Hired
Today was the first day of Adora’s new assignment. She was going undercover at a fairly new tech company (Dryll Enterprises) located in the heart of Bright Moon that seemed to have some dodgy dealings around town and as such the company had risen quickly from its obscurity only a year ago. Posing as an executive assistant for the CEO of the company, she would only need to dig up enough information before she could bring it back to her employers to bring this company down. She had gotten the job via a contact within DE and it seemed like they were desperate for someone to fill the role that had become vacant so suddenly.
She stands in the lobby of the building, dressed in her best business attire (a clean crisp white button up blouse and a pair of black slacks) and her trusty backpack, waiting for someone up in the office to come fetch her. She looks at the watch, she’s 15mins early. There was a security check point on the way in, which isn’t too unusual for a tech company considering this one had experienced some disturbances of late. On of which had someone from the rival tech company (Horde Tech) had tried to access the elevators without the correct accreditation, only for that person to produce a knife and threaten a cleaner to give them access up. Once security had defused the situation and passed this individual off to the police, DE implemented a more stringent security check point instead of just a security desk in the middle of the lobby.
A large woman with short white hair and in a very form fitting suite walks out from one of the lifts and heads directly for the security desk, passing Adora on the way. After a brief chat with the head of security, one of the guard’s points to Adora and the large woman nods and makes her way over. What Adora wasn’t expecting was the happy and inviting smile the woman approaching her had on her face, holding her hand out to Adora, “Oh, gosh! You must be Adora! I’m Scorpia.”
Adora closes the gap and shakes Scorpia’s hand, “Hi.” She says, wincing a little by the tight grip Scorpia has on her hand, “It’s nice to meet you.”
Suddenly realising her own strength, Scorpia quickly let go of Adora’s hand and instantly looks sheepishly at the blonde, “I’m so sorry. Sometimes I don’t know my own strength…”
“It’s okay.” Adora replies trying to play off the throbbing in her hand, “Scorpia, was it?”
“Yes!” Scorpia beams at the fact that Adora remembers her name, “Oh, come with me. You’ll have to meet the rest of the gang! I mean, team.”
Adora nods and smiles back at Scorpia and follows the larger woman into the elevator where Scorpia starts to break into the spiel about the job, the company, who does what and on and on until they reach the second top floor. Scorpia walks out of the elevator with such energy that she almost walks into some of the other workers up here. They all seem to brush it off as a normal everyday thing, but they also all glance briefly at Adora as she makes her way further into the office space.
Scorpia leads her into an office that looks like it’s in need of a good tidy up.
“Sorry about the mess.” Scorpia apologizes as she takes her seat behind the desk and gestures for Adora to sit on the chair on the other side, “Take a seat, Adora. I just need to find… ah, there it is.”
Handing over a large yellow envelope that looked heavy. Adora takes it and opens it. She finds a bunch of paperwork, probably her contract, confidentiality forms, information on the company’s policies and her staff card.
“I’ll need you to fill out those forms her before I can get your staff card activated and then we can go say hi to everyone.” Scorpia tells her, “Do you need a pen?”
“No, I’ve got one, thanks.” Adora replies reaching into her backpack and pulling out a pen.
“Wow, I think you’re like the only one who’s actually come in prepared.” The large woman beams, “Usually the agency just sends us people that really don’t want to be here…” Scorpia chuckles awkwardly at her own joke, “But, I don’t get why they aren’t so excited about working here? I mean, it’s just so great!”
Adora nods and tries to send her an understanding smile as she gets going on filling out the envelope full of paperwork. They work in an awkward silence for a few minutes, before Adora breaks it with a question that’s been burning on her mind since Scorpia mentioned it, “You had the agency send you workers?”
“Oh, gosh. Yes.” Scorpia replies typing away on her computer before looking around it and to Adora, “I forgot to mention that we don’t really have a hiring component in this office… I mean the company does in regards to hiring programmers and engineers and all that. But, they don’t exactly have a lot of interpersonal skills, if you know what I mean…”
Adora definitely knows what she means, just walking through this office, it was definitely not like how most other offices were. Most of the workers on this floor were cooped up in labs and the few that weren’t, were basically just in offices like the one she was in now.
“Sorry, but what do you do?” Adora asks, a little embarrassed that she didn’t do enough research to know.
“Oh, did I not tell you?” Scorpia thinks to herself, “I’m in procurement. This is just sort of a side job as everyone says I’m the most friendly or something. So that’s why you’re here in my office.”
