Chapter Text
"Root..." Shaw's terse voice warned through the comm.
"Yes...?" she answered playfully.
"Roooot........"
"Yeeeessssss........"
Harold let out a patient sigh as he looked away from his monitors for the first time in hours. The Team were on Day 3 of a fruitless stakeout and Harold was no longer convinced they were entirely sober; at the very least, they were punch-drunk and finding ways to amuse themselves... which Harold had learned long before elevated the potential for mayhem among this group.
"Miss Shaw..." he began.
"Stay out of this, Harold."
"I'm afraid I don't know what this is, Miss Shaw."
"It's nothing, Harry," Root answered happily. "She's just mad that I..."
"Root! Don't you dare..."
"If you want, Harold, I could turn the car around and bring them all home," John's calm voice offered.
"I think I would prefer you all stay on task and take whatever this is off the comms, thank you."
Harold held still for a moment, waiting for argument, but he relaxed as the silence stretched on and he could turn his attention back to the monitors. He had plenty vying for his attention there and didn't need more of this nonsense. Honestly, sometimes it was like he'd hired children.
The silence was short lived.
"Root, so help me. I will climb that roof myself and find you," Shaw's voice growled over the comm.
"Do you promise...?"
"Miss Shaw, Miss Groves, please. Whatever this is..." Harold insisted.
"Yeah, Shaw. Control yourself."
"Shut up, John, or I will find you, too."
John chuckled and Harold shook his head. Children. Definitely children...
"Root!"
"What?" she asked so innocently, Harold could practically see the mock-pouting face she was no doubt making.
"Didn't Harold just tell you to knock it off?"
"No, sweetie. He said to take it off the comm. He didn't say anything at all about texting."
"And yet you've brought it back on the comm . I swear to God, Root..."
"Miss Shaw, please," Harold warned, his patience beginning to wane.
"See, Sameen? You're upsetting Harold."
"Root..." Shaw warned again over John's dry chuckle and Harold knew this would keep going unless he stopped it. He needed them to focus if he was to get anything done tonight.
"Please, if you both wouldn't mind," Harold snapped before taking a calming breath. "Keep the comms for the mission."
"Sorry, Harry..." Root answered for them all in the singsongy way of an unrepentant child.
But the silence stretched on a little longer this time and he was just starting to refocus on his work, when...
"Sameen!" Root's scandalously amused cry called out through the comms, followed quickly by Shaw's low chuckle at whatever tables had just been turned in their absurd game.
Harold took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Miss Shaw..."
"You don't want to know, Harold," John answered for her.
"Oh no, you definitely do, Harry," Root corrected.
A quiet beep pulled Harold's attention back to his monitor. Root had sent him a file he knew better than to open.
"Did you just...?" Shaw asked quietly, threateningly, no doubt hearing the sound as well.
"I sent you a little something, Harry. Go ahead and open it."
"Don't you dare open that file, Harold."
"No, it's ok, Harry. Go ahead."
"Yeah, go ahead, Finch," John added before a sharp "Ow!" made it clear Shaw's proximity to him and her opinion on him taking Root's side.
"If you open that file, Harold, I will hunt you down..."
Harold pulled his earpiece before Shaw could finish her threat. He closed his eyes and took in the silence of the subway station.
What had he ever done to deserve this?
He'd worked successfully alone for so many years. Indeed, the greatest things he'd ever created - the Machine, for instance - he'd created away from other people, his office a Fortress of Solitude against the noise and chaos of the world outside his door.
Silence had always been comforting to him. It was all he'd ever wanted and when he'd first hired John, he'd tried to maintain it because he needed a Fortress to keep order and make sure everything went according to plan. It was the only way he knew how to function.
But opening the door to John had meant opening it to Root and Shaw as well. And the chaos and noise of the outside world had seeped in after them. And plans had rarely come to pass since.
They'd taken the Fortress from him - broken it's walls and left him exposed to the world and life and all the chaos that came with it.
And so help him... he wouldn't have it any other way.
Listening to the quiet stillness of the subway station, Harold realized that silence was no longer the comfort it had once been because the only times he found silence now were when his team was in trouble and it felt like his life was ending. These incredible, ridiculous people he'd never set out to know had somehow made the chaos feel comforting and like living for the first time. And he couldn't imagine going on now without it, without them.
Dear God... what had he ever done to deserve them?
He put the earpiece back in his ear in time to hear John laugh and Shaw curse him.
"That's it, Root," she called. "I'm coming for you..."
"I love it when you come for me, Sameen..."
Children. His children.
And God, he loved them...