Desperately Trying To Cling Onto Positivity

He was nursing a drink, one that wouldn’t get him drunk anyone, and nodding along to the chatter when heard you.

“There you are!”

Clark’s eyes widened when you sat in the empty seat beside him and smiled. His heart flipped. And flipped again. Golly, you were beautiful.

So beautiful.

“Oh!” he exclaimed when you went in for a hug, keeping his hands in a safe place as he returned it and glancing at an amused Jimmy and Lois. “Um…”

“This guy at the bar won’t stop bugging me, so I told him I was meeting up with my boyfriend. I’m sorry,” you quickly whispered.

That caught Clark by surprise.

Even with his height and build, he always did his best to look unintimidating and unsure of himself when he wasn’t Superman.

Why would you choose him to be a fake boyfriend out of everyone there?

“I can go if you want,” you offered when you pulled away.

Clark’s eyes narrowed behind his glasses when he saw a guy staring at you from a few feet away, his protective instincts flaring up.

“No. Please, stay,” he said, slipping an arm around you and giving you what he hoped was a charming smile. “But… I don’t think I caught your name.”

You giggled and leaned in again to tell him in his ear.

He repeated it. “I’m Clark.”

“Nice to meet you, Clark.”

And who knew?

Maybe being a fake boyfriend tonight could turn into a real thing later on.

Golly, he’s adorable. Love and thanks for reading! ❤️

- MISCELLANEOUS CHARACTERS

- including Robbie Jennings (ataps), Drover (australia), Leopold Mountbatten (kate and leopold), Conrad Fisher (tsitp), and Kaz Brekker (shadow and bone), Joe Macken (albert nobbs)

- JAMES POTTER

- TANGERINE

- POLY MARAUDERS

- COUNT VRONSKY

- SERGEI KRAVINOFF

- DAVE LIZEWSKI

- PIETRO MAXIMOFF

- TOM RYDER

- LOGAN HOWLETT

- FRIEDRICH HARDING

- CLARK KENT

- PETER PARKER

- STEVE HARRINGTON

(Bonus, 4k Celebration) - MOODBOARD MASTERLISTS

PS: the aesthetic pictures on the mood-boards DO NOT reflect Y/n's descriptions! no physical descriptions of Y/n are given at any point in any fics UNLESS given in the warnings! i always want to make sure Y/n can be of any race/ethnicity/size since we humans are all beautifully different and amazing!!

Eliot paused and turned to me, “Did you just call me old?”

“What?! No!” I flushed, “I just meant… You just grew out your facial hair more than usual, is all.”

His stiff posture loosened, “Oh.” His hand started scratching his beard, “Uh, yeah.”

Hardison started laughing and I threw a pen in his direction to shut him up.

“Alright, run it,” Nate said, not entertaining the banter today.

Hardison stopped laughing, eventually, and started pulling up the slideshow, giving some background on the mine and its operation. 

I leaned back towards where Eliot was standing behind us at the desk and whispered, “I like it, by the way.”

He looked down at me with a tilt of his head, assessing. After a moment of his blank expression, I was going to sit back up, but his lips twitched up into a smirk. He leaned forward and whispered back, “Is that right, sweetheart?”

I flushed again, lips parting as the gravel of his voice vibrated in my ear. My mind was blank, or at least, far from what we were supposed to be discussing.

Hardison cleared his throat, snapping my attention back to his briefing, “Well, it turns out Blackwell did use the money for safety measures, or one big safety measure.” Pictures of a woman slid onto the screen, “She's named Debra Pierce.”

“West Virginia Attorney General,” Sophie said.

“Her hair's so poofy,” Parker happily commented.

“Thanks to a recent Supreme Court decision removing limits on corporate campaign contributions,” Hardison continued, “Blackwell was able to sink all of his safety money into Pierce's political action committee.”

“So instead of making the mines safer, he just hired himself an Attorney General,” Eliot summed up.

“Yeah. Well, he's getting his money's worth. Since the explosion two years ago, Blackwell has received nearly 400 citations for unsafe working conditions.”

“Yikes,” I cringed, that was almost one every other day.

“Well, even he can't just make 400 citations disappear. Can he?” Sophie asked.

“Nah. But he can bury 'em,” Hardison told her.

“What he does is he appeals them,” Nate explained, “and Pierce makes sure that those appeals go on forever. So while the citations are under appeal, he doesn't have to pay a cent.”

“That’s a big and convenient loophole, if I ever heard of one,” I sighed. 

“We can't go after Blackwell with an A.G. In his back pocket,” Eliot pointed out.

Nate agreed, “No, but we can take down both of them. What we do is we get Blackwell to give us the money from the PAC, and then once that money is transferred, we flag both of them for misuse of campaign funds.”

After a moment, Sophie suggested, “The Skagway shuffle.”

“Yeah. That's what I was thinking,” Nate agreed thoughtfully.

“See, now y'all are just making stuff up,” Hardison nearly whined.

“It's like the fiddle game,” Sophie clarified.

“Yeah, only underground,” Nate added.

“Are Eliot and y/n gonna be the fiddle again?” Parker asked.

Sophie and Nate responded at the same time, “No.”

“Can I be the fiddle?” Parker asked.

“No,” Sophie and Nate repeated.

“The mine is the fiddle,” Sophie explained, “We convince him that he's got something valuable in his mine, then we sell him a process to mine it, and then we take all his money.”

“Right. Good. So, how are we gonna do that?” Parker asked.

Nate answered, “We're gonna sell the guy his own mine.”

We started doing preliminary preparations before we left Boston for West Virginia. Nate and Sophie wanted Parker to gain some confidence in her grifting skills, so Sophie set up a grifting 101 class for her that I sat in on. 

Sophie had information on Pierce on the monitors as she began, “A great grift is like a romance. You have to find out what they want and just give it to them. You have to woo them.”

