a casino robbery of their own in case Sameen feels like some action.
The Machine doesn’t alert her this time, but she senses they’ve all gone quiet. Looking up, she finds the three of them looing her expectantly. “What?”
“We were wondering if the Machine had any more insights,” Harold says.
Since catching Root up on the conversation earlier, all She’s really had to say was a comment about Shaw’s ass. (Which she does plan to pass on, but doesn’t think is terribly relevant to the mission.)
Root picks up the apple she’s been nibbling on. She takes a bite, and chews thoughtfully for several long seconds while they wait. She affects a tilt of her head and a squint, as if she’s listening to the Machine or thinking something over. By Shaw’s expression, she probably sees through it, though says nothing.
Finally, Root swallows, and licks her lips.
“No.”
4 March:
“This is ridiculous,” Shaw says.
“It’s romantic,” Root retorts, sliding the gaudy fake diamond ring she’d acquired from a counterfeiting operation they’d ran into onto Shaw’s finger.
“There’s still blood on it,” Shaw observes.
“Oh, yeah.” Root licks her finger and wipes the red speck off. “I punched one of the guys with it before I took it to get resized.”
“Now that’s romantic.” With the ring in place, Root lifts up Shaw’s hand and sloppily kisses her knuckles. “Ugh,” Shaw groans, wiping her hand on her pants.
Twisting out of Root’s grasp and dodging her attempt to kiss her again, Shaw drops into one of the chairs across from the couch. She sits there, silently staring at the ring.
“What is it?” Root asks, after observing her for a couple minutes.
Shaw takes a while to speak, but when she does, she gets right to the point. “Do you want this?” she asks, wiggling her ring finger. “I mean, I know this isn’t really your thing. I’m not gonna be like, offended if you don’t want to. “
“Do you not want to?”
“No, I do. But I don’t want you to do this just for me. You’ve already put up with me for four years, I don’t want to push you into something.”
“I don’t put up with you, Sameen.” She takes hold of Shaw’s right hand. Slowly, deliberately, she traces a straight line – an arrow – down her forearm. “I want this. “
Shaw studies her, and nods. “Okay.”
“And it’s so sweet how you remembered our anniversary.”
“Shut up. I didn’t do it on purpose,” Shaw protests.
“Sure, sweetie.”
25 February:
“You wanna get married?” Shaw asks out of the blue one night while they’re eating dinner.
Root blinks a couple times, a slight confused frown on her face. She’s reasonably sure she’s been more or less present and hasn’t missed something Shaw said. And she can’t remember the Machine mentioning any sort of mission like that either. She waits, but She apparently has nothing to add. Root blinks a few more times, then asks, “What, like for a mission?”
“Nah, for real,” Shaw says casually as she carefully selects another piece of chicken from her takeout container.
“Oh.”
It’s a lot to take in. Sameen Shaw apparently just actually for real proposed to her. Root stares at Shaw; Shaw chews her chicken and stares at the TV. This stretches on, until Root says, “Okay.”
Shaw looks over at Root. She allows a bit of a smile, and nods. “Cool.”
21 February:
Shaw can feel John shooting an annoyed look at her from the passenger seat as she noisily slurps the last of her soda through the straw. She stops a couple seconds later, just before he gets annoyed enough to say something.
She drops the empty cup back into the cup holder, scans the street and the shop they’re staking out for their number or any threats, and checks her gun.
“Do you think Root actually wants to get married?”
“What?”
“Never mind,” Shaw says, quickly deciding she doesn’t actually want to explain and trying to brush off John’s confused inquiry.
She busies herself fiddling with her camera setting for a couple minutes, feeling John looking at her the whole time. Eventually she gets bored and puts the camera away. “I mean she’s Root, right,” she blurts out, “but she had all these wedding ideas. For us. She even had a photographer’s card.”
She finally makes eye contact with John, noting the bewildered look on his face.
“I was looking for some C4 the other day and I found all the wedding magazines and this notebook with wedding plans in her nerd stuff.”
“I feel like this conversation is happening in reverse,” John says, not looking like he’s comprehending it any more.
Shaw glares at him. She’s trying, okay?
“Well, I remember her getting all these magazines and being kind of obsessed that one time we crashed a wedding, but it wasn’t all that weird for her. I think she mostly just missed you.”
“But why would she keep all of it?”
“Isn’t this something you should talk to her about?”
“No. If she does want it, then she’s probably hiding it because she thinks I don’t, and will be dumb and pretend she doesn’t. Or just, like, deflect. I don’t think she’d outright lie. Probably distract me by taking off her shirt or – anyway.” Shaw stops, collects herself, and gets back on track. “Or, she doesn’t really want it, but thinks I do, so she’ll be absolutely insufferable about it. You know how she takes these things too far. We’ll probably end up in front of a judge before she realizes what we’re about to do, then she’ll like panic and run off. Or go through with it, but not really be into. Either way, things would get all weird and uncomfortable, which we’ve surprisingly managed to avoid for the last four years.”
