"You've got to be kidding me," Rose said flatly. She was staring at the dresses that had been delivered to her as the wardrobe for the mission. "I know I'm supposed to be playing a dumb blonde, but this is a bit overkill."

The agent who had handed her the dresses took a step backwards, holding up his hands. "I didn't pick them, I'm just the delivery boy."

Rose visibly bit back another acerbic comment. "Fine, but tell whoever did pick them out that I'm stopping by for a word when I get back."

The man nodded sharply before practically fleeing.

"Think you scared the poor man half-senseless," John commented from where he was sprawled in a chair across the room. They'd been holed up in one of the innumerable conference rooms at headquarters trying to get all the details of their mission ironed out for the last two hours. Of course, they'd spent most of the time sniping at each other instead of working but they were slowly hashing out a plan.

Rose tossed the garment bags on the table before leveling a glare at him. "Good, that's the only way to get wardrobe to ever dress me in something that has a hemline lower than mid-thigh. Have to remind them that I am actually an agent and not a bimbo."

"Shouldn't take out your frustration on him though," he said, leaning forward to see if he could get a glimpse of the dresses Rose was upset about. There was no denying that his reluctant partner was attractive and if he got to see her in an outfit that was a little on the skimpy side it might just redeem this whole disaster of a mission.

(Romana would never let him live it down if she figured out that he really did have a type and, aesthetically, Rose was hitting all the right buttons.)

(All the wrong ones too, though. She seemed to instinctively know how to annoy him with minimal effort.)

She stepped in between him and the clothes, blocking his view. "I'm aware. That's why I stopped yellin' at him."

John sat back in his chair in an easy sprawl, every bit of the cat he had jokingly told her he was. "I just meant that you are mostly frustrated with me and shouldn't take that out on someone from wardrobe."

"I would take it out on you but I'd probably strangle you and then Romana would yell at me for sabotaging the mission and I don't really want to deal with that at the moment," Rose shot back. She leaned against the table behind her and snagged the stack of papers that contained their basic mission plan.

"Why is everyone more scared of Romana than me?" John bemoaned with a sigh as he propped his feet up on the table next to Rose.

She just gave him a quizzical look. "I'm not even going to dignify that with an answer."

"It was a serious question," he insisted, biting back the grin that was trying to fight its way onto his face. He'd probably pay for antagonizing Rose later but right now it was worth it. Maybe they'd somehow annoy each other into forming a functional partnership.

"Romana basically has laser eyes. She can see into your soul and melt it and destroy you with a glance." Rose deadpanned before looking back down at her papers. She paused and looked back up to give John another dismissive once-over. "You just look like an overgrown puppy whose favorite toy has been taken away. Not nearly as much of a visual threat as our dear Director."

John swung his legs back to the floor and pulled himself up. A few steps put him next to Rose and he leaned over to whisper in to her ear. "Looks can be deceiving though."

Rose fought back a shiver at the feeling of his breath hitting her skin but John still caught the involuntary reaction and grinned triumphantly at finally having the clear upper hand for at least a second.

"Oi, out of my personal space," she said, recovering from the brief lapse and stepping away from him. "And I'm a spy, I think I know that appearances can be deceiving, thanks. I've heard stories about you and know you're not as harmless as you look. That is, if those stories are to believed."

There was an implied question in her words but he ignored it, taking a step back towards her and eliminating the space she'd put between them. "You're going to have to get used to having me in your personal space for this mission. They think you're my girlfriend, remember?"

"How could I forget," she said dryly. "Mission hasn't started yet though, so, shift."

John took a step back, not wanting to test the potency of the threat underpinning her innocuous words just yet. There would be plenty of time to test boundaries later, preferably when it didn't look like she was weighing the merits against the ramifications of just socking him in the jaw.

Rose shook her head slightly and looked down at the dossier in her hands. "This has all the makings of turning into a disaster, you know."

"Because of the mission parameters or because of us?" He asked reclaiming his seat and popping a sweet into his mouth from the bag he'd bought at the vending machine earlier.

"Both. I mean, we're supposed to act like we're sleeping together and inseparable when we can hardly go two seconds without yellin' at each other. Not only that, but there'll be no backup for us within 200 kilometers if something goes wrong and we'll be in the middle of a huge cache of weapons if something does go to shit and people start trying to kill us."

"Sounds like my ideal date night," John said flippantly, tossing one of the sweets towards Rose.

She rolled her eyes but he caught the little flicker of a smile that danced over her face for a fraction of a second. The sweet landed on her papers and she gave him a sideways glance before picking it up and eating it.

A few minutes passed in silence, Rose looking at her papers, John steadily eating his way through the bag of candy, occasionally tossing one at Rose.

She ate every single one but never bothered to look up to either thank him or chastise him.

He knew it was just a matter of time until she broke down and said something so he sits and waits and watches. He started counting the seconds when she started fidgeting. Her hair gets tucked behind her ears more than necessary, her fingers toys with the corners of pages or drum a rhythm against her thigh and his smile grows with each tic.