“Am I working for you…?”
“Oh gosh no.” Smiling to Adora, “You’ll be working directly under Catra.”
“Catra?”
“Yeah. The CEO. She’s on the next floor up.” The large woman points directly above her, “The last secretary or should I say executive assistant wasn’t up to scratch and sort of… well, they ran out after the first day.”
“Should I be concerned?” Adora raises an eyebrow in question and thinks of what she’s gotten herself into.
“Of Catra? No. She’s tough and rough round the edges but she’s got a really good heart.” Scorpia expression softens when she talks about the CEO, “She’s actually one third of the Super Pal Trio and one of my best friends.”
“The Super Pal Trio?”
“Yeah, that’s what I wanted to call the company before we went with Dryll Enterprises.” Scorpia smiles again at the memory, “I got outvoted.”
“Uh huh.” Adora acknowledges before going back to reading and filling out the rest of the paperwork. About half an hour later she puts the lid back on her pen and places the papers on Scorpia’s desk, “All done.”
“Great. Let me just finish this email… and done!” Tapping loudly on the computer and then locking the screen, Scorpia picks up the paperwork and stands up, “Okay, let's get your staff card activated. Ooh, we’ll also need you to take a photo as well to go on it.”
“Uh, sure.” Adora follows the large woman around as she introduces Adora to anyone that looks up to see what’s going on. It feels like most of the other workers are probably thinking that she won’t be hanging around very long after what she’s just heard about the previous EA. Adora just waves meekly to them as they pass them by quickly.
“Here we are!” Scorpia declares when they reach a door that looks like the broom closet and actually says ‘Supplies’ on it, “Oh, don’t let the sign throw you off…” a nervous chuckle exits the large woman as she knocks on the door.
The door opens and they both squeeze inside. Adora is astonished to find the broom closet leads to a larger room with an office. “Where are we?”
“Oh hello!” A short woman with purple hair, pigtails, welding goggles and overalls darts out from the office, her face is blackened by dirt or smoke or something that Adora can’t make out, “You must be the new EA. My contact said you would be starting today.”
“Hi, I’m Adora.” Adora puts her hand out for them to shake only for the other woman to completely ignore in favour of something behind her that seems much more interesting.
Scorpia nudges Adora and whispers, “Don’t mind her. That’s Entrapta. She’s a little… kooky.” They duck as Entrapta starts throwing items around the room in search of something until she finds what she’s looking for and head back to the main office. “Entrapta? Can you please activate Adora’s staff card so we can get her settled up on Catra’s floor?”
“Have you vetted this one?” Entrapta asks seriously, “Because the last one…”
“I know, I know… that was a mistake. I shouldn’t have insisted…” Scorpia tries to push the memory aside, “But you’ve been given all the information about Adora beforehand, so technically you would have to vet her too.”
“Hmm… that is true.” Entrapta replies with a hum, while Adora stiffens at hearing this conversation, “Adora seems like a low threat. Even if she is here on false pretenses.”
“Wha…” Adora gets out before she’s cut off by Entrapta.
“It’s fine, Adora. You can run your internal investigation into our company if you want, but you’ll find nothing incriminating.” Entrapta tells her like it’s a challenge, “But, I do believe you’ll be able to undertake this EA job for Catra quite easily. Your profile does quite fit…”
“Thanks, Entrapta!” Scorpia cuts the scientist off as she turns back to Adora, “Entrapta is the head of operations here. Has been since day 1.” The large woman then sighs and turns back to her friend, “Can you please activate her card then?”
“It already has been activated.” Entrapta replies as she begins soldering some wires together on something behind the desk she’s standing at, “You can head on up.”
“Thank you.” Scorpia breathes out, “Okay, let’s head up so you can meet Catra and then get you settled.”
“Okay.” Adora replies softly.
“Oh, Adora?” Entrapta pipes up, the blonde turns and gives her attention to the scientist, “Don’t let your first impression of Catra put you off.”
Before Adora can even mull over that she’s quickly ushered out of the broom closet and back into the elevator to the top floor. The doors open to what looks like the lobby downstairs, except that it’s got frosted glass walls surrounding it with 2 doors on opposite sides of the glass. One that leads down the emergency stairs and one that goes into the office space on the floor. Following Scorpia through the second door, Adora’s eyes widen to see the amazing views this floor boasts.
“It’s cool, isn’t it?” Scorpia nudges Adora playfully and all Adora can do is nod, “Come on, Catra’s office is just over here.”
“Is this whole floor office space?” Adora asks as they get to another door.
Scorpia either ignores or doesn’t hear the question as she knocks on the door and opens it without waiting for a response. They step through and into the large office space that’s divided into the reception/waiting area and the office area. The door to the main office is open just ajar and there’s a raspy voice inside talking, sounding irritated.
“Wait here.” Scorpia orders Adora as she knocks on the main office door and slides in, shutting the door behind her.
Adora stands in the waiting area nervously, tugging at the straps on her backpack as she waits for them to come out. After a couple of minutes, the door opens and Scorpia gestures for Adora to come in. The first thing she notices is floor to ceiling windows this space boasts with the view expanding all the way to just see the ocean in the distance. The next thing she sees is another woman in the room, slumped on the couch, tapping her phone against her head with her eyes furrowed. The woman is not wearing anything business-y at all. If anything, she looks like she’s just gotten out of bed and thrown on a tshirt and a pair of chino’s. She’s not even wearing shoes! Her short brown hair looks like it’s been finger combed and she looks tired.
“Wildcat!” Scorpia greets her friend.
“I told you not to call me that at work.” Catra grunts as she runs her hand through her short hair, tugging it a little towards the end.
“But, you’re always at work…” Scorpia replies, rubbing the back of her neck.
“What do you want, Scorp?” Catra asks not looking up from where she’s staring out the window, “I’m busy, you know.”
“Gosh! You always are. I think you need to like take a holiday or something. You know, relax and not think about work.” Scorpia rambles on a little as Catra just groans as she buries her face in her hands, “Oh, okay. Anyways, this is Adora. Your new EA.”
Catra closes her eyes and rolls her neck from side to side before she looks up at Adora, “Adora, huh?”
Catra smirks when Adora’s breath hitches upon seeing Catra’s different coloured eyes. Forcing herself to step forward, she holds out her hand for a handshake which Catra takes firmly and shakes it, “Yes. That’s me. Adora.”
“What am I doing?” Adora thinks to herself, “Keep it together. You’re working for her.”
Catra releases Adora’s hand and stands up straight, she’s a little shorter than Adora, especially since she’s not wearing shoes, and walks over to her desk and picks up a cup and sips on the contents, “Welcome or whatever.”
“Catra…” Scorpia warns her friend with a stern and disapproving look.
“Ok, fine.” Catra rolls her eyes, “Welcome. Thanks for coming to this hellhole to work with me. Better?”
“Uh, don’t you mean, work for you?” Adora clarifies, “I’m working for you.”
Catra waves her hand around like whatever, “Yeah, sure. You work for me.” Catra looks back at Scorpia, “Is there anything else?”
“No. I’m going to head back down. Lots to do.” Scorpia smiles as Adora sends her pleading eyes not to be left with Catra, “Good luck!” she calls as she exits the office, shutting the door behind them.
Catra stares at Adora, making the blonde uncomfortably shuffle around before clearing her throat, “Uh, your desk is just outside the door. I think you should have all your logins somewhere around the desk as well. Just change all the passwords once you log in.”
“Okay.” Adora looks over at the door and adjusts the strap on her backpack.
“Do you even know how to be an EA?” Catra asks with a smirk.
“What do you mean? I mean this is what I was hired for.” Adora replies with a huff, not liking being questioned in her abilities, even if said abilities might be made up.
“Okay.” Catra smugly says as she puts her hands on her hips, “Do EA things.”
Adora looks around, confused at the request.
Then Catra breaks out in a laugh, seeing Adora look so out of place. The blonde pouts but a small smile tugs on her lips, “How is that funny?”
“You just proved my point, princess.” Catra smirks as she goes to sit behind her desk and flips open her laptop, “Go get set up and let me know when you’re done. I’ve got a few things I’ll need you for later.”
Adora huffs and stomps out of the office. Dropping her backpack on the extra space on her desk and turns on her computer. Sure enough there are instructions laid out on her desk neatly of how to log in and which programs she needs to familiar herself with. There’s also a desk phone next to her computer with a few numbers already programmed in it. She loads up the work email and then gets set to read through some of the manuals on the desk for the programs she’ll be using.
About an hour later, Catra comes out of her office. She’s changed out of her tshirt and put on a dark blue button up work shirt and has a pair of (very loved and scuffed) black boots on, a laptop bag slung over her shoulder as she stops in front of Adora’s desk.
“Ready?” Catra asks as she checks her watch.
“Ready for what?” Adora asks confused, she didn’t see any meetings scheduled in her calendar and there are no notes or anything else either.
“You can leave your bag here. Just grab a note pad or your laptop to take minutes.” Catra tells her as she leans on the desk, “We’re meeting a client.”
“That’s not on the calendar.” Adora states, eyebrows furrowed at having to up and leave when she’s halfway through reading one of the manuals, “What client?”
“No, it’s not on the calendar. This is a special client. Very irritating.” Catra rolls her eyes, “Hurry up, we have to get going.”
Adora grunts out a noise in frustration as she looks for a note pad. Sure, she brought a pen, but didn’t think she’d need to also bring her own notepad. She looks around frustrated at not finding one before she looks up at Catra who’s staring at her amused, “Where is the stationary?”
“That’s your job.” Catra replies with a smirk, when the blonde huffs at her, Catra turns around and walks over to one of the cupboards labelled ‘Stationary’ and pulls out an A4 notebook, “This one good?”
Adora walks over and takes the notebook out of Catra’s hand, “Yes. Fine. It’ll do.” Before she’s shoving the notebook into her backpack and following Catra to the elevator.
They stand in the elevator in silence as it takes them all the way down to lobby. Catra walks out first and Adora follows behind her, trying to keep up with the fast pace Catra is setting. A few people wave to Catra, she just nods in their direction as acknowledgement. They walk to the far side of the building and through to another door and into a parking garage. Catra strides towards a beat up old mustang and opens her door with the key before climbing in and reaching over to unlock the other door. This is not what Adora was expecting the CEO of a multibillion company to be driving, but she gets in anyway. The inside of the car is clean and tidy. Catra must keep this car in good nick considering how old and beat up it looks from the outside.
“What’s wrong, princess? My ride not good enough for you?” Catra snarks to the blonde as she shoves her backpack between her legs in the front passenger seat.
Adora glares back, “I didn’t even say anything.”
“You don’t have to say anything.” Catra replies as she starts the car up and then back out of the car space and out of the parking garage, “I can see the way you looked at her.”
“Her?”
“Yeah, her.” Catra says with emphasis, “She’s, my baby. Been through a lot.”
“That’s… sad.” Adora rolls her eyes, “Does she have a name?”
Catra chuckles, making Adora involuntarily smile, “I’m not crazy, Adora. I don’t name inanimate things.”
“Can I name her then?” Adora teases as she watches the road while Catra drives them through the city, “Where are we going?”
“You want to name my baby?” Catra ignores the second half of the question.
“Yeah, why not?” The challenge makes Catra smile as she looks forward and then stops at a red light.
Catra turns to look at Adora, trying to see if the blonde had some kind of angle, “Okay. You can name her. But if I don’t like the name, you’ll have to choose another one.”
Adora rolls her eyes, “Fine. How about… Pony?”
Catra’s face scrunches up in disgust, “No.”
“Uh, fine, what about…” Adora puts her hand to her jaw to think, “Filly.”
The look of disgust on Catra’s face turns to absolute horror at the name, “No.”
Adora throws a few names around while Catra continues to drive them out of the city when she finally settles on one, “Swift Wind.”
“Swift Wind?” Catra repeats, “Yeah, that could work.”
Adora cheers, actually cheers when Catra decides on the final name, “Ooh, I can call her Swifty for short!”
“Calm down there, princess.” Catra snorts, “She’s not even yours and how often do you think you’ll even be in my car?”
The blonde huffs a little and then slumps back into her seat but she’s smiling triumphantly, looking out the windows, she realises that they are no longer in Bright Moon, “Uh… where are we going?”
“I need to go see Huntara in the Crimson Waste.” Catra replies, “Hope you didn’t have plans tonight.”
“What?!” Adora almost shouts, “We can’t just go to the Crimson Waste! It’s like a 2 hour drive away.”
“I know.” Catra replies as she tightens her grip on the steering wheel, “But, we’re about half way there now… so I’m not turning back.”
“What if I had plans tonight?!” Adora scoffs.
“Do you?”
“What?”
“Have plans. For tonight?” Catra asks as she reaches around for her sunglasses, she puts them on and looks over at Adora, “You’re an EA, right? You know shit like this happens all the time.”
Far from Adora to object to being an EA she just huffs and crosses her arms in front of her chest and pouts like she wants to throw a tantrum, “Well, it shouldn’t. You didn’t even ask me.”
