Work Text:
Samaritan’s defeat ended up being overshadowed by Shaw’s return.
For Root, the actual destroying part was as easy as a well-placed worm and pushing a few keystrokes so the Machine could do the rest of the work (it also involved detonating a football field of explosives but that wasn’t Root’s responsibility so she didn't count it). Getting Shaw back, the real Shaw and not Samaritan’s most protected agent, involved a few painful months of searching, chasing, trying not to be killed while rescuing, confining and finally, reprogramming. It was a process that was both physically and emotionally taxing and yielded both bullet wounds and tears. For Root, it was days spent pressed up against the cage, trying to break through to Shaw combined with many nights spent not sleeping on the uncomfortable cot in their new HQ, watching Shaw not sleep on the cameras.
The compromise of Sameen Grey’s apartment and identity meant that when Shaw was allowed to leave HQ, she was essentially homeless. Root helped her “liberate” one of Finch’s nicer safehouses and gave her the keys with the gracious and hollow promise to respect Shaw’s boundaries. She also, against Shaw’s wishes, decided to decorate her new apartment, justifying it with, “your home can’t have nothing besides six lamps, a fridge full of weapons and an easel you refuse to explain.”
Which meant several instances of Shaw coming home to a new paint job or Root showing up at all hours with a painting she stole on a mission that “would look just amazing in your study”. Shaw’s study was also one of Root’s doings, it was filled with computers and computer parts that Shaw didn’t even recognize let alone use. When Shaw questioned her about it, after a three hour test run on her new mattress, Root only brushed her off.
“I just need a safe place to store my stuff while I’m not using it,” She said, her fingers idly playing with Shaw’s hair, “and where’s safer than with my little killer?”
Understandably, she had been too distracted with being annoyed by the nickname than by the computer thing. Root’s promise of respecting Shaw’s boundaries ended up being violated almost immediately with her arrival to Shaw’s apartment with a bag of Chinese takeout and a bottle of champagne, “to christen the place, Sameen”. They had ended up christening several rooms and the balcony for most of the night at which point Root literally passed out and stayed until morning.
So, the first night Root had broken her promise and stayed over was literally the first night Shaw owned the apartment.
After that, Root would show up, only sometimes invited, with either takeout, a wound that needed patching up or looking for sex.
On the fun nights, she showed up with all three.
A few months into her new apartment, while eating breakfast that Root had cooked (pancakes which were the only thing Root could cook), Shaw realized that Root had stayed over literally every night the past two weeks. However, the churning in her stomach reserved for when people got too comfortable never came and that made Shaw even more uncomfortable. She had pushed the breakfast away (after she finished it, of course) and hastily left the apartment with her backpack of guns before Root could even notice.
When she arrived at the new library headquarters, Reese and Finch, who were in the middle of a deep and meaningful conversation they seemed to have every week, stopped and stared at her with concern. Reese had asked if she was okay and she mumbled some half-assed insult before asking about their job. During Finch’s monologue on the number of the day which she was only half-paying attention to, Shaw pushed every thought and anxiety of her living arrangements to the back of her head in a corner named ‘do not open’ and promptly forgot about it.
Root’s life got busy again too which meant only catching glimpses of her leaving the HQ, hearing snippets of her voice amidst gunfire over the comm line or receiving self-deleting dirty pictures in the middle of the night. The uncomfortable feeling would always get worse at night when Shaw didn’t know if Root was still alive, let alone where she was sleeping. Some nights, Shaw would stay up and expect to hear a key (that she never gave Root) scratching against the lock of the front door before she would get angry at herself for being so needy and forcing herself to sleep.
Shaw reasoned that wanting Root back in her apartment was only because she missed the sex, which was admittedly fantastic and usually better than random hookups with strangers who didn’t know a bow knot from a constrictor knot. Shaw insisted that her already fulfilled sex life was the only reason she was only consistently sleeping with one person and definitely not due to some sentimental, emotional nonsense.
So when Root came back after a few weeks with takeout and no warning, Shaw had pulled her into the apartment, carefully placed the bag of food on the kitchen counter before roughly placing Root beside it and spending the rest of the night throwing an impromptu welcome back party.
Later that week, Root disappeared again only to reappear a few days after. It didn’t stop Shaw from throwing the same welcome back party that ended up in bed, sweaty and sated.
