Chapter Text
“Unbelievable.” Shaw was gritting her teeth and shaking her head. If the dictionary needed an illustration of “furious” then Shaw’s demeanour right now would be an entirely appropriate one.
“Is something bothering you Ms Shaw?”
“She took my sandwich. I can’t believe she actually took my sandwich. I’ll kill her. No one takes my food and lives to regret it.”
Harold sighed before very quickly, and surreptitiously, sending a message to Reese.
URGENT: EMERGENCY DELI VISIT REQUIRED. USUAL ORDER (TWICE) RECOMMENDED WITH STEALTH DELIVERY. STAT!
“Maybe it was a misunderstanding Ms Shaw, I’m sure we’ll find out in due course.”
Shaw mumbled something incoherent under her breath (Finch was sure he definitely heard a few choice curse words along with the word ‘painful’) and continued cleaning her weapons. Only 10 minutes later Reese contacted Finch through the comms system.
“Alright Finch, I’ve got the goods and I’m on the stairs right now. Time for a distraction. I’ll wait for your signal.”
Finch swallowed nervously. He hoped he could pull this off.
“Uh, Ms Shaw. Have you seen Bear? The last time I saw him he was nosing around that bag of C4 and now the bag and Bear are not there.”
“I knew I shouldn’t have used the same bag to carry that steak.” She sighed. “I’ll find him – he might be in that cubby hole he likes further up the tunnel.”
“Thank you. I’ll have one more check round here.” As soon as Shaw turned round, Finch’s phone was back out.
OPERATION DELI IS A GO.
Reese stealthily snuck into the subway, deposited the sandwiches in the basket Finch had dug out once Shaw was out of sight in the tunnel and left on the desk and then left again. Finch took the printed message out of his pocket and lay it on top of the sandwiches.
Sorry sweetie.
Hearing Shaw’s footsteps coming from the tunnel, Finch hurried away, keeping up the pretence of looking for Bear and the C4.
“Hey Harold, I’ve got Bear, but no C4.”
“Well that’s a relief, I have found the C4.”
Shaw spotted the basket straight away. “What’s this?”
Harold shrugged. “Well it certainly smells edible whatever it is.” Finch had to say something that wasn’t an outright lie. He busied himself with Bear to avoid making eye contact with Shaw.
“Oh for goodness sake. Really?” Shaw sighed, scrunched up the paper and deftly threw the balled-up note into the wastepaper basket next to the desk. She glared at the contents of the basket but wasn’t going to be able to resist the lure of her favourite sandwich. With a trademark eye-roll she relented and reached into the basket and grabbed one of the sandwiches. She sat down in Finch’s seat, unwrapped the paper and took one enormous satisfying bite out of the sandwich.
Finch fidgeted in her peripheral vision.
“What?” she barked, through a mouthful of food.
Finch shook his head. “Nothing. Nothing at all.” He was not about to scold her for eating at his desk when she was in this mood.
Shaw narrowed her eyes as she swallowed the first mouthful and prepared herself for bite number two. She paused just as she was about to take the bite. “Wait, did you see Root deliver this?”
Finch swallowed, doing his utmost not to appear nervous. “I have not seen Ms Groves since this morning.”
Shaw held his gaze for an uncomfortable minute before shrugging and recommencing the sandwich demolition job.
Finch waited until her was behind Shaw to heave a silent sigh of relief. Operation deli may not have succeeded in pushing Shaw and Root closer together but it may have prevented civil war and averted the chance of physical violence.
Or an untimely death.