Barton's contribution to the savings were in no danger of depleting, even with Kaylee having gone out to buy a new compression coil at the very first opportunity she got. Still, better to keep working, keep up business connections, and not need to rely on those savings too heavily. JARVIS was helpful for this, actually. The cortex and the universe had become the AI's playground, and as much as the prim and proper character of him intrinsically disapproved of crime, he was still able to find the sort of crime that wouldn't upset the moral code too much.
Things like finding wrecks that still had something on them could be salvaged. Not that they had a lot of buyers right now, and they were all more than a bit out of Serenity's way at the moment, so the wrecks were just kept note of rather than immediately visited and looted.
The Tam siblings had been allowed to stay on Serenity. In this way, they kept on the move as per Clint's advice, and Simon 'paid' for his and River's passage by taking up the post of ship's doctor. River hung around Clint more than pretty much everyone else though, her brother included. She even slept in the passenger bunk that Clint had used for all of one sleep-cycle. Then again, Clint had stopped Simon from administering random injections to River in the hopes of 'fixing' whatever had been done to her. He snatched the drugs from Simon every single time the boy had come after his sister with a loaded injection. Clint didn't hesitate to turn the needle around and jab the doctor with it. Not once. There was a betting pool going on when the boy would figure out to stop attempting to attack River with needles.
He may not have been a doctor himself, but Clint knew a bad idea when he heard one. Girl had been pumped full of who knows what. Her system needed time to flush it all out. Also, not being a doctor, Clint didn't automatically believe that everybody had something medically wrong with them that required the sort of professional intervention that included being jabbed with a needle and injected with a questionable substance.
At the moment, four of them (Mal, Zoe, Jayne, and Clint) were in a bar, drinking lightly and playing a four-way game of Chinese Checkers. About half-way through the game, Mal pocketed a piece of paper he hadn't had moments before. It was part of keeping up the business contacts. Yes, JARVIS could have found them another job, they'd already successfully pulled four of JARVIS' jobs since the AI had started playing with the cortex, but there was a certain amount of polite to doing things the old fashioned way. They'd get JARVIS to get them the full details of the job they'd just been offered of course. Mal had discovered he liked knowing those sorts of things. It cut down on unpleasant surprises.
The benefits of having the AI on board Serenity had seen the crew adjusting to his presence pretty quickly.
Then some piss-drunk idiot started yelling from up by the bar.
"A toast! A toast! Quiet! Shut up!" the drunk demanded.
The music cut off.
"I, I got words," the man said.
Clint looked the man up and down quickly. Washed out blue and green-ish-blue clothes, completely shaved head, and (of course) a drink in his hand. He was not impressed.
"This is an ass-pish-ush day," the bald drunk continued. "We all know what day it is!"
Clint stood up.
"Where you goin'?" Jayne demanded quietly, and turned to Zoe when Clint didn't answer. "What day is it?"
"A proud day," the man continued.
"To be a drunk asshole?" Clint demanded, as he absently grabbed the man's shirt, pulled him down, and then slammed his skull into the edge of the bar. Not so hard it bled, but the guy would have a nasty lump there for a few weeks. "Turn the music the fuck back on," he snapped at the man behind the bar. "I didn't come here to listen to ugly bald drunks make slurred speeches."
It seemed, however, that every other man in the bar was a friend of the ugly baldy, or at least didn't like that Clint had cut the guy off in the middle of his speech, since a whole lot of them stood up all confrontational like.
"You think you could do better?" one of the men asked. "We must have a speech to toast on Unification Day," he pointed out.
Clint turned and regarded the man coldly. Natasha Romanoff in winter sort of cold. "You want a toast?" he asked. "Alright then," he allowed, and went back to the table where Mal, Zoe and Jayne were sitting so that he could lift his drink. "To the Unification War," he said with a snarl. "May such a grand-scale loss of life never happen again."
That seemed to cool a lot of people down.
"There was a time when wars past were remembered with solemnity," Clint continued, a sneer painted across his face, as he stepped out from the table to stalk around the room, looking each person in the eye as he spoke. "Not celebration. A time when, after the wars were over, both sides stood together to mourn all that had died, fighting for what they believed in. Right or wrong, victory or defeat, any side that says it won its war does a disservice to all the people who lost their lives as they fought for that victory. So I propose this toast," he declared as he halted in the middle of the bar. "To all those who will never drink again, my next drink, I drink for you."