“Where’d you go this time?” Shaw asked, staring up at the ceiling.
She caught a shrug in her peripheral vision.
“Just around Greenwich, I stayed in this adorable little family’s house, it’s where I got you that vase.” Root pointed to the vase on Shaw’s dresser.
“It’s hideous.”
“I know.” Root grinned.
Shaw hesitated for a few seconds and refused to look at Root, not wanting to break her confidence.
“You should stay here if you’re in the area,” she said, her eyes glued to the ceiling, “probably easier than breaking into someone’s home.”
“You want me to stay in your place?” Root asked, Shaw could hear the teasing tone in her voice.
“You brought bed bugs with you last time, might as well stay here so I know you won’t be bringing anything in with you.” Shaw said, angrily turning over before Root could answer.
Thankfully, all Root did was chuckle and murmur an “okay, Sameen” before going to sleep herself.
That was the end of the conversation and Shaw didn’t talk or think about it until a few weeks later, an hour into a stakeout with Fusco.
“Where’d you get that?” He asked, gesturing towards the sandwich Shaw had pulled from her backpack.
“Home.” She said around her food, her eyes on the building.
Fusco made a face and reached for the paper bag on the dashboard that Shaw had pulled the sandwich from. Finding nothing but a piece of paper, he pulled it out and read it aloud.
“Make a killing today, sweetie.”
Shaw frowned around her mouthful as Fusco shifted from total confusion to illumination.
“Cuckoo Clock packed your lunch?!” He asked, his voice a good few octaves higher than usual.
Shaw shrugged and took another bite. Fusco stared at her shocked for a few more seconds, waiting for a response that never came. Finally, he looked back out the windshield.
“Didn’t know you two were newlyweds.” He teased.
Shaw finished the last bite of her sandwich and wiped her hands on Fusco’s seat.
“We’re not.” She said. She would usually be more annoyed by Fusco’s obvious attempt into her personal life but she was still a little zonked out on the sandwich.
“She packs your lunch, that’s the kind of stuff the ex used to do for me is all I’m saying.”
“And how’s that working out for you, Lionel?” She said. It was a little mean but he needed some consequences for prying.
Fusco’s response was interrupted by the emergence of their number from the building. Without another word, Shaw opened her door and got out, already forgetting about their conversation and the subject.
The subject was brought up again by Reese during a mission that involved trawling through what felt like an icy tundra for their hermit number. Shaw pulled her coat tighter against herself and buried her nose in her scarf before she noticed Reese staring at her from the corner of her eye.
“Something on my face, Reese?”
“Jacket’s a little big on you” He said with a shrug.
Shaw narrowed her eyes and sunk further into the scarf. She had pulled the coat out of her closet that morning, not noticing it was a few sizes larger or that the sleeves almost fully covered her hands. Shaw pulled the sleeves closer self-consciously and ignored the smug expression on Reese’s face.
“Didn’t know you and Root were sharing clothes now, it’s kind of…”
“Don’t.”
Reese smirked.
“Cute.”
“I will shoot you and leave to freeze, Reese.”
He chuckled but thankfully didn’t keep talking. Shaw’s cheeks flared with redness, she blamed it on the cold. She didn’t pick out Root’s clothes intentionally, they either showed up in her laundry or amongst her own clothes and Shaw usually didn’t think twice, attributing it to Root using her apartment as a storage lot once again. Shaw frowned, now that she thought about it, Root definitely wore her clothes on more than one occasion. More than once, Shaw woke up to Root cooking breakfast in one her baggier sweatshirts, she didn’t notice because Root tended to wear nothing else with it.
Shaw’s thoughts were interrupted by their arrival to the number’s cabin. She and Reese stopped outside the barely-standing gate and before Shaw could reach out to open it, Reese put a hand on her arm.
“Shaw, I was serious about before.”
“Reese.” Shaw warned.
“You obviously make her happy and she makes you happy,” He looked away from Shaw and into the blinding whiteness of the snow, “we could always use more of that.”
Shaw watched him brood silently into the cold. She could deny the relationship or scold him for prying into her personal life or stick true to her promise of shooting him…but she didn’t. Neither of them were good with communication or meaningful conversations but Shaw understood what he was doing; he was giving his unnecessary, totally unwanted blessing to their relationship. Shaw let him mope for a few more seconds before she rolled her eyes and pushed the gate open.