“I don't woo,” Parker grumbled.

Sophie looked at her for a moment before requesting: “Tell me how you break into a bank.”

“Clock the cameras, count the guards, find the silent alarms, look for a weak spot to enter, pick the vault's combination, and steal the money,” Parker answered with a shrug as if it was the easiest thing in the world. 

“Just analyze Pierce the same way you would a security system. Here.” Sophie handed her a little notebook, “Take notes. There's your mark. Find her weak spots. With politicians, it's usually a need for adoration. The same way that you wear black to mask yourself from security cameras, flattery can mask your intentions. Find the right combination, and you can unlock the mark's trust. And then you can steal her…”

“...Soul,” Parker finished with a nod.

“I was gonna say ‘confidence.’ You can do this, Parker. Just trust your instincts.”

Parker still had a slight frown on her face, but she seemed thoughtful. She looked at me sitting across the room, “How have you picked this up so easily, why aren’t you doing it?”

I thought about it for a moment, “I mean, customer service, getting clientele, it’s already doing what Sophie mentioned just on a shallower scale. To put it simply, I’ve had some practice. That doesn’t mean I’m not anxious about it. As for why I can’t do it, they’re gonna need me with Hardison sometimes. I just can’t dedicate the time to getting Pierce on the hook.” 

She deflated a bit, as if that was her last chance of getting out of it. I gave a sympathetic laugh and pat on her knee before going to pack my bags. The truth was, they didn’t need me with Hardison that much that justified me not doing it. Nate told me as such that they needed Parker to be a little more rounded in her skill sets. I had a feeling Parker wouldn’t like that answer though. 

Once we arrived in West Virginia, Eliot went undercover in the mines. He had a couple of jobs to do before we got started. The first, was to plant some signal boosters that would work with the mine’s communication system so our comms would work underground. The second, was to salt the mine with coltan, so we could con Blackwell out of his money. The miners spread limestone dust on the walls of the mine to keep the coal dust levels down and prevent coal dust explosions in a practice called rockdusting. We mixed coltan in with limestone dust and sent that in with Eliot, so after they rockdusted, mineral readings would say that coltan was in the mine.

Once that was done, it was showtime.

“Morning,” Sophie greeted as she and Hardison entered Blackwell’s trailer.

“Can I help you?” A voice who I assumed was Blackwell asked.

“I'm Cara Hetzel. This is Jesse Oaks. We're here from the mine safety coalition to do a spot inspection,” Sophie said in her American accent.

“Fine. Let me get my mine supervisor, show you around. Clark!” There was a pause before he continued, “Can you, uh, be so kind as to show the inspectors around? Uh, be careful what kind of rocks you turn over down there. Mining can be a dangerous business,” Blackwell said cryptically. 

“It sure can,” Sophie agreed, just as cryptically.

As they left to ‘inspect’ the mine, Nate barged into Blackwell’s office next.

“Who are you?”

“Uh, hey, uh, Mr. Blackwell. Bob Gibson. I'm here to make you an offer you can't refuse,” Nate told him in his salesman voice.

“Really?” Blackwell asked, intrigued.

“I want to buy your mine,” Nate said.

“Excuse me?”

“Oh, sorry. I didn't realize you were hard of hearing. I heard that can happen to miners.” Nate raised his voice and talked slower, “I want to buy your mine.”

“Mine's not for sale,” Blackwell said simply.

“I was afraid you'd say that. So, all right, I'm gonna write down a little number here, and we'll stop playing these games.”

Blackwell mimicked Nate’s enunciation, “The mine is not for sale. Or are you hard of hearing?”

“You don't have to be rude,” Nate grumbled. “I just want to give you an opportunity to make a lot of money. Now, look, I know you country folk, you like the simple life. But the simple life looks a lot better on the back of a 100-foot yacht, say.”

“I appreciate your generosity, Mr. Gilman,” Blackwell stayed polite.

“Gibson. Bob Gibson.”

“Gibson. Yeah. Well, I'm doing fine on my own.”

Nate laughed, not entirely convinced, “Okay. If you say so. Listen, if you change your mind, give me a call.”

I heard the door close behind him as he exited.

“Okay, Parker, are you in place?”

She looked at me, “Uh, almost. You sure someone else can't do this?

“Uh, well, we need all hands on deck on this one,” Nate answered. “Just do what Sophie told you.”

I nodded, “You’ve got this. I’ll help you get your foot in the door and getting set up. I’m nervous too, let’s take a deep breath okay?”

She nodded, inhaling and exhaling with me.

“Okay, let’s go.”

I opened the door to Pierce’s office, Parker trailing behind me. 

Pierce was reciting a speech into a mirror, “Under my continued direction, the people of West Virginia will be known as the people who love freedom, who love justice, and who fight for what they love! And…” She paused and then changed her tone, “And who fight for what they love. Will you let me continue to fight for you?”

I knocked on the door, catching her attention, “Hi, Ms. Pierce, it’s nice to see you again–”

She looked at me, puzzled, “I’m sorry, who are you?”

I straightened my posture and had a disappointed look on my face, trying to subtly release the shaky breath within me, “Oh, I’m Kathryn, Kathryn Hall? I’ve been an intern here for a few months now?”

She flushed in embarrassment and nodded her head, “Of course, Kathryn. What can I do for you?”

I smiled and pulled Parker up to stand in front of me, “This young lady requested to meet you. You had an opening in your schedule, so she was hoping to talk to you for a minute.”

“Beautiful speech, Ms. Pierce,” Parker cut in, already getting to the flattery.

“Oh, well I–”

I checked my watch, “Oh! That’s great. I’ve got to run, feel free to holler if you need anything, I’ll be right down the hall!” I waved and exited the office. I walked down the hallway away from the door, and then waited as Parker made her case to Pierce. 

