"Okay, so she hacks people too, but you know she tased me? Twice?" Shaw drawled. "Some people skills."
Root, Shaw, John, and Harold had all shown up to the subway that morning only to watch it turn silently into one of their quiet days; no numbers came up, no rogue artificial intelligences tried to kill them… it was actually quite boring. Then Harper had shown up and proceeded to dig fascinating stories out of everyone else, which had led to this: an analysis of Root, whom Harper held in high esteem as a trouble-maker of the highest order, even as the woman in question lazed atop her desk crunching on trail mix snatched from Shaw's bag.
"From what I've heard, that's not even the craziest thing she's ever done," Harper scoffed, scrunching her face into an incredulous expression.
"Not even close," John agreed with the grifter. "You know she threatened to jump off a roof unless the Machine told her where Shaw was?"
Shaw turned on Root like a viper.
"You did what?"
"I didn't say I would jump," Root protested offhandedly.
Shaw snatched the bag of trail mix away from Root with a warning glare.
"You said you would walk along the edge with your eyes closed until you either went splat or She told you," Harper reminded her sometimes-hero gleefully. "I've seen the video."
"There's video?" Both women said it at nearly the same time, although their tones could not be more different; Root seemed interested, if out of boredom more than anything else, but Shaw was visibly livid.
"Harold's got it," Harper informed them. She hopped up onto the back of the nearest chair to better watch the situation she had managed to stir up.
Harold looked up from his desk suddenly, startled by the predatory looks he was now receiving from two of his more dangerous co-workers.
"Show me the footage, Harold," Shaw ordered as she advanced slowly into the subway car. Root, on the other hand, moving in much the same way, murmured a soft "don't you dare."
"I'm not sure—" he squeaked placatingly.
Only Reese's quick-step in between predator and prey kept Harold from a heart attack.
"Neither of you get it," he asserted. He turned his head to look at Finch, hands still up defensively. "We can keep it for blackmail."
Shaw and Root rolled their eyes and turned, nearly in tandem, to slink back to their customary thrones on Root's desk.
"You can try," Shaw muttered. Then she rounded on Root. "You're a world-class idiot, you know that?"
Root merely smiled, taking it as a term of endearment. Of the three, though, Harper's was the happiest expression. She loved this job.
