Archive of Our Own

Miranda had seemed calmer recently. Well. As calm as someone whose system had not been caffeine-free since 1967 could ever get. There had been less firings, more silence. It had lulled Andy into a false sense of security. When she had woken up this morning, there had been no indication that she would be standing in her boss’ office at scarcely past ten in the morning clutching two coffees, being appraised with a look she had never seen before, and told to take a seat for a very serious conversation. Then:

“Andrea. What do you know about a website called Archive of Our Own?”

Never before in her life had she thought the phrase ‘heart skipped a beat’ could be interpreted literally. Unfortunately, she swiftly surmised her reaction negated the potential of being able to claim ignorance.

“Um. I’ve heard of it. Why?”

Shit. She had just asked Miranda to explain herself. She should have called her parents this morning. Just one last time.

“I have become aware of certain material published on that website which is of relevance to my person.”

Andy tries to swallow. There is no saliva in her mouth. Oh God. She’s so going to be fired. She’s going to be fired and blacklisted. She’s going to be blacklisted until she can only get work writing obituaries for a local paper back in Ohio, and even then she’s not sure whether it’ll be long until someone else is writing her own.

Miranda is looking at her now. She’s waiting for her to reply. Hell, Andy has practically dictated her own death warrant to her. Might as well finish it.

“Certain material, Miranda?”

“...Vivid material. Expressive. One might even say graphic.”

And even though Andy is ninety-nine percent certain she’s not going to leave the office alive and should be focusing on that one percent, all she can seem to focus on instead is the very slow way in which Miranda brushes the forelock out of her face while her eyes remain fixed on Andy’s own.

“Of course, that’s not all of it. No. But it is interesting to know that you have heard of it. What have you heard, Andrea?”

Andy isn’t going to lie to Miranda. But obfuscation?

“Not much. It’s not really the sort of thing - well. I’ve a couple of, um, friends. Who use it a bit. It’s, uh. It’s a website. People write stu-stories. About movie characters, books, that sort of thing.”

“And me. It appears.” Mercifully, she did not pause to give Andy any indication that she wished her to respond to that. “I must say, it is quite the task to navigate. The computer started translating everything into Sumerian Cuneiform at one point and I still haven’t the faintest idea why. I couldn’t get it to stop until I unplugged the entire machine.”

Andy’s lips were pursed so tightly together to prevent herself from laughing that they were in very real danger of disappearing altogether.

“Say what you are evidently so desperate to say, Andrea. I haven’t all day.”

“It’s really not worth saying.”

Like a fish swimming towards a net, she stutters incredulously, near-hysterically under her breath. She couldn’t say what she actually wanted to say, because she would never say anything again if she did. Miranda would probably pickle her torn-out tongue and preserve it in a jar on her desk. Instead, she settled for “Well. Sort of a classic thing to happen. To a boomer, I mean. Out of a sketch.”

(Great. The entirety of the English language to choose from and she insults Miranda’s age? 0-Sachs 1-Stupidity).

“How dare you.”

“What?” For a second, Andy is genuinely puzzled, and puzzlement presents itself as a gateway to consummate insanity, if what she says next is anything to go by. “You are, though. You're within the bracket for it. Nineteen fifty-three.”

Of all the predictable responses - a full body bisection at the hands of a laser-sharp glare, strangulation with a white Hermès scarf (right, no, that should not sound appealing, what is wrong with her), capitulation through the office window á la Page Six hearsay - a strangely self satisfied smirk was not it.

“I was not objecting to the generational categorisation, Andrea. More the stereotyping. Regardless, you are incorrect with respect to your last pitiful attempt at a point.”

And maybe Andy is just really feeling suicidal today, because she says “I'm not. Incorrect, that is. I literally got that from your Wikipedia page.”

“Wikipedia. Honestly, Andrea. Have you any idea how easy it is to make an edit on there?”

She contemplates pointing out it is not, in fact, easy to change a confirmed-extended-protected page. Then she realises she is standing in her boss’ office, arguing with her about her own damn age, and rediscovers a tiny sliver of self preservation, opting to not give voice to said point.

And then the implication of Miranda’s words hits her, and it is only the quick reflexes necessitated by the job which saves her Blahniks from drowning in the coffee only just remaining in her hand.

“Sorry. Sorry, are you saying you vandalised your own Wikipedia page?”

A sniff. “Don’t be ridiculous, Andrea. You cannot vandalise that which belongs to you. Merely…adjust to taste.”

“I’m fairly certain that the subjects of Wikipedia pages don’t own their pages.”

“Certainty is of no use whatsoever if it is rooted in the sort of infantile logic you seem to be so regrettably fond of relying upon. Of course they don’t. However, if one holds a seat on the board of the Wikimedia Foundation, quick adjustments are a small matter. Trivial, even. Even you might be able to handle it.”

For a moment, Miranda worries that she really has turned an assistant to stone. Had it been any other assistant, she might have felt a rare frisson of glee at her newfound accomplishment. But, she reflects, Andrea is the only one who can reliably deliver her coffee at requisite temperature, and the only one who can source manuscripts from iron vaults, and the only one who has ever pulled off Chanel boots in such a - stop that, she sternly tells herself. Fortunately, the moment does not last long as Andrea’s mouth slowly falls open, disrupting the illusion.

“Close your mouth, Andrea. You are not a small toddler waiting for their mother to sit down at the dining table. Although it appears I must spoon feed you information if you are ever to form even vaguely coherent sentences.”

“Um, not to extend the metaphor or anything, but that’s a really big bit of information to swallow all at once. I mean, I know you’re you, but…”

“But? Do go on. I am terribly fascinated in whatever it is that is currently rattling around that skull of yours.”

“It’s just surprising, that’s all. Have you made any other changes?”

Miranda appraises her with an inscrutable sort of contemplation. Whatever bizarre test it is, she seems to have passed, because Miranda’s left lip quirks up in a contortion that on anyone else would have been distinctly categorizable as mischievous.

“I may have been tremendously generous and given the spare years I had taken from my own page to Anna’s.”

Against her better judgement, Andy can’t help but snort. “That’s evil.”

“I do believe that is a famous quality of mine.” The response was dry, but almost pleased.

Perhaps it is the sense that she is not, after all, going to be incinerated today which emboldens Andy, but she replies.

“I’m surprised you didn’t go for Irv.”

Now the smirk really does befit her sobriquets in the press. “Oh, I did. The beauty of that page deletion command was worthy of a double-page spread.”

“I’ll bet.”

“He kept on trying to have it recreated. If he had ever bothered to change his username from AutoUniverse1234, I might have considered letting him get a little further in the process before blocking it.”

Andy’s suspicion that Miranda is a little more tech-savvy than she initially claimed is rapidly approaching surety. The train of thought raises another question though, which almost everything in her screams not to ask.

“Uh, Miranda. How did you ever find AO3, anyway?”

Wrong move. A flash of the eyes makes her want to scuttle back to her desk, hide under it and dig through the carpet until she falls onto the lap of some unsuspecting clacker working on the floor below. That would be less embarrassing than her current predicament. And less lethal. For her, at least. She’s not so sure about the fate of the clacker.

“How curious that you abbreviate it so readily, Andrea.”

Touché.

“And how curious that one of the most recent entries invoked a very specific shade of blue in the author’s username.”

When she was small, Andy had seen medieval paintings of men and women being led to the chopping block for executions. Some where they had just positioned their heads. She had never been quite able to imagine how that would feel. It was no longer a question of imagining.

“Oh?”

“Can you guess what it is?”

Andy briefly contemplates racing past Miranda and throwing herself out of the window. A fresh wave of mortification ripples over her skin as she realises that the primary impediment to her doing so is the desire not to implicate Miranda in her death. She tells herself that she can psychoanalyse herself later, and contents herself with the flimsy explanation that her reaction is such because putting Miranda in an orange polyester jumpsuit would quite possibly constitute the eighth deadly sin.

“Wouldn’t you prefer to tell me?”

“I would not.”

Her being fired is a foregone conclusion now. Might as well be honest.

“Cer-Cerulean?”

“Indeed. One - although certainly not I - might say a particularly cool colour. I recommend you look at the writing yourself.”

Andy feels anything besides cool. If Miranda’s coffee was human sized, she would register a higher body temperature than it. Spontaneous combustion in Miranda Priestly’s office. What a way to -

“You may go.”

“Go? As in go-go?- ” She can’t bring herself to say the word fired.

“Obviously not. I need fifteen Armani jackets before noon.” With that, a slender hand cleaves gracefully through the air and gestures for her to leave. As she slowly rotates her back to the desk once again, Andy seriously contemplates whether she should check her apartment’s water supply for chemical contamination.

“Oh, and Andrea?”

“Yes, Miranda?

“If you ever need an Alpha, do let me know. I would find it acceptable to oblige.”

“A what?”

“An editor. For your…work. It is only fair that both parties depicted get the chance to make representation with respect to the final product.”

“That - what?” Somehow, she collects her racing thoughts and stuffs them into the recesses of her mind. “Miranda, I - wow. Um.”

“Just think about it, Andrea.”

“Right. I will.” A moment of silence. “They’re called Betas, though. Just so you know.”

The glasses are lowered, coming to perch elegantly on that sloping nose. “Do I look like a Beta?”

She squeaks. She honest to God squeaks. (Please, please do not have let her read that. Not that one.) “No, Miranda.”

“Good. The offer stands. However, if you would wish to return the favour at any point, I will insist on calling you by the moniker I have just rejected. That’s all.”

Now she really does drop the coffee.

And it’s an awful day for the Blahniks, because twelve hours later when she is sitting in front of her home computer, staring at a familiar red-and-white screen, debating whether to delete the most “graphic” of her imaginings from the Internet, the machine chimes with a little notification and the poor shoes are immediately drenched in cheap red wine.

“M_Prada_1949 has left Kudos on this work, CeruleanIsTheCoolestColour!”