He'd just made it to 48 seconds in his internal count when she looks up and her resistance breaks completely upon seeing him sprawled in his chair, doing nothing but smiling smugly at her.

"How can you be sitting there doing nothing?" She exclaimed, exasperation plain. "We have no solid plans and you can't possibly be completely comfortable with our backstory yet."

John took in the tense set of her shoulders and the crease between her eyebrows and decided now was probably not the best time to continue needling her. "Told you already, I don't really do concrete plans. And I've been working on parts of this mission for some time now and have already met most of the major players, so I don't need to learn as much background as you feel you have to."

Rose sighed and brought a hand up to rub at her temples. "I hate last minute assignments."

"How are you a spy if you don't like thinking on your feet?" John asked after a few seconds. Pretty much everyone he'd worked with had been fine with his way of minimal planning and making it up as they went along. It was quite honestly an essential part of the job, as far as he was concerned.

Rose's eyes flashed, annoyance flaring. "Oh, I love thinking on my feet and adjusting to things that I don't expect but I like to be prepared before things go to shit."

John steepled his fingers, considering her words. They made sense. She made sense — planning and preparing so that she could be more effectively spontaneous and adaptable in the field. It wasn't how he operated but it sounded like a fairly good system.

"I see," he said after a moment. "Are you going to have enough time to prepare?"

Rose glared at him. "I'm going to be ready whether I have enough time or not. Romana's made it very clear that you're not pawning me off so stop tryin' to come up with ways to do so."

He huffed. "I wasn't."

"You were."

"Our flight leaves in four hours. Pardon me for trying to figure out if my partner is going to be up to the job," he shot back, his expression bordering on a sneer.

"I'll be ready," Rose snapped. "I'm a professional, just like you. You should probably keep that in mind."

With that she pushed off from the table and started walking towards the door. "I need some air. Please don't come anywhere near me unless it's life or death. I'll be back later."

John had the brief thought as she stalked out the door that it would quickly become a life or death situation for him if he did follow her.

He waited five minutes before walking out the door to find her.

He found her walking through the indoor garden two floors down, still staring at the pages of the dossier with intense concentration. It was like she was willing the information contained within to crawl inside of her soul and live there for the duration of the mission. She was probably a force to be reckoned with on in-depth missions, he mused, a veritable chameleon with scads of knowledge always on the tip of her tongue. This mission was his turf though, his command, and he needed to know that she would be able to follow his lead.

He had only made it a few steps from the door when it slammed shut and Rose's head snapped up. John barely had time to register the fire in her eyes and the snarl on her face before he was pressed against the wall with her forearm against his throat.

"What part of don't follow me didn't you understand?" She growled, eyes locked with his.

John didn't back down, meeting her glare steadily with one of his own. "It would be easier to explain if there wasn't an arm on my throat," he said quietly, his own brand of danger underlying his words. He could take her down, probably, but he'd really rather not go down that particular road at the moment.

Rose applied more pressure. "'M not letting you go until you explain to me why you're here."

"I just thought it would be more prudent for us to work together," he hazarded.

"You weren't working so that's not a good reason," she shot back.

John bared his teeth in an expression that in no way resembled a smile and pushed back against her arm. "Fine," he said, disdain and arrogance dripping from his words like honey. "I followed you to make sure you weren't cracking under the pressure. I'm not going into the field with someone who's going to fall apart at the slightest provocation."

"I'm a fully vetted and experienced agent of this organization, Doctor," she snarled, his codename sounding like an insult when paired with her sneer. "I can handle myself without falling apart. I just wanted some time away from you so I could think."

"Can you please take your arm off my throat now?" He asked, not responding to her statement.

The air between them was charged with tension, practically crackled with it, and John couldn't resist breaking her gaze to glance down at her lips. Rose's tongue darted out to wet them and then she took a step back, dropping her arm.

"Thank you," he murmured.

"We're going to be in each other's pockets for the entire mission," Rose said, glancing away from him. "I just needed a bit of time to myself to finish decompressing from my previous mission and memorizing my backstory for this one."

"I'll leave you to it. Come find me when you're ready and we can quiz each other on our covers and finish figuring out what to say if they ask us about our history as a couple," John offered, lopsided smile a peace offering. They could finish figuring out their power dynamics later as well. Preferably at a time when she hadn't just attacked him.

"Didn't figure anyone would actually try and talk to the arm candy," Rose muttered, clearly still bitter about her role in the scheme of the mission.

"They'll talk to you. They're very careful and picky about who's let into their inner sanctum. They mostly trust me so they'll trust you by association but we still have to be on guard."

Rose bit her bottom lip and then nodded sharply. "I'll find you when I'm done studying."

John knew a dismissal when he heard one and the fact that she turned her back on him only confirmed it. He slipped out of the garden room and shook his head. It was going to be an interesting mission, no doubt about that.

Neither knew whether their partner or the arms dealer would be the bigger threat and all either of them could hope was that they would make it out unscathed.