“C’mon, Batman. Let’s go make our recluse pay for dragging our asses out here.”
“Are you seriously making me pay for this?”
Shaw ignored the voice and continued packing weapons and ammo from the fridge into her backpack.
“The silent treatment, really? This is so mature, Sam.” Root said, her arms crossed as she stood in the middle of the kitchen.
Shaw slammed the fridge shut and pushed past Root on her way to the bedroom. Giving Root the silent treatment was totally unintentional, she just didn’t want to give their asshole downstairs neighbor a reason to complain about noise again, but she couldn’t deny that it was effective.
“You know, this is partly your fault too.” Root said from the doorway of the bedroom.
“How is this possibly my fault?” Shaw asked, immediately regretting it when Root smirked victoriously.
She cursed to herself and grabbed her shoes, not giving Root a chance to respond as she decided to put them outside just to get away faster. Thankfully, Root didn’t follow her outside their (HER) apartment and Shaw climbed down the stairs in peace, only muttering to herself angrily a little bit.
Only after she reached the bottom of the stairwell, Shaw realized that she grabbed an unmatching pair of shoes. She looked up at their floor and sighed.
Shaw walked to the library in mismatched shoes and righteous fury.
Root showed up to the library ten minutes after with two coffees. Shaw narrowed her eyes as Root, holding full eye contact, placed the first coffee in front of Reese, took a long sip out of the second and for good measure, let out a totally unjustified moan of appreciation at the taste. Reese, still shocked by the gesture, didn’t notice the daggers Shaw was glaring into Root and Finch was too engrossed by his computers to notice anything.
That was until Shaw threw one of her shoes at Root, missed (fucking Machine) and hit Reese square in the side of the head. Shaw didn’t notice or care, too enraged by the smug look on Root’s face.
“How is it my fault exactly?” She said.
Root sighed and sat down, totally ignoring Harold’s cry of pain and surprise.
“You fired our housekeeper.”
“You mean the housekeeper you hired for my house without telling me?”
“You made her very upset.”
“She walked in on me naked! I didn’t even want to hire her.”
“You said we needed someone for the housework.”
“I said you needed to do the housework, you needed to vacuum the house after dragging soot and broken glass in, you needed to wash the sheets after collapsing on the bed with a bleeding head wound and you needed to wash the dishes after making bootleg explosives!”
“Ladies, that’s enough!” Harold said. He was stood beside Reese who was clutching the back of his head and blinking slowly. Harold looked nervous, either because of the argument or because he got in between it, but he managed to regain his confidence.
“If you are unwilling to get along today then maybe I’ll send John and Fusco in instead.”
Root broke their standoff first, getting up and leaving the subway without so much as a second glance. Shaw grumbled a bit before grabbing her handguns and following Root outside, hoping the mission would be a short one so she could go back to ignoring Root.
“Root, if you keep ignoring me, I swear I’ll put a bullet in the back of your head.”
Root ignored Shaw and continued typing away on the terminal as the space around her was peppered with bullets.
“Root…”
“Silent treatment isn’t so fun now, is it, Sam?”
“Ladies…”
Harold’s voice rung out over the comms, Shaw ignored it, stood up and shot three bullets in quick succession right beside Root at the guy standing three feet away from her. She ducked back down in time to dodge the rapid fire from the reinforcing goons.
“Can you stop being a child for fifteen seconds and finish your computer bullshit so we can leave?” Shaw shouted to the terminal she was ducking behind.
“Oh, so you weren’t being a child when you threw a tantrum for not doing the dishes?” Root yelled back, barely audible over the gunfire.
“Ladies, please.”
“You never do any cleaning at all, it’s like living with a fucking frat boy. The least you could do is rinse the cups if you’ve been using them to measure gunpowder.” Shaw leaned out and shot at the second goon; she missed him by an inch and blamed Root for throwing her off her game.
“I bought a dishwasher!” Root’s typing got louder as her fingers struck the buttons more aggressively.
“That thing had five LCD screens on it and everything was in fucking Swedish. It looked like something the Machine shit out, it was incomprehensible.”
“It was a prototype, most advanced one ever made.”
“It’s a pile of fucking garbage now, Root.” Shaw said.
Root stopped typing and stared at the terminal Shaw was hidden behind.
“You did not.”
