In the metaphysical sense, there was no Lian Yu. No five year exile spent forging a living weapon, no blood-soaked inheritance. Neither had there been a lighting-and-dark-matter induced coma, no repurposed childhood framed by once and future betrayal.
No, indeed, Amanda Waller found her own backstory uncommonly bereft of inciting incidents.
She'd never felt the torment of losing a brother or sister. Neither of her parents had been killed in cold blood before her very eyes. There had been no deus ex machina rescue from the jaws of certain death; no new lease of life that obligated her to give something back to the world.
To become what she was, she'd never had to force her way through a crucible as so many others had. In other words, Amanda Waller never called herself a hero.
"Agent Michaels," she said, pulling the pin from her hair, "Come in."
It might as well have been a grenade pin she'd pulled, the way Michaels froze wide-eyed in the director's doorway. Shame. Deer in the headlights wasn't her best look.
Shaking her hair out, Waller cocked an eyebrow in challenge. "Pull yourself together, Michaels. All the things you've witnessed in the field - in the last two years alone - and your superior letting her hair down stands out as strange?"
Michaels picked her jaw up off the floor, squared her shoulders, and closed the door behind her.
"It's usually more a figure of speech, in my experience," she returned cautiously. Familiar, but cautious. She wanted to know what game had been prepared for her, what trap had been set. It showed in the way her sharp eyes left Waller to sweep the room, tripping straight away over the two crystal tumblers set out on the blotter. Eyes that immediately narrowed as Waller lifted the bottle of bourbon from her bottom drawer and sashayed forward to take a seat on the corner of the desk.
Waller allowed Michaels to grind her gears while she poured a measure into each glass. In her periphery, she watched the agent advance on the desk, questions holstered but poised for a quick draw. It brought a sly twist to her lips to think that somewhere along the way, Waller had earned this woman's trust.
Honestly, there would be no replacing her.
Choosing to show Michaels that unnerving and ineffable smile, Waller offered the bourbon first. Answers could wait until after the toast.
"To what?" Michaels caved to her mounting curiosity, cradling her glass. A hesitancy flashed behind her eyes, unease painted on the purse of her lips. Now that was a look Waller would never lose a taste for.
Waller broke eye contact just long enough to toss her bourbon back in one smooth burn. The liquid fire seemed to ignite a blaze deep in her gut as Michaels set her jaw and followed suit.
"It's better than I remember," Michaels said, not a trace of smoke on her voice, "Thank you."
"It's been too long," Waller intoned, not quite rueful, not quite chiding.
Michaels chewed over whether or not to agree, and ultimately decided to keep her mouth shut. She returned the glass to Waller's waiting hand and crossed her arms behind her back, striving for impassive and almost achieving it, too, if not for the quiet tension furrowed in her brow.
They must have looked quite the pair: the soldier in her military grade turtleneck and khaki fatigues, standing at taut attention before the director, lounging on her desk with her blazer unbuttoned and a dark wave of hair falling over one shoulder.
Waller's smile pulled tight at the corners. "To you," she relented. She set the empty glasses down on the blotter and curled her fingers under the edge of the desk, repositioning herself. Glancing up at Michaels, she was pleased to note she had not lost the agent's full attention. "I'll admit that my congratulations are not what one might consider timely, but Sara is a beautiful name."
She wouldn't have thought it possible, but Michaels found a way to stand even straighter, somehow taller. Always exceeding expectations, this one.
"Thank you," Michaels repeated, forcibly restraining her alarm. One drink and already her imagination was running away with her.
Maybe she could blame it on the bourbon after the fact, but Waller leaned forward with a wry smile and willingly offered the truth. "Stand down, Michaels," she said, "My sentiments are genuine. You and yours can enjoy your sweet suburban dreams without fearing a visit from the boogeyman."
Michaels' lip twitched. Her picture-perfect posture dipped a little to one side, steel returning to her eyes. "For now?"
They both knew all too well that this was question that did not deserve an answer.
Letting that one go, Waller released the desk with one hand and twisted gracefully to reach a plain file folder from the far side of the blotter. When she turned back around to pass it over to Michaels, she found the agent looking pointedly at a patch of nothingness over her right shoulder. Lyla, Lyla, Lyla. The things John Diggle would never know. . . .
"An assignment?" Michaels asked, ready for any excuse to pretend this private audience had anything to do with business.
"Yes," Waller replied.
She waited until Michaels had finished reading the mission abstract, a few shades of color draining from her face in the process. Only when Michaels had torn her eyes away from the gritty recon photos did she amend: "But not yours."
Michaels let out a sharp sigh of relief, closing the folder with an emphatic slap of paper. She twisted away, at a loss, the back of one hand pressed firm to her forehead. "Why show me this? I didn't need to see this. Why am I here, Waller?"
Finally, a question worth answering. Waller pushed her hair over her shoulder and leaned back against the desk, a knee rising to hook over the other. Now, more than ever, she required Michael's focus. "It was yours. Before I personally had it reassigned to another handler. You've logged more hospital time than field time these last few months, I thought you could use a breather. Or, if you'd like, let it be a token in honor of your recent engagement."
Michaels stared her down, fingertips pressed to her lips. The gears were back to their grinding. Waller sat back and waited for the other shoe to drop.
The proverbial light bulb couldn't have shone more brightly when Michaels nodded, arms falling to her sides.
"I owe you one."
Nothing short of resigned realization, uncolored by bitterness or surprise. Just a numb acceptance to the way Amanda Waller ran her world. "If this is your idea of congratulations, I'm afraid to think what you might consider an appropriate wedding gift."
Waller smirked. "Have you already registered?"
"Damnit, Amanda," Michaels snapped, surprising them both at the use of Waller's name. When the world didn't end on principle, she pushed her luck and stalked the two steps up to the desk and slammed the folder down. Waller, to her credit, had the nerve not to flinch.
"I don't know how you got to be this way, and I'm sorry for whatever tragedy closed you off to human connection, but I get it, I really do. Cloak-and-dagger is the only way you know how to make it work." Michaels shook her head, giving Waller a callous once-over. Waller bore the indignity with chin raised.
Michaels stepped sharply back. "But not with me. If you wanted me to stay, you should have just asked." Like that, the space between them widened into an abyss impossible to cross.
Waller felt rather than saw Michaels leave. Felt the loss like the sting of a bandage ripped off - a shameful flinch and then nothing. Well. That had been fun while it lasted.