"Here here," was murmured around the room, cups were raised in agreement around the room, toasting the fallen as Clint had called for, and cups were emptied.
"That was..." Zoe started, when Clint rejoined them at their table.
"Beautiful," Jayne finished. "I didn't fight no war, but that were a real touchin' sentiment."
"Thank you," Mal said softly.
Clint noticed that every cup at the table was empty, when they hadn't been before, and nodded silently.
"Clint..." Zoe said, trying to find words a second time. "Where did... all that come from? You held the attention of everybody in the bar. I think even the serving girls found a drink to take a sip from when you made that toast."
"Well, I was in the circus when I was a kid," Clint offered with a humourless smirk. "I know how to handle being the centre of attention. If you want," he added, turning to Mal, "I'll hold the punch-bag for you to beat on later."
Mal's face gave a thoughtful twitch, a quick pursing of the lips before they returned to their previous place. "Thanks," he said, "but I think I'll be able to go a U-day without beating something up. At least just this one time. We've made the contact, let's get back to Serenity."
"You're the captain," Jayne agreed.
On the way out, Clint was stopped by one of the patrons. "Thank you for your words," the big brown man said. "They were Jing Tian Dwohn Di, and will not be fast forgotten in this place."
Clint nodded. "You're welcome," he said softly. "But my captain is waiting for me."
"Yi Lu Shwen Fohn," the man bid him with a solemn nod.
"Joo How Rin," Clint answered, then lengthened his stride to catch up with the others.
Mal pulled a, to Clint's thinking, rather fat walkie-talkie of a thing out of his pocket to let Wash know to let the ramp down and them in.
Jayne broke off to head to his own bunk, and River attached herself to Clint's shadow as soon as he was inside the ship enough to cast one – which meant Simon wanted to try more drugs on her again in an attempt to fix whatever had been done to her at that academy she'd attended. Clint still hadn't gotten the name of the place, annoyingly enough.
"Hello all," Mal greeted as he led the way onto the bridge.
"Hi," Wash answered, his tone coloured with mild surprise even as he greeted his wife with a tender kiss to her hand.
"And how are our passengers?" the captain continued, turning to Kaylee who was underneath the co-pilot's terminal.
"They're fine," she answered with a smile as she rolled out and sat up so she could speak to them all properly. "River's glad Clint is back, obviously, but she's no more harmed 'an the rest of us," she added with a nod towards the man in question.
Clint gently pulled River into his side, being the protector she clearly needed at that moment.
"So, what happened?" Kaylee asked eagerly, her usual bright smile on her face. "Was there a terrible brawl?"
"Oddly enough," Zoe answered, "there wasn't."
"You managed to stay out of trouble on U-day?" Wash asked, shocked. "How did you manage that?"
"Blame the good Mr Barton," Mal answered with a wry smile and a gesture to Clint. "It was all his doing."
Clint bowed with minor theatrics to his captain. "Want or need a hand under there, Miss Sunshine?" he asked Kaylee.
"No, I'm nearly done," she answered with a smile. "Just have to put the panels back in place now," she explained.
Clint nodded in acceptance, and stood with River, just waiting for Kaylee to be done.
"Have I mentioned how grateful I am that you provided the funds for that new compression coil?" Kaylee asked as she rolled back under to finish her job of the moment. "Or all those yummy things you brought on board with you? I don't think I've ever eaten real meat before!"
Clint smiled. His 'donation' to the kitchen stores had been 'discovered' not long after Mal had agreed to take Clint on as crew. Kaylee had gone to start preparing the sit-down meal for eighteen-hundred and screamed when she found what was stowed in the pantry and the ice box. It had been amusing to Clint that, simply because no one else really knew all the ways a person could cook the things he'd brought – not even Shepherd Book – he had automatically been recruited for kitchen duty.
Clint had extended a blanket welcome to watch from the other side of the counter and learn how, and it was mostly Kaylee and River who did watch him cook, but Book and Inara both came by occasionally as well, and Jayne had stopped to watch – and taste – as Clint made a gravy to go with the roast one night.
