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“So, Ms. Connell, why do you want to be an FBI agent?”
“When I was twelve years old, I was kidnapped, and I was rescued by this security guy.” He wasn’t really a security guy, she didn’t say. I don’t know who he was. I looked him up, after. I searched and searched and I couldn’t find him. I can’t stop thinking about him.
“I decided I wanted to be like him. I wanted to be someone strong, who could save other people the way he saved me.” I wanted to be someone who sees the good in the world. I wanted to believe that hard work can beat talent. I wanted to believe that cheating isn’t the only way to get things in life.
“I always knew I wanted to go into law enforcement. I’ve been working toward this since middle school.” It was hard. You don’t know how hard it was. I wanted to quit, and I wanted to cry, and I wanted to give up and go back to sulking. But I couldn’t. He would have been disappointed in me.
“I’m finally here. It would be the greatest honor in the world to be a special agent.” When I look in the mirror now, she didn’t say, I like what I see.
Two years later, Molly was still doing grunt work. She was trying to be patient. She knew how this worked: you start at the bottom, and you work your way up. She heard that’s even how Special Agent McSweeten, the head of her entire department, made it to the top: he started in a hot, stuffy surveillance van that stinks to high heaven, listening to tapes, and now look where he is.
But it’s hard to be patient, is the thing, when you’re stuck in said stinky surveillance van just keeping an eye on some rich asshole who’s probably going to make a deal with the FBI and get immunity anyway. This wasn’t where she saw herself, but she told herself she’d get there. Eventually.
Still, she was glad for a break from the monotony when a knock came on the door of the van. Molly exchanged glances with her partner (an older guy who had been stuck on grunt work for years, probably due to his utter obstinancy and lack of competence. no, she wasn’t bitter at all, why do you ask). He shrugged and motioned for her to get it.
Outside stood a young Black woman, about Molly’s age, and a white man closer to her father’s age, both wearing the kind of ill-fitting suits you get when you’re required to wear a suit but not paid enough for a good one.
“Hi, I’m Special Agent Tyler, this is Special Agent Mott,” said the woman, both of them flashing their badges quickly. “We’re from the Bureau. We got your memo; we’re here about your tech problems?”
“Oh! Uh, wonderful, come on in.” Molly motioned them inside and muttered to her partner, “See, I told you there was a point to sending so many memos.” He grunted and shook his head.
“So!” said Special Agent Tyler brightly. “Special Agent…”
“It’s just Agent, actually. Agent Connell.”
“Agent Connell, these old vans have so many problems everywhere. Was there one you wanted me to start with?”
Molly pointed Tyler to this one surveillance feed that liked to flicker out for a minute every hour or so, and watched as she bustled around competently, plugging in a USB drive, clicking through some settings, and so on. She had this cute little wrinkle in her forehead when she concentrated on something.
When she’d finished, the flicker was miraculously fixed, and the two agents slipped out, with Tyler giving a cheeky little salute.
(“She was totally checking you out,” Harry said to Breanna as they hopped into the food truck.
“No she was not.”
“Yeah, no, she definitely was.”
"Who was checking you out?” asked Sophie, eyebrow raised, poised to tease.
“No one,” Breanna insisted. “ANYWAY-”)
A few hours later, Molly was still half-watching surveillance footage and idly doing crosswords, but something was bugging her. “Did something seem slightly off about that to you?” she asked her partner eventually. “Just… I don’t know. What was she even doing?”
“Look, not everything is a conspiracy, okay?”
She sighed and tried to put it out of her mind. But as she kept watching the surveillance for the party their target was hosting, she kept feeling like something was off. A woman would walk out of frame of one camera and then disappear. Molly would look back at the guest list and swear that a new name had shown up that wasn’t there before. She kept seeing figures out of the corner of her eye patting themselves down like they were missing something, only to apparently find it a moment later.
Somehow, the feeling that she was getting from this as a whole made her think of those few days before she was kidnapped, back when she was twelve. She didn’t know what her gut was trying to tell her, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going on.
Finally, she’d had enough. “I am telling you, something’s wrong here. I’m going to go check it out.”
