TWO:
JOE !
━ • ♡ • ━
WALLER stood at her desk with her signature frown set on her face. She held up papers to compare with each other for the upcoming trip to Peru. A light knock rung through her office, the woman not even bothering a glance to the steel door.
"What is it?" she asked roughly.
Waller leaned over her work, signing a page in her neat script.
The door opened. Waller turned when none of her obnoxious employees started to rattle off nonsense to her. A young woman instead stood in her doorway, her hands clasped and lip trembling. She was nothing like her staff. Frail and timid, it irked the woman to even look at her. Waller pursed her lips, setting her pen down as she stared at the brunette.
"Who are you?"
"Um, yes, I'm Chandler Kemp. My Uncle Leo actually works here, and said maybe I could get a job through you?" she asked, her voice quavering and soft yet stood firm. She was strong and had seen a lot, Waller could see it in her eyes. Yet her stance made all the difference.
Waller made a small noise, indicating she had heard what Chandler had to say yet was still mulling over the idea. She scanned over Chandler. She noticed all the small things from her frizzy brunette hair to her loose, high-waisted jeans. She looked determined though, like she wouldn't leave without an answer.
"Show me what you've got," Waller demanded.
"Ah, um, can I use your computer?" Chandler asked, still in the same spot she had been.
Waller nodded, throwing a hand towards the empty leather chair. Chandler thanked her quietly, taking the seat as the woman stood behind her. She turned to the computer and pulled up the systems. A code in a matter of minutes on the screen and she turned to Waller to show off what she did.
"What's it do?" the woman asked, raising an eyebrow at the young woman who had yet to explain anything.
Chandler gave Amanda an awkward grin. Although, she hadn't wanted to tell the woman anything.
"It's easy, I broke into your firewall and have access to all your employees files in this laptop. See, I can hack into almost any system as long as I can talk my way into their wifi. Anyone connected, I can figure them out. It's simple," she explained, leaning back in her chair. Waller continued to stare the woman down.
"Well done, can you get us into big corporations if we sent you out?" she asked, looking at the code the young woman had done.
Chandler nodded, looking over to what she had perfected. "Oh, definitely."
"Alright, I'll test you out. So that no one gets suspicious of your work and what you do, you'll also be my assistant," Amanda stated without blinking. "Come in tomorrow at five with your resume and be ready for a drug test, then you'll meet with one of your superiors."
Chandler let out a deep breath, stepping out of the office, her heart beating ten times faster than normal, which was already speeding due to her anxiety. Waller's door closed behind her, and her anxiousness wore off a bit.
♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡
CHANDLER rushed into Waller's office at six twenty-nine the next morning, the drug test taking longer than she would have thought, with the woman before her forgetting she needed to actually pee in a cup. It was a whole scene that Chandler did not feel like dwelling on.
She laid her resume on the table, folding her hands in her lap. Waller barely looked up from her paperwork until a man, tall and brooding who went by the name of Rick Flag walked into the office. He was military and Chandler had looked at all of the employees last night.
"Flag, you're late," Waller hissed.
"Sorry ma'am," he apologized, taking the seat next to Chandler stiffly.
Looking at Flag, Chandler missed how he carried himself. Those years in the Army still bled through her veins. She missed it, the feeling of a gun between her finger, the adrenaline behind the warfare. Her doctor thought her mad; she knew she was.
"Chandler Kemp, this is Rick Flag, one of our top men in our newest mission."
She nodded tightly at her words, clutching the armrests until her knuckles turned white from the interaction she was being put through. Waller had warned her about meeting someone new, but those days she thought were behind her. A man as tough and mean looking as Rick Flag scared the shit out of her. She didn't know why, but there was something about him.
All those years in the military and she still could barely put herself through greeting the man. Even when she was the slightest bit sane she couldn't even shake the intimidating men's hands in her squadron.
"Rick Flag," the man introduced for her, holding out his hand when they both stood. "It's a pleasure to meet you," he continued, his jaw set tight as if he actually had no pleasure in their meeting. His opinion about Waller's employees was the same: they were all manipulative, dishonest and untrustworthy. She couldn't be any different, although her looks were much more prey than predator.
"Ch-Chandler Kemp, sir," she replied hoarsely, her voice rising a few octaves. She took his hand, shook quickly and left without another word.
♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡
TWO months and Rick Flag still was as brooding and stoic as ever, Chandler barely able to handle any more of it. She had seen glimpses of himself, his true self, and she wished she could be able to see all of it. He was all military and muscles on the outside and yet he hid his caring nature, the sweetness that every man held.
One day, Flag had been on his way to Waller's office to discuss his mission to Peru when he passed a storage closet. The faintest sound of muffled sobbing could be heard, and yet he barely thought twice on it. They were distinct, and almost suffocating how innocent and young they sounded.
He wanted to keep walking, keep Waller off his ass for being late again, but he could. He just couldn't handle the sounds ringing in his head, nagging him.
Opening the door slowly, Flag peered inside to find Waller's assistant, Chandler, sitting on the floor with her hands wrapped around her knees as she rocked herself back and forth. She stopped when the door opened, the light beneath her legs and then it disappeared.
Flag knelt beside her, worry in his brow.
"Chandler," he whispered, the gentlest he'd ever been. She tried to hold her tears back, turning to Flag. Swollen and red in the face. "What's happened?"
She continued to stare at him for a few tense seconds, a tear slipping past her and she quickly looked away. "I'm fine," she croaked.
"No you're not," he muttered, slowly reaching out to touch her, but she scrambled away from his touch, the anxiety too much. "I'm not going to hurt you," he soothed.
He watched her curl into herself more so and noticed her sleeve lift to show a bold tattoo on her bicep. Dark and crude, like a stamp that read 'U.S. Military.' His mind clicked, he'd seen it before. The social anxiety, the awkwardness of being in real life. He'd seen it in his friends, he'd lived it himself. The breaking point.
He understood, he knew as he moved back. She needed someone in existence, to be by her side but not touch her. No, never, she just needed to know he was there. So, he sat and waited. Slowly, her breathing came to a calmness that soothed him and her eyes flickered shut. Her tense muscles relaxed, and she fell into his side.
Asleep.
The door to the storage room opened, and Flag stepped out with Chandler's small frame tucked away into his arms at a strange angle. He marched into Waller's office, who turned to berate his tardiness until he shushed her. She immediately quieted, a sort-of strange motherly fondness towards the woman in his arms. Waller wished she had never grown a likeness to her, she became a liability now.
The day Rick Flag comforted Chandler Kemp in her time of need showed his true vulnerability. It proved to Waller that his heart may be too big for him to handle. At that time Chandler only liked him as a friend, possibly like a big brother, but in months to come to her fondness would become unbearable, gut-wrenching, heartbreaking.
She wouldn't know how to live with herself.