CHAPTER SEVEN
( BE BETTER )
AGENT BARTON'S COMM link was almost finished by the time Edith stalked her through the office. Quinn had stayed up until midnight on Friday, trying her best to get the tech to show some sign of life but ended up failing. She had to rewire the whole communicator to get some sort of frequency out of the hearing processor. She thought about it from time to time over the weekend, jotting notes down on how to improve the comm link while at the same time keeping it in its original style. The comm link Agent Barton preferred became outdated a couple of years ago, she hadn't seen any sense, yet here she was working on one.
She bites down her lip, as she heard the nearing footsteps of Edith, she obviously wonders how this project is coming along. That's what this comm link was, a project, not just an easy task like Steve's. His was the first she worked on this morning, it took about twenty minutes to fix the frayed wire that caused the static to become an issue in the earpiece. It was newer than Barton's though, recently issued out to him. She could tell by the sheer size, it was tiny in comparison. She tossed it in a plastic bag and placed it in her blue bin as soon as she finished it. After which, she pulls out her phone and quickly sent a message to Steve stating his comm link was ready whenever he wanted to pick it up.
She began tinkering with Barton's communicator afterward - she's been working on it for the past hour now. She was ready to give up at this point. She had gotten so close to getting it fixed up on Friday, but her notes from over the weekend seemed to take her in a different direction. She couldn't get back to the place where she was on Friday which irked her to her core. She lets out an agitated sigh as she tosses the soldering tool against her desk, grabbing the back of her neck to relieve any stress that had built up in her shoulders.
She doesn't hear Edith anymore, she peers from side to side to make sure the coast is clear of her. She quickly sticks her arm out from her area, and attempts to tap Dustin on the shoulder but instead, she smacks him on the underside of his right arm. She hears him hiss in pain before seeing his face lean back out of the cubby area to give her a questionable look. "I need help," she mouths to him. His brows knit together tightly as if he's trying to deepen the question. "Barton," she whispers, her eyes darting quickly to the comm link on her desk.
Dustin nods his head, he understands. He peaks his head out to scan around the room for Edith before sticking his large hand out for Quinn to fork over the communicator. She quickly shoved the device in his hand and gives his hand a gentle squeeze for him to be careful with handling it. Slowly, he retracts his hand, taking the communicator with it. Quinn waits a moment before handing him the notes that she took over the weekend for the device, being careful to not squeak the wheels of her chair as she pushes herself over to his desk.
She gently places the notebook on his desk next to his elbow, catching his attention. He holds up his index finger for her to wait, as he grabs his own white bin and holds it out for her. She reaches inside to pick up the contents of the basket, a shock cuff that an Agent Verlander has dropped off. One of the links seems to be malfunctioning. Her eyes meet with his and she gives him a curt nod in agreement as they trade items.
It's something that they're not supposed to do in their department - something about if something goes wrong out in the field they can trace it back to whoever worked on the device and get them in trouble. If too many people work on one thing, it's hard to pinpoint who did what to the device and when it happened. However, Dustin and Quinn do this every once in a while when they get stumped on a device.
Quinn is thankful for this, the last option she would be to go to Edith and she couldn't handle her right now. She rolls backward towards her desk to start working on Agent Verlander's shock cuff when she abruptly runs into something.
She swivels in her chair to stare into the cold eyes of Edith, who looks down at her disapprovingly. She can feel her confidence shrink down to the size of a grape, as she swallows a hard lump in the back of her throat. "What is happening here?" the supervisor demands, her voice filled with anger.
The question seems to have drawn the attention of everyone in the office towards the two of them, making Quinn feel even smaller with all the eyes on her. "She was just asking for help," Dustin explains, finding his voice before Quinn could even think of a response. She shoots him a confused look. He was going to get himself into more trouble than she was. "The frequencies on Agent Barton's commlink are a little frazzled. She asked for my help on how to fix it since I debugged the newest set of links that were given to the agents."
The supervisor crosses her arms, her face softening a bit towards the two. He had actually come up with a good excuse. Quinn takes the time where Edith is distracted to hide the shock cuff that she had traded with him under her leg, suppressing the crinkling sound the bag made with a small cough. Edith's gaze falls on Quinn, "How is Captain Roger's comm link?"
Quinn looks at her for a moment before finding her words. "It's complete," she answers truthfully, picking up the small comm link from her desk and turning it on to show that there was no disturbance. Edith plucks it out of her hands and places it to her ear, testing it, ensuring that it actually works. A part of Quinn feels insulted as she inspects the metallic communicator, another part feels as if she's done something wrong. The inquisitive stares from her co-workers didn't seem to help her from doubting herself.
Edith hands the comm link back to her, citing that she did a particularly excellent job. The compliment takes Quinn - and everyone around her - back. Edith usually never compliments anyone, only herself in meetings where she gathers the whole department to tell them they're failing. "Have you spoken with Captain Rogers yet? His note specifies to call him when it is finished," Edith notes.
Quinn begins to feel the sweat build up along the back of her neck. She didn't call Steve - she texted him as a courtesy just in case he was in the middle of something. Edith couldn't find out about their unprofessional communication, it would make the department look bad and it would definitely set off the older woman. Quinn stammers as she tries to find an excuse, Edith could easily look at her call log to see that she never really called Steve.
"No," she answers meekly. "I've been busy working on Agent Barton's comm. I had forgotten to do so,"
Edith let's out an irritated sigh as she crosses her arms. "What's the first thing we do after we finish fixing something?" she questions her, her voice half sounding bored with this conversation. Quinn's eyes shift from the supervisor to the floor submissively. "We contact the agent,"
"Did you contact Captain Rogers?"
"No ma'am,"
"It's a simple task, Cruise," Edith states. "If you can't handle that, how can you handle anything outside of work?" Quinn didn't dare look up or even give a response, to do so would initiate an argument. Instead, she lets her continue to berate and humiliate her in front of her co-workers as she sits helplessly. "If I wanted to baby someone I could've had kids instead of devoting most of my time cleaning up after everyone's messes here, including yours," The words are like fire as they are spat out from behind clenched teeth.
Edith walks towards Quinn's desk, alerting her to spin around to watch what she was doing. Edith picks up the corded phone sitting on her desk and hands it to her. Quinn takes it, looking up at her questioningly and uneasy. "Call him," she demands.
Quinn continues to look up at her for a few moments in confusion before sliding her chair towards her desk and grabbing the folded lined paper that was torn out of Steve's black notebook. She can feel Edith's presence along with her peers wandering eyes as she types in his phone number. She begins gnawing at her bottom lip as she waits and listens to the ringing of the line.
She wishes that he doesn't answer so she can leave him a voicemail and send him a text telling him not to listen to it before he got the chance. Relief starts to pour into as she listens to the fourth ring, he wasn't going to pick up.
"Hello?" The voice on the other line of the receiver answers, her shoulders tense up at the sound of his voice. She doesn't understand why she's nervous just talking to him over the phone. "Hello Captain Rogers, this is Quinn from the I.T. department. How are you today?" Her voice is sweet as she tried to mask the sound of unease in her tone. "Quinn?" he questions, she can tell that he's confused as to why she's calling him. He must've actually read her text. She couldn't tell if she was happy he did or embarrassed for confusing him with a call. "I'm fine-"
"Just wanted to let you know that you comm link is ready to be picked up whenever you'd like," she interrupts him before he can ask questions as to why she was calling. "The department is open until five. If you can't make it in before then, please let us know so we can accommodate when you'd like to pick it up. We can send someone out to deliver it to you if you wish, or we can leave it up at the front desk if the building."
There's silence on the other end of the receiver for a moment. She hopes that he can understand what's going on - if not she'd explain later. "I'll pick it up before five," he states, her body seems to relax momentarily as his voice returns to its normal gruffness. "Perfect, we'll see you then, Captain Rogers," her voice is even perkier this time, a clear sign that something is happening. "All right then. Goodbye," he bids as she says farewell to him as well.
She hangs up the phone with an audible click, a sense of relief washing over her. However, she's not out of the woods yet. She looks back to see Edith's jaw tighten before she lets out a deep breath through her nose, not a sigh. "Just a reminder," she beckons the attention of the whole department. "Please call the respective agent or person who's tech you're working on after it's finished. Thank you,"
She turns to look back down at Quinn, who's lips are drawn down into a frown. "I'm sorry," she whispers out. Edith narrows her snake-like eyes down at the I.T., making her feel uncomfortable. "Be better," she hisses out, giving her a tight-lipped frown of disappointment before walking away, leaving Quinn to her own devices.
She is unsure why but her heart sinks as she watches Edith walk away in annoyance. She didn't like disappointing people, but she also wasn't a fan of the public humiliation that came with her lecture. She preferred things to be more private, that's why she primarily kept to herself at work besides her usual friendly conversations with Dustin and sometimes Jack.
She could feel her lungs quivering within her chest, she wanted to cry out that she had tried her best, she even went above and beyond for Steve but her work would go unnoticed. It bugged her. She had taught herself to keep her composure together in a public, even though she desperately wanted to break down. Instead, she takes the shock cuff she had taken from Dustin and begins the lengthy process of fixing it.
She's almost down with the cuff when she hears the receptionist in the front office welcome someone in an unusually enthusiastic tone. This piques her curiosity, as she peers around the cubby to see Dustin do the same - giving her the same confused look as she displayed. He shrugs his shoulders and looks towards the receptionist's front desk, she does the same.
She barely has time to glance at the individual in the front office before her phone starts to ring. "Hello," she picks up curiously. "Miss Cruise - Captain Rogers is here to pick up the comm link. He said you were the one to repair it," Kara's - the receptionist- voice sounded extremely bubbly. Quinn had to move the phone away from her ear to avoid damaging her hearing as she spoke.
"I'll be right up," she replies before quickly hanging up the phone. She sets aside the small tool kit she uses to repair tech and grabs the small bag with the communicator in it.
She peers around to the other cubby's of her co-workers to see everyone is seemingly minding their own business. She takes no chances, hiding her actions as she tears off a small sheet of blank paper from a random note on her desk. She hurries as she scribbles down a message before hiding it between her index finger and the note on the comm links plastic bag.
She makes her way up towards the front office, trying her best to not look at anyone as she passes them in fear of being caught with a note. She feels irked with having to sneak around her work the way she was doing, she should be able to have a normal conversation with Steve without anyone thinking anything of it but, of course, there'd be instigators, gossipers. She couldn't risk it, especially with Edith hounding her to 'be better'.
As she walks into the office her eyes immediately connect with Steve's. She tries her best not to emit anyone personal emotion as she sees him - especially seeing as she's joined with Edith in the same office. She's watching her like a hawk. On the other hand, Kara is staring up at Steve like she's never seen another man before. Her usual, dull and moody grey eyes have lit up at the sight of him. She looks smitten.
"Captain Rogers," she greets, averting her eyes to the floor. "Miss Cruise," he greets back, his voice is as distant as it was when they had first met a couple of days ago - like he was talking to a stranger. She extends her arm to reveal his new and improved communicator. "You'll notice that your commlinks receiver has been fixed and somewhat improved," she informs him as he takes the plastic bag that held the small technology.
"If the static comes back feel free to use a higher frequency then switch back, it should be able to help," she watches his eyes skim the small hidden note on the bag. He gives her a small nod, not even looking up at her as he inspects the small communicator. "If you have any other problems or questions, feel free to -" she hesitates for a moment, remembering that he's in the process of learning how to use everything. "Give us a call,"
"I'll keep that in mind," he says with a small smile.
Quinn can physically feel Kara beaming at him, making her presence feel insufferable to her. "Ladies," he addresses the three women in the room, giving each a quick glance - holding Quinn's for a half a second longer than Kara and Edith. He gives a small wave before he turns on his heel and walks away. Kara sighs in a daze as if she's caught in a daydream.
Quinn makes an effort to not roll her eyes at her. Instead, she follows Steve's lead and turns away from the front office to return to her seat. She's not too far away to hear Edith snap at the receptionist, "Kara, please don't make yourself seem so desperate." Quinn runs a hand over he mouth hastily as tries to cover up the smile that's starting to form on her lips.