“What are you on about?” Catra scoffs right back, “I’ll have you back just after your finishing time. I was joking about the having plans tonight thing anyways. You can still make whatever you were planning on doing tonight. Probably.”
Adora rolls her eyes and sighs, “Is Swifty even going to make it there and back?”
“Yeah, she might look old and beat up, but I’ve upgraded all the internal stuff so there’s no way we’ll breakdown.” Catra replies as her grip relaxes on the wheel again, “So… you didn’t answer my question from before.”
“Hmm?” Adora replies looking out the window.
“Do you have plans tonight?”
Adora’s a shit liar so instead of trying make herself look less sad at not having any plans she just shakes her head. To her surprise Catra sighs and mumbles, “Me neither.”
They sit in an almost comfortable silence the rest of the way to the Crimson Waste. Catra parks Swifty right near the front doors of the bar.
“A bar?” Adora asks as she unbuckles her seat belt and stretches a little in her seat, “What are we doing here?”
“Huntara works here, and this is where the problem is. Not really my kind of place, but eh, she is the client after all.” Catra shrugs as she gets out of the car and heads to her boot to retrieve brown canvas bag that looks heavy and her laptop and makes her way inside, Adora follows not too far behind as Swifty is locked up and they head inside.
“There you are!” An even larger woman than Scorpia comes out from behind the bar, “I didn’t expect you to come straight away.”
Catra just groans as she runs her hands down her face in frustration, “Hunt, what the fuck did you do? I told you not to turn it on until we were ready on our end.”
“Sorry kid, but you know me…” Huntara grins at Catra with a slight case of embarrassment before she catches sight of Adora standing behind her, “And who is this?”
Catra turns around and sees Adora’s eyes wide and staring at Huntara. She groans again, “This is Adora.” She introduces, “My new EA. Adora. This is Huntara. The giant pain in my ass who can’t follow simple instructions.”
“Hey there, blondie.” Huntara flirts shamelessly as Adora sputters in response as the larger woman smirks back to Catra flexing the arms in her muscles a little, “She’s cute.”
“Shut up.” Catra growls, “Can you please not hit on all my EA’s?”
“Not my fault.” Huntara steps back and crosses her arms, looking Adora up and down while the blonde blushes, “You have really good tastes in EA’s.”
“I don’t hire them. You know that.” Catra protests, “Besides, they’d probably stick around longer if you weren’t harassing them whenever I come out to see you.”
“It’s not harassing if they are into it.” Huntara says to Adora but directing it back to Catra.
“Look, if you 2 want to hook up or whatever later, fine. I don’t fucking care.” Catra huffs, she turns to Adora, “But I’m not waiting for you to drive you back.”
“I, what? No. I wasn’t…” Adora stutters back with a blush and turning away from Huntara’s stare.
“Whatever, princess.” Catra brushes her off, before turning back to Huntara, “Ok, Hunt. Where is it so I can fucking fix whatever the fuck you did to it.”
“It’s in the back, kid.” Huntara points to the door behind her, “How long do you think it’ll take you to fix?”
“Fuck if I know.” Catra huffs as she goes towards the door, “Depends on how bad you fucked it.”
Catra disappears into the back room and shuts the door.
Huntara turns her attention back to Adora, “So, Adora was it?”
Nodding dumbly, Adora manages to say, “Yes.”
“How long you been working with the kid?” The question puts Adora off a little.
“The kid?”
“Yeah, she used to sneak into my bar as a kid. Fucking menace she was growing up.” Huntara barks out a laugh, “She’s surprised us all, honestly.”
“Today’s my first day, actually…” Adora admits with a blush, “She said I was supposed to be taking minutes for this meeting.”
“First day huh?” Huntara eyes the blonde again, “Say… you want a drink? On the house of course.”
“Uh, no thanks. Don’t think I should be drinking on the job. And definitely not on my first day.” Adora chuckles nervously as she looks away from Huntara’s flirtatious stare, “So, you knew Catra before DE?”
“Yeah.” Huntara leans back against the bar, “Like I said, she was a menace growing up. Got into fights, broke into places, snuck into my bar so often I ended up offering her a job so she would stop sneaking in.” A sad chuckle escapes Huntara’s lips, “Don’t blame her though. She had a shitty upbringing. No wonder she snuck out all the time.”
Adora leans up against the bar, mirroring Huntara, “Oh.”