“Sure, fine, you do that,” said her partner, rolling his eyes. “You can go see that there’s nothing going on here, Jesus. Just don’t get noticed.”
“Great. Wonderful.” She buttoned up her coat and hopped out of the van, privately thinking that her partner was probably just glad to get her out of his hair. Whatever.
Molly made her way into the party where the target was mingling, doing her very best to not radiate Hi I Am An FBI Agent but probably not succeeding particularly well. She started meandering around the edges, trying to line up what she saw in front of her with what she’d seen on the surveillance footage, and getting even more of a sense than before that something wasn’t quite right.
Suddenly, a woman in a beautiful red dress appeared in front of her. It took Molly a second to recognize her, but— “Agent Tyler?”
“Shh, keep your voice down,” Tyler said in a hushed voice, looking around subtly. She motioned Molly to walk with her, definitely steering her in some direction. “We have this under control in here. What are you doing here?”
“No, no, I know, it’s just-” She stopped abruptly, catching sight of someone walking toward them. “Eliot?”
Tyler looked back and forth between them quickly. “What’s-”
“Molly?” said the man who she was definitely sure was Eliot from all those years ago, dressed up in a slick suit and with no beard, but still her Eliot. “What are you doing here?”
“I work for the FBI,” she said, quickly, defensively. “What are you doing here?”
“Long story.” He paused, and his eyes got very serious. “More importantly, Molly, do you trust me?”
His gaze caught and held her for a moment. For a second she was that kid again, kidnapped, somewhere dark and scary, listening to his voice through her earpiece.
This man was a criminal. He was probably going to ask her to do something illegal. She could risk her job. She spent years working to get to this point, and she could be throwing it all away if anyone found out.
This man taught her to throw darts, taught her to win at the rigged carnival games, gave her something to strive for when she was a jaded tweenager who didn’t know what she was doing. He rescued her. He risked his life. The last time she saw him, he was bloody and bruised and almost dead from saving her. He was the reason she was in this job in the first place.
It was never really a choice.
“Yeah. I do.”
“Okay. Here’s what I need you to do…”
Just a couple of action-packed hours later, Molly and her partner were leading the target away in handcuffs, and despite the glow of a successful mission, she had the presence of mind to notice five people leaning against a wall, smirking at the target: Eliot, two women she remembered working with him years ago, and the two FBI agents from earlier (evidently not actually FBI agents). Eliot caught her eye and winked.
Sometime much later, when she emerged from piles of paperwork and meetings and more paperwork, she found a business card tucked in her back pocket that she definitely hadn’t put there. It read “Leverage International” and an address.
She knocked, and the door was answered by one of the women from before: dark hair, classy outfit, vaguely mother-figure-like. “Hi, Molly,” she said warmly, motioning her inside. “Come on in. I see you cut your hair?”
“Ah. Yeah. A while ago.” Molly smiled softly. “Thank you for noticing. I don't believe I caught your name?”
“I'm Sophie. It's good to see you again.”
Molly looked around as Sophie led her across the room. It was a beautiful, if somewhat ambiguous, space: high ceilings, vintage wood paneling, lots of paintings and windows. She settled down at a bar, between Eliot on one side and “Agent Tyler” on the other.
“Nice work, Botasky,” said Eliot, giving her a fistbump.
“You too, Perky,” she said, smiling wide. “You remembered.”
“How could I not? I do have to ask though, why the FBI?”
“What? I thought you'd be proud of me?” Her hurt tone was only half joking.
“Oh no, I am, kiddo, don't get me wrong, but you know... you could have gone into crime.” She could tell by the smile that this time he really was joking.
“Hey now, don't encourage her,” said another voice- Agent Mott, from before. “Hi, Molly, I'm Harry.” She shook his hand.
“It could have been worse. She could be working for Sterling,” said “Tyler,” to universal groans. “I'm Breanna, by the way.” Her handshake felt... less business-y than Harry's.
“Who's Sterling?” asked Molly, still looking at Breanna, who was even cuter when she wasn’t pretending to be an FBI agent.
Immediate cacophony. “Oh, you don't want to know…”