On the other hand, Clint kept his chocolate stash carefully hidden in his bunk. He was generous with the provisions he'd brought along, but not that generous. And if the average, wimpy woman could become as dangerous as a wild tiger when guarding her chocolate stash, then even more so the master assassin.
"JARVIS," Mal called into a speaker. "What can you tell us about this job we're being offered by Niska?"
"If you will give me a moment to slip into his closed system," JARVIS began.
Obligingly, they all did wait, without a peep even.
"He's an unpleasant sort, Captain Reynolds," JARVIS supplied a few seconds later. "The job is medical supplies en route to a town that needs them rather desperately. For once, the Alliance is sending the exact medical supplies that are needed."
"What can you tell us about Niska?" Clint asked. He had, after all, never heard of the guy.
"He currently has his wife's nephew hanging from chains, upside-down and bleeding, in the room next to his office," JARVIS answered distastefully. "Doing business with this man is not something I can recommend in good conscience."
"I don't mind stealing from the Alliance," Mal stated, "save that it can be more than a mite risky to a person's health. I do take issue with stealing from people as mightn't live another week if I perform that bit of thievery. JARVIS, does Niska have any other work we could do without compromising that?"
"Adelai Niska deals in murder, extortion, robbery and drugs," JARVIS answered blandly, "with robbery being his general method for acquiring the drugs. Usually drugs that are sorely needed by people on border moons and the Rim, thereby increasing their value on the black market."
"Sounds like a man that would improve the lives of everybody around him by being dead," Clint suggested.
"Indeed Sir," JARVIS agreed.
"Done!" Kaylee announced happily and rolled out from under the co-pilot's station.
Clint extended a hand to help her up, and got a peck on the cheek for his troubles.
"Don't see how we can get paid any time soon, we don't take this job," Mal said, clearly very unhappy about it. "Take us longer to get paid we turn it down and try to find somethin' else."
"Could always rob him," Clint suggested lowly. "Miss Sunshine, Miss Genius, would you care to join me in the kitchen and share and apple or two?" he offered, elbows extended for them to take.
River didn't hesitate to take hold of Clint's right arm, and Kaylee giggled before she did the same on Clint's left.
"Actually, that's not a bad idea," Mal said as the trio left the bridge.
"An apple, sir?" Zoe asked.
"Robbing the man," Mal answered. "JARVIS..."
Then Clint and the girls were too far to hear any more.
"It's like you breathed new life into Serenity," Kaylee complimented Clint as they settled down in the kitchen. "Bringin' your fancy computerised Puhn Yoh an' yer big ol' crate of cashy money."
"Still has one crate not opened," River said softly. "Parting gift."
Clint hummed as he grabbed a knife and a couple of apples from where they were being kept, as well as three plates to put the apple pieces on when he'd carved the fruit up, before he sat down with them.
"Ooh, a 'parting gift'?" Kaylee asked, a smile on her face as she settled her weight forwards, happily inquisitive. "Sounds romantic."
Clint snorted. "I'm pretty damn sure Tony wasn't interested in me that way," he answered. "Very much a lady's man before he figured out who his 'the one' was."
Kaylee bit her lip and ducked her head, torn between embarrassment and laughter at her mistake.
Clint considered the two girls as he sliced and peeled the apples he'd selected. River was a recognised genius – made her 'top three percent', 'gifted' doctor older brother look like a drooling idiot child, by the guy's own admission. Could do anything she put her mind to. Kaylee was a genius too, more specialised though. Machines and engines and electronics. Not astrophysics or medicine or the arts. If he pulled up Tony's blueprints for the arc reactor – and JARVIS had them – then these two girls would likely be the only ones since Tony had died to be able to build such a thing from scratch. Well, Kaylee could. Not sure if River would quite get how to handle the machinery used in casting components. Certainly the girl could build it once she had all the parts ready made though.
"Taking a break?" Inara's voice called softly as the Companion entered the kitchen.
"Hawkeye is slicing apple for us," River answered.
"Hawkeye?" Inara repeated, curiosity in her tone as she looked from Kaylee and River to Clint.
"It's a nickname," Clint answered.
"Stage name," River corrected. "Then code name after."
"That too," Clint allowed with a sigh as he kept slicing the fruit. "You want some of this?" he offered.