“But she’s grown up so much now.” Huntara tacks on, “Well, she’s still a fucking menace but at least she’s got something she’s working towards.” Huntara sighs and runs her a hand up and down Adora’s arm, “So… my office is just over there if you want to…”
Snapping out of whatever haze Adora was in, she quickly removes herself from Huntara’s grip and anxiously steps around a table so there’s something between them, “Um, no thanks. I, uh…”
“Hunt!” Catra shouts from the room she’s in, “Get your ass in here!”
Huntara smirks at the blonde, “Well, maybe another time.”
Adora just nods non-committedly as she watches the large woman walk away, breathing out in relief at what had just happened. Sure, the large woman was attractive and very muscular… but it seemed so wrong. She knew Adora was working, and working for Catra yet had the audacity to make such a strong come on. Adora scolded herself for nearly falling for it as she pulled out one of the chairs at the table and sits.
Catra comes out, her hair is mussed up and she’s wiping grease off her hands with a bar towel Huntara has given her. There are even a few black grease stains on Catra’s face and neck from where she’s accidently touched herself.
“Sorry, princess.” Catra sighs to Adora, “You might want to get comfortable, this is going to take a while.” Catra glares at Huntara who steps back with her hands up in surrender, “Can you at least get Adora something to eat and drink for lunch?”
“No problems kid.” Huntara nods.
Catra pulls out the chair opposite Adora and slumps down, throwing the greasy towel on the edge of the table as she pulls out her phone and dials someone.
“Traps. Yeah, it’s fucked. I’m going to need to take it apart and reset it.” Catra groans into her phone as she puts both elbows on the table and runs a hand through her now dirty hair, “I know. I don’t need to weld or solder it. I can reconnect it without doing it.” Catra sighs, “No, you don’t need to come out. I’ve got this.” Hanging up the phone, Catra groans again as Huntara places 2 cups of water on the table. Catra chugs the contents of the glass down in one go, wiping her mouth with her now equally dirty shirt sleeve before she looks up at Adora again, “I’ll get us back before your workday is over. I promise. Okay?”
Before Adora can reply, Catra gets off her chair, pushes it back in and goes back to whatever she’s fixing in the back. Adora sighs at being left alone again as she pulls out her phone. Great. No service. Hang on. How does Catra have service? Adora can’t even get a bar.
“You aren’t going to get any signal out here until the kid fixes my issue.” Huntara tells her as she places down a plate of pasta in front of the blonde, “Eat up.”
Adora’s eyes light up with the food in front of her, “Thank you. I am starving!” Adora moans at the first bite, much to Huntara’s amusement, “Sorry… I didn’t eat breakfast this morning is all…”
A smirk come back on Huntara’s face, “Don’t be sorry. Now I know what you sound like when you like something.”
Adora pauses with a blush, trying not to choke on the pasta in her mouth at the shameless flirting Huntara is throwing her way. Once she swallows her mouthful, Adora turns to look at where Catra is before asking, “How does Catra have phone signal then?”
“Satellite phone.” Huntara answers with a shrug.
“Oh.” Adora goes back to eating her lunch, “What is she doing back there?”
“She’s fixing up the console and router at the back. I might have blew it up when I got curious and pushed a few buttons I probably shouldn’t have.” Huntara laughs loudly at her own mistakes, “So sue me. I may have drunk a little too much as well.”
Adora looks away and back to her lunch, “How long do you think it’ll take?”
“Don’t know.” Huntara shrugs again, “She’s usually pretty quick even if she’s the grumpiest little shit I’ve ever known.”
At that, Adora actually laughs, “She is grumpy, isn’t she?”
“Yeah, the kid is definitely not a people person, that’s for sure.” Huntara smiles, “But I wouldn’t change her for the world.”
Huntara leaves Adora to doodle mindlessly onto her notebook while the owner attends to the lunchtime rush. Every time Adora looks over at Huntara, the large woman is openly flirting with someone, at one point she’s even making out with one of her patrons while no one seems to bat an eyelid at it. Adora shakes her head and scolds herself again at how she nearly gave in to the larger woman. Checking the time, it’s just past 2pm, that means they’ll need to leave in the next hour to make it back in time if Catra’s going to keep her promise. She looks at her phone one more time and then realises it’s got signal again and all the bars light up. Then she hears the grumbling from Catra as she comes back to the table Adora is sitting at and slumps down on the chair, pulling her sleeves up and airing out her shirt and dropping her brown bag onto the floor as a few tools fall out of it. She pulls out her laptop from its case and starts typing away. Then catches something in Adora’s grasp.
