Miranda

I was calm cool and collected. Well, calm and collected-ish until I heard the pop and thud of Daniel being shot.

At that point, rational Miranda left the building and someone I didn’t even recognized showed up.  Next thing I knew, I was biting, flailing backward, and dropping my weight to get him off balance.  I knew even in my frenzied state that I couldn’t get away, not bound as I was, but there was no way he was coming out of this unscathed, preferably dead.

I fell to the floor as blood fell from his nose.  I could only hope I broke it beyond repair and that it hurt like a mother. I propped myself up the best I could to get some leverage and thrust my bound legs up, making contact with the assholes junk, or at least where his junk would be if he had been a real man and not a creepy wanna be.

Upon contact, his gun fell to the ground and I kicked it away just as his body tumbled onto mine.  I flailed until he was finally off of me, screaming in pain.  Inching away from him, I called out to the team I knew would be there helping Daniel.

“Irving’s down!” I shouted, letting them know it was safe-ish to come in and finally save the freaking day.  Where were they? “Quick, Daniel has been shot.  He needs help!”  I continued to scootch as far away from Irving and as close to Daniel as I could while two men came barreling in to deal with Irving.  I couldn’t pay attention to them. 

I needed to get to Daniel.  I needed to know that he was okay.  That he was going to make it.  Inch by inch, I crawled until I saw him sit up, looking pissed as hell but safe, and with that image, I let myself collapse.  The adrenaline was waning fast and Daniel was safe.  I didn’t have to be strong anymore. I was ready to be saved. 

Everything from there happened in a blur.  Irving was taken away, hopefully to face a slow tortuous death, because that was about as forgiving as I was feeling at the moment.  A group of men came in and began searching the building.  I didn’t know if they were looking for people or evidence, but I hoped they found both.  From what I could over hear as Daniel made his way slowly to me, Small Penis and Frazzled both died, which only saddened me because I wasn’t the one who did it.

At first I wanted to scream at the reinforcements to help Daniel, and then I caught it. It was subtle, but he was warning them off.  He wanted to be the one to set me free or see if I was okay.  I didn’t know which and it didn’t matter.  All that mattered was that they deemed him unscathed enough to do so.  He was too slow to be fine, but everything seemed to be happening slowly, so it might have been more me than him.  When he finally reached me, pulling me close with a flinch, I knew he was hurting more than he let on, but the selfish part of me didn’t care.  I needed his arms around me even more than I needed to get out of this hellhole. 

“I thought I lost you,” he said into my neck, his arms wrapped a little too tightly around me given my currently bound state, not that I would tell him.  I needed this.  Needed to feel his warmth.  The weight of the day was going to hit me soon enough and when it did, I was going to need his strength to draw from.

“You didn’t actually have me to lose,” I teased.  It was a lie.  He’d had me from the moment I saw him, even as out of place as he’d looked in that suit.  Shit, he’d never lost me, and when he had confessed in my office that he hadn’t been with anyