Work Text:
It had been a great week, Anthea thought, as she watched Mycroft bustle around their office suite In Babylon-on-Thames. Ok, not so great for other people, but that had been part of the fun. That snotty little xenophobe from the Foreign Office who was recommending that all “non-English” be chipped? Mycroft had taken him to tiny pieces in the middle of a joint departmental meeting, pushing and pushing for specifics of how, exactly, one decided. The moment the idjit had suggested DNA testing, Anthea’d known the boss had won—and so did everyone else there. And that little ferret from Finance? Oooooh, yes. Of course, she knew Mycroft had set her up. Mycroft did forensic accounting on slow days for entertainment, and he’d been getting increasingly peeved with Miss Gentry’s attempts to “prove” Mycroft’s little black-box division within MI6 was embezzling funds. As if! Anthea, who normally kept the books, had a very good idea how little they spent—and how much less Mycroft would spend if there weren’t some concern about how governments budget. Mr. Holmes made sure his group spent just enough every year to get as much or more the next, just in case.
That said, he’d obviously had a very good time during one of those slow afternoons creating a labyrinth of actuarial tiger-traps, snares, and landmines to bedevil Miss Gentry and lead her astray. She had set off every single one by the end of the week, and had further reached the conclusion Mycroft wished her to reach: that she had him cold. And when she’d sat on it just long enough for him to be sure she wasn’t going to confront him—he confronted her. And walked her through the maze his way, proving he was exactly—exactly—tuppence under budget. Exactly!
Oh, the week had been full of many little victories. They’d caught Ifan Szeles after MI6’s primary teams had been hunting the bastard for ten years—and done so only three weeks since the job had been assigned to Mycroft’s division. They’d cleaned up the regrettable mess MP Fergusson had made over that new NHS initiative. Really, how could anyone say, “We’re going to put an end to England’s rampant fertility for keeps—no more new Mums!”
As Mycroft had put it, even one mention of the term “unplanned pregnancy” would have helped. But no…
In any case, it had been a great week. Super. Brill. Totally, completely wicked. And, of course, circumstances have consequences. The immediate consequence was that Mycroft was happy as a six-year-old girl with a pair of scissors and an entire department-store’s worth of long-haired dollies in need of a wash and a trim.
Lestrade, who was in theory there to report on Sherlock, watched from a seat on the sidelines of Anthea’s office, as Mycroft hummed happily, scooting from his own office to the outer offices, talking, checking things against files, sweeping back to his office—and, significantly, leaving the door open. He watched as the elder Holmes downright sparkled.
Mycroft teased his people. He grinned his rare spontaneous grin. He talked about Miss Gentry and her defeat with his nose in the air, happily wallowing in his own smug satisfaction—and laughing at himself as he did so.
During one of Mycroft’s sweeps down the corridor to talk to one of their main handlers, Lestrade looked at Anthea, eyes alight—and also a bit stunned. “He’s…”
She sniggered. “I know.”
“I trust you don’t let the secret out of the office?”
“That he’s adorable? No. Standing policy set by unanimous vote of the entire department except Mr. Holmes—anyone who dares leak how cute he is gets shot as a traitor to Great Britain and all mankind.”
He watched as Mycroft swanned through again, humming “My Object All Sublime,” from Gilbert and Sullivan’s Mikado.
“Damn—he really gets into the idea of the elliptical billiard balls, doesn’t he?”
“You should hear him when he does ‘Buttercup,’ from Pinafore.”
“I’m not sure I’d survive. Does Sherlock have any idea his brother beats LOLcats at Teh Kyoot?”
“We have a bet on about Sherlock. My money’s on Sherlock having no idea, because he’s the instant cure for Mr. Holmes being happy. He walks in—cute walks out.”
“No, now, you can’t say that. We’ve both been there when he’s been at least a bit cute near Sherlock.”
Anthea considered, then shook her head. “But I can’t recall a single time when he’s been there when Mr. Holmes was in Hello Kitty mode.”
“Mmmm.” Lestrade watched Mycroft buzzing contentedly around his office. “Hey, how long till he’s likely to go out?”
“Oh, hours. Usually not till six-ish.”
“Ok. Tell him I got called out on a Met case, but I’ll be back, and don’t let him panic.”
Two hours later he was back with a classic willow picnic basket.
Anthea looked at it warily.
It mewed.
She met Lestrade’s eyes. “Oh, you’re a bad man, DI Lestrade.”
“I know I am,” he grinned. “Take it in, open the top, and run—you’re going to want to be in the bunkers when the kitten bomb goes off.”
She nodded. She and Lestrade waited, breath held, till Mycroft went humming down the hall on an errand, then Anthea slipped the basket from behind her desk and scurried in to plant it behind Mycroft’s with the lid cracked open and propped with Mycroft’s wireless mouse.
If was probably a good thing Mycroft was too happy to notice them pretending innocent indifference when Mycroft flew back through again, still humming. A bit less contented and even their trained secret agent skills would not have sufficed to keep him from detecting their anticipation. As it was, he hit the office at full speed, and was halfway across his carpet when he spotted them.
They could hear the gasp and the ill-supressed, “Awwwww” out in Anthea’s area. They grinned at each other.
Anthea counted off with hand signals: five…..four…..three…..two….one…..
A quiet, doting burble sounded from Mycroft’s space. The two conspirators got up and peeked in.
He was sitting on the floor cross-legged, watching three kittens barely past the creeping jelly-belly stage of infancy totter toward him. He had his tie off, and was using it as a lure. He spotted them, and said, sternly, “I’m going to get you for this.”
“No,” Anthea grinned, “you’re not.”
He sighed at them both. “All right. I’m not.” A chubby, floofy little ginger tiger wobbled after the tip of the silk tie, attempting to pounce and failing repeatedly, just barely snagging it with a single claw just as Mycroft reeled it in by his knees. He grinned at it, and said, “All right, you terrible beast. I’ll….get you!” He finger-pounced on the kitten, picking it up, tickling its round tummy, patting the pink pads of its little paws. He sighed, and looked up. “You’re bad, bad people.”
“The worst,” Lestrade chuckled. “’S why you added us to your team.”
Mycroft sniffed, and his nose went up—in the most cheerful, adorable of manners. “That’s what you think. It was charity. People like you aren’t safe out there with the ordinary departments. They’d eat you alive.”
“Yeah, right,” Anthea said, grinning. “You want to know the real reason you’re not mad?”
“Why?”
She smiled. “Because it’s been a great, great week. And because you’re adorable.”
Then she ran away giggling, as Lestrade laughed and Mycroft sputtered—adorably.