Maggie had forgotten just how scared she could be. Nerves of steel are almost a requirement in this job. She has become unflinching when a gun is pointed at her, steady in the face of a dwindling bomb timer, but crawling out onto that beam – the only one small enough to fit – she flashed back to a day she wishes she could forget. It was the first time she’s had to confront that trauma head-on in the field, staring down a device rigged with a neurotoxin not unlike the one that almost killed her.
And yet again, there was no escape. Laboratory doors had sealed her into her would-be tomb before, and now she was a dozen meters above the ground with no safety harness. No amount of medication or perseverance was enough to fend off the terror – despite her best efforts, the feeling had been inevitable. Shaking and breathless, she was struggling to focus through what she thinks in hindsight was already a panic attack, expecting to meet a painful death one way or another.
Until, by some small grace of God, just when she’d needed it most, a familiar voice had come to life in her ear. Isobel, her tone reassuring and soothing even in its concern. It wasn’t a miracle cure or a perfect remedy, but in that very moment, it had been something, a lifeline, grounding Maggie just enough to function.
Yet it had still been hell on Earth, to turn that valve and watch the timer continue to deplete. Fifteen seconds of eternity, to face down death and hope it would let her go this time, too. Maggie had closed her eyes and prayed for only the second time in her life. The same prayer – that she would make it out of this, that she would get to go back to the office and see Isobel again.
Then... nothing. There was no hiss of gas, no agonizing fate to be met, but in the end, the relief had been almost as debilitating as the panic. She’d still been out of breath, every part of her shaking even when she made it safely back to the ground, her legs so numb that she couldn’t quite walk straight as she found her way to OA.
Even now, sat safely at her desk again, she still can’t completely feel them, but when the relief had started to fade, a new kind of dread had settled in its place. Those harrowing minutes up on that beam had managed to overshadow everything else, but by the time they returned to the office, it had all come back to her – the brick to her head, the threat to fire her.
There had been an incompetent ASAC intoxicated in the field, and Isobel needs to know. In all the commotion, Maggie hadn't been able to tell her, and now trying to handle it herself has put her career in jeopardy. She has to act while she has the chance. She was always going to report Jubal – there's a reason Isobel trusts her above anyone else – but at this point, doing so has become self-preservation just as much as necessity.
So, she waits. It’s already been an hour, long enough that her desk is the only one still occupied, but she knows Isobel is in a meeting, and it could take a while yet. Given what happened, Maggie has no doubt that she’s being grilled relentlessly and having to justify her every decision, regardless of the positive result. Sitting idly at a desk, then, seems trivial compared to what Isobel is probably dealing with, but the stifling silence only makes Maggie’s anxiety worse.
She can’t help but wonder if Jubal has made his move yet, if he’s sowing the seeds needed to get rid of her and covering his tracks, or perhaps even already submitted paperwork to put his threat into motion. Maggie hasn’t spoken to him since locating that rigged device, but she knows she's done nothing wrong – that the only one guilty here is him – just as well as she knows that Isobel would never let him get away with it. As soon as any request or attempt hits her inbox, it won’t be Maggie who gets suspended.
She tries to focus on that security, remembering every time Isobel has had her back before now, until she’s interrupted by the sound of the elevator. She immediately looks up, relieved but unsurprised when Isobel walks into view a few seconds later. She looks completely exhausted, enough so that she doesn’t even notice Maggie still sat there, heading straight into her office.
Maggie can’t help but feel guilty, knowing she’s only about to contribute to the stress, but it has to be done. Saying nothing isn’t an option – her career is at stake, and so are people’s lives if Jubal does this again. She slowly gets to her feet, eyes never leaving Isobel as she makes her way to the office door and knocks gently on the frame, leaning inside. “Hey, can we talk?” she asks when Isobel turns around, trying to ignore her apprehension.
“Of course,” Isobel says, offering her a faint smile, but Maggie doesn’t miss the soft concern in her eyes as she closes the door, meeting her in the middle of the room. It's to be expected, as is the fleeting once over that Isobel gives her, when this is the first time they’ve seen each other since her voice came over the comms line. “Are you alright?”
Maggie nods. “Yeah, I'm okay now,” she answers, just glad that the worst is over. Her nerves might be fried, and her legs still feel a little numb, but once she gets some sleep, she’ll be ready to go again.
“I heard you were hurt this morning,” Isobel reveals, concerned about more than just Maggie’s precarious climb out onto that beam at Grand Central. She’s been wanting to check up on her ever since finding out, all too familiar with Maggie’s propensity to walk off injuries, but with all that had been at risk today, she'd never had the chance. Better late than never. “An ambulance was called out?”
Maggie almost flinches. Although she’s not surprised that Isobel knows about that, she’d hoped it would go unmentioned. Unfortunately, it’s inevitable that it would come up at some point – when it has everything to do with why she’s standing there. “I was hit in the head,” she explains slowly, deciding to omit that it was with a brick to avoid making Isobel worry any harder. “I’m fine, it just left a little cut.”
Unfortunately, perhaps expectedly, her reassurance does nothing to stop the concerned way Isobel is staring at her, eyes flickering to Maggie’s head. She doesn’t say anything, but Maggie knows what she’s thinking, noticing the way her fingers flex slightly. There’s only one way to even remotely convince her, and so Maggie takes Isobel’s hand in hers, lifting it up to the cut hidden by her hair. “See?” she says, as Isobel immediately takes the invitation to fuss.
She can’t help herself, personally scrutinizing the injury with a sigh. Calling it a little cut isn’t an understatement at least, but it doesn’t make her feel much better. “Alborotador...” she murmurs, examining the rest of Maggie’s head. After such a dangerously close call and hearing the way her voice shook up on that beam, Isobel thinks she needed to see and touch her to have any hope of sleeping tonight.
Maggie would be lying if she said the attention wasn’t a comfort – it almost makes her forget why she’s there. Almost. She tries to preserve the moment, letting Isobel gently cradle her face as she looks for injuries she might’ve missed, but it can’t last forever. Maggie has to force herself to speak. “I have to tell you something about Jubal,” she admits quietly, averting her eyes.
Isobel immediately falters, starting to frown as she lets her hands fall away. “What about him?” she says, confused. She'd thought Maggie was here to ask for a few days off, or even to be preemptively removed from any future cases involving neurotoxins – accommodations Isobel would only be happy to make. Jubal is one of the last things she’d expected to be the topic of discussion, even if he was an extra pain in the ass during this case.
Maggie takes a deep breath. "He was drinking today. On the job,” she reveals, and the shift in Isobel’s demeanor is instant. All that softness from seconds prior is abruptly gone, replaced with a cold stiffness. “His coffee smelled like vodka, and...” Maggie hesitates, knowing that Isobel won't like the explanation behind her injury, but Isobel has already put the pieces together.
“Was this him?” she asks, her voice like ice and unnervingly level. “Did he let you get hurt?” Maggie slowly nods. Let is a strong word, but she doesn’t think it would’ve happened had anyone else been with her instead. Being drunk had degraded Jubal’s reaction time and deprived her of backup when she’d needed it most – she knows that’s the real reason he didn’t take a shot at their fleeing suspect. He wasn't quick enough, and his aim was a tragedy waiting to happen.
“I couldn’t find the right time to tell you,” she explains. They’d been racing against the clock, and suddenly it was too late. All she could do in the wake of his threat was take matters into her own hands and find that device herself. “I tried to get him to step back and let someone else take over, but..." She trails off, uncharacteristically nervous until Isobel reassures her.
“Maggie,” she coaxes, with a gentleness that she doesn’t say anyone else’s name, and Maggie reluctantly finishes her sentence.
“He threatened to fire me.”
The long pause that follows feels like hell. “What.” There’s a venom in Isobel’s voice that Maggie has rarely heard in all the time they’ve known each other, that unsettles her with just one syllable even though she’s not the cause.
“He said if I ever question him again, he’ll fire me,” she repeats, a little quieter this time, and never has she experienced a silence so torturous in her life. It’s overbearing. Suffocating. Maggie has never once considered Isobel someone to be scared of, but when she finally dares to look her in the eye, she is terrified of her for the first time. Isobel’s gaze is cold, murderous, her jaw clenched hard.
Maggie had expected her to be angry, but this is something else, and she jumps violently when Isobel suddenly moves without a word, heading for the door. “Isobel!” Maggie barely manages to get there before her, heart racing as she grabs the handle first, and immediately forces herself between Isobel and the door, preventing her from leaving. “Where are you going?”
Isobel’s eyes are dark and deadly, narrowing with conviction – a look that could surely kill. “To make him wish he’d picked a different career,” she answers in a steely growl.
Maggie can’t say he doesn’t deserve it, after risking her life and hundreds of others. He’d refused to take an ounce of accountability or any of the multiple opportunities to remove himself from the field and this case, considering his pride more important than people’s safety. Maggie is lucky that brick didn’t kill her or do serious damage, and still he was more interested in denying that he was out there drunk.
She thinks Isobel might actually kill him, and she would be well within her right, but Maggie can’t let her – not out of any concern for Jubal, but because he isn’t even remotely worth any chance that this could be turned back on Isobel instead. “Maybe you should try to calm down-"
“No, Maggie,” Isobel snaps, cutting her off, so infuriated that even Maggie’s usual soothing effect on her is a lost cause now. “No. He doesn’t get to threaten my best agent. He doesn’t get to hurt you.”
Oh.
That’s an emphasis that Maggie wasn’t expecting. You. As if Isobel wouldn’t be this enraged – wouldn’t be so inclined to commit cold-blooded murder – if Jubal had done this to anyone other than her. Maggie’s head spins slightly at the thought, and she suddenly finds herself breathless for a different reason entirely. She decides, then, in her desperation to stop Isobel from doing something stupid, that there is only one hope left of getting her to relax – and kisses her.
For a split second, Isobel is stiff against her, the collar of her shirt bunched tightly in Maggie's hands. In the very next, she starts to soften, melting into her as all that anger becomes something else, and Maggie forfeits total control to her, completely undone by the fervent press of Isobel's lips. It's heated and messy and merciless, and for a solid, blissful minute, Maggie manages to forget about everything and anything that isn’t Isobel.
Even when they reluctantly have to part, she doesn’t let go of Isobel’s open collar, keeping her close as she tenderly cradles Maggie’s face in both hands. “Ah, my lipstick,” she murmurs, brushing her thumb against the corner of Maggie’s mouth, where a dark pinkish-red stain marks her skin.
“Always wanted to ruin it,” Maggie admits, though it’s still too pristine for her liking, only faintly smeared across Isobel’s bottom lip – unnoticeable if not for being so close to her.
Isobel scowls faintly. “You picked one hell of a time,” she says, but perhaps it was just the right moment, especially after the fear of Maggie’s brush with death, when Isobel was about to move heaven and earth to defend her. At its core, do that and a kiss not share the same sentiment?
“I had to calm you down somehow,” Maggie explains quietly, glad the impulse worked – and with better results than intended. “Otherwise, I’d be helping you hide a dead body.”
Isobel sighs, expression softening again as she strokes her thumb across Maggie’s cheek. “You know I’d never let him fire you,” she assures gently, let alone when all of this is partly her fault. She’s the one who made him Maggie’s responsibility today instead of monitoring him herself at the office. Isobel had thought that questioning a fruit vendor would be easy enough for even him to manage, needing him out of the way just for a little while, but if not for that decision, Maggie never would’ve been in a position to get hurt – or bullied. “I’ll make him regret threatening to.”
Maggie appreciates the protective fire in her eyes, but she’d prefer to forget about the situation for the next few hours. “Not tonight,” she tells her. Isobel has had just as long a day as her, and Maggie doesn’t want her wasting what’s left of it on him, when he’s probably not even here to receive the punishment. “You can suspend him in the morning.” She loosens her grip on Isobel’s shirt, carefully straightening it out before settling her with a thoughtful look. “Why don’t you grab something to eat with me? We can go back to mine.”
For a brief moment, Isobel looks conflicted, but Maggie’s bright doe eyes quickly sway her. “Alright,” she agrees, fingers ghosting along Maggie’s jaw as she finally lets go of her. “Dinner at yours.”
“I’ll even kiss you again if you’d like,” Maggie offers, with a smile that only widens at the almost exasperated yet amused look Isobel gives her. Today might have been a nightmare, but perhaps the threat and injury and stare down with death were all at least a little worth it if only for this.