AN: A bit early because I'll be swamped this week and into next week with stuff to do. So this might be your sole update from me this week.
Charlie watched the range of emotions flicker across Santana's face from humiliation to guilt to rage and loathing. But more importantly she could feel the heat coming off Santana in waves, it wasn't enough to get her to pull back. As far as she was concerned all these heroes who marched into her life hurting her employees and breaking her stuff, were the true menaces. How many people, children had been inadvertently hurt because they needed to brawl in the streets. When had society deemed that to be acceptable? Billions of dollars in damage yearly, all because they needed to fight the whole thing was disturbing.
"We used to be friends once, you and me—" Santana tries again slowly, hesitating.
"We used to be friends. Until you and Quinn got your powers." Charlie interrupts. She's not in the mood to listen to Santana try and appeal to her emotions.
"Is that what this is about?" Santana pressed. "You're upset with us because we got superpowers and you didn't? You're jealous?"
Charlie rolled her eyes and moved to arrange the documents on her desk, she had planned to spend most of today working in her lab. The Aegis prototype needed her personal touch, and she was going to spend most of the day undoing what her top engineers had done to her pet project. The Aegis was supposed to be the great equalizer. "Jealous of what exactly? I am either the smartest person in the world or at worst a close second. Unlike you and the rest of your ilk, my power has helped millions of people without the collateral damage. I have saved lives, I have made lives better and easier, and what do you do? Beat up thugs in the street wrecking people's livelihoods. But who cares because you got the bad-guy. The guy who was stealing because he doesn't have a job and has kids to feed. Yes. I'm so jealous of your life's work." Charlie stands up, "So, now that you're finished appealing to my emotions—poorly I might add, either get out of my house or do exactly as I say and get on your knees."
Santana hesitates once more, staring at Charlie, who wasn't even truly giving her the time of day. Even with all her power she didn't feel powerful. That ease at which Charlie had left her feeling powerless, like she was beneath her. It was hard to remember why she was doing this, but she loved her wife. She loved Quinn, and it was her fault that she was in that stupid chair. Swallowing her pride and getting this over with was all she could do.
"Now, now Charlie," a voice interrupts. "You're being cruel again." Charlie raised a brow, shifting to her feet as Brittany S. Pierce entered the kitchen. "By the way, did you know that your front door is basically missing? It's a good thing I'm wearing slippers."
Charlie watches in amusement as Brittany walks past Santana, barely sparing her a glance as she opens one of the cupboards and grabs one of the many boxes of 'Cookie Crisps' that she has stocked for just an occasion. "I'm aware Britt, she's the one that did it. I was merely making a point."
Brittany hummed for a moment as she grabbed a bowl and spoon and headed towards Charlie, placing her items down on the table. "I think you've made your point and have crossed into the territory of being mean. You know I like it better when you're nice." Brittany repeated grabbing a bowl and a spoon and heading towards Charlie. She places all three items down on the island and turns to look at Charlie, reaching and brushing the hair out of her face, the hard look was back in Charlie's eyes. It was getting more and more common and it was getting harder to pull her out of it. She probably wasn't sleeping again.
Charlie sighed and placed her hand on Brittany's gently, pulling it away and bringing it to her lips to kiss it gently. "You're right. I'm sorry."
Brittany smiled at the small gesture. They weren't dating, neither one of them could be bothered to make the extra effort that dating required. Charlie didn't love her not like that, never like that and she was fine with it. Not to mention the headache that dating would do to their respective companies. "I know. I generally am; right, that is." Brittany tilts her head toward Santana who was watching quietly, studying them. "You weren't actually going to go through with it were you?"
Charlie glances back at Santana for a moment, "No. I have no desire to be with someone who doesn't want to be with me. I actually have some self-respect," Charlie responds the last part a dig at Santana. It had been an interesting experiment, but Santana was not the person she remembered. The Santana she remembered would have rather died than ever bow down to anyone. The damage that Quinn had done to Santana's psyche was astounding, and more importantly she doubted that Santana even realized how weak she was.
Santana swallowed, she had no idea if Charlie had been serious or not but she was grateful for the rescue. "I just need your help Charlie, that's all. Once I get it you'll never have to see me again." When Charlie rolls her eyes and turns back to Brittany. "Quinn isn't taking it well."
"Karma—"
"Quinn?" Brittany turned her head to focus on Santana once more. "You must be Santana!"