"I'd love some, thank you," Inara answered, and took a seat beside Kaylee. "If some more of your story comes with it," she added with a smile. "Why 'Hawkeye'?" she asked.
"There's this old story," Clint started. "I forget who it's by, but it was called The Last of the Mohicans. There's a character in it called Hawkeye. Man never missed what he shot at. Neither do I. That, and possibly my preference to being high up, is how I got the name."
"The Hawk? Up in his nest as usual," River said in a gruff tone that didn't match her expression: her eyes were unfocused as she looked through the only man at the table.
Clint chuckled. "Yeah, that got said about me a fair bit when my superiors were looking for me," he admitted, and started to share out the peeled slices of apple.
"Ladies, Clint," Mal greeted as he came down from the bridge and joined them.
"What's the buzz?" Clint asked.
"We're going to dock at the skyplex, let Niska know in person we won't be takin' the job," Mal answered.
"Won't be taking a job?" Inara asked, equal parts curious and incredulous.
"Won't," Mal confirmed. "But while we're docked I want you three to make yourselves scarce," he continued, locking eyes with Kaylee and River before he fixed on Inara again.
"Ashamed to be associating with a whore?" Inara asked archly.
"That's not it," Mal answered. "Niska is a man with a particularly unlovely reputation. I'd feel better if he didn't even know you all existed. Keeps you safer."
"Mal, if you're going to be a gentleman, I may just die of shock," Inara teased, surprised by the sentiment but never at a loss for words when confronted with the captain.
Mal sketched a bow to Inara before he turned to Barton. "Clint, you'll be comin' with Zoe, Jayne an' me when we go talk to Niska."
Clint gave a tight little salute from where he was seated. "What's our ETA?" he asked.
"Wash puts it at no more than an hour," Mal answered.
Clint nodded in acceptance. He'd finish feeding fruit to the females and then get geared up and ready to go. Guess this wasn't the day he'd be showing Kaylee and River that arc reactor.
Mal returned the silent nod and went to explain the particulars to Jayne.
"So, what will you three, shiniest of the shiny in all the Black, get up to while the rest of us are off talking crime with a Hwen Dan?" Clint asked with a smile.
"We could go in for a little bit of pampering," Inara suggested. "Girl talk, painting our nails, brushing each other's hair..."
Kaylee hummed with delight at the idea. "Sounds nice," she agreed. "What do you think, River?" she asked the youngest girl, wanting to make sure she was feeling properly included.
"The stroke of a brush and new paint will not change the damage done, only conceal for a short time," River answered as she considered a slice of apple between her right finger and thumb.
Kaylee and Inara both looked at the girl a little helplessly, and turned to Clint for assistance and guidance. For reasons essentially unknown to pretty much everybody on the ship (Simon included, even though Clint had given him a very quick explanation), Clint was the one who handled River best.
"Miss Genius," Clint called gently, taking the slice of apple from River's hand and pressing it lightly to her lips.
River opened her mouth and accepted the offering, bit down and chewed when half the slice was in, her eyes fixed on Clint's.
"It's not about hiding what was done," Clint said. "It's about feeling good about yourself regardless of all that. Took your brain to play, pulled you out, stuffed something else in. You got unmade. Genius girl, this is the part where you make yourself again. However you want. Sunshine and Irises here are gonna help you. Dohn-luh-mah?"
"Shi," River agreed with a nod of her head. "Sheh Sheh," she added with a small smile.
"Sunshine and Irises?" Inara asked.
"I'm Sunshine," Kaylee supplied happily, a grin trying to push past her cheeks to her ears.
Clint smirked dashingly at her. "On account of that sunny smile," he said, then turned to Inara. "If you don't like me calling you Irises..." he offered.
"No, no, it's... it's very pretty," Inara hastened to say. "I'm just... confused."
"Have you ever seen iris flowers?" Clint asked the woman. "They're pretty things, and can come in all sorts of colours too."
Inara nodded in acceptance.
"Irises may be planted by rivers to purify the water, and roots can be used for dye, grey to black colouring depending on how many roots are used," River supplied neutrally.
Inara nodded again, taking that information in. Then she smiled. "Does Zoe have a nickname too? Since you've given one to all of us..." she suggested.