“Hi, Ms. Pierce, I’m hoping to be your new campaign consultant,” Parker cut to the chase. “I've been following your career since your first term in the state senate. And this is your chamber where you dispense justice and fight for freedom!”

“I didn’t catch your name, sweetie,” Pierce said. 

“Oh, Kelly Beth? Kelly Beth Laughlin? But you can call me Kelly Beth. Can I call you ‘boss’?”

I smiled, that was a clever hook.

Pierce gave an amused laugh, “Oh, darlin', as much as I'd love your energy in the homestretch of this campaign, I don't have much of a budget for a campaign consultant.”

“I'm Kelly Beth Laughlin, of the Maysville Laughlins,” Parker said, as if the name should be recognized. “See, I don't need a salary, okay? In fact, I would pay for the experience of working for you.”

“Well, damn, I'm happy to work with anybody willing to pay for it. Welcome aboard Team Pierce.”

“I'm in,” Parker said in a tone that said she was mostly talking to us, not Pierce. 

Sophie and Hardison were still in the mine, doing inspections and suspicious ‘dust readings.’ Pierce left her office for a little while for a meeting. I entered after she left to help Parker set up. We placed bugs around the office, gave Hardison a connection to her computer, searched through the pile of files on her desk, planted files, and I helped her set up some social media accounts and websites for her to show Pierce. 

“I've set up re-election facebook and twitter accounts and opened a political action committee called Tomorrow's Women to consolidate the online donations,” Parker told Pierce once she came back to her office. 

“I like it,” Pierce complimented. 

“Oh, and, uh, so far, we've raised $436.”

There was a pause where I assumed Pierce was looking things over, “Well, color me pink and put me in a pigpen. You're a fast worker.”

“Well, you know what they say about idle hands,” Parker quipped.

Pierce didn’t say anything that I could hear through Parker’s comm, but it seemed to have gone well. 

“You’re doing better than what you give yourself credit for, Parker,” I told her from down the hallway. “I’m gonna leave you to it.”

Parker seemed to have sputtered a bit, but didn’t argue after I reassured her that she was doing great and didn’t need me there. 

I made my way to the van where Hardison was monitoring everything. “How’s it going?”

“Good,” Hardison replied typing into his computer. “Blackwell is about to confront Sophie about meeting up with Nate. 

Sure enough, Sophie said in her American accent, “Oh. Hello, there, again, Mr. Blackwell.”

Blackwell’s voice came through the comms, “Just cut the act. Now, who are you and what are you doing with Mr. Gibson? You know, uh, impersonating a federal safety inspector is a felony in West Virginia.”

Sophie dropped her American accent in favor of her regular English one, “My name is Eloise Tinson. I'm a mineral extraction expert. I'm in town to make Mr. Gibson a very wealthy man, take home a little something for myself.”

“Well, your expertise is wasted on Mr. Gibson. He doesn't own the mine.”

“On the contrary, Mr. Blackwell, he owns the 400 acres to the north and east of yours and I hear he made a little offer on yours today.”

“Ah. Well, mine's not on the market. And, uh, his land is, uh, mined out years ago.”

“Yes. For coal. We're looking for something a little more... lucrative.”

Blackwell hummed in question and I heard a slap of a folder hitting a table or counter.

“Coltan?”

“Columbite-tantalite” Sophie clarified, “It's a mineral found in cell phones, DVD players, computers. It's found in abundance in central Africa. And frankly, everything's a bloody mess over there. American companies are desperate to get their hands on a domestic source.”

“What is your role in all this?”

“My company developed a process for locating and mining Coltan. Mr. Gibson is buying that process.”

“Well, if there's, uh, Coltan in my mine, Mr. Gibson isn't gonna get his hands on it.”

“Well, according to the readings that my partner and I took today, yes, there is Coltan in your mine. And using our process, Mr. Gibson is gonna be able to mine it right out from under you.”

Blackwell’s tone dropped, “The hell he will. You're not the only one with a partner.”

Hardison turned to me, “Did you and Parker plant that form?”

I nodded, “Yeah, all of them are on her desk.”

“Good,” he continued typing on his computer, “Parker, Blackwell just left Sophie. Make sure Pierce finds the mineral rights application.”

She hummed in acknowledgement. There was some shuffling of papers and files as Parker chatted with Pierce until Pierce’s phone rang. Pierce dismissed Parker while she spoke with Blackwell and Parker confirmed that Pierce had found the file before she left her office. 

A few minutes later, Sophie took a quick call from Blackwell and she told us through comms that he was hooked and ready for a meeting tomorrow morning.

Sophie and Hardison headed to the mine earlier than I would have liked. I trudged my way to the van so I could monitor the equipment while Hardison was out and start listening to the recordings of Pierce’s office to see if we could find anything useful. I started at the beginning when Parker and I planted the bugs, sorting through where there was actual conversations and information, cutting out when the office was empty. 

“Our sonar-detection technology tells us exactly where the Coltan is located,” Hardison explained to Blackwell, beeping from his detector coming through the comms. 

“Oh. Look at that. There's a very strong presence of Coltan in here,” Sophie said.

“Really? Well, this is quite a fancy machine. I-I hope, uh, you don't mind if I double-check the old-fashioned way?” Blackwell asked.

“Uh, Coltan's generally found in isolated pockets, so those, uh, surface tests, they can be very inconclusive,” Sophie said almost defensively, as if trying to explain why his chemical tests wouldn’t work.

“I'm sure,” Blackwell replied skeptically, but after a moment his tone was pleasantly surprised, “Well, we'll see here. Oh. Look at that.”

“Well, that looks conclusive to me,” Sophie agreed.

I sighed in relief, the rockdusting of coltan seemed to work in fooling Blackwell.

