On First days and Frays

This was not something he was looking forward too. Hank leaned, striving for nonchalance, against the wall opposite the door that would lead to one of the offices that he was apparently in charge of. There was yelling come from the inside.

"I'm just…going to…see if…" Jen, bless her self-protecting little heart, mumbled off into silence and hurried away down the corridor. Hank barely resisted the urge to call her a coward although, in all honesty, he couldn't say he blamed her, he'd rather be in his own office, in the meeting he was supposed to be having rather than facing this…maybe there would be coffee in his office whilst the meeting was happening, coffee and those little cakes that Jen bought from somewhere with cinnamon and little sugar sprinkles. His attention was snapped back to the real world (which was unfortunately devoid of caffeine and other things that make you hyper thus far) as the door to the office slammed open and a rather frightened intern staggered out underneath a pile of papers and files.

"What's going on in there?" Hank asked as he pushed away from the door. The intern actually yelled in surprise, dropping the massive stack of papers, and stammering a little as they spilled everywhere in a rather dramatic and pretty paper version of a ballet.

"She's insane, Mr McCoy, why on Earth –" The intern stopped, already down on his knees trying to pick up the papers. "She's yelling at everyone, even Roger! Haven't you heard about the reputation she's got?" He babbled aimlessly onwards about the evils of the 'she' as he gathered the papers and scuttled away down the corridor. Hank watched him go, cleaning his glasses on the edge of his tie (an old habit that Ororo, his good friend Storm, had absolutely hated) before replacing them on the bridge of his nose.

"O-kay." He murmured and went inside. The room was…busy for the most part. People were rushing around, it seemed like everyone was talking all at once, yelling at each other to pass things or throw stuff, catch things or move them along. Hank hadn't seen things moving this busily since…well. Ever. And in the centre of it all stood Kit Kincaid, she seemed to be the eye of the not-so-proverbial storm. She was stood at a desk, her back to the window, as files were constantly shifted to and from her desk, pushing her flyaway hair out of her face clumsily as she answered questions from a ring of constantly changing people around her. Hank started to pick out the conversation as he moved closer to her.

"-es, it should be on the left. No, don't be silly, it's in a green folder, send it off with whatsisname, him, that one – For gods sake! It's a simple question. Where the hell does this go?" Kit almost yelled, waving a file in someone's face.

"No that's enough!" Hank pushed forward, breaking the circle of people.

"Finally! You're here!" Kit moved towards him, advancing as if he was the one in the wrong. "Mr McCoy, why have you left your office to go to rack and ruin? The organisation down here's a disgra-"

"There's someone outside." Hank turned at the sound of a new voice. It was a man he'd hired years ago now, a telepath of minimal ability who also had the ability to look into the future for just a few seconds. He stood now with a slightly blank expression that became a horrified grimace before he yelled. "GUN!"

"Down! Everybody get under cover!" Hank roared at the office, grabbing the nearest person and shoving the, down as fast as he could, covering the body with his own – X-men training taking over as the world suddenly shattered around them. No one screamed, it was amazing but no one screamed. The only noise was the gun in the distance and the sound of things breaking – glass, desks, chairs, filing cabinets.

"First day at work and I'm trying to be assassinated." Kit murmured, quite calmly, looking up at Hank from the cage of his arms. "What an incentive to be perky and on time." She added dryly, Hank found himself barking a laugh. Here they were amongst the gunfire and flying debris and she was trying to be funny. "Shouldn't we be talking about insurance cover here?"

"Miss Kincaid-"

"Kit."

"Whatever. Just…hush for a moment, please." He smiled down at her and her expression became…not soft or warm or welcoming by any meaning of the words but…less hostile. That in itself was an improvement. She was quite pretty in her own strange way when she wasn't snarling…or negotiating an even bigger pay rise, lying there with her hair spread in a nimbus around her head, clutching a file to her chest far more protectively than to him.

"So. Getting back to this issue of disorganisation…" She murmured, totally ignoring his request for quiet. Hank looked down at her. He'd met politicians like this, one's who just would not know when to give it up.

"I could just fire you." He said, feeling like the lowest in the world for pulling out that ace. She looked up at him and something about her expression shifted…Hank took off his glasses and blinked a couple of times when he realised that she'd let the corners of her mouth turn upwards in the coldest smile he had seen in a long, long while. But it was still a smile. And she shifted. In a …most interesting way beneath him, Hank tried to ignore it.

"For what? Increasing productivity?" She asked

"For disruption in the workplace, for outright bullying-"

"I was not bullying." Kit interrupted, her grip on the files was so tight now that her knuckles were starting to go white and the card was wrinkling but her face remained impassive. "I don't know where anything is, I asked repeatedly. No one seemed to know, I was loosing my temper." She shrugged. Hank stared down at her. It was a perfectly reasonable set of sentences strung together just so. It made sense. It also got her out of trouble, especially considering they were this close Hank could look into her eyes and see absolutely no hint of a lie.

"You keep control of that temper, Miss Kincaid, or you're out." He said sternly in his best 'boss' voice. "Understand?"

"Certainly, Mr McCoy. Would you mind getting off me now?" Kit asked calmly. Hank realised the sound of things braking had ceased and around them people were rising to their feet, brushing the debris off and helping out the younger interns who just weren't used to it. Hank sprang away from her as if she was on fire, covering it by brushing his suit off, shedding plaster dust and tiny fragments of apparently shatter-proof glass. Someone slapping his shoulder in a friendly gesture made him jump.

"When are we gonna get that office with the bullet proof glass you promised?" One of his employee's smiled at him shakily on his way past. Hank smiled back and watched as the older gentleman tottered off in the direction of the bathrooms and was noisily sick.

"Apparently we had." Hank knelt down as something in the debris caught his eye, batting away smouldering paper and bits of desk to reveal a bullet that was glowing red hot against the carpet.

"Does this happen often?" Kit asked, still standing close to him. Hank looked up at her, wondering why she was sticking so close – and why she was still clutching the file to her chest, only to see her shaking slightly. She was afraid, she was actually afraid – Hank refused to note this as an example that she was humanoid. He stood up and pried the file away from her hands, though her fingers stayed in roughly the same shape. He curled his hands around hers briefly before gesturing to one of the more veteran members of his staff.

"Please take Miss Kincaid for coffee, make sure there's plenty of sugar in it" He smiled, just a little bitterly. "Welcome to Government, Kit."

~*~

"The attempt was clumsy."

"No, really?" Sarcasm shot back from the shadows and the speaker flinched.

"It will not happen again."

"No. It won't." There was the oddly insectile sound of a silencer on a gun and the speaker collapsed to the floor in the circle of light…things crawled from the shadow to claim the body as a meal, devouring it with morbid enjoyment.

"Now what?" Sarcasm again, the voices were becoming distinguishable.

"Now, I believe we take matters into our own hands."