The Ties That Bind

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Mercer made an exaggerated little pff at her mild response, chuckling at the very idea of fighting or even just stepping into tenuous negotiations as often as others did. "I thought being a field agent would be cool for a while - then I watched someone get punched so hard they flew clear over the hood of their own car and changed my mind. Someone looks at me wrong, I fold like a lawn chair and let the big boys have at it."

It wasn't, really, that he was incapable of fighting, or of otherwise getting himself out of tough scrapes, but he was man enough to admit he did not have a steel rod for a spine like Maxim did. He was only a fox, quick on his feet but without enough bulk to go toe to toe with anyone that was capable of catching him, and he was just fine sitting at a computer rather than running around after criminals.

When he was done putting the new cable through each of the velcro straps, he pushed one end above the desk and gave it a little wiggle to catch her eye. "Since you're here, mind saving me some trouble and grabbing that so it doesn't fall back down?"
 
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She wondered if the punch he'd seen was from a shifter, or just a regular muscle bound human. Either way they must have been pretty damn strong, to punch that hard.

She laughed a little at his description of himself, appreciating his honesty. "Well that's not a bad strategy I suppose." She could understand where he was coming for, she wasn't one to shy away from a fight but she didn't go looking for them.

She was decently strong, or stronger than a regular human at least, but she was at a disadvantage when it came to wolves, her strengths lay in agility, speed and stealth.

"Gee I don't know." She got to her feet and stepped over, a playful smile on her face. "I don't want to get in trouble for breaking a scared promise." She said teasingly, before grabbing the cable.
 
Mercer made a show of rolling his eyes and making a disgusted sound as she walked over, like she'd put a bad taste in his mouth. "Oh, I knew you were gonna be trouble," He said with an amused twist to the set of his mouth as he worked his way back out from beneath the desk. "Can't let one thing go, can you?"

Once he'd gotten to his feet he reached across the desk to take the cable from her and went about feeling behind the computer atop the desk to plug it in blind rather than trying to worm his way into seeing behind it. "Thanks for the assist." He said sincerely enough, then gave her a dry look over his shoulder. "I promise not to tell Max you touched anything if you promise not to tell him I let you. Next thing you know he'll start thinking he's allowed to do it."
 
When he called her trouble, she gave him a withering look, but the playful hint of a smirk on her lips gave her away. "Oh you poor fool, you have no idea."

She stepped back out of his way, laughing a little at his comment. "Fair enough, I promise my lips shall remain sealed." She smiled a little in amusement, since that probably didn't mean much coming from her, considering how they'd met.

"Do you two work together a lot?" She asked curiously, they seemed fairly close.
 
Mercer gave her an unimpressed look for threatening more trouble, but couldn't help a small, amused smile as he worked on getting the cable plugged in. "Somewhat frequently. He's out of the office more than he's in, but he'll give me a ring and have me play support from afar most days." Looking up addresses, sending him information, or even organizing reinforcements were almost so simple he didn't even consider them work.

"Honestly," he continued, straightening up away from the desk with a little chuckle, "I almost see Simon more often. He's good with computers, but as you can imagine he doesn't have as much security clearance as most agents." Simon was in the know, but wasn't exactly an officer of the law. "I'm assuming you've met Mr. Sunshine already."
 
She sat back down in her chair, wanting to be out of his way but she was ready to help again if he needed it. Like her previous look, his unimpressed look was undermined by his amused smile.

She smiled a little at his description of Simon, it was a fitting name. "I have, and everyone else." She wasn't sure if he had met the others, she assumed so.

"But yeah that's a pretty apt name for him, it takes a bit of getting used too." She admitted, he definitely wasn't what she was used. "He seems like a great guy though."
 
"Ooh, you got the full house treatment?" Mercer commented as he sat down in his chair, clicking around on the computer to make sure what he'd plugged in was functioning properly. The new cable seemed to have done the trick.

"I don't understand how he's always like that," he said with a disbelieving little huff, like Simon's cheer had personally offended him. "The man is more inhuman than we are - he barely even drinks coffee! It's unnatural to smile that much." He shrugged expansively as he sat back in his chair, swiveling just enough to see her without having to twist around. "But he does brighten up the office. God save anyone that tries to mess with him, they'll be swallowing their own teeth before they can say sorry."

Maxim was not so quick to temper, really, but Mercer was sure she could understand what wolves looking after such a soft, relatively weak human would do if anyone ever hurt him.
 
She was amused at just how much Simon's positive attitude seemed to piss him off, not that she thought he was serious, he just seemed rather grumpy about it.

She nodded a little at his comment, looking thoughtful for a moment. She knew how protective wolves could be, especially alphas, or at least the good ones were, and it seemed Maxim was.

It was a quality she admired, especially when it came to protecting someone innocent or weaker than yourself, such as a human like Simon.

She noticed the way he included them both in his inhuman statement, and looked at him curiously. "So you're a shifter as well?"
 
"Hm?" He had looked briefly back at his screen, and at her comment glanced back. "Oh, yes, that. A lot of the people in this building are, though not all, obviously." There weren't enough of them around and willing to work the job to fill out a whole roster of agents, after all.

"But I'm nothing big or strong," he added with a shrug, unbothered by the reality of it, "so I pick my fights with technology. Much less bruising that way." In his human form as well, he was not particularly large or intimidating. It was nothing he worried over much, considering it wasn't something he could change by a large enough degree to make it worth it.
 
She was very curious what type of shifter he was, as well as the others in the building, but it seemed rude to ask for details so she didn't.