“Oh, oh. Well, this, this area right here is lighting up like a Christmas tree,” Hardison said, the beeping from his machine getting louder and more frequent. “You'll be able to get a good six months out of that vein. And this area, not so much. But this right down here now, this, you'll be able to put that new addition on your house and get that fishing boat you've been wanting.”

“That's the beauty of the process. No more digging blind,” Sophie pitched. 

“Oh. Well, it sounds good to me. You know, maybe I'll be able to lay off some of these hillbillies I pay to dig in the dirt all day long here. Mining used to be worthwhile, you know. But, uh, now with the unions and the workers whining all the time about not getting paid enough and they're never safe enough and all, I mean, it's hard to--to keep a business and make a buck.”

I rolled my eyes. The fact that he wouldn’t be having most, if not all, of those ‘problems’ if he had just used the government money the way it was supposed to. And he would probably be making all the more money for it, too!

Hardison hummed, trying to sound like he agreed.

“I'm pretty confident, using this process, you'll be able to make quite a few bucks,” Sophie emphasized the last few words.

“Well, I'm convinced.”

“Excellent. Let's talk numbers.”

I looked over the accounts that Hardison hacked into before he left, “Uh… he's got $125,000 liquid in his personal accounts and $500,000 in the PAC.”

“$600,000. We're gonna need it in one payment. We've found that installments can get a little bit messy,” Sophie admitted almost conspiratorially.

“Of course,” Blackwell agreed.

“By tomorrow,” Hardison added. “Mr. Gibson was gonna write us a check in the morning. Now, if that's gonna be a problem for you–”

“No. That's no problem. I'm having a fundraiser for the Attorney General at the Morgan Club tomorrow. You stop by there, I'll cut you a check,” Blackwell assured.

“Perfect,” Sophie said.

“Okay, Eliot. Sophie's done with Blackwell. He's hooked. You can surface,” Nate said from the cafe down the road. To say I was peeved that he could hang out in a cafe while I was in the van sorting through recordings was an understatement.

“Ahh. I don't want to leave these guys one man down,” Eliot replied.

“Okay. Fine. You can finish the day. But tomorrow, we're gone,” Nate told him.

I couldn’t help the soft smile that crept up my face as Eliot began to tease and give advice to one of the younger miners, easily slipping on the role of mentor as if it was an old, well-loved coat.

I left him to it and turned back to the recordings from Pierce’s office. Most of the recordings were boring, filing out paperwork, meetings about things I couldn’t bother noting down. There was a private meeting with Blackwell Thursday afternoon that I quickly skipped over once hearing the beginning, trying not to visualize Blackwell and Pierce together. I did note it down, but moved on as quickly as possible to try and cleanse the palette. 

Hardison came back to the van and was sorting through Pierce’s computer and manipulating various systems when Parker showed one of those manipulations to Pierce. 

“Ooh, your latest numbers are up.”

“Ooh. Significantly up. I don't think I've ever seen it jump this high,” Pierce commented in surprise.

“Really?” Parker asked, her voice high pitched. 

“Hey. Nate said to make them higher. How am I supposed to know what's ‘significantly higher’ and what's ‘insignificantly higher’?” Hardison defended and turned to me, “Why didn’t you say anything?”

I looked at him and removed the headphones I was using to listen to recordings, “You didn’t ask me, Hardison. I’m not gonna be looking over your shoulder all the time.”

“No, that's fine,” Nate cut in. “W-we just need her to feel she has a comfortable lead so she'll be fine with Blackwell using the PAC funds.”

“Well, we must be doing something right,” Pierce said happily.

“Yeah, must be your latest commercial,” Parker jumped on the excuse. “Or your hair, people love your hair!”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

Pierce dismissed Parker and she told us, “Blackwell's here. It's happening.”

I tuned the comms to be listening to the bugs in the office in real time. 

“No! No way! I have an election coming up,” Pierce denied. “The Coltan mine's not gonna do you any good without me in office keeping it from getting shut down!”

“If I don't have that money by tomorrow, they're gonna sell this process to Gibson,” Blackwell pleaded.

“So? Use the mine's money.”

“The mine doesn't have that sort of liquidity.”

“You're paying your workers with something, aren't you?”

“Yeah. I-I suppose I could take the money out the payroll. But that would bankrupt the mine.”

Pierce purred, “You say that like it's a bad thing.”

Blackwell hesitated for a moment before reluctantly agreeing. “Alright. Here we go. Clark? Tell the men not to come to work tomorrow. All of 'em. And make sure there's nobody in that mine. And then call me back. I got a job of work for you to do.”

Their conversation didn’t continue much longer after that, with Pierce going back to paperwork.

“Well, that's a great day's work,” Sophie groaned, “Blackwell's shutting down the mine and using the payroll money to pay us.”

“So we've just bankrupted an entire town,” Parker concluded.

“Worse,” Nate argued, “He's not just shutting down the mine. He's blowing it up.”

Parker huffed, “That does sound worse.”

“You know, working in insurance, I've seen this play a thousand times. And now that we've convinced him he has Coltan, his mine is worth more dead than alive.”

“At risk of sounding optimistic,” I commented. “At least he’s not purposefully killing anyone by having them come to work.”

“Yeah, but he's not gonna have time to get a bomb and plant it in the mine by tomorrow,” Parker said.

“Well, his mine is practically a bomb already,” Nate pointed out. “I mean, you could throw a lit cigarette there, and that thing would blow. Won't take much.”

“What are we gonna do, Nate?” Sophie asked.

“We're gonna convince him that you're a lying, greedy bitch,” he replied far too easily. 

“Of course, I’m sure this won’t go wrong again,” I commented to myself. 

The next day Nate had insisted I go to the fundraiser with Parker and Sophie instead of going to the mines with the boys. 

“I know what you’re doing, Nate,” I told him. “Just know I’m only going because I can’t think of anything helpful I could be doing by going along with you.” 