"Brittany." Charlie warns, it's enough to cause Brittany to turn back to her. Unfortunately Brittany crosses her arms over her chest, which meant that there were more questions coming and possibly more judgement.
"What's wrong with your sister?"
"Someone, broke her back," Santana insists immediately. "They broke her back and now she can't walk, and I was hoping that Charlie could come up with a device or use that brain of hers to help fix her. Or at the very least get her into an experimental program at Prometheus—or maybe make a call and have her accepted into one at Pierce industries."
"Pierce industries is certainly a better company than Prometheus." Brittany murmurs with a smirk, winking at Charlie who merely rolls her eyes. But admitting someone into a medical trial wasn't something that could just be done on a whim. Screwing around with FDA trials was more than sloppy, it was dangerous. "But you'd be on a waiting list for years and not even Charlie can just throw you into a medical trial. Unless, she's terminal. Is she—"
"She isn't. She's in a wheelchair, which as I've said is hardly the end of the world. Besides, neither one of our companies is actively working on spinal injuries. We're currently competing in robotics to replace limbs but fixing spinal damage is another thing entirely. There aren't any clinical trials for Quinn to join to begin with, at least not from either of our companies. And I can't just start a new trial, I have shareholders." Who basically let her do whatever she wanted but still.
"Charlie! Have you been spying on my company again?" Brittany puffs out her cheeks.
"Yes." Charlie responds. "Just like I know you're paying close attention to our new aerospace division."
Brittany grins, "The SEC is going to have another run at the two of us again aren't they?"
"Probably, you should hear my shareholders," Charlie sighs finally amused and blinks when she realizes that Santana was still standing there.
Santana swallowed, unsure of what to make of the conversation. It had taken a weird turn but the one thing she did understand was that both of them were saying that there was nothing that they could do. She was so sick of all the supposed smart people telling her that there was nothing that they could do for her wife. The doctors had said it, even the healers had informed Santana that the damage was to extensive. Now apparently the two smartest people on the planet were telling her the same thing. "You mean to tell me that you two are smarter than God and there is absolutely nothing you can do?"
"I have no inclination or incentive to help you." Charlie reminds her.
Brittany shrugs. "Really, I would if only to piss Charlie off, but medical science isn't really my strength."
"Only because you think that blood is 'icky' and cried when you found out they tested medical breakthroughs on animals." Charlie pointed out.
Brittany shrugged and studied Santana for a moment, feeling a bit bad for her, she looked upset. "Charlie, Quinn is your sister."
"She's adopted."
"You're identical twins," Brittany responded flatly.
"That's what my parents keep telling me. Probably why I stopped talking to them years ago." Charlie shakes her head, "I don't have time to fix her. I need to finish working on Aegis, plus I've got to work on organ printing, there have been great advances in the technology, but if anyone is going to crack the code it is going to be me. Hopefully there's a Nobel Prize with my name on it."
Brittany bit her lip hard, trying to remember not to tease Charlie relentlessly about it. "What about that project that you started in MIT, before we started working on patents. You could in theory reengineer—" Brittany stopped when Charlie quirked a brow. "Oh." She smiles brightly, Charlie said and did a lot of mean things, and it was part of what made her a formidable CEO. It didn't mean that Charlie didn't have a good heart on the inside. "Well, don't be that mean about it."
"I'll take that into consideration," Charlie responds shaking her head. Brittany was far too kind, and if Brittany wasn't her friend she would have gone after Pierce Industries with everything that she had. Her shareholders wanted it, but she had zero interest in simply taking Brittany's company. "Now, as far as I know the game room hasn't been destroyed so make yourself comfortable Britt, I need to work on the Aegis."
"Need some help?" Brittany asked, it could be like one of their projects again.
Charlie shook her head, "No, today is your day off, but I need to call Kurt and tell him to get the construction crew out here again. The neighbors are going to complain. Also tell him to get another car from the collection over here." Charlie sighed, it was going to be a noisy day and she truly didn't want to deal. She grabs all her papers and her tablet before turning to Santana. "You're still here?"
Santana grits her teeth. "I'll be your bodyguard." She offers. She's desperate and that offer is almost worse than the idea of selling herself for sex but Quinn needs this.
"Why exactly?" Charlie cocks her head to the side, amused. It was an interesting proposal, and having a superhero of Santana's caliber working for her as a bodyguard—well her mythos would only grow in the superhero community. Plus given her various run-ins with superheroes, she was sure the board would approve. "I already told you that I don't have medical trials available."