Shaw sits back and takes a deep breath. John’s just staring at her dumbly. He blinks several times.
“… four?”
“She likes to count from the first time we met,” Shaw mutters. “Calls it our first date.”
“Okay,” John says slowly.
“Okay?”
“That was… a lot.”
Suddenly, Shaw decides once more that she probably doesn’t really want to talk about this.
“You know what – shit, that’s our number.” Shaw leaps out of the car and runs across the street, then melts into the crowd behind the woman they’re following.
“Good talk,” John says to the empty car.
16 February:
Hey sweetie. I don’t need you right now, but Root might need some explosives to get out of a sticky situation later.
“Fuck’s sake,” Shaw says, setting her just completed sandwich down on the plate. “What did she do now?”
Remember those ecoterrorists we were watching? She went ahead and tried to infiltrate them.
“Of fucking course.”
It’s okay, you’ve enough time for your lunch.
Shaw shakes her head and sighs, being very familiar with the Machine and Root’s idea of enough time. But still, she’s hungry, the dumbass got herself into whatever mess this is, and the Machine is obviously watching her, so she takes her plate over to the table and sits down to eat.
Later, she goes into the spare bedroom looking for the explosives. They used up the stock in her weapons locker last month and haven’t replaced it yet, but she knows Root had some too.
She opens Root’s locker, finding a selection of pistols and ammo relatively neatly arranged on the shelf, but the bottom a mess of boxes and various junk. Setting aside a laptop with several bullet holes in it and a box of taser batteries, she uncovers a box with a bunch of magazines and a couple notebooks in it. The bit of one magazine’s cover sticking out seems to show two women in white dresses holding hands in some kind of forest. She hauls the box out and drops it on the floor, the snags the notebook that’s in front of the magazines.
Flipping it open to a random page, she finds some sort of circuit diagram with a bunch of notes, which is about what she’d expect. Flipping the page, she sees more of the same, but the words ring Bear near the top of the page catch her eye. This is struck out, with woman’s best friend = woman’s best man written below. an arrow from this points down to another note near the bottom, simply doggie tux?
“What the fuck?” Shaw says, mostly to herself, but hoping the Machine might answer.
When She doesn’t, Shaw snaps the book shut. Doing so causes a business card to fall out.
Dropping the book back in the box, she picks up the card. It’s for a photographer, and it’s indented like there’s writing on the back. She flips it over, finding the woman’s personal number scrawled on the back, along with thanks for dinner and a heart. Shaw snorts. “Yeah, that seems more like her.”
Shaw drops the card too into the box, the digs back into Root’s locker to find the explosives.
15 April:
Root mumbles something incoherently.
Sameen, understanding, groans. “Ugh, fine.”
She reaches into the pocket of her hoodie – or, where it would be if she hadn’t given it too Root. Carefully avoiding eye contact with everyone, she reaches over and pulls her notebook and pen out of the pocket.
Tearing out a page, she scrawls We’re getting married again. You’re invited. on it and slides it across the table.
“You better give me that cake you promised. And Bear gets to be my best man.”
Root makes a noise that Sameen takes as an agreement. She nods, just in time for Harold to catch up.
“You got married last night?”
Last night, late:
After the first few rounds of their private celebration, they take a break.
Root, wearing a robe that’s a little too short (not that Sameen’s complaining) wanders over to sit on the couch.
Sameen makes her way over to the suites small bar, only turning on a small lamp, leaving most of the room dark. She pours two glasses of champagne, the last of the bottle the Machine had sent to them. She takes one to Root, then sips on hers as she makes a quick round of the suite, checking the door and the vents and their weapons. This done, she makes her way back over towards Root.
“You’re quiet,” Sameen says, downing the rest of her champagne. “Weird quiet,” she adds, then leaves it there, setting the empty glass on the table and joining Root on the couch.
They sit there for a while, in the darkened room, looking at the city lights out the suite’s floor-to-ceiling window. The only sounds the faint hum of the air conditioning and soft music the Machine had started.
“It’s just,” she finally says, “we’re married. Actually, for real married. And we really mean it. I never thought I’d have this. I never thought I’d even want this.”
“But you do,” Sameen says. She’s not entirely confident that it isn’t a question.
Root delicately sips her own champagne, then smiles at Sameen.
“That’s what I said, isn’t it? Now, what do you think of going back to bed?” she says, trying to wink.
Sameen responds with a mischievous smile. “I thought you’d never ask.”