Nate had that small knowing, triumphant smile and went to rub the top of my head. 

“Hey, I worked hard on my hair,” I grabbed his wrist, stopping the motion. “Don’t get blown up please.”

“Tell that to Eliot,” he said as he got into the van. 

Eliot was grabbing his hardhat and toolbelt when I approached, “You heard the man, please don’t get blown up.”

He smirked, “You sure? Because I think I heard you say that.”

I couldn’t hide my annoyed amusement and reached over to playfully shove his shoulder.

He grabbed my hand at the wrist and I caught the brief look over my shoulder where the van was before pressing a quick kiss to my knuckles. “Don’t have to worry about us, sweetheart,” he said with a wink as he followed Nate into the van. 

I snatched my hand into my chest once he gently released it, trying to suppress my heart rate jumping. Why and how does he keep doing that? I couldn’t believe how determined he was to tease, but I quickly made my way to the car so us girls could head to the fundraiser. 

“Why’s your face red?” Parker asked as I got into the car. 

“Oh– uh, must have put on too much blush this morning,” I excused, my voice a little higher than normal. I tried patting at my cheeks to simulate brushing some makeup off, but I knew that was just going to make it worse. 

“Micro detonator, surround sound, dust spray, modified oxygen meter, and... What? What? Yes, I do spend my weekends making these things,” Hardison said over comms. “Man, w-we're coming to a mine. It's not rocket science.”

“I like it,” Nate said, “It gives him a whole village people, uh, construction-dude thing.”

“Thank you.”

“Okay. I'm gonna call Blackwell and draw him here. I mean, he's not gonna blow up the mine while he's in it, is he?”

“That will give us enough time to find the bomb,” Eliot said. 

“Oh, yeah. Plenty of time. Meanwhile, I'll be here, in the van, as far away from the mine as possible. My dude. Go with God.”

“What are you doing, man?” Eliot asked

“For morale, man!” Hardison replied.

I couldn’t help the giggle for the callback from when we were trapped in the forest with the militia. I had a feeling ‘For morale’ was going to become a running joke. 

“All right, all right. Let's get this show on the road,” Nate said. “Mr. Blackwell. Uh, yeah, it's, uh, Bob Gibson here.”

We entered the fundraiser and spotted Blackwell at the bar, talking into his phone. 

“No, I'm calling to tell you that we've both been had. Yeah, there's no Coltan in your mine or anywhere near it.” There was a pause where Blackwell replied. 

“Well, listen, I can prove it to you. Just meet me at the mine in fifteen minutes.”

Blackwell quickly stood and passed by, talking into his phone whispering, “Clark, l-listen. Where the hell are you? Now, don't plant the device. I'm on my way to the mine now. Do not plant the device.”

“He's on his way to you now,” Sophie told Nate before turning to Parker and I, “All right. While they deal with Blackwell, we've got to spook Pierce.”

“On it. So we need ghosts,” Parker replied seriously.

“No. We need secrets,” Sophie gently corrected. “We've got to get her to move the money out of the PAC.” She grabbed a flute of champagne off of a waiter, “Thank you. Right. Tell me everything you know about her.”

Parker pulled out a small notepad, “Okay. I've got some really good stuff in here. Okay, she likes sugar in her coffee, lots of sugar. And she hides tasty treats on her desk. She's got a sweet tooth, maybe we could use that.”

“Probably not. What else?” Sophie asked. 

I moved around to look over Parker’s shoulder, reading her very thorough notes on everything about Pierce. It would have been impressive if it wasn’t slightly concerning. 

“Um, she never takes calls from her mother,” Parker continued, glancing up at Sophie for approval, “No? Ooh! Ooh! I got it. She- she mixes her blue pens with her black pens, in the same cup. Like, mixes them together.”

“Yeah. Parker, I'm looking for something that someone might find weird,” Sophie said gently. “Someone normal. Um, yeah. Someone normal might find weird.”

“Mm. Uh…” She started flipping through the notebook, occasionally pausing on a page before continuing, “well, Thursday afternoon, she had a closed-door meeting with Blackwell, but it sounded like they were working out.”

“‘Working out’?” Sophie repeated. 

Parker hummed the affirmative. 

“Oh…” I said in realization, remembering the recording I had listened to earlier and had tried to block from my memory. I knew where this was going. 

“Hardison, do you still have the audio file saved?” Sophie asked with a smile.

“Yeah, but y/n was the one listening to it, there’s over a hundred hours on there,” Hardison said. 

“Just pull up the files from Thursday afternoon.”

“Between 3:26 and 4:15,” Parker clarified. 

“Hardison, listen to me very carefully,” I said looking directly at Sophie. “Do not open that file, you do not want to know what is on it.”

“What?” he asked. 

“Sophie, it is exactly what you are thinking, can we just move on and use it please?”

Sophie had a smug smile as she took another sip of champagne. 

“Why? What is it?” Parker asked. 

“I don’t know, here it is,” Hardison replied.

Before I could stop him he played the moans and odd little sounds that Blackwell and Pierce were making while being intimate.

My face scrunched in disgust. 

“No! No! Ew! Old people! Ew!” Hardison yelled, quickly pausing the recording.

“I warned you.”

“Yeah, that’s on me, I’m sorry,” he gagged. 

“Parker, they're not working out. They're, you know,” Sophie tried to get Parker to connect the dots. 

“Sex, Parker! They're knocking boots,” Hardison explained. 

“Oh. Yeah. Can you use that?”

“With that, I can make her do anything I want,” Sophie practically purred.

“Hey, look, y'all, this has been real cool, but I have to get back to, you know, helping Eliot find the bomb,” Hardison commented.

“Please do,” I replied. Hardison and Eliot began bickering about finding the bomb and about Hardison’s software being like the game ‘Frogger.’ 