“Hey, what’s this?” Catra pulls the notebook towards here with all of Adora’s bored doodles on them.
“Hey!’ Give that back!’ Adora tries to take the notebook back.
Catra’s faster though and manages to grab the notebook and turn her body enough so the blonde can’t reach it, “Your drawings are cute.”
Adora snatches the notebook back off Catra and blushes as she shoves it back into her backpack, “Are you done? Can we go now?”
“What’s up with you? Usually I’m the grumpy one.” Catra muses, “Yeah, I’m done.”
Catra gets off her chair, closing her laptop and putting it back in its case then goes up to the bar and speaks with Huntara. The bar owner laughs loudly, slaps Catra on the back and shoves a few cans of soda into her chest. Catra comes back to the table, holding out one of the cans to the blonde. “No thanks.”
“Suit yourself.” Catra pops one of the cans open and drinks it up in one go, placing the empty can on the table, “Okay, let's go. I need to take a shower.”
Adora picks up her backpack and follows Catra out and to Swifty.
Once they are back on the road again, Catra turns to the blonde, “Sorry it took so long.”
“Did I really have to go with you?” Adora asks curiously, “It wasn’t even a business meeting.”
Catra takes a moment before responding, “Honestly? No. You didn’t have to come with me. But it was a business meeting technically. Well, call out more like it.”
“Then why?”
“I just wanted some company on the drive to and from there.” Catra admits shyly, “It’s a long drive and I don’t trust myself to do it safely today without getting much sleep last night.”
“Oh...” That was not the answer Adora was expecting at all, “Okay, I guess that’s fine then.”
Catra yawns, “I know I’m not the best company, so it’s fine if you’ve had enough of me and want to quit already.” The tone in Catra’s voice sounds sad and guilty at the same time, “No one usually sticks around too long as my EA as you can probably see why.”
“It’s my first day, Catra.” Adora deadpans, “It wasn’t exactly what I expected to be doing today.”
“Yeah?” Catra glances over at the blonde for a moment before concentrating on the road ahead again, “Did you take any minutes?”
“Uh, I didn’t bring a stopwatch…” Adora replies shyly.
Catra feels confused by that answer but lets it go. For now. Clearing her throat, Catra drums her fingers on the steering wheel a little, “So, I’m going to need you to document today’s little client issue tomorrow and ready for review on Friday. That’ll give you plenty of time, right?”
Adora nods, “Um, how am I supposed to document this when I don’t even know what you were doing in the back?”
“Don’t worry about what I was doing, just note the date, time and how long it took us to get there and how long it takes to get back.” Catra glances over to Adora like she should know this, “Also you’ll need to document any ‘gifts’ that Huntara gave us.”
“Gifts?”
“Yeah.” Catra smirks, “You know, things that we didn’t pay for.”
“You mean like your soda’s?” Adora looks in the back seat where Catra dropped the extra cans of soda that Huntara gave her.
“Yep, need to declare that shit.” Catra replies, “Can’t look like I’m accepting bribes, you know?”
“Uh huh.” Adora replies trying to remember everything that happened today, “Does that include my lunch?”
“What do you think?” Catra asks and Adora doesn’t know if she’s trying to be funny or if she’s serious.
“Yes?” Adora answers tentatively.
“Give the girl a prize.” Catra teases as she moves to switch the radio on, “Sorry, she’s old so it’s AM stations only.”
“You upgraded the internals of Swifty, but you kept the old radio?” Adora asks a little bewildered, “Do you even have Bluetooth in here?”
Catra grin, shaking her head, “No way am I being interrupted by phone calls while I drive. I want to at least enjoy this and not be distracted by other shit. Besides, it lets me think before I have to go meet a client or fix issues.”
“Why are you personally going to meet clients when there’s a whole building of staff at your disposal for that?” Adora asks, it doesn’t make any sense for the CEO to be out and being hands on when they’ve got staff to do that.
“I don’t go to all clients.” Catra replies with a finality to it.
“Then why are these so special?” Adora prods a little more, “I mean, as your EA I need to know which clients are deemed visit worthy.”
“I’ll, uh, send you a list when we get back to the office.” Catra replies as she relaxes into her seat and winds down her window, letting the loud noise of the wind coming through basically put an end to the current conversation.
Adora sighs and opens her window too, feeling the wind blow and mess up her hair.
They arrive back at DE just after 5pm, Catra parks her car back in her spot in the garage and they head back to the lobby.
