Work Text:
4:05 PM
Benji yawned. He had fifty-five more grueling office minutes before he could head home. The office had a handful of employees left filling and filing paperwork. Benji missed fieldwork. Most importantly he missed his friends. He hadn’t heard from Ethan since the IMF had been dissolved, and Benji had been reassigned to work in a CIA office space. Luther occasionally checked in, and unfortunately he hadn’t heard from Ethan either. His weekly polygraph with Brandt in the room had happened earlier in the week, but if Brandt had any knowledge on Ethan’s whereabouts, he stayed quiet.
The office phone rang, and Benji paused his game of Halo.
“This is Benjamin Dunn.”
“Agent Dunn, this is Barbara from HR.”
Benji internally groaned. “Yes, hello, Barbara from HR.”
“This is a reminder that you need to complete your required video training on sexual harassment awareness.”
Benji huffed in annoyance. “It’s that time of year again, is it?”
“The training is required biennially,” Barbara from HR said.
“Right, of course.”
“So you will have your training done before you leave this afternoon, Agent Dunn?”
“This afternoon—?”
“Because the training was assigned to you two months ago, your training completion is required by the end of the workday today,” Barbara from HR droned as if reading from a script.
“Yeah okay,” Benji paused. “…how long is this training session going to take?”
“The full training including the required end-of-training assessment will take approximately one hour and forty-five minutes.”
“One hour and—?!” Benji stopped himself. “You know what? That’s fine.”
After office hours it is.
“Thank you, Agent Dunn.” Barbara from HR said (rather sarcastically, Benji thought). “Have a great weekend.”
Benji looked at his watch.
4:15 PM
Great.
Have a great weekend indeed.
He found the email link to the online training and logged in.
“Welcome to the CIA’s training on sexual harassment awareness. In this video—”
To Benji’s dismay, there was no option to change the listening speed of the video. Unless…
A few minutes later, Benji sat back with a smug look. He had hacked into the coding of the video, changed the settings to 2x’s the speed, and also had the answers to the assessment at the end of the video. Once he had finished taking the assessment, he looked at his watch again.
5:00 PM
Benji grinned as he took his suit coat hanging over his chair and left to enjoy his weekend.
“Piece of cake.”
11:03 AM
Benji plopped into his office chair. Another polygraph done. More paperwork. Another hour until his lunch break. Another stifling day in the CIA offices.
Benji’s office phone rang. He groaned.
“This is Benjamin Dunn,” he answered unenthusiastically.
“Agent Dunn, this is Sharon from HR,” a voice cheerily said.
Benji facepalmed. It was the nicer worker from the HR office. He eased up on his annoying-sounding tone of voice. “Hi, Sharon from HR. To what do I owe the pleasure—?”
“—I’d just like you to confirm whether or not you have received the link to your assigned training videos on new technology policies.”
Benji frowned. “I was unaware that I had been assigned new videos, especially on technology policies.”
“I believe you have been sent these videos via email. I have been told to tell you that these needed to be completed by the end of today.”
“…this is because of the sexual harassment awareness video from last week, isn’t it?”
Benji could hear Sharon’s hesitation over the phone. “After noticing how quickly you finished the video, Barbara got suspicious—”
“—and realized I probably tampered with the video coding,” Benji concluded. “Should’ve guessed that would happen.”
“Right. Sorry, Benji,” Sharon said.
“No, you’re just the messenger—I understand,” Benji sighed. “I’ll have these finished before I leave today.”
He hung up and checked his email.
FROM HUMAN RESOURCES:
ASSIGNED CIA TRAINING VIDEOS: Technology Policies
Benji sighed, clicked the link, and signed in.
“Welcome to the CIA’s training on technology policies. This training session has seven categories with assessments at the end of each category—”
“Seven videos and assessments?” Benji muttered. This would most likely take the rest of his day. He looked at his watch.
11:10 AM
Yeah, Barbara was definitely out to get him.