"SIC's are harder," Clint admitted. "Besides which, I don't think anyone but her mister could get away with calling her a nickname to her face. Now, if you lovely ladies will all excuse me, I'm going to check my weapons and make ready for intimidating bad men."
"Worse than the bad men on this ship?" Inara quipped.
"Much," Clint agreed firmly. "You'll all be safer if you don't get spotted while we're docked."
"We'll stay hid," Kaylee promised.
~oOo~
In his bunk, Clint had his tinkering bits out and was following a blueprint that JARVIS had brought up on the screen of his computer. It was a bug. It would, essentially, give JARVIS a proper gateway into Niska's complex. The AI wouldn't have to weave his way through firewalls once the bug was in place. In fact, he'd be able to establish himself in the skyplex and have access to... most of the rest of the universe from it, with a better, more solid signal than could be provided by Serenity.
"Pilot Washburne is docking," JARVIS informed Clint.
"Good timing," Clint answered. He straightened his spine, put the soldering iron in its cradle and turned it off, and set the only-just-finished bug down beside the computer for a moment to double-check his weapons. "I make it right?" he asked.
"Yes Sir," JARVIS answered. "I will be able to take complete control of the skyplex with this installed anywhere near a centrally used computer."
"Or whatever it is they use these days," Clint quipped. "So much of it's paper thin these days, it's hard to know what's really permanent."
"Agreed," JARVIS answered. "Though the hand-held cortex access taken from Mr Dobson's luggage was certainly useful."
"Yeah," Clint agreed, and swiped up the bug again. "Infiltration time," he decided, cracked his neck once to the right and left, and climbed out of his bunk.
The four who were going aboard the skyplex were greeted at the airlock by a thick-set and blatantly (but not heavily) armed grunt in a no doubt standardised blue-and-black uniform. Without a word, the guy led them through boring, plain white walls.
"No imagination," Clint commented as he followed along, making a mental map of the rout they were being toddled along by their silent guide. "Always the walls are white on some scale of sterile or they're painted a grey that's the same colour as the metal underneath, just using paint to slow the rusting process."
The skyplex wasn't nearly as confusing as some of America's old naval vessels could be, where in order to get from the bow on the second floor to the stern of the same you had to go via the third, the fifth, and the first in that order. And of course, SHIELD bases (both the ones on land and the ones, like the Hellicarrier, that weren't) were an order of magnitude more labyrinthine.
"And what colour would you have painted it?" Jayne asked, a little sarcastic and a little tetchy. He was suffering from the effect the environment was designed to create: he was mildly intimidated, and clearly not as good as Clint at making a mental map while on the move.
Clint thought about that. Jayne's question, not his attitude. "Not sure," he admitted. "Maybe I'd go for colour-coding the place, work my way through the rainbow as I worked up from the first floor to the top. Confuse the hell out of visitors, they arrive and see how painfully cheerful the place looks."
"Especially with what rumour says goes on inside of it," Mal quipped lowly.
"You're not questioning my sources, are you Captain?" Clint asked wryly, all cheek and false offence. He knew Mal wasn't doubting JARVIS, but they didn't want Niska to know more than they were planning on telling him themselves.
"Course not," Mal answered easily.
They eventually reached a door – and by eventually, that meant that Clint had settled within his mind on a tune to whistle irreverently. He wasn't a SHIELD agent any more, and this visit wasn't one that needed him to be silent. He liked to whistle now and then. Clint cut off whistling the hornpipe when the grunt turned the 'doorknob' and pulled the door aside – which in turn presented them with a big blonde man with some interesting tattoos (the most obvious of which took up a good portion of his face) and who didn't appear to properly comprehend the meaning or purpose of shirts as their wearing applied to him. The guy had probably had his nose no more than an inch from his side of the door before it opened, and his gaze was very steady.
Clint couldn't help but be reminded of Thor, even though this guy didn't have as much hair (Thor had a more flowing mane and more beard) and Thor didn't have any tattoos... that Clint was aware of anyway. And frankly, if the guy did have any tattoos then Clint didn't want to know about them anyway. Actually, Thor probably couldn't stay that still either, unless he absolutely had to, and there was that Thor preferred a massive hammer to a massive hook like this guy was holding in a vaguely threatening way. Okay, so less in common between the two than initial impressions might have served to cause.
