Title: Hired Muscle
Author: Gatsby
Fandom: Warehouse 13
Genre: Romance, crack
Spoilers: Let's say through "Implosion" to be on the safe side.
Ships: Mrs. Frederic/bodyguard
Rating: G
Warnings: Crack pairing crack pairing crack pairing. So, you know. Crack.
Summary: "My name is Mrs. Frederic. How would you like a job?" Mrs. Frederic/bodyguard. Originally intended as crack pairing. First posted on LJ 08/21/2009.
And no, I can't believe I wrote this, either.
Hired Muscle
She was an imposing woman, tall and solid, with a confident tilt of her chin and a downturned mouth. Her dark eyes studied him from across the long table, silent. He knew what she saw: shaved head, orange jumpsuit, handcuffs, hard eyes.
Then she glanced at the prison warden and nodded once. He crossed over and actually removed the cuffs, and more remarkably, left the room.
"My name is Mrs. Frederic," she said, leaning forward. Her eyes were clever, glittering in the fluorescent light. "How would you like a job?"
+
"Welcome aboard," she greeted him as she took his paperwork, and then called him something that wasn't his name. Behind her glasses, those dark eyes dared him to correct her. He did not.
She had him follow her around for the next few days, and then forever. He got a suit, the first suit he'd ever owned but not the last. He got the impression that there was, in fact, no Mr. Frederic, and assumed she was a widow. She didn't tell him her first name and he didn't ask. Privately, he suspected it wasn't so much a secret as it was something embarrassing, like Edwina. Or Fifi.
But he learned rapidly that there were more important questions when working with Mrs. Frederic. He wasn't entirely sure why she needed a bodyguard, for example—she held herself like a queen, perfectly capable of standing down a threat, not that many would dare to threaten her in the first place. There were also other things, more peculiar things. He visited what he assumed was her apartment only once, where there were photos older than he was, and in them, Mrs. Frederic stood as confidently as she did now, with no apparent change. He barely speculated, and he never asked.
+
He learned that it wasn't so much that she couldn't take care of herself. It was more that she had other things to do. She intimidated her other employees, so it was his task to intimidate people who didn't work for her. Periodically she had him do other things—break an agent out of jail, sometimes, or on one memorable occasion move an entire wardrobe without damaging it. She didn't tell him how to do things, and didn't ask if he needed help; she just expected him to accomplish any goal she laid before him. And if she expected him to do something, he did it, no questions asked.
+
She didn't say much to him in front of her agents, but when they were away she would comment to him, sometimes.
"I don't know what I'm going to do about that man," she muttered once as they left Leena's Bed and Breakfast. (He liked Leena—she made good pancakes, and always asked him how his day was. Arthur, the object of complaint, he wasn't so sure about; he seemed a little too fond of being eccentric.) Her fingers pinched the bridge of her nose, rubbing it, and he ducked back into Leena's and brought her a sandwich bag full of ice.
"The back of your neck," he said, awkwardly. "It helps."
Mrs. Frederic blinked at him. "Thank you," she said, and did as he had indicated. For the first time since he'd met her, she smiled, briefly, but the drive home was as quiet as it ever was.
+
Agents came and went and lived and died. He remained, and didn't ask about the Warehouse, its high turnover rate, or anything else he didn't need to know. He joined her in acquiring new agents, and not infrequently, in burying the old ones.
"Doesn't it bother you?" Arthur asked her once, bitterly, walking away from the gravesite.
She straightened her suit jacket. "You'll have a replacement by the end of the week." She said nothing more.
An hour later from the backseat, she hesitated over her files. "It seems like they get younger every year," she said, but quietly.
He caught her eye in the rearview mirror, then nodded once. "I know," was all he said.
+
He'd worked for her for five years. In his job he'd been beaten and shot at, and actually before that, now that he thought about it-which he rarely did. This was the first time in his life he'd been stabbed. Bleeding on the floor, he couldn't say much in favor of the experience.
Later, the hospital was clean and gray and white and bland, except for Mrs. Frederic, commanding as ever in her tailored checked suit. Her eyes were unreadable, arms folded across her chest.
"I've been better," he said, although she hadn't asked. He sat up, which hurt his gut, to look her in the eye. "Been worse, too," he said, although he couldn't name an example.
"Take it easy for a bit," she told him, voice clipped and professional as ever. "I do not want to find a new bodyguard."
He couldn't think of a response. Deciding he could blame the loss of blood, he reached out and took her hand.
Mrs. Frederic looked down at his hand, just as inscrutable as ever. Then, raising her eyes to meet his gaze dead on, she turned her palm towards his, laced their fingers.
As it turned out, he didn't have to say anything at all.