“Ms. Groves…”
Shaw leaned up and grinned at the shocked expression on Root’s face.
“I took a hammer to it last night.”
“Ms Shaw…”
“Do you know how hard it was to steal that thing?!” Root shouted over the gunfire. She retrieved her gun, leaned out into the hallway and shot both kneecaps clean off the noisy security.
Shaw stood up and wiped the sweat from her brow, feeling a little better now that she managed to piss Root off.
“Ladies, please stop fight-”
Shaw put a finger to her ear.
“We’re done here, Finch. Over and out.”
This time, Shaw broke their glare-off competition by shouldering past Root and stepping on and over the unconscious bodies littering the floor.
After the second most awkward and tension filled car ride Shaw had experienced (the first also involved Root, shockingly) they got back to HQ with an unmentioned truce, for Finch’s sake. Finch, who was waiting for the argument, turned around in her chair to face them slowly, looking not unlike he was in a cage with two wild animals.
“I uh...finished everything on my end so you two are free to go…away from here.” He said, eyes darting between the two of them nervously.
Root turned around first and Shaw barely followed before he interrupted them once again.
“I took the liberty of purchasing a new dishwasher, the reviews say it’s simple to use and water efficient so…” He cleared his throat and looked back at the monitors, “I also bought a couple of Roombas, they’re robotic vacuum cleaners that activate automatically and require almost no manual stimulation.”
He stopped and looked back at them.
“Please stop fighting.” He said, his tone was desperate and pleading and Shaw almost laughed.
Instead she cleared her throat awkwardly and looked at Root to say something which she didn’t, apparently also caught up in shock.
“Thanks for the uh…robots, Finch.” Shaw said.
She couldn’t stand the awkwardness of the room anymore so she left the building and prepared for the long walk back home. Stepping outside, Shaw was immediately assaulted by the cold, barely hearing a shout over the whipping winds.
“Shaw!”
She turned back around to the buildings entrance to see Root in her coat (the one Shaw definitely didn’t wear more than once because it was comfortable) walking towards her. She stopped in front of Shaw and looked at her as if she didn’t expect Shaw to actually wait.
“Should I um…order pizza for tonight or…?” Root trailed off. Shaw knew what she was asking, were they still fighting, was she allowed back in the apartment, was Shaw still mad, was whatever they had over because of dumb chores. Shaw sighed at the nervous expression on Root’s face, she was worrying her lip between her teeth and her brows were creased and furrowed. Root never looked worried, not when she was neck deep behind enemy lines without backup, not when the Machine went on one of its hiatuses and definitely not when she showed up guns blazing to Shaw’s prison.
Shaw sighed again and enjoyed the temporary fog as it washed over Root. She nudged Root’s side good naturedly and gave her a reassuring smile.
“C’mon, let’s go home.”
“Root…we’re living together.”
Root groaned from somewhere beside her, apparently closer to sleep than Shaw thought.
“I know, sweetie.”
“No, I mean,” Shaw turned her head to look at Root, “we’re actually living together, like regularly.”
Root opened her eyes blearily, her face still smushed against her pillow. And it really was her pillow now, just like the side closer to the power plugs was her side and just like she had a regular side of the closet where she stored all her career-specific clothes.
“Yeah, Shaw, that’s what people do when they’re in a relationship.” Root said as she burrowed further into the sheets, apparently having lost the apprehensiveness with the relationship word around Shaw.
Shaw blinked slowly and looked back up at the ceiling.
“We’re in a relationship…” She said, “Like girlfriends…?”
Shaw trailed off and frowned at the word. Root must’ve sensed her hesitance and smiled.
“Significant others?”
“Lame.”
“Lovers?”
“Gross.”
“Partners?”
“That makes us sound like FBI agents.”
Root laughed and opened her eyes for the next one.
“Wives?”
“Fucking hilarious, Root.”
She chuckled again and scurried closer to Shaw’s body heat, hoping she wouldn’t notice. Of course, Shaw did notice but she was a little caught up in her thoughts to care.
“It’s not…It hasn’t been bad, right?” Shaw asked, unusually apprehensive.
Root opened her eyes again and looked up at Shaw.
“Not for a second, no.” She smiled reassuringly.
Shaw nodded and smiled back, allowing Root to nudge closer next to her. She blinked slowly and drifted to sleep, comforted by the physical contact she shared with her roommate.