“Well, thanks for coming out with me today.” Catra tells her as she goes to turn to head to the elevators.
“Hey, wait!” Adora chases after her.
“Yeah?”
“I left my staff card up in your office.” Adora remembers, “Well, I think that’s where I left it…”
Catra raises her eyebrow at the blonde and Adora just huffs, trying to hide her embarrassment, “Yeah, okay. Come on back up to your office then.”
They stand in silence as the lift brings them to the top floor. Catra letting Adora exit the elevator first and she follows behind the blonde. Catra swipes her card so they can enter the office spaces and Adora rushes in, going straight to her computer and looking around frantically. Catra watches on with amusement on her face as she swipes her card to get into her own office. Dumping her laptop onto her desk and kicking off her boots, Catra heads to the bathroom to clean up a little. When she comes out, she sees Adora still rummaging through her office area.
“Did you even go there?” Catra asks as she starts unbuttoning her blue work shirt revealing the tshirt she had worn when they initially met underneath it, “Did you check your backpack?”
Adora scoffs, “Yes. I checked my backpack.”
Catra takes a quick peek into Adora’s open backpack and sees said staff card, “Ahem, Adora?”
“What?!” the blonde turns to face the CEO, eyes furrowed with frustration.
Catra reaches into her backpack and pulls out her staff card.
“Oh.” Adora rushes over and takes the card off Catra, “Thanks.”
“Yeah, whatever.” Catra smirks as she turns around to head back into her office.
“Are you going back to work?” Adora asks a little embarrassed for snapping at her, “Don’t you finish at 5pm too?”
Catra snorts back a laugh, “In case you haven’t noticed, I spent 4 hours on the road today. So I’m 4 hours behind on all the other shit I was supposed to do today.” Catra sits down at her desk and takes her laptop out of the case and plugs it in the hub on her desk before starting it up, “You can go. Welcome or whatever.”
Adora rolls her eyes as she steps further into Catra’s office much to Catra’s surprise, “What ever happened to needing a shower? I mean, your face and clothes are full of grease.” To demonstrate her point, Adora runs a finger over Catra’s cheek and shows it to her, “See.”
Catra grasps Adora’s wrist and the blonde’s breath hitches a little at the sudden physical touch, but Catra doesn’t look directly at her. Instead focusing on the finger that had touched her cheek, after a moment of inspection of Adora’s blackened finger, Catra looks up at Adora, “I know you’re not an EA.”
Adora tries to take her wrist back, but Catra’s hold is firm, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m not stupid or an amateur, Adora.” Catra’s tone is as firm as her grip on the blonde’s wrist, “You don’t even know what minutes are, do you?”
Adora looks away knowing there would be no way she’d be able to think of a lie good enough to cover, “So? What are you going to do about it?”
Catra releases Adora’s wrist and the blonde steps back, “Do you want to work here?”
“What?” Adora is thrown by that question.
“I said, do you want to work here? Do you want to work for me?” Catra repeats as she sits back in her chair and taps her fingers on her desk waiting for an answer.
Adora shuffles nervously in front of Catra. This is not how she thought today would go. She was so sure she’d be able to pull this off undetected. “How did…?”
“How did I know that you’re not an EA?” Catra finishes the question off for Adora, “Do you really think I don’t look up who comes in and works for me?”
“But what about…?”
“The other EA’s?” Catra chuckles, running a hand through her messy hair, “They weren’t suitable. They don’t think for themselves. I don’t want a mindless robot working for me. If I wanted that, I could get Entrapta to make me another Emily.”
“I know why you’re here, Adora.” Catra concludes as she pushes her chair back and stands up, “Go ahead. Dig around. You won’t find anything here. We aren’t what everyone thinks we are. We aren’t evil.”
“I didn’t…”
“But that’s why you’re here though, isn’t it? You want to find evidence of corruption.” Catra sighs as she walks to look out the window, “You won’t find any here. Not from the core group anyways. I can’t control what lower-level employees do on their own time, but at its heart, we aren’t doing anything bad.”
“And why do you want me to work for you?” Adora walks up to the window and stands next to Catra, looking over the view, “If you know so much about me, why have me work for you?”
“Do you want this job or not?” Catra ignores Adora’s question as she turns to face the blonde.
Adora holds out her staff card not looking at her. Catra takes it and puts it in her pocket as she watches Adora exit her office.
She watches as the blonde walks out of the building and disappears into the masses of other workers finished for the day and sighs.