I put on my figurative intern hat again and walked Sophie over to Ms. Pierce who was networking. 

“Hello again Ms. Pierce,” I said, reaching out to shake her hand. 

“Ah, yes…” I could see her fishing for a name again, recognition on her face. 

“Kathryn,” I provided. 

“Of course.”

I turned to Sophie as she took a step up beside me, “Ms. Tinson here requested an introduction.”

“Eloise Tinson,” Sophie introduced herself, waving me off. “Ms. Pierce, I was hoping to steal a minute of your time. I've heard so much about you.”

“Of course,” Pierce repeated. “The Coltan woman. Huh?”

“In the flesh. I have to say, it's been such a delight working with Danny.”

“‘Danny?’ You mean Mr. Blackwell.”

“Of course. You know, the addition of this Coltan mine is gonna do wonders for the state, and I wanted to thank you personally for your contribution.”

That made Pierce pause, “I'm sorry? My contribution?”

“Well, there's no need to be modest. It's your money. Or is it the PAC money? I never quite got that straight,” Sophie wondered.

“Well, that's odd, because yesterday he told me he was using the mine funds for the purchase.”

“Oh, no. That's not what he said last night. Or was it this morning?” Sophie laughed, “Time got a bit blurred. Regardless, I'm pretty confident he said he was using the PAC money and that he was gonna make the transfer today. So, thank you. Thank you so much.” Sophie smiled and walked away, or rather, sauntered away. With the context she implied, the message was clear down to the way she walked. 

“The way you can walk the line between subtlety and bombshell is frankly unprecedented,” I commented as I took a sip of my drink.

Parker approached Pierce, “Great turnout.”

Pierce hummed, a bit distracted.

“Can I get you anything?”

Pierce checked her phone and a deep frown formed on her face. 

“What's wrong, Ms. Pierce?”

“That thieving, cheating bastard!” She replied. 

Parker continued chatting with Pierce about donations and funds, including the account Parker and I set up for her. Nate was talking with Blackwell, convincing him, or rather explaining to him that we had salted his mine with Coltan and there wasn’t actually anything to mine out. Hardison was guiding Eliot towards the bomb when it sounded like there was someone else in the mine.

Suddenly there was an echo in the comms and Hardison was calling Nate and then Eliot’s name. 

“I’m here,” Eliot’s voice came through. 

“I-I’ve lost Nate,” Hardison stuttered. 

“What?” I hissed, already heading towards the car. We should be done here with Pierce.

“What do you mean, you've lost Nate?” Sophie asked, turning away from the group she was networking with. 

“I don't know. His comm is down. You need to get down here,” Hardison said. 

“Parker, Y/n, meet me at the car now,” Sophie directed.

“Already ahead of you,” I said. “I’ll pull the car around to the front.”

“One second,” Parker replied.

“That takes care of that,” Pierce’s voice came through after transferring the PAC funds into our account where Blackwell couldn’t reach it. She would be able to either, but she didn’t know that yet. “I need you to get new keys made for my office and call security.”

Parker hummed the affirmative.

“I don't want Dan Blackwell stepping foot in that building.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

Eliot ran into the younger miner from before that he was mentoring, and not long after that was in a fight. Probably with the goon who had planted the bomb. 

I reached the car and started pulling around to the front of the building to pick up Sophie and Parker. 

Pierce’s voice came through the comms, “I don't like anybody leaving my parties in such a hurry.”

“There's been an accident at the mine. Dan's trapped. We have to get over there,” Sophie replied impatiently.

“So let the cheating bastard suffocate. I'm not letting either of you steal my money,” she said, almost smugly.

“Nobody's trying to steal your money,” Sophie told her flatly, blatantly lying.

“I know when I'm being played. I'm just gonna put this money where no one can get to it.”

“Fine. It's just money. We need to get over there.”

If I were you, I'd worry about yourself. Someone as pretty as you is not gonna do well in one of our prisons. Our women, they don't take kindly to outsiders,” Pierce purred.

“Yeah? What do you mean by that?” Sophie was holding her ground, her voice challenging. She only got like this when one of us, specifically Nate, was in danger. 

“Oh, I called the cops,” Pierce explained, “They should be here any minute to arrest you on fraud, racketeering, and impersonating a federal officer.”

“You can't get me arrested.”

“Sure, I can. It's one of the perks of being Attorney General. I own the law.”

“Debra, we're on the same side here. Dan deceived us both,” Sophie tried.

“No. You both deceived me. Now, I am done being lied to.”

“Ms. Pierce! Ms. Pierce,” Parker called. “Oh. I have a phone call for you.”

“Not now. Not now!”

“Oh.”

“Damn it. Now look what you did!”

I looked up to see Sophie dashing out the front doors and hopping into the passenger seat. Pierce’s voice faded from the comms as she made a call, probably to the cops, as Parker made her own way to the car, sliding into the backseat. 

I drove away, quickly heading to the mine. Eliot finished his fight and resumed his search for the bomb. 

“All right, Eliot. I think I got a lock on the bomb.”

Eliot deliberately exhaled and cautiously replied, “I got it.”

My hands squeezed the wheel, my whole body tensing up.

“What's it look like, man? Red wires, blue wires? What?” Hardison asked.

Eliot hesitated in answering. There was a slight click that I wasn’t sure if I actually heard.

“Boom!” Eliot yelled.

I jumped in my seat, the car slightly jerking before I straightened course again. I quickly apologized to Sophie and Parker.

“Ha ha, you're not funny,” Hardison said as Eliot laughed. 

“Don’t do that,” I whined with a sigh, finally relaxing a bit as I drove. At least we didn’t have to worry about the bomb anymore. 

“Sorry, sweetheart,” Eliot replied, still a laugh in his voice. 

A couple of minutes later, Hardison’s voice came through the comms again.