Clint dismissed it as unimportant. After all, it was unimportant.
"Is fine, Crow, they can come in," a voice with, to Clint's ear, a slightly Russian accent called, all cultured like.
The big blonde, Crow apparently, stepped back from the door and into the office of his employer.
Mal followed, then passed him when Crow just stood aside by the door, and the rest of them followed Mal. Clint brought up the rear.
"And Malcolm Reynolds is which?" asked the well-dressed, elderly gentleman from where he reclined in his very expensive looking chair, behind his very expensive looking desk, which had an equally expensive looking lamp sitting on top of it.
Clint wasn't really interested in the frivolities of such things, but he had been a spy, once upon a time. He wasn't as good a spy as Natasha had been, but she had the advantage of being a beautiful woman. That ugly lamp looked like something that Tiffany's would have made. He was pretty sure Pepper'd had one in her office, actually.
"I'm Captain Reynolds," Mal answered easily, coming to a stop a professional sort of distance from Niska's desk. "This is my first mate Zoe," he said, turning slightly to indicate the woman who had taken her place on his left. "This is Jayne," he added, with a jerk of his thumb to indicate the gun-hand on his right.
"Very nice," Niska said. "And the man in back? Why not introduce him?"
"Hawkeye," Clint answered for himself. For all that he had the bug that needed to be planted near Niska's central server, he'd taken the rear-most position behind Mal, just slightly to the right so that he could see clearly between the captain and Jayne.
Mal turned to look at Clint a moment before returning his attention to the old man. "He's a new hire. Introducing him to potential clients isn't something I'm doing automatic yet," he explained.
The old man nodded in acceptance. "I am Adelai Niska," he said, finally introducing himself and confirming all of their suspicions. "You have seen Crow. He likes to stand at the door and say 'boo!'" the old man said with a chuckle, all joviality. He was the very picture of a good-natured elderly gentleman in his double-breasted suit and gold-rimmed glasses. Possibly even the sort of good-natured elderly gentleman that had grandchildren he liked to give boiled lollies to.
"We got word you might have a job for us," Mal stated, blunt but polite enough considering their current situation. This was a business meeting after all. Sort of. "So we're here to discuss that possibility."
"Yes!" Niska agreed happily, and pushed himself out of his very comfortable looking chair. It might have even been real leather it was upholstered with, all black and smooth, but Clint wouldn't bet money on that when he was only seeing it from a distance of several feet. "Yes, an exciting job!" the man continued as he circled around his desk. "A train," he declared. "Has, er, something I need. You have worked a train before?" he asked.
"We may have hit one or two in our history," Mal answered neutrally.
"Are you going to ask me what it is I need?" Niska pressed.
"As a rule: no," Mal replied, calm and not as discomforted as he might have been had he not already gotten all the details from JARVIS before they'd docked. To say nothing of having every intention of turning the man down. There was a plan and everything. One that should let them walk out of Niska's skyplex again without getting shot at, even.
"Yes. Good," Niska said happily as he eased his weight back onto the edge of his desk. "You have reputation. 'Malcolm Reynolds gets it done' is the talk."
"Well, I'm glad to hear that," Mal said, genuinely pleased to have such a reputation, even if it had drawn the attention of such an unpleasant person as Niska.
"You know what is reputation?" Niska asked conversationally. "Is people talking, is gossip. I also have reputation. Not so pleasant, I think you know," he said, and turned from Mal to his shirtless doorman. "Crow," he called, an order being given with just the man's name.
Clearly the man had been employed for some time, as he followed it immediately. A door beside Niska's desk was jerked open fully and forcefully by the big man – revealing a man strung, upside-down by iron shackles around his ankles, bleeding slightly.
"Now, for you, my reputation is not from gossip," Niska informed them, a sort of dark glee overtaking his feature. "You see this man? He does not do the job. I show you what I do with him, and now my reputation with you is fact," he declared happily as he shut the door once more. "Is solid. You do the train job for me, then you are solid," he said, getting right up in Mal's face, a smile still on his own wrinkled visage. "No more gossip."