4:45
Benji exhaled. They had less than five minutes to defuse the bomb. Not impossible to do.
“Ethan, Benji, what color wires do you see?” Luther asked over the comms.
The room Ethan and Benji were in was on the third floor of a viceroy’s ritzy mansion in Barcelona. Ethan had just finished prying the side of the bomb open, revealing a tangle of wires and a few flashing lights.
“There are a few different colors,” Ethan murmured as he scanned the mess. “Red, white, yellow, and blue.”
“It looks like a rat’s nest,” Benji grumbled as they tried to sort the wires.
They heard some shouting coming from downstairs.
“Bad news,” Luther said. “You’ve got a handful of visitors on their way up to you.”
“How long?” Ethan asked.
“Under two minutes,” Luther answered, and Ethan and Benji could now hear several footsteps heading their way up the stairs.
“I’ll handle them,” Ethan looked at Benji. “Just focus on diffusing the bomb.”
Benji nodded, and Ethan left the room.
“I need you to count out how many wires there are,” Luther said.
“Lovely,” Benji sighed. “Let me untangle them first so I can find their sources.”
After doing his best to carefully untangle what he could, he glanced up at the timer.
3:22
Not terrible.
From where Benji was, he could hear Ethan beating up their “visitors” on the second floor downstairs. He felt confident that they’d be out of here in no time.
Suddenly his phone rang, and Benji glanced at the caller ID.
HR office >:(
Shit.
“Is that your phone ringing?” Luther asked incredulously.
“Unfortunately yeah, and it’s HR.”
Luther groaned. “Benji, don’t tell me you forgot to finish the policy training videos.”
“I’m pretty sure I finished all of them!”
The phone continued ringing and Luther sighed. “Tell me how many wires, then answer the damn phone.”
“Ten wires. Wish me luck.”
Benji answered his phone in a less-than-cheerful tone. “Benjamin Dunn.”
“Agent Dunn, this is Susan from HR,” a voice answered him flatly.
“Hello, Susan from HR. Look, I’m a little in the middle of something and—”
“You nearly finished all of your required policy videos but forgot to finish one last micro video on timeliness in the workplace. A bit ironic considering how you needed to have completed the videos a month ago.”
“Bit ironic indeed,” Benji muttered as he glanced down at the timer.
2:10
Not bad, but not good either.
“Wrap it up, Benji,” he heard Luther say in his other ear.
“Right, listen, I’ll finish the last video in a few minutes. I’m just working on something…” Benji could hear crashing noises from downstairs. “…very urgent, but you’ll see it completed…” he looked at his watch. “…in thirty minutes.”
Susan from HR sighed. “Remember, Agent Dunn, if you miss the deadline again, you’ll be temporarily benched and be required to take more refreshers on CIA and IMF policies.”
“I appreciate the reminder, thanks.” Benji quickly hung up and shoved the phone in his pocket. He glanced down at the timer.
1:29
Yikes.
“Luther, please tell me what wires to cut.”
“Fourth wire from the left should be red; can you confirm?”
Benji carefully counted through the mess of wires. “Confirmed.”
“Okay, cut that one.”
“Got it.”
“Seventh wire should be blue; can you confirm?”
“Confirmed.”
Ethan walked in then, clothes a little disheveled, but otherwise looking only a little winded from his fight downstairs. “All good?”
“Almost,” Benji answered and then glanced down at the timer again.
00:35
Ethan’s eyes grew wide as he saw the timer still counting down.
Benji hurriedly counted the wires again. When he snipped the seventh wire, the flashing lights turned off and the countdown of the timer stopped.
00:26
Benji let out a sigh of relief and looked at Ethan. “Well, that wasn’t so bad. Are you okay?”
Ethan tiredly nodded. “I’m good. Our visitors downstairs aren’t though.”
Benji smirked. He loved being back in the field.
“Hey, Benji?” Luther’s voice came over their comms. “Don’t you have a video to finish watching?”
