Who: Garrus Vakarian and Peggy Carter What: Work-related conversations about weapons and recruitment When: Not long after Shattered Sight Where: Mid-September Rating/Warnings: Low Status: Complete!
Now that the Director was back to normal and everyone was, hopefully, back in her good graces, he supposed it was the best time to actually speak to her, face to face. It’d been a minute since Garrus was able to sit down and breathe - everything had been so chaotic on the FBI side, paperwork and follow ups and interviews, but this recent debacle was much easier to cover up. Still, there was always a prick that actually had a keen eye that questioned things more aggressively (also tying them into Orange County’s other recent mishaps), but him and Cindy worked efficiently together to quell that curiosity.
Too bad it was only a temporary fix.
Paperwork finally gathered, paperclipped neatly, some hidden in confines of folders, he knocked on her door before cracking it a couple inches. “You promised me a couple minutes of your time, Carter,” Garrus smirked, blue eyes that seemed more like ice flashed with amusement. “I’d make a couple of comments about your firing spree before but I got the gist you’ve had enough of our crap.”
Things were finally back to normal at the Agency after they came up with a somewhat plausible cover story for Peggy’s insanity and she had hired back the people she fired briefly. Unfortunately it didn’t seem to be something that she could continue to downplay because word spread around the office worse than a high school. But, she knew that at least it wasn’t her true self and she had been compromised by something in the OC just like everyone else.
The beginning of that comment was quite fine, but the moment he mentioned the firing spree her brown eyes narrowed in annoyance at him while the corner of her mouth tugged upward. She left him finish before speaking in her crisp accent. “If you keep that up, Garrus, you will be next on my list. You were doing so well too,” she lifted a hand to wave him inside the office as she rearranged herself in her chair, “Well, since I’m a woman who keeps her promises, what can I do for you?”
Hah. Yeah. Best not poke the beast, and his lips were sealed shut in regards to snarking at the Big Boss - wouldn’t do him any good now, would it? “Yes ma’am,” he responded with that sort of firm military obedience; a subordinate answering to his commander, just like old times.
It was rare that he actually wore his glasses, but all the screen glaring and extensive paperwork sifting had taken a toll over his eyes. Old age beginning to creep up, maybe, but that might simply be Garrus feeling old and nothing to do with something numerical. He pushed them up, straightened the charcoal blazer and approached the desk, files in hand. “Had a couple of weapon requisitions I needed you to look over and approve. Including the drone Shepard had been talking about. We’ve got a whole arson of magic users but I almost felt the reliable physical stuff’s been neglected, so I made a couple recommendations within budget.” Numbers, models, the works - Cindy’s organization and utter efficiency had rubbed off him, so everything was categorized with ease. “But that’s just one topic of interest.”
“Oh goodness, Garrus, I’m just joking with you. No need to be so polite,” a smile broke out over her features that showed the youth on her face. She may not even be thirty yet, but some days she felt like she was fifty. It came with the territory because she had lived a life that not most people in her age had and she needed to mature before her time, but that didn’t stop her from trying to live like a normal twenty-something. Creating a rapport with her employees had been at the top of her list of what she wanted done when she joined the Agency.
“You may bore me to death today, Garrus,” another teasing comment with a well-placed smirk on her face as she leaned forward to look at the files he had brought her. It was a necessary evil that came with her job, but she was thankful for Garrus being willing to bring things to attention. There were too many working parts for Peggy to constantly know every single detail of what was going on. The weapon requests was any easy thing to do and she had spoke to Shepard about her drone. Slender hands reached forward to take the files from him as her eyes studied them before glancing back up at him at his final comment. An eyebrow arched and she was giving him an intent look, “One topic? You’ve gotten my curiosity. What else would you like to discuss?”
“It’s a habit,” he chuckled, occupying the seat across from her. “I’m surrounded by women who can get creative when it comes to using household or even office items to knock me on my ass. I’ve got no problems in admitting I know when to pick my battles, Carter. I’ll give you shit about something soon enough, don’t worry.”