"Right," Mal answered lowly, shocked at the sight of the body even though he had been more or less forewarned. Knowing that sort of thing was going on was one thing. Seeing it was altogether another. "Except," he continued, a little more firmly. "We actually did a bit of research on the job. For all that I forget Hawkeye in the introductions, he's become mighty useful real quick. Hawkeye?" he called over his shoulder, waving the man up and taking a step back for himself, surrendering the central position of negotiator.
Niska frowned.
"May I use your system?" Clint asked politely.
Still frowning, Niska nodded slowly and gestured for Clint to approach his desk and use the display that was there. It was, conveniently enough, displaying the train that Niska wanted them to rob.
Clint trailed the fingers of one hand over it while his other hand – holding the bug – apparently supported his weight while he bent over the table.
"See, the captain doesn't mind stealing Alliance goods. None of us mind doin' that," Clint said with a smile. "We're happy to, even. But," he added, and brought the focus to the carriage that would be between the passengers and the cargo that Niska wanted. "Not when he has to walk through a squad of Alliance Feds, who happen to be looking for his ship, just to reach it."
"I get the job done," Mal stated firmly as Clint backed away from Niska's desk.
The bug was left behind, though nobody saw.
"But that's because I don't go in blind to all the factors around it," Mal continued. "This bein' our first try at doin' business together, I thought it would be polite to tell you in person why I wouldn't be acceptin' it, even with the exceedin' attractive pay bein' offered."
Niska breathed in deeply and clearly unhappily.
"Very well," the old man decided. "It seems we do not do business. Is unfortunate."
"For us as well," Mal agreed. "The chances of us getting pinched on this one are just too high though. No one wants to risk that."
Niska nodded, and they were summarily dismissed from his office. The thick-set, blatantly armed grunt stepped into view once more and escorted them back through the skyplex to where Serenity was docked.
"Let's go, Wash," Mal called into the comms once they were aboard and the airlock was closed again behind them.
"Aye-aye Captain," Wash's voice came back cheerfully.
"JARVIS?" Mal called.
"I have the pass codes to all of Niska's accounts," the AI answered. "I'll start skimming off the top and laundering the funds to end in Serenity's account."
Mal grinned. "I could get to like this kind of crime," he informed Zoe conversationally. "No one got shot at even once."
"I could have done without the image of that man hanging up by his feet, Sir," Zoe answered.
"Long as it ain't us gets corpsified," Jayne quipped firmly.
"Welcome back," Shepherd Book greeted them from the stairs. "Shall I let the ladies in the shuttle know you've returned?"
"Think they might have noticed, what with us having taken off an' all," Mal answered. "You can rejoice, Shepherd. We did good works today. Us turning down the train job Niska wanted done leaves it too close for him to get someone else to pull the job, so Paradiso will get the meds they need, and on top of that we're draining the unpleasant man's funds," the captain said with a charming smile, pleased with his day's work.
"The morality is somewhat convoluted," Book stated, but said nothing more as he shook his head and returned to the dining area.
"Well," Clint said as he stretched his arms over his head. "I think I'll see if the ladies in the shuttle will let me join them. Maybe get my hair brushed."
"Think they'll do mine?" Mal asked.
Zoe smirked at them both, amused. "Might be nice actually," she admitted softly. "Don't have much occasion to be all feminine."
"Even the career military woman shouldn't miss out on the female bonding," Barton commented lightly as he started to move for the stairs. "What about you, Jayne?"
"Like hell I'm gettin' all sissified," the man answered gruffly. "We didn't even get a good dust-up from this job. I'm gonna set the bag up," he said, and proceeded to stomp off to his bunk for his punching bag.
"Inara'd probably kick me out of her shuttle anyway," Mal said with a shrug, and headed off for his own bunk.
"That's true," Zoe quipped.
Clint chuckled and happily thumped his way up the stairs. When he reached the door to Inara's shuttle, he knocked – it wouldn't do to surprise the ladies inside if they were in any sort of undressed state after all, even if Inara had surprised him with her undressed state the last time he'd knocked on her door.
"Ching Jin!" three happy feminine voices called out.
Clint opened the door, and he had to smile at the sight.
"Clint!" they cheered in welcome.
"And Zoe!" Kaylee added when she spotted the first mate over Clint's shoulder. "You're gonna join us?"
"The thought had crossed my mind," she admitted with an amused smile.
"Have fun while we were gone?" Clint asked as he settled down beside River.