Ignoring Ethan’s confused look, Benji scrambled to find his laptop in his backpack. He tried turning it on, but the dreaded words “Low Battery” appeared on the screen in front of him.
“Ah…Luther?” Benji asked after a few moments. “You wouldn’t happen to have a laptop I could borrow, would you?”
“Benji, I swear—”
“Wait, what is this all about?” Ethan interrupted.
“While you were out giving the visitors a ‘tour’ of the mansion, Benji received a call from HR,” Luther explained, to which Ethan groaned.
“Benji—”
“Ethan, I swear I thought I had finished every video! Apparently I have one micro video left.”
“On what topic?”
Benji hesitated.
“…timeliness in the workplace.”
Benji could hear Luther stifling a laugh, and Ethan turned to hide his amused smile.
“Shut up—I know, it’s extremely ironic,” Benji frowned. “But I really do need access to a laptop right now to finish the video…” he glanced at his watch, “…in the span of fifteen minutes or HR will harness their powers and temporarily bench me from fieldwork.”
“I’m parked outside,” Luther finally laughed. “Better get your asses down here; we don’t want you to get benched.”
7:15 PM
Benji clung for dear life onto Ethan as they zipped through the evening Paris traffic on the motorcycle Ethan had acquired. Their mark was on the run via motorcycle as well, and Ethan and Benji were following behind him.
“Luther, can you send the mark’s tracking information to Benji so we can cut this guy off?” Ethan shouted over the roar of the engine.
“Sending Benji the mark’s signal now,” Luther answered through their comms. “In the meantime, I’ll work on hacking the mark’s laptop.”
“Benji, did you get it?”
Benji’s arm gripped around Ethan tighter as he carefully pulled out his phone from his jacket pocket.
“I’ve got it. Make the upcoming left.”
Ethan veered them off to the left and down an alleyway.
“Follow this street down through six more intersections. That should bring us to a giant roundabout. We should be able to catch up with him then.”
Ethan nodded and sped up the motorcycle. Benji didn’t want to admit he was terrified of being on a motorcycle. Maybe it wasn’t the fact that he was terrified to be on a motorcycle per se, but the fact that Ethan was driving the motorcycle? Benji trusted Ethan to keep him safe, and he mostly did a great job at it, and Benji was grateful. But did Ethan scare Benji a lot with almost not being safe?
Well… it could be worse, Benji thought.
He could be without a helmet perhaps. Safety first.
By the time they reached the third intersection, a car suddenly pulled out in front of them, and Benji couldn’t help but yelp and grip Ethan tighter while Ethan swerved the motorcycle to a screeching stop. As the car drove past them, Benji felt Ethan’s hand grasp his.
“You okay?” Ethan’s concerned voice rang through the comms as he turned to look back at Benji.
Benji loosened his grip and nodded his helmet into Ethan’s back. “Yeah, let me just wait for my heart to come back down from my throat,” Benji chuckled uneasily.
“Just take a few deep breaths,” Ethan said.
Benji felt Ethan gently move Benji’s hand over his chest, and he felt the steady beating of Ethan’s heart. For a few seconds, Ethan held Benji’s hand there before letting go to turn the motorcycle in the correct direction. Benji was grateful for helmets, because through the intimacy of the situation, he could feel his face turning red. While one of his hands stayed firmly on Ethan’s chest, his other hand felt his phone buzz. Benji looked as the screen lit up, showing the caller ID.
HR office >:(
Oh God—not now.
He silently panicked. What training did he miss this time? How would he even talk on the phone when he’s wearing a helmet? Would it violate HR rules for putting them on speaker? What if Barbara from HR is on the phone and suggests that the IMF benches him to office work for the rest of time?
“Uh, Ethan?”
“What’s wrong?” Ethan turned his head as if to look back at Benji.
“I have to take a phone call.”
“You what?” Luther’s voice chimed in on the comms.
“Benji—”
“Now I don’t know what it’s about, but I know Barbara from HR is out to have my head on a platter if I keep forgetting my required policy videos. I can multitask—”
“Just answer the phone, Benji,” Luther sighed.