Among the heap of paperwork he so kindly bestowed on her were a couple weapon modifications for existing firearms, too - new scopes to upgrade the sniper rifles, specialty ammo, other sorts of military grade equipment. Necessary things should a swarm of something hit them, they’d all be well-armed - including the Director. All he needed were her eyes to make sure it was all kosher, an authorized signature, and he’d take care of the rest.
Garrus smirked some. “Well, when you’re done with all that, I was wondering if you’d contemplate an open recruitment sort of thing. Not suggesting we let any Regular Joe join the ranks, but the departments are running with skeleton crews. Every time a crisis hits, we’ve got people outside the Agency who do dream take up a role in the fight. Wouldn’t hurt, to round them all up in one place - cocktail evening, maybe, to celebrate surviving these several months of hell - and see what kind of fresh meat we can pick up.”
Those were certainly women that she appreciated. If her dreams were anything to go by then she was certainly adept at bringing a person to their knees with simple household objects. She couldn’t help but let out a soft chuckle and smiled at him, “Remind me to send them a thank you note to these women for helping keep you in line so efficiently.”
Weapon modifications she could handle. They all looked quite interesting and she knew that the people requesting them were well versed in what they wanted. It wasn’t something that she really looked too much into because she trusted they were being used appropriately. At least she knew that they would all be safe if anything should happen. Her hands shuffled through those papers and signed where appropriate.
“An open recruitment might be a good idea. I know it’s basically been if you find someone you want to bring in then you approach them and me and we investigate if they could handle this work. But, I do believe that we’re so secret that it is hurting us. It would be wise to look into those people that are essential in a crisis that we hadn’t noticed before. I think that you have the right idea. We can certainly work on that after the next crisis that happens.” The unfortunate thing was that she knew there would be a next crisis and hopefully they would all continue to make it out alive.
He knew the kind of people Shepard wanted in their department - those ones they knew, from the dreams, if those soldiers somehow wandered across the line. Maybe they would. Maybe they wouldn’t, and as hopeful Garrus was that they would, they couldn’t be a complete department with just the two of them. “Too much secrecy makes us unapproachable. Keeps us at arm’s length, from people that’d be good here. I’d say some might need some polishing, but it’d do good to bring new blood into these halls.”
New dreamers were constantly appearing, many of them confused, many of them coming into skills and powers that needed fine-tuning.
“I’d actually like to recommend recruitment of my fiance,” Garrus proceeded, elbow propped on the armrest, fingers holding up his chin. It wasn’t really a conflict of interest - this government building had couples working under the same roof, married or shacked up together. “Cindy’s on the same boat as I am, when it comes to having a foot in another government division. Spy and black-ops training, also can’t die, thanks to being a Fable. It, uh -” How to explain? “Comes with the territory of being Cinderella.”
An alien and fairytale princess. Such a love story.
If Peggy could get every single person who lived in her dream universe then she absolutely would. Who didn’t want a team full of superheroes and incredibly smart agents? She understood what Shepard and Garrus wanted and she would allow it to happen if people from their dreams did come here and wanted to join them in their department. “I know…,” she let out a bit of a defeated sigh, “It’s just hard to actually be out there and not get rebuffed by people. We’re trying to help save everyone, but we don’t want to actually tell you that. Sorry. But I do want people to feel comfortable coming here to work. Polishing is fine, we can work with that. Some people have no idea what these new ‘powers’ are when they start dreaming and we can help them.”
A small smile appeared when he mentioned his fiance. How completely adorable. “I’ve talked to Cindy before, so I know of her work with the FBI, since she is close to Sharon. I certainly have no issue allowing her to come here as well to work. And I didn’t realize that she was unable to die...that is quite useful,” her brow furrowed just slightly as she tried to work that out in her mind.It would never make sense, but it was incredibly useful, period, “If she would like to come in and speak to me I’m sure we can find a place for her here.”
Ah, that’s right. Now it clicked. Sharon, the pregnant friend Cindy had thrown the shower for (he’d been in the background hauling and carrying things for the ladies - essentially, eye candy and muscle wrapped in one), they shared the same last name. Cousins, he recalled. “She’s a seasoned dreamer, for one thing,” he chuckled, fondly. He’d shower his fiance with thousands of glowing compliments but one might call him biased, and he was.
