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When your job description pretty much begins and ends at “saving the world,” it’s kind of a given that, well… it’s going to suck. Shitty pay, endless hours (literally. all the hours.), no sick days or paid vacation or really any vacation to speak of. But even so, Sameen has never once complained (she’s had worse, she reasons; they all have). The only thing she’s ever asked of Harold is for three nights off every month, and he was all too happy to give them to her (he figures it might help keep incidents involving use of excessive force to a minimum). No one asks where she goes or what she does for those three nights, not that any of them ever really ask about each other’s personal lives. That’s the good part of having a job where the description is “saving the world”—your coworkers tend to appreciate privacy and separation of work and personal life as much as you do. It’s the superhero code or something.
(A bug or two placed on a coworker’s person does not constitute invasion of privacy. It makes you a good friend, actually, going through all that trouble to keep them on their toes and stop them from going rusty. It’s just good tradecraft.)
Well. Almost all of them have a healthy respect for privacy. Clearly some people missed that day at superhero training school. Root wouldn’t be able to grasp the concept of privacy if it took the form of a six-foot-thick reinforced steel door or (hypothetically, totally hypothetical) two and a half hours of evasive driving using the shadow map and another half-hour trek through the woods miles outside the city. And that’s how Shaw ends up blinking herself awake one month on the morning after night no.3 to Root, chin resting on her hands, staring at Shaw like she’s just discovered the world’s greatest hidden secret.
“Sameen. You’re a werewolf?!” (Not so much as hello / good morning / how are you? And people think Shaw’s rude.) Root’s eyes are glistening, and with the amount of canine she’s showing in her smile you’d think she was the lycanthrope, not Shaw.
“God, Root, what the hell… did you put a tracker on me? Wait, no. I ditched my clothes… Have you been FOLLOWING me all night??”
“Stop avoiding, Shaw.” Root paws playfully at Sameen’s bare shoulder, like she didn’t just watch Shaw spend the whole night tearing through the woods in her monstrous form doing god-knows-what (To be fair, She probably does know what. I mean this is the most secluded area Shaw could find, but she wouldn’t put it past the Machine to have some sort of surveillance up somewhere. Satellites, maybe?) “Why didn’t you tell me you were a werewolf?”
“Well, I did tell you that I was a dog person,” Shaw deadpans. She really isn’t in the mood to deal with Root right now. Still slightly groggy, she slowly catalogs her bones and muscles for injuries, trying to shake off any lingering soreness from the transformation.
“Ha ha, very funny, Sam,” Root replies dryly. She watches Shaw blindly search the grass around her for a second before she interrupts. “Looking for these?” Root chirps, dangling a set of heavy iron shackles in front of Shaw. She almost laughs at the appalled expression on Shaw’s face before Shaw angrily snatches the chains out of her hand.
“What the hell did you do, Root? What were you thinking? I could have killed you.”
“I appreciate your concern, Sam, but I didn’t do anything… You broke yourself out of the chains, not ten minutes after you transformed. You know, if you wanted someone to restrain you properly, all you had to do was ask.”
Shaw rolls her eyes. “I’m serious Root, what are you doing here? How did you even find me?”
“Well, last night She gave me a set of coordinates and—”
“Wait—the Machine sent you to spy on me?”
“Well she didn’t tell me why, and she certainly didn’t tell me about you…” Root’s lips curl into a smirk. “Oh no, I got to see that all for myself, first-hand.”
Shaw realizes she’s still sitting buck naked in the dirt. She doesn’t really care—it’s not like it’s anything Root hasn’t seen before (although to Root’s credit, her eyes have been locked firmly on Sameen’s face this whole time, as if post-lycanthropic morning-after leering somehow crosses the line).
“She was worried about you, Shaw.” Shaw gives her a look (Really? The MACHINE was worried about me?), which Root ignores as she continues, completely earnest now, “You go off the radar for three nights every month without letting any of us know what’s going on, you purposefully hide from Her, how do you expect Her not to worry? I mean what if something happened to you one night and you got hurt or you needed help, what were we supposed to do then?”
“Please. I don’t need your help,” Shaw scoffs. “I’ve been doing this for years, I have it under control.”
“Oh really?” Root demands angrily. “You have it under control… Is that what you call this?” Root jabs at a large claw mark running down the length of Shaw’s thigh.
Shaw winces. “Shit,” she mutters under her breath, gingerly examining the wound that she somehow hadn’t noticed until now. (Root, it’s Root’s fault for distracting her.)
“You picked a fight with a mountain lion,” Root explains before Shaw even has a chance to ask.
“Seriously?” Shaw can’t hide the excitement in her voice. “Well did I-“
“This is not a joke, Sameen. You could have been killed!” They stare at each other for a tense moment before Root reluctantly mutters, “But yes, you won.” She can’t help smiling slightly at the poorly-concealed glee on Shaw’s face.
They fall silent again; it’s lighter this time, but there’s something in the air between them that Shaw can’t quite identify. Root reaches out hesitantly and ghosts her fingertip along the angry gash on Shaw’s leg. Sameen sucks in a sharp breath.
Root stares determinedly at Shaw’s leg as she whispers, voice suddenly small, “How could I not have known?” She shakes her head slightly, frowning, like she’s asking herself more than she’s asking Shaw. Her eyes snap up again. “How could you not have told me, Shaw?” She’s almost pleading, eyes sharp and liquid, almost desperate.