“Okay, Nate, whatever you did, you just got your comm back up, so listen. I've wired your comm. transmission to the P.A. System. All you have to do is get that confession, and Eliot will come get you.”

We all sighed in relief in the car. The bomb was taken care of, and we had Nate back on comms. I pulled up and put the car in park next to the van. It wasn’t long before Pierce with the cops passed by to sit in front of the mine entrance.

“Say, uh, what about, uh, this intercom? I mean, can't we, uh, you know, call for help or something?”

Blackwell sounded dejected, “No, you can't radio out. It don't work.”

“What do you mean? You got all that money. I, uh, I mean, you got new intercoms. You got new, uh, ceiling supports. You got new retrofit ventilation. I mean, I saw the paperwork,” Nate challenged.

“It's all fake.”

“Oh, h-hold on there. What do you mean, it's all fake?”

“Well, the ceiling support and the ventilation and the intercom, that's all fake. The only safety measures that that money bought went to the Attorney General. All the government money went to her,” He almost sounded amused. We peeked around the buildings at the mine that was hiding us from Pierce and the cops' view. The officers had turned on Pierce, asking if what was said was true. After some sputtering in the negative, the officers arrested her and stuck her into the back seat of their cruiser. 

“Is that right? Great investment,” Nate replied sarcastically.

“Yeah.”

“Well, there's got to be a way out of here, right?”

“Yeah, well... There might be, if we look down there!” 

There was a slightly sickening thunk that sounded through the comms that made me jump again.

“Nate, are you okay?” I asked, but didn’t get an answer.

“That bastard!” Sophie bit, stealing the words from my mouth. 

Eliot’s voice came through, digging his way into their collapsed chamber, “Mr. Blackwell! It's Eric! Eric Randall! I'm almost through! Can you squeeze?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I can get through,” Blackwell grunted.

“Are you okay, sir?”

“Yeah, I'm fine. Just get me the hell out of here.”

After a moment Eliot said, “Bombs on Blackwell. Getting Nate now.”

“Is he okay?” I asked, anxiously pacing next to the cars. 

Nate grunted, “yeah, I’m alright. Old bat doesn’t have that much strength anymore.”

Blackwell came stumbling out of the mine, covered in dirt. The State Troopers quickly detained him. He protested, blaming Nate for the bomb, but the troopers found the one Eliot planted on him quickly and shoved him into the car next to Pierce. We could practically hear them bickering from in the car as Nate and Eliot came out and around to join us next to our vehicles. I quickly looked them over to confirm they were okay and they both waved me off assuring that they were. 

“Nailed it,” Parker said as the police car passed by, Pierce and Blackwell finally noticing all of us together. 

“Pierce transferred all the PAC funds into Parker's account,” Sophie told the boys.

“Nicely done,” Hardison complimented.

“Well, I had a little help from Sophie,” Parker admitted. “But, yeah, I nailed it. I'm a grifter. I grift.”

“Yeah. You do know you don't get to keep the money, right?” Nate pointed out.

Parker looked at the balance on her phone and then held it to her chest with a defensive, “Don't ruin it.”

Hardison followed Parker into the van while Eliot walked away, following after a young man that came out of the mine before the rest of them did. 

“Uh, what are you doing?” We heard Hardison ask through comms. 

“Stealing souls is exhausting,” Parker admitted, causing a smile to appear on my face.

“Uh, let's see. Let's see. Let's see. ‘...Right hand... Answers phone, left. Blinks 15 times... Smells like bubbles.’ Hey, Parker, you're not gonna start keeping notepads like this about us, are you?”

Parker answered with her own sleepy question, “Did you know you touch your chin every 2.5 minutes?”

It sounded like Hardison tossed the notebook and went back to his laptop to finish things up.

I laughed as I took my earbud out, following Eliot’s lead. At least that’s what I had assumed since I couldn’t hear his conversation with the other miner. Not that I wanted to eavesdrop on his mentoring, or anything. 

Nate was trying to brush himself off, which almost made his dishevelled outfit worse before he gave up and went to rummage through the van to see if he had a change of clothes. 

I looked around, the now quiet of the canyon and mine becoming almost heavy. I felt so out of place on the gravel road in my carefully pressed clothes, ironically trying very hard to fit the part. One glance at Sophie almost made the feeling a bit sharp, she somehow not only stood out against the backdrop, but complimented it perfectly, just like any room she stepped into. 

Sophie sighed absentmindedly, “We did good work on this one.”

A bittersweet feeling settled in my chest that I didn’t want to think about, “Yeah… Parker did well.”

Sophie hummed and slid back into the car, ready to start packing up and heading home. 

I opted to soak in the quiet to spare myself from the stuffy car air for a minute, waiting for us to gather up to leave. 

Eliot eventually wandered back over before Nate reemerged from the van. 

“Good job on not getting blown up,” I mentioned casually as he approached

“Oh, but I did. Didn't you hear the boom?” He quipped.

“Not funny,” I deadpanned.

“Sure it is, especially since it was nothing,” he teasingly began the motion of poking me with his filthy hands, but I dodged before he actually touched.

“Don't get me dirty!”

“Come on, it's not that bad.”

“Yeah, but you're in grubs, I'm in my nice clothes!” I retorted as I skipped a couple steps away from him.

There was a glint in his eye and a smirk appeared on his face as he began to playfully chase me around the gravel lot waving his hand in a ‘I’m gonna get you’ kind of way. 

I giggled as I pranced away from him, being careful of my footing in the gravel.

“Come here, you're not allowed to stay clean at a coal mine.”

“Tell that to Hardison!”

“Oh, I'm going to, after I get you,” he made a move that I tried to dodge again,but this time he caught my hand and made a point to ensure it got dirty.

I gave him an annoyed smile, “Really? That was necessary?”

He gave a goofy smile, “yes.”