Her hair was tied up in a braid that had been arranged like a crown on her head, all Maid Marion style. Her lips had been painted the same incredible red as Inara's, and more make up had been used to disguise how very pale she was.
"Yes," River answered firmly, the smile on her face almost as bright as Kaylee's. "She is not as unmade as she was before, and the Sunshine and the Irises have been kind."
"Not a hard thing to do," Kaylee asserted happily.
"We all just have to remember that River is a genius, and the rest of us aren't," Inara commented wryly as she lifted a brush to Zoe's hair.
"The girl included," River added, a little embarrassed and clearly talking about herself.
"Woman," Clint corrected. "You're how old now?"
"Seventeen, almost eighteen," River answered.
Clint nodded. "Then you're a young woman, not a girl," he said. "And should be treated like one," he added, a little more speculatively, before he smirked. "Which means flirting."
Every woman stopped and stared at him, stunned into silence.
"The doc will have a fit!" Kaylee objected, eyes wide.
"Of course he will," Clint answered with a careless shrug. "He's her big brother. That's what they do when people start flirting with their little sisters. Granted, I'm a bit old to be Miss Genius's boyfriend, but last I knew, young women of seventeen dated and had boyfriends, and were free to flirt with older men as well."
"So should young women of a bit more than that," Kaylee added pointedly.
Clint's smirk reasserted itself, and he moved fast as a snake to take hold of one of Kaylee's ankles.
"Hey!" she yelped as he tugged her towards him.
Footwear had been discarded for painting toenails, so Clint didn't have anything in the way to stop him from digging his thumbs into the sole of Kaylee's left foot.
Her eyes rolled up into her skull in pleasure as she moaned happily. "Ni How Shwai. Ta Ma De Wo. Tian Xia Suo You De Ren Dou Gai Si. Wo De Tian A," she exclaimed in whispered rapture as Clint massaged the appendage he had taken hostage.
River giggled as she watched, but Zoe and Inara looked between Kaylee and Clint with raised eyebrows.
"That good, huh?" Zoe asked when the litany of Mandarin ended.
"Jing Tian Dwohn Di," Kaylee answered happily.
"Shi Yan," Clint cheekily informed the woman he was torturing with pleasure.
"Where did you learn to give foot massages that -" Inara started.
Kaylee interrupted. "That make my nethers happy without need of a Zhan Dou De Yi Kuai Rou or somethin' that runs on batteries?" she finished, eyes shining as she looked down her body to the man who still held her foot.
"Yao Nu," Zoe accused Kaylee fondly.
River continued to giggle happily. She was the youngest there, and felt... safe for the first time since she'd been singled out in the Academy. These women, and Clint, didn't treat her as if having suffered through someone taking her brain and play made her less, or made her unstable, or made her sick. It was nice, and she could only take joy in it.
She hadn't been... well... the first night out of the cryo box. She hadn't gone to Simon though. She'd known he'd give her more drugs to make her sleep. She'd gone to Clint, Agent Barton, Hawkeye – the man who'd literally given her the shirt off his own back and held her when everything was confusing and frightening. He'd held her again, rubbed soothing circles on her back and kept her hair out of the way as her body rejected, and ejected, the foreign substances into his toilette. When she was done, the Hawk had given her a glass of water, carried her back to bed, tucked her in, and vanished for a little while – only to reappear later with a thin but warm and comforting soup.
Chicken noodle, he'd said it was. To soothe her stomach. It had worked too.
"You'll have nightmares," he'd said. "But they're just nightmares now. You wake up from them and they stop hurting quite as much."
And she'd accepted it from him, because Clint had nightmares too. He'd spoken from experience, as one who knew better than anyone else on the ship what she was feeling – and also honestly knew that she was the only one who really knew what she was feeling, and was willing to support her through it all.
And here he was now, giving Kaylee a foot-rub and telling them about the beautiful but deadly red-head co-worker he'd learned how to give proper foot-rubs from – because if he'd gotten it wrong she'd have compressed his wind-pipe with those feet he was supposed to be giving pleasure to.
On a good day.
On a bad day if he'd gotten it wrong she'd have crushed it and he'd have to be rushed to the infirmary for surgery.
"What was her name?" Inara asked.
"Natasha," Clint answered. "Her name was Natasha."