"I didn't realise there were so many in this city." She admitted, obviously there was Farkas and Maxim and their packs but she'd found wolves to be a lot more common.

She hardly met any shifters who weren't wolves, and she'd never met another cat, let alone a cougar like her.
 
Mercer held his hands up in an expansive shrug. "Densely populated city, lots of people, ratios go up. It's easier to blend in when there's a million other freaks out there drawing attention away." At least, that was the theory. It also explained why the HED had such presence in the city at all.

"Once you notice, it's hard to stop noticing." He chuckled a little at the idea of finding more and more shifters simply because one was looking. "Mostly the big ones you find out, since they make the biggest trouble. Think they're invincible just 'cause they're strong, so they get caught doing something stupid. Me, I'm just a little ol' fox." He gave her a cheeky little grin, as if proud of himself. "I only got caught 'cause I was drunk off my ass and tried to hack the agencies database anyway." Rumors and curiosity had gotten the best of him.
 
She frowned a little at his use of the word freak, she supposed that it was true, they were freaks of nature. Still she'd faced enough problems due to her identity, that she was a bit sensitive to things dredging up painful memories.

"Yes I've found that to be true." The ones with the strongest forms were usually the quickest to admit, or even brag about their power. She, like many others, had learned it was safer to keep it secret.

She returned his grin with one of her own, amused by his story. "I've never met a fox before, well not a shifter at least." She'd met a few real ones, along with a lot of other animals. "But that does sound like a situation a fox would find itself in."
 
Mercer only gave another shrug, as if he couldn't help himself. "Well, it worked out in the end. I'm here making steady income and not in prison, so. Could be worse." Similar to her own story, though not exactly the same. He'd been caught, then given a choice. Working for The Man was better than rotting in a cell because he'd gotten stupid while drunk.

There was a polite little knock on the door then before it opened, and Maxim looked in at them as if he expected the room to be on fire. "Play nice while I was gone?"

"You never said I had to." Mercer said without pause, holding a hand back over his shoulder as if waiting to be given something. "I'll take my compensation now."

Maxim only rolled his eyes in response, unsurprised and unfazed. "Babysitting is in your contract and you don't deserve tips. Ready to go, Madeline?"
 
She laughed a little, but there was a seriousness to her eyes, thinking he was right, there were much worse fates out there. "Yeah, that's true."

She wondered just how many people had stumbled their way into jobs here, it seemed like this agency had a habit of taking in strays.

She glanced up at Maxim as he came in, amused at him calling it baby sitting, just how destructive did she seem to these people? "Yep I'm ready."

She stood up and moved to his side, casting a glance back over her shoulder. "See you later Mercer."
 
Mercer shrugged at his lack of jokingly asked for tip, and just gave Madeline a little wave over his shoulder as he turned to get back to work, a little smile on his face. "Later, Trouble."

Maxim held the door for her as she walked out and closed it quietly behind her, an eyebrow raised as they started to walk and some amusement on his face. "I see you made a friend while I was gone. If he tells you any stories, I'll deny all of them."
 
She smiled in amusement at his parting shot, she enjoyed his sarcastic style of humour. Despite the circumstances, it was kind of nice to meet so many decent, nice people, for a change.

She didn't know if she'd call him a friend, still reluctant to let herself fall onto that trap again, but she laughed a little. "Is that so?" "What dark secrets are you hiding?"

She teased lightly as they walked, curious if there were any embarrassing stories about him out there.
 
Maxim held his hands up as if to proclaim his innocence, giving a shrug at the idea of what kinds of stories they might be. "No, no, no stories at all. I definitely don't keep a change of clothes at the office because of the time someone got a little too high and threw up violently in my direction."

Or come to work with children's stickers on his back, or a lunch packed for him with little notes inside it from the same culprits. The more violent, actually questionable stories were likely not something that would be shared. They were more 'exciting' than funny, so he was sure Mercer wouldn't bother with them.

"Anyway, let's get to that stash of yours before someone else finds it. We can drop it off at the house for safekeeping afterwards." Usually at least one person was home. Their building was rarely fully empty.
 
She made a face of disgust but she laughed a little too, "that is disgusting, I certainly hope this job pays well because it definitely doesn't seem very glamorous."

She was teasing him but she was curious why he chose this type of work, considering how dangerous it could be, simply because he was good at it?

"It should be fine, but yeah let's." She felt it was pretty secure, but she would feel better having it behind a locked door. "It's in a pretty rough part of town, but it's abandoned so it shouldn't be a problem."
 
"Let's not talk about paychecks," Maxim said dryly, though he was fighting not to smile a little at the way she laughed. "No one gets paid enough to be thrown up on." Personally, he thought nurses who were in danger of such things more often than he was deserved much more, but he digressed.

"How rough?" He wondered out loud when she told him their destination wasn't ideal, though with not a great deal of concern in his voice as he unlocked the car to let her in. "I'm not worried, just want to be prepared." He was relatively self assured in his ability to keep the two of them safe, unless they encountered a large group that sought to harm them.
 
She grinned at his pay check comment, "oof, that bad huh?" She teased playfully as she slipped into the car, fastening her seatbelt and leaning back comfortably.

Shrugging a little at his question, she didn't seem all that worried. "It can be pretty bad but not usually during the day, and like I said it's pretty much abandoned."

"It's a bunch of dilapidated houses and stores, so yeah some people do hide out there but the main problem is it's close to a certain gang hideout."

"Honestly it might be better if you wait for me in the car." She said casually, "you wouldn't be able to follow me inside anyway."
 
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