Benji pushed the speaker button.
“Hello??” Benji yelled over the roaring of the engine and wind tunneling past them.
“Agent Dunn?” the words seemed muffled as Benji tried to listen over the speaker. “This is Frank from HR.”
“Frank from HR, hello!!” Benji answered a bit too ecstatically that Ethan even glanced back at Benji.
He had never met Frank, but at least it wasn’t Barbara from HR.
“I know you’ve been busy, but this is your third reminder about a training session that was assigned about a month ago.”
“Um, right,” Benji stammered as he wracked his brain for which session the HR worker was talking about.
“Did he say ‘a month ago’?” Ethan asked through the comms.
“Sounds about right,” Luther answered, and Benji rolled his eyes.
“Barbara wanted me to remind you that if you couldn’t remember which one it was,” Frank hesitated. “…it was the effective communication training session.”
At this point, Benji wasn’t even surprised.
“Look, let me show you my effective communication skills right now. I’m currently occupied with a mission at the moment, so I can’t get to the training session right away—”
“Benji, we’re about to drive past the sixth intersection!”
“—and you’ll have to tell Barbara that I’ll get to the videos later—the roundabout, Ethan! He’s taking the exit on your right!”
“I…are you on a motorcycle?” Frank from HR was basically yelling over the sound of the motorcycle.
Benji nearly laughed at how odd the situation seemed over the phone. “With all the feedback noise you’re getting, I thought that was obvious, Frank—Shit, Ethan, gun!”
The mark had taken aim, and both he and Ethan ducked as bullets whizzed past them. Ethan swerved behind other cars next to a few of the bistros on the sidewalk. Ethan grabbed a large umbrella from one of the nearby tables and sped up to the mark’s motorcycle. Benji held his phone speaker close to his helmet.
“Ah, Frank from HR? I’m going to hang up now.”
Benji ended the call as Ethan swung the umbrella at the mark’s armed hand, knocking the gun out of his hand. Next thing Benji knew, Ethan jammed the stick of the umbrella into the wheel of the opposing motorcycle, sending the mark tumbling over his front wheel and into some nearby bistro tables.
Ethan and Benji skidded to a stop, staring down their now unconscious mark sprawled over an unfortunate couple’s dinner.
“Luther, we’ve got the mark,” Ethan said.
“I’m coming by with the van. ETA: two minutes.”
Benji and Ethan removed their helmets and dismounted from the motorcycle; and after Benji had admitted several apologies in French to the couple who currently had an indentation of a motorcycle helmet on their plates of filet mignon and vegetables, they lifted the unconscious mark by his arms and dragged him to lean over their motorcycle.
“Thank you,” Benji quietly said as they waited for Luther.
Ethan sent Benji a confused look. “For…?”
“For just…” Benji started, “for helping me calm down on the motorcycle earlier. You’d think as a field agent, I’d be used to all that by now—”
“Hey, Benj, it’s okay,” Ethan smiled and set a reassuring hand on Benji’s shoulder. “I’m glad I could help.”
“Also I thought it was cool that you pulled off that one move with the umbrella earlier like that one scene from The Last Crusade where Indy jams the flag pole into that Nazi soldier’s motorcycle, and he goes flying through the air. Really, Ethan, it was brilliant to watch.”
Ethan couldn’t help but chuckle at Benji’s sudden upbeat enthusiasm (maybe the result of an adrenaline rush, Ethan thinks). “Thanks. Honestly, I’m glad it worked.”
Luther pulled up just then, and Ethan and Benji lifted the mark into the van. Ethan hopped into the driver’s seat, while Luther joined Benji in the back. Once he had finished zip-tying the mark’s hands, Luther handed Benji a tablet that was already logged in to Benji’s policies account.
Luther smirked. “I can’t believe you forgot to take the communications training session.”