I rolled my eyes good-naturedly and stepped closer so I could rub the dirt off of my hand on his shirt.

“You can't give it back!” He argued but made no move to stop me.

“Come on, kids, let's get out of here!” Nate called, startling me a bit.

Eliot jumped a bit too, backing up a step, effectively separating us. 

I gave him a sheepish smile as we retreated back to the van and car, ready for us to give the client the good news and head home.

A/n: Reblogs and comments are welcome and encouraged! I love hearing what you think! Thank you for reading!

He stands in the small green room behind the curtain, suit jacket already buttoned, tie perfectly straight, thick fingers flexing at his sides like he’s about to step into a boxing ring instead of a town hall. His jaw is tight, the faint crease between his brows giving him that serious, intimidating look that made half his district vote for him in the first place.

“You’re gonna scare them,” you murmur, stepping into his space.

His eyes soften immediately when they land on you. That’s the thing about Bucky—he can go from imposing congressman to your husband in half a heartbeat. “I’m not tryin’ to scare anyone,” he mutters, though his shoulders are stiff. “Just want it to go well.”

“It will,” you promise. “You’ve rehearsed this speech like thirty times in the kitchen.”

He huffs a quiet laugh, some of the tension bleeding out of him. “You were supposed to forget that.”

“Never,” you tease, smoothing your hands up the lapels of his jacket. “I have it memorized too, just in case you choke and I have to run out there and finish it.”

He gives you that look—half exasperated, half smitten—that makes your stomach flip even after years together. “You’d love that.”

“I would.”

There’s a stage manager counting down somewhere beyond the door. Three minutes.

Bucky swallows. You can see it—the nerves. Not because he doubts himself, but because he cares. He cares so much it makes him anxious. He wants to say the right thing, do the right thing, represent people well. It’s written into him as deeply as the old soldier instincts he still carries.

“C’mere,” you whisper.

He leans down automatically, and you cup his face in your hands. Your lipstick is a soft rose shade tonight, something you picked because he once told you it made you look like you’d just come in from the cold. You press a kiss to his cheek, right over the faint line of an old scar. “For courage,” you murmur.

Another to his other cheek. “For clarity.”

He smiles, that shy, crooked smile he only ever gives you. “You’re ridiculous.”

“And one for luck.” You stretch up and kiss the tip of his nose because it’s right there and because he always scrunches it in the cutest way when you do.

He laughs under his breath, wrapping an arm around your waist to pull you closer. “You’re gonna ruin the image, sweetheart.”

“Your image can handle a little love.”

Someone calls his name. Thirty seconds.

He squeezes you once more, forehead brushing yours. “Stay where I can see you?”

“Always.”

He steps back, shoulders squaring again as he turns toward the stage entrance. You watch him take a slow breath, then another. The curtain parts. The crowd starts clapping.

He walks out into the lights.

You’re too focused on the way he carries himself—confident, grounded, steady—to notice anything else at first. He reaches the podium, adjusts the microphone, flashes that warm, practiced smile at the audience.

Then you hear it. A ripple of delighted laughter.

Bucky falters for half a second, clearly confused. He glances down at his notes, then back up at the crowd, brows knitting together. The laughter swells, mixed with a few audible “aww”s and the unmistakable sound of phone cameras clicking.

You frown slightly, craning your neck from the wings.

And then you see it.

There, bright and unmistakable under the stage lights, are three perfect lipstick marks: one on each cheek and a very prominent one right on the tip of his nose.

You clap a hand over your mouth.

Oh no.

He’s still speaking, because of course he is. “Good evening, everyone,” he starts, voice smooth despite the way his eyes narrow suspiciously at the audience reaction. “Thank you all for coming out tonight—”

More laughter.

Someone in the front row calls out, “We love your wife, Congressman!”

His hand lifts instinctively to his face, brushing his cheek. When he pulls it away and sees the faint smear of pink on his fingertips, his eyes widen just a fraction. He pauses, exhales, and then, to your utter surprise, he laughs.

It’s unguarded and warm and completely disarming.

“Well,” he says into the microphone, shaking his head. “Guess I’ve already got my good luck charm.”

The crowd practically melts.

Instead of wiping it off immediately, he leaves it there. All three marks. He launches into his speech like that, cheeks faintly pink—not from your lipstick, but from the realization that the entire internet is probably watching him stand at a podium with his wife’s kisses stamped all over his face.

By the time the event ends, the photos are everywhere. News outlets pick it up within the hour. “Congressman Barnes Goes Viral for Adorable Pre-Speech Moment.” “Lipstick Kisses Steal the Show.” There are slow-motion clips of him realizing what happened, memes of the nose kiss, comments about how refreshing it is to see a politician so openly loved.

When he finds you afterward, he’s half mortified, half amused. “You did that on purpose.”

“I absolutely did not,” you insist, though you’re laughing too hard to sound convincing.

He wraps his arms around you anyway, burying his face in your neck. “Internet’s never gonna let this go.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

The teasing only gets worse when Sam corners him at the next event. “Man,” Sam says, grinning ear to ear, “I’ve seen you take down terrorists without breaking a sweat, but one little lipstick ambush and you’re defenseless.”

Bucky rolls his eyes, but his arm stays firmly around your waist. “It was a tactical oversight.”

Sam snorts. “You wore it through the whole speech. That’s not oversight. That’s whipped.”

You beam proudly. “Thank you.”

Bucky just shakes his head, trying and failing to hide his smile. “I prefer ‘well-loved.’”

And every time he steps out onto a stage after that, you make sure to press at least one kiss to his cheek. He always pretends to grumble about it, checking reflexively for smears before walking into the lights, but you’ve caught the way his hand sometimes lingers over the spot afterward, like he’s carrying a secret.

Because no matter how many cameras flash or how many speeches he gives, he still walks out there knowing he’s loved.