= V =
A week and a half later
Again the for umpteenth time that week, Mira stood between Khan and yet another Head engineer. Mira wasn't sure if it was impressive or terrifying that Khan could get under your skin so very easily and so very quickly. He had done it with everyone. He had even tried with her a few times but Mira had simply ignored him and pretended he was not there though it was growing harder to do so with his constant belittling of her, his remarks about her disgusting pet and that she was a horrible human being who had gotten her degree most likely from sleeping with her professors.
"Look I know he can be a prick but the Admiral said he wanted him on this project, you'll have to deal with it." she tried explaining again but the engineer was having none of it. "I don't care, the man had me fired! Over nothing!" he complained. Mira sighed. He had been the third one now from the new project, a ship, Marcus was building for himself. He wanted Khan on the project. In minutes of having the materials and going over them, Khan was instantly back talking nearly every engineer and throwing ideas out left, right and centre. God forbid if anyone dare say "That's not possible."
There were three so far.
They would earn a glare and then a swift firing from Marcus not soon after Mira had submitted the report of the meetings to him. Ever since the unexpected meeting nearly two weeks ago, Mira had been told that her reports on Harrison would need to be submitted every three days and everyday they had a meeting with the engineering or science staff. Mira had felt bad for this particular engineer. She had known him from working with her Father and while he was stuck in his ways, he was generally a nice man out of the three that had been fired. To his credit, he had gone out of his way to try and implement nearly all of Khan's ideas but, when Khan had laid out the plans for the ship to be piloted by a single person, apparently that was drawing the line or something. Mira wasn't sure as she hadn't been paying attention.
She had been on her personal PADD checking on her packages that was due to arrive in a couple of weeks, somewhat excited to get them if mostly just to see what Khan would do or say once he saw them.
Of course, that opened up on how she was going to give them to him. Mira had contemplated wrapping them as a sort of gift but then she wasn't sure how that would go. She didn't know Khan's birthday or even if he went for that sort of thing. The gift might just simply make his already bad mood worse by being reminded that the family who use to give him gifts was still out of his reach. All negative thoughts were erased momentarily as she pondered. 'Do Augments even do Birthdays? What about Holidays? Well of course they have Birthdays but do they celebrate them…' Mira mused as she pictured a young Khan waking up early and running to see what Santa had gotten him. Then she remembered, he was an Augment. And while there was no record of what life was like for Augmented children, Mira wasn't entirely sure it was great. Mira, of course, hadn't been listening at all to the meeting and she hadn't heard the end of that from Khan. Everything she did now he seemed to pick at and insult her with.
Finally, much to Mira's relief, the security came and escorted the now ex-head engineer off facility limits, but not before she said she would make a call to her father for him. Now, it left Mira alone with Khan.
As Mira turned, she saw that he was now glaring at her. "You did not need to interfere." He said, sounding colder then ever. Much like the reports, Khan's behavior had changed toward Mira. Not that it was particularly warm to begin with but now it felt like she was in artic temperatures and for the life of her she couldn't figure out why. Every five seconds, an insult would roll off his tongue at her so long as she remained in his presence. Mira had done nothing. And despite the messages Marcus was sending her on her failings of getting Khan's trust and constant subtext threats, Mira did not stoop that low.
She would not seduce someone to gain their trust to benefit her. She wasn't that type of person. Mira, also, honestly had no idea how to seduce someone. Sure she had relationships, very well guarded and always at arms length relationships. She knew the basics but Mira could never see herself going after someone who she wasn't interested in, emotionally at least. She would need to be blind not to be interested in Khan physically.
'I mean like really, if it wasn't for the constant scowl and bad attitude I'm pretty sure I would actually try to get to know him better and if that didn't work ogling from afar always suited me.' Mira stopped herself before she could continue on with her wayward thoughts. Not to mention she didn't want to bother with anyone who wasn't emotionally interested in her and Mira wasn't sure if Khan knew how to show emotion or express it toward anyone that wasn't his crew. Well any positive emotion at least. Mira shook off her thoughts and turned her own glare on him. "Yes I did or you would have killed the poor man. Getting him fired wasn't enough. He wasn't a bad person and he was one of the more accommodating engineers." Mira muttered, putting her hands on her hips as she saw Khan roll his eyes at her before returning to his work.
"Don't you have a report to write like the good little lapdog that you are?" Khan spoke clearly and loudly for Mira to hear him and her glare grew. "Excuse you?" an edge to her words, a dare in a way. "Did you think I did not notice?" Khan said with a small chuckle. The hate rolling off of him gave Mira pause but she kept her ground.
"What? It's not a secret. I told you about them before, I'm pretty sure you expected it. It would be pretty dumb of you to think Marcus wouldn't want weekly reports on how you were doing. And now that you're working on something bigger, I have to report more or he's going to jump down my throat and come for another unexpected visit. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone on how bad that would be." Mira said. She told Khan all of this before when she had informed him of his new "project". For the first few days of it, it had been going great. Besides the back talking of course. He had at times, when he thought she wasn't looking, seemed very much like a boy on Christmas day. Then she wasn't sure what shifted to make this happen but something clearly did.
"I was not referring to that." Khan pushed himself up and walked over to her, leaning over her as he sneered in her face. "Doctor Sullivan, glad to hear that progress has been going fast. How are things on the other front? Have you bedded him yet? I want his trust locked down sooner rather then later, hate to think of what can happen while you take forever to secure his trust. - Admiral A Marcus" Khan recited the message she had gotten a couple of days ago and Mira, needless to say, was mortified. Mira now finally understand why Khan was acting the way he was. He had felt betrayed by her and all the ground that she had made with him, to strive for civility, even a modicum of a friendship with the man was now lost because of Marcus. But she had to wonder, Khan read the same messages she had than how could he not read the subtext to it?
How could he not see the threats that Marcus was throwing at her if she did not do as he told her to? Then she quickly recalled and cringed to herself at her bad mistake of not telling Khan the conversation she had that day with the Admiral.
Mira had opted for silence, to not tell Khan because of the threats she had received. It was hell and a half when Marcus found out she knew about who Khan truly was. She didn't want to know what Marcus would do to Khan if she told him about the threats made to her. She was a little scared of what Khan would do with that knowledge. Mira didn't want anything to happen but then she did and that scared her. That a small part of her would wish harm on someone else but it was mostly what Khan would do. Would he be outraged that she was now trapped like him? Would he demand Marcus leave her be… to take action against him for it or would he simply look at her and not care? Would he shrug it off and just look at her like it was her own fault for having such a weakness? For some reason the latter of those options seemed to hurt Mira more. She knew they weren't friends, Mira wasn't blind.
To achieve that level with Khan would be a miracle and then some and she suspected it wouldn't happen because of who she worked for. A too prideful part of Khan would not call anyone who worked for Admiral Alexander Marcus, his leash keeper, a friend. And that hurt on some level that she did not want to acknowledge. Mira had contemplated telling Khan though, on several different occasions and had finally made up her mind a day ago but she just needed to find the right away to tell him without actually telling him. Before Mira could say anything, Khan spoke again.
"There are, of course, others but they are all say the same. I'm curious, did you add trying to bed me into the plan or did he? I wonder what your beloved father would have to say to this. I was a little surprised, of course. I had thought you were being truthful when you said you didn't sleep with men to gain your way up the ladder but it seems you only sleep with powerful men." Khan said standing up and Mira stared at him wide eyed, tears in her eyes at the accusation. So she did what anyone would have done; she slapped him. "You are just like him." Mira spat at Khan, turned her back to him and walked right out of his lab to their quarters.
Mira wasn't paying attention to anything other than getting to her room and away from him. When she entered their quarters, it had slightly surprised her that Khan had followed after her. Honestly, to Mira, she had thought that was the reaction he had wanted. To break her down and make her cry. To make her regret ever having met the man and sharing anything with him. She was disappointed with herself when she had given him exactly that.
Khan had invaded her privacy, which wasn't that bad. It was just messages and nothing personal was among them. But to accuse her of that and then throw her father into her face when he was being used against her, to call her sincerity a lie, that was what did it.
Apparently, Khan had not had his fill of tormenting her. He grabbed Mira's arm, pulling her to a stop and snarled at her. "Do you really think crying is going to work? I see you for what you truly are Doctor. You are a lair and a fake. Pretending to understand so you can worm your way past a person's defenses. Marcus must have been lucky at one point to have find someone like you." Mira, trying to pull her arm out of his grasp and failing horribly to do so, glared at him. "You are clearly fucking blind if that's what you see," Mira seethed at him. Khan just smirked at her, narrowing his eyes. "Then enlighten me." he said the words slowly, in a dark tone.
"I didn't come up with the idea, Marcus wanted me to. He threatened me to and clearly I haven't and it's clearly not going to work." Khan laughed at that as he gave her a scrutinizing stare. "What a remarkable liar Marcus has found for himself." Mira glared at him and finally got herself free of his iron grip on her upper arm. "I am not lying. I was going to tell you about it; I just needed to be careful." Khan, clearly stuck in his ways, didn't believe her as he brought his face down to hers. Their noses nearly touching as he spoke. "I wonder how far you can go." That statement was not for Mira. No, it was his own curiosity. Mira was about to yell at him once again but was stopped when she felt Khan's hand on her throat. His leg sweeping behind her ankles to knock her down onto the floor and much to Mira's disappointed Khan followed. The normal fall turned into a full on smash leaving Mira breathless and in pain.
"Now tell me the truth or shall I press harder?" he said, now crouched beside her as he demonstrated his words as his grip tightened momentarily. Mira shook her head, hair splaying around her head as she struggled against his grip.
"I'm not lying. Marcus ordered me to, threatened me but I haven't done anything. He told me not to tell you or he would hurt my dad." She nearly choked out the words and Khan shook his head much like Mira had at him. His gaze narrowed more as his grip on her neck tightened. "Lies. The kind gestures, the heartfelt words. Making sure I had everything I needed. The looks. Pretending to be what you are not. To make me believe you are more then you actually are." Khan spat at her, anger and hate dripping off every last syllable. Mira kept shaking her head, tears now falling down her temples as both of her hands gripped his wrist. In normal circumstances, Mira would have already been analyzing what he had told her. Going over it with a fine tooth comb.
But right now, she was on her back; her air supply getting smaller by the second and a very terrifying Augment above her. Threatening to choke the life out of her if she wasn't careful. So, she said the first thing that popped into her brain. "I'm not lying, that's just who I am." Mira whimpered, panicked hands leaving his wrist to try and pry off the bracelet she was wearing as she continued on. "He's threatening me but I haven't done anything. I won't do anything like that ever." Khan, noticing Mira's fumbling, grabbed her wrist with his other hand and pinned it down above her head while he stared down at her.
"What, pray tell, is he threatening you with? A promotion? Your father becoming his second in command?" Khan laughed at her; not believing her for a second but, like she had done all this fight, just shook her head. "My father, he did something… he took something and hid it. Marcus knows about it and is threatening him. He's my family, Khan." Mira cried, slow tears now turning into full and raging ones. She was panicking and had said the one thing she had thought would help her. To help Khan understand her situation because she was like him now. Her family was trapping her in a situation she did not want to be in and while one life compared to 72 wasn't much, it was still more then enough for Mira.
She was scared and she didn't know what to do and Khan read her loud and clear. His eyes narrowing before something passed behind them and his hands released her as he stood. He didn't move, he just stared at her for a long moment as Mira gulped down air. When she had calmed enough, Khan extended his hand for her to take. "You are willing to do anything for your family, like I am mine" Khan said slowly, not really looking at her anymore but past her to something else, a memory perhaps. Khan snapped out of it quickly enough though as he returned his stare to her.
"I should not have assumed that you would follow Marcus's orders. You have done nothing but be kind to me and I am sorry I let my anger lead us here." Khan spoke, now looking away from her and Mira simply stared at him, noticing that same look behind his eyes as he spoke but was drawn away from it when he had apologized for what he had done and it had floored Mira. She had never thought Khan would say sorry to anyone, not even his family that he loved so much. She was pretty sure he didn't even know the word existed in his vocabulary except when accepting it from other people or condemning them for thinking something so simple could fix what they were apologizing for. Mira was snapped out of it by Khan's voice. "I am not repeating myself if that was the intention of the silence." he remarked and Mira shook her head at him. "No… I just didn't think you knew that word." Mira told him honestly and Khan gave her a look.
"Of course I do. I know when I am wrong and while I do not like to admit it, I was wrong in this situation." he told her and Mira just blinked at him before she finally took his out stretched hand after a few moments. Letting his words sink in and once she was back on her feet, she went to pull her hand away but Khan held on tight. "Tell me Doctor, did you plan on doing as the Admiral told you to do? Knowing if you didn't your father's life would be at stake?" Mira didn't hesitate for a second when she answered. "No, I wouldn't have. I told you before Khan, I am not that type of person.
My father would have been disappointed in me if I had and of course I'm worried what Marcus will do but I don't know… I'll figure something out" Khan looked at her, studied her as she answered and nodded before letting go. He was about to say something when Mira's alarm on her communicator went off, drawing her attention to the device and causing her to miss the look Khan was giving her.