“I think the HR team should take the communications session with the way they’ve been acting,” Ethan said as he looked at both Benji and Luther through the rearview mirror. “This is the second time they’ve called you during a mission.”
“Thank you, Ethan,” Benji huffed out a laugh as he took out his headphones from his backpack. “Though I’m not trying to defend them or anything, I honestly don’t think HR knows what it is we do.”
Benji had been thinking about this for a while now. Most of the HR team would have originally been from the CIA branch (Benji didn’t think the IMF prioritized developing an HR team with the line of work that they do), but because of the secrecy of each mission, it’s not like they held knowledge of the IMF agents’ whereabouts or what their missions would entail since the merging of the IMF under the CIA. It was something to bring up to Brandt and even Secretary Hunley later.
“I only know that Barbara from HR is out to see me benched to the paperwork life.”
“And why exactly is Barbara from HR out to get you?” Luther asked, and Benji also saw the curious look Ethan gave him through the rearview mirror.
Benji winced. “I may have tampered with the coding of a required video to watch the content quickly and also cheat on the end-of-video assessment so I could leave on time from work. This was all while you were investigating the Syndicate those six months, Ethan, and while you were retired, Luther. Six boring months of office work…”
“Well, I’m glad you’re not forever tied to an office desk, Benji,” Ethan said. “Just…try to stay on HR’s good side from now on.”
Benji laughed. “Easier said than done,” he said as he put on his headphones.
“Welcome to the CIA’s training on effective communication in the workplace. This training session has five categories with an assessment at the end of each category—”
“Christ, how can there be five categories for effective communication? That seems rather excessive than effective.”
Luther shrugged and glanced at his watch.
8:10 PM
“You’ve got about three hours to complete all five categories before the end of the workday in D.C.”
Benji groaned into his hands.
2:34 PM
Benji inhaled sharply as he leaned against one of the walls in the elevator and used his uninjured arm to place pressure on his left shoulder. Despite the graze of a gunshot wound and a few brief kicks to his ribs from the fight he had gotten into earlier, Benji knew he would be okay—it just hurt a lot.
“Luther, I just wanted to confirm,” Benji said as his elevator descended. “Ethan and Brandt are on their way down as well?”
“They got held up at the main office on the 20th floor, but they’re on their way down, too.”
Earlier, Ethan’s and Brandt’s comms had stopped working after Luther and Benji heard gunshots, yet Luther was keeping track of their progress through the security cameras.
“Are you doing okay?” Luther asked.
“Could be better, but it’s not bad.” Benji let out a pained cough and wiped away the dribble of blood that escaped the side of his lips. “‘Tis but a scratch.’”
The elevator then abruptly powered down, jolting to a stop and nearly knocking Benji off-balance.
“Ah, nevermind, we might have a problem, Luther.”
“I can’t hack into any cameras. Looks like the building has a power outage.”
“I should have just taken the stairs.”
“Just hold on, Benji. Do you think you can pry open the elevator door?”
“I’m not sure it’s doable with my arm like this.”
“I also think your elevator stopped in between floors 3 and 4. I’ll try to contact Ethan and Brandt to help get those elevator doors opened. There should be a stairwell you guys can get to from there that will lead directly outside to where I’ve parked across the street. In the meantime, do your best to stop the bleeding.”
Benji let himself slide down the wall he was leaning against to sit on the floor. “Thanks, Luther. And will do.”
He tore a portion of his dress shirt and was working on creating a makeshift bandage around his arm when he felt a faint buzzing in his pocket. Honestly he forgot his phone was in his pocket and pulled it out.
HR office >:(
“Oh, you’ve got to be joking,” Benji grumbled.
How was the entire building still powered down while his phone got a signal? Well, it’s not like he had anything else better to do. He reluctantly answered his phone.
“This is Benjamin Dunn.”
“Agent Dunn,” a flat-sounding voice responded, “this is Barbara from HR.”
This time, Benji didn’t even hide his groan. “What did I miss this time, Barbara from HR?”