Still didn’t take away from the fact that she was resourceful. A skilled agent, and damn near impossible to kill. A blessing and a curse - there could always be worse things than death, and despite her immortality, it’d never stop his streak of savage protectiveness to rise. “But the entire ‘not dying’ thing is attributed to the fact that she’s a fairytale princess - Cinderella’s got a fanbase. It’s what fuels it. A strange kind of magic, but one that’s worked in her favor.”
“Hm, I didn’t realize that things could work like that. Colored me surprised because that doesn’t tend to happen often. It’s impressive for her and I almost wish I had something that happening for me,” Peggy commented with a smile. She was absolutely fascinated by this revelation and she knew it would work out well for Cindy, at least in the terms of being a field agent, “I would love to talk to her, Garrus. Let her know that if she wants a place here that we will certainly find her one.”
“Did you have any other ideas you wanted to bounce off of me? I will probably have to start drawing up something for potential open recruitment events. I’ll probably want to get your opinion on that since it was your idea, so if you don’t mind doing a bit of extra work for that, I would greatly appreciate it.”
“Don’t we all,” he breathed a laugh, straightening into correct posture in the chair and rolling up the cuffs of his sleeves. “But I’ll talk with her. Probably get the ball rolling after the wedding, come to think of it.” Garrus winced and scratched his neck. Cindy and the checklist of endless wedding errands, but she seemed determined to not let anything fall through the cracks and he’d be attentive to those details, too - he wanted the day to be perfect for her. It was coming down to the wire and he combed through those last errands carefully, made sure nothing on his end would fall to shambles days before their nuptials among the stars.
But, anyway, back to focus on work (wedding brain was a thing), he was fine coordinating. It was his plotbunny, it’d be damn rude of him to suggest it then dump the responsibilities on someone else. “I don’t mind. First thing that came to mind is a cocktail sort of event - everyone here is a fan of drinking, you can’t really go wrong with that. How discreet you want to go about this is up to you. I’m sure people who’ve been here for awhile have put the pieces together of some kind of government figure making sure the secret of this place doesn’t extend beyond this territory - it won’t be a terrible shock to them.”
An amused smile appeared on her face when he mentioned the wedding and talking to her about a change in career afterwards. She could only imagine all the planning and stress they were under. Weddings seemed like a lot of work nowadays and she wouldn’t be surprised if that was what they were going. Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook ruled when it came to weddings and Peggy did her best to stay away from things like that. It was probably a better idea for him to talk to her about it after so it wouldn’t add another stress to their lives.
“True. I think that we should comb through the network and perhaps put a list of potential candidates together. People that wouldn’t cause trouble if things didn’t work out in their favor to join us. A cocktail party would be nice and drinking tends to loosen people up, so they’ll hopefully be a little more relaxed around us,” nothing like the looming figurehead of a mysterious agency mingling with you while you were basically interviewing for a job. Hell, she almost felt like she needed a drink just thinking about that, “I think you and Natasha would work quite well to getting all that figured out.”
Ah, right. Human resources, apparently. Garrus gave a nod - made sense. “I’m sure we can figure out a way to make ourselves not too obvious, but give enough bones for them to pick.” It was worth a shot, anyway, and he was (for once) optimistic that this would do some good - it was about time they tried to do more active recruits, but the chaotic mess Orange County’s been has put a significant damper on attempts like that.
He collected the signed paperwork, flipping through them briefly to make sure no authorized line of signature was accidentally missed. “I’ll run it by her and we’ll work on it. I’ll let you know how it goes.”
“Thank you so much for stopping by, Garrus, I really appreciate you bringing this up to me so we can work together. And I’m excited to hear what Cindy thinks about possibly coming to work here,” Peggy was more than happy to welcome new people with open arms. She trusted Cindy since she was closely tied to Sharon and Garrus, two people whom she knew did a good job here, and the woman was more than qualified. Opening up the Agency to a more “open” recruitment was probably a good way to stop running skeleton crews and give smaller departments a bump in numbers, “Don’t be a stranger, okay? Keep me updated on this recruitment idea.”