"But you have something." Santana insists, knowing even as she says it that it's true. "And all I need is a promise that you'll try."
"And what would your precious hero-league think?" Charlie sneers. "The great Snixx working for the big bad evil Prometheus? You'd never be taken seriously again."
"I don't care." Santana declares without reservation. "I just—we just need your help."
"Come on, Charlie-wan-Kenobi, you're their only hope." Brittany teased, nudging Charlie lightly.
"Fine, she'll be my bodyguard and Kurt's assistant. He's been dropping hints about how he needs one. I imagine he'll turn a nasty shade of purple when he sees that you're his newest bitch. It should amuse me to no end."
"Kurt handles your food remember?"
"Kurt's not going to poison me, he makes an insane amount of money being my assistant, he'll probably ask for a 15% raise though." Charlie shrugs, she'd be willing to give him a 30% raise if he asked for it, but he was too much of a suck up to ask.
"So you'll do it? You'll fix her?"
"Maybe not tomorrow, but—" Charlie sighs, she really needs to learn how to say no or something, she's clearly not as intimidating as she should be, "—eventually I will fix her. Stop by my office Monday morning and we'll narrow down the specifics. Will you go now?"
Santana wasn't about to give Charlie a chance to change her mind. With nothing more than a heartfelt thank you she spun on her heel and left as quickly as she could. At least now she had good news. Maybe this was the first step in a long journey to finally making this right.
~O~
"I thought we agreed that you were staying out of it Brittany." Charlie grumbles adjusting her suit. "This situation isn't normal, I don't even really want Santana working for me. Do you know how much in damages she's bound to cause? All these superheroes are nothing more muscle-bound meatheads, who cause far too much death and destruction in their wake because they have rather fragile egos and they like showing off their dicks in all that damn skin-tight outfits."
'I was looking at your designs, and I know you have a few working prototypes, but it should only take you two weeks before you could start medical trials if you really wanted too. I mean I don't think this is going to be the treatment, it shouldn't be the cost for one treatment is already a few million dollars. You should at least patent it though.' Brittany continued as she flipped through Charlie's technical designs, it was brilliant work, she could have done better but Charlie was probably her mental equal or a very close second. 'Also, I like looking at the costumes—it doesn't leave much to the imagination.'
"You perv—"
'Don't even try to pretend you didn't like seeing Snixx in that skin-tight suit.' Brittany threatens.
"I have no fucking clue what you're talking about," Charlie responds shaking her head. "I don't even—"
"How dare you!"
"I'll call you back Brittany, Kurt's throwing a fit for whatever reason." Charlie responds turning to look at her assistant as she hangs up to avoid Brittany's delighted cackle. "What do you want?"
"Oh don't give me that line. You stuck me with a super."
"You wanted an assistant." Charlie notes feigning disinterest. Truthfully she found it amusing as hell to ruffle Kurt's feathers but the only thing that made it better was when he thought she didn't understand.
"I wanted a piece of eye candy that I could command at my will." Kurt corrects pointedly. "Not some brain-dead grunt of a woman."
"Sexism, much?"
Kurt gasps incredulously. "Don't you dare." He points his finger at her. "You're just doing this to mess with me. I won't work with some idiot super that thinks that black and red is a justifiable color scheme. This is some elaborate prank, right? April fools?"
Charlie sighed as she walked into her office placing her briefcase on her glass table, as she took a seat in her chair leaning back so she could look at him. "I'm tired of super heroes breaking into my house, attacking the people who work at my company and being a pain in my ass. So I've decided that I need a bodyguard. However, when I'm in the office she's going to need something to do. What's the saying? Oh right, two birds one stone."
Kurt frowned, she was doing this to get under his skin. He just knew it, it was no wonder she had gone through several assistants before he had gotten this job. Now he lived in a lovely penthouse apartment, because of his hard work. He would quit but he wasn't going to get paid a fraction of what Prometheus was paying him. Prometheus was profitable and it had some of the best benefits of any company. People wanted to have his job. "Do you honestly think her superhero outfit is appropriate work attire? Cause if it is, I'm going to wear assless chaps tomorrow to make a point."
Charlie frowned slightly, Kurt, unfortunately, had a valid point. Santana couldn't just wear her uniform around Prometheus. If anything it would be another headache that she didn't want to deal with. "Honestly Kurt, I get you a new assistant to boss around and you want to repay me by wearing assless chaps. I mean I suppose if you had a nice ass it wouldn't necessarily be that bad. Besides, if I was hiring another assistant, even one that you're in charge of why shouldn't it be a piece of eye candy for me?"
"Because she's your sister's wife." Kurt hisses, this was a disaster. Family drama was not conducive to Charlie's process. When her father had shown up two years ago demanding money, Charlie had developed a creative block of sorts. There hadn't been any new cutting edge ideas for at least two weeks. Family drama was not good for her and part of his job was to keep Charlie away from such drama.
"Details." When Kurt didn't stop glaring at her, she sighed. "You know as well as I do that my sister doesn't deserve her."
"You stayed out of it for a reason. It's why you didn't go to their wedding, it's why you didn't have me send them a decorative gravy bowl or something equally lame from their gaudy registry. Also it's why you haven't visited your twin sister in years," Kurt reminded her checking off each point on his fingers.
"Trust me, I am staying out of it. Unfortunately for me, she decided to break into my home, she's assaulted my employees and has destroyed part of my building. She's not going to go away until I do something and I like my stuff. Don't despair Kurt, we both know that you can make anyone quit in a few days. I mean if I wasn't worried about my company going belly-up in a few days then I'd quit as well."
Kurt scowled, "Fine, when this blows up in your face I'll simply remind you how I told you so."
"Right, and I'll simply remember that I'm your boss and I can fire you for whatever I want." Charlie reminds him. "Now what's my schedule like today? And more importantly what's for lunch?"
He rolled his eyes dramatically. Of course that's what she thought was most important. "It's a surprise." He informs her flatly. He's not going to be any more helpful than he needs to be, especially when she could look at her damn phone where he specifically updated the menu and her schedule for the rest of the week. Every time he didn't, she bitched about it, and every time he did she asked what was for lunch. She could figure lunch out for herself since he knew Charlie wouldn't let herself starve, but if he didn't keep her on track with her meetings she'd blow them off and create some new form of space travel or something. "You've got a meeting with the head of R&D at 9, your 10 o'clock is a conference call with the Chinese factory about HR issues, and you've got Mr. Ryan coming in at 11—"
"Boring." Charlie huffs.
"Don't worry, your afternoon is mostly lab time—because I'm fabulous I know what an ornery bitch you become if you don't get time to tinker with your expensive equipment."
"It's not tinkering."
"Whatever. You need to work with marketing today on your charitable donation strategy and then tonight you have that meeting with the professional dominatrix."
"I don't need you to plan my night life."
"You do and I am. You need sex." Kurt corrects. "You've been extra bitchy lately so if you skip that meeting I'm approving myself for hazard pay."
Charlie shook her head, "It's not even sex, and it's just another form of release. Since paying for sex is technically illegal. Don't want those pesky superheroes breaking into my session and trying to haul me in," Charlie mutters mostly to herself. "Speaking of superheroes, I'll have a chat with her. By the way inform HR that I'm firing the head of the Aegis project. You know the drill, have security head down and clean out all their things and take back all the company phones. Also call IT to make sure to lock their account down, once they enter my office."
Kurt winced, "Really? He just had a kid—"
"Look at my face Kurt, does this face look like I give a fuck? I've let it slide, but there needs to be a new head—preferably someone who won't fuck up my pet project. I need a list of possible replacements by lunch. I'll interview them tomorrow."
"I already have a list compiled, I'll send it to you once he leaves your office." Kurt knows Charlie too well, if he sends her the list now she'll have someone hired before she takes care of the firing aspect.
"Excellent, now send her in Kurt, I'll have a talk with her about appropriate workplace attire." Charlie couldn't hide her smirk if she tried. That uniform really left nothing to the imagination. It would be a shame, but she did have a business to run.
"If you can get her to quit, I'll send you an edible arrangement with the company credit card."
Charlie doesn't bother to dignify that with an answer, instead choosing to turn to her computer and turning it on. She really hoped that Santana didn't throw another tantrum. The last thing she needed was an angry call from the office manager about blowing the floor budget on a new fifty-thousand dollar desk. She was the CEO, it was a requirement to be imposing. Though given the amount of people who enjoyed yelling at her, it was questionable if her status held any real power. Maybe she needed to remind people that she could fire anyone on a whim.