Root’s hurt, Shaw realizes. She hurt her. This wasn’t Root trying to be annoying or to pry, this was Root trying to- what exactly? This really isn’t a big deal, it’s just a thing that Shaw has to do each month, a routine, like a menstrual cycle but with more teeth and fur. It’s almost boring at this point; sometimes Shaw barely thinks about it as she goes through the motions. Sure, she didn’t want to share this with any of them, but honestly it was more that… she didn’t even really think to? Why would they want to know? Why would they care about this? (Shaw wouldn’t care. John could be moonlighting as the goddamn Bigfoot of the Tri-state area and Shaw would not want to know.) It’s a pain in the ass is what it is—it’s enough that it’s a pain in her ass, Shaw didn’t want to drag anyone else into it.
But then here’s Root, staring at her with so much raw hurt on her face that Shaw almost can’t bear to look at it. She’s searching for an answer, an explanation, a why that Shaw just doesn’t have. And Root’s angry at herself, too, Shaw can see it in her eyes—like Root had failed somehow by not putting the pieces together sooner, not finding out until the Machine all but told her. Root’s staring at the claw marks on Shaw’s flank like it’s her fault they’re there, like she could have, should have, protected Shaw from them somehow.
“Root- it’s not- I wasn’t trying t-” Shaw falters. “Come on, it’s not we tell each other everything,” she forces an unconvincing laugh.
“We don’t. Lie. to each other, Sameen,” Root bites.
“How was I supposed to know that? No one knows where you go when you disappear for weeks at a time on your missions! What if you need backup, what if you got hurt or if something happened to you and none of us knew, none of us could do a damn thing!” Shaw doesn’t know when she started yelling, or when she stood up, but suddenly Root’s on her feet too and yelling right back.
“When She sends me on missions I don’t even know where I’m going half the time, Shaw, you know this! And She knows where I am, She knows and she would tell you if I needed backup. I’m not purposefully keeping anything from you, I’m not so fucking stubbornly hung up on going it alone, not when I don’t have to. You think you’re such a—” Root snorts derisively “—lone wolf. Get your head out of your ass, Shaw.” She cools slightly, breathing heavily, but the anger in her gaze is still unrelenting. “You should have told me, Sam. I deserved to know this.”
“Why, Root?” Shaw asks, exasperated. “Why is it so important? Why was I supposed to tell you this? Because we’re sleeping together?” She’s not saying this to hurt Root, she just genuinely doesn’t know, but the result is the same.
Root deflates. “Wow. That’s what you think this is about. That’s what I am to you—just the nagging girlfriend? Well we all know how much you don’t want that… Fine. If that’s what you want, I’ll leave.” Root shakes her head bitterly, adding with a sneer, “You can go find your clothes yourself.”
Root starts to storm off, but Shaw runs to block her path, practically bodychecking her. “Well you’re not, Root, you’re not my girlfriend! And you said you were okay with that—”
“No, you’re right, I’m not your girlfriend, and I don’t want to be your girlfriend, Sameen.” Root’s voice is quiet now, but it’s so low and even and cold that Shaw kind of wishes she would just start yelling again. “I am your partner. We are a team and that means we’re supposed to have each other’s backs.”
“I DO! I always have your back, Root, when have I ever- This fucking” Shaw gestures wildly at the clearing behind her “thing doesn’t make me any less able to protect you, I would never let it interfere with—”
“That’s not what I’m talking about, Shaw.” Root sounds exhausted. Sameen wonders absently if Root got any sleep last night or if she just spent the whole time watching over her. “This,” Root says, gesturing between the two of them, “goes both ways. I know you have my back, I trust you, Sameen. Why can’t you just trust me?”
Shaw blinks. “I- I do… I do trust you, Root. I-”
“You got into a fight with a mountain lion last night, Shaw. It was inches away from tearing your throat out with its teeth, and I just had to sit there and watch.”
“Root, there’s nothing you could have done! What, were you gonna wrestle the mountain lion off me? Was the Machine going to tell you how to do that? There’s nothing you can do about this, this is not something you can protect me from, not something I need you to protect me from!”
“That’s not the point, Shaw.”
“Then what is?”
“We’re a team,” Root repeats. “I don’t care if there’s nothing I can do, you should have at least given me courtesy of letting me try. Of letting me know so I could decide for myself.”
Root pauses for a second, hesitating. “I have to know that we’re a team. I know you don’t need protecting, Sam. But I need- I need to know that you trust me. I need to know that the next time She gives me a set of coordinates they’re not going to be for your body in a ditch somewhere when I didn’t even know you were in danger.”
Shaw just stares at Root for a long time, lips pressed firmly together, eyes unblinking. They’re still standing so close together they’re almost touching. Neither of them moves.
“Okay,” Shaw says finally.
“Okay.” Root repeats, surprised. She moves to walk past Shaw again. (She’s not really sure where she’s supposed to go from here. She did say she was going to leave, right? She should leave. Right?)
“But,” Shaw continues suddenly, “this goes both ways. You know this about me and… I trust you. And I’m…” She looks like she’s chewing on the words. “I’m sorry. But this means that you don’t get to go running off on your own anymore either. You do whatever you have to do but you tell the Machine that She doesn’t get to do that anymore. From now on She tells us where She’s sending you. She tells me where She’s sending you.”
It’s not a request. Shaw’s not waiting for a response. She walks away, back into the woods to grab her clothes so she can finally get out of this goddamn wilderness, away from this goddamn morning.
“Shaw?” Root calls out softly.
Shaw turns. Root’s holding out her clothes, slightly dirty and torn but carefully folded. Sameen walks slowly back to Root.
“Thanks.”