“You left two modules of your safety training videos unwatched and incomplete.”
“You’ve got to admit though: it has been impressive that I’ve kept up with most of my required videos since the last time, right?”
Barbara from HR hummed as if she were looking through his records. “You are correct, Agent Dunn. You have shown a lot more improvement in getting your required videos completed, but you also have a significant amount of strikes for missed deadlines—”
Whatever else Barbara from HR was saying, Benji couldn’t hear due to a sudden coughing fit that hit him and hurt like hell.
“I’m sorry,” Benji apologized in between wheezes. “On a mission right now and got a bit kicked around.”
“This is not a conversation to try to avoid, Agent Dunn.”
“I swear, I’m not trying to avoid it—”
“Benji, who are you talking to?” Luther’s voice interrupted through the comms.
“It’s Barbara from HR,” Benji answered.
“Oh boy,” Luther muttered. “What’d you forget to finish this time?”
“It was two modules from the safety training videos—”
“Agent Dunn, I am not finished talking to you.”
“Ugh, just let me explain!” Benji snapped, and Luther and the voice over the phone immediately stopped.
Benji slowly let out a shaky breath as he chose his words carefully. “I’m an IMF agent, not a CIA agent. There are stressful situations I have to deal with on missions, and sometimes HR’s policy videos are the last thing on my mind, especially with the magnitude of what my team and I survive. If you want to look into my claims, I guarantee you can confirm Secretary Alan Hunley or William Brandt. I understand policies are important to follow and review, but respectfully, I request that you at least cut me some slack on making your deadlines.”
The silence in the elevator was deafening, and Benji had to check if his call was still connected.
“I will take your request into consideration,” Barbara from HR finally responded. “Thank you for your time, Agent Dunn.”
The call ended.
“You did well, Benji,” Luther said after a moment of silence.
“You think so?” Benji asked. “I wasn’t too harsh?”
Luther chuckled. “Considering they’ve bothered you this past year about keeping up with deadlines without actually knowing the details of your job despite being HR? You gave them a lot of grace by being polite.”
Just then, a knock sounded on the elevator door.
“Benji?”
“Benji, are you there?”
Benji recognized the muffled voices immediately and scooted towards the elevator doors.
“Ethan, Brandt, yes, I’m in the elevator!”
“We’re going to pry open the door,” Brandt’s muffled voice echoed. “You might be in between floors, but we think you’ll have enough room to slide through.”
“When we get the door open, we’ve got to get out of here as fast as possible,” Ethan added. “Are you ready?”
Benji braced his good arm against the elevator door to help Ethan and Brandt pry open the doors.
“I’m ready.”
8:30 PM
Benji’s eyes fluttered open at hearing his laptop chime.
Earlier when they had made it to the IMF safehouse, Ethan made sure to help Benji properly bandage his arm and check out his bruised up ribs. After applying a generous amount of pain relief gel and a handful of lidocaine patches to Benji’s torso and encouraging him to take some pain medication, Ethan tried to persuade Benji to get some rest.
Benji sat up against the headboard of his bed but reached for his laptop instead. Ethan decided to sit through the videos with him and help answer a few of the assessments. It had taken them a few hours, but once Benji had finished the last two modules, his eyes slipped shut. He woke up a handful of hours later lying with his head resting on an unconscious Ethan’s shoulder.
Taking care not to wake Ethan, he did his best to sit up and quietly log back into his laptop. He opened his email.
IMPORTANT NOTE FROM HUMAN RESOURCES
Benji clicked the message. To his surprise, the message was a digital card. He clicked to open it, and the front of the card was an animated cake that had an icing message of “Feel Better Soon!” The inside of the card read:
Agent Dunn,
Thank you for being patient with our team this past year. We wish you a full and speedy recovery!
— The HR team: Sharon, Susan, Frank, and Barbara
PS: Thanks for finishing all of your required policy videos :)
He smiled. Benji carefully set aside his laptop and curled up next to Ethan.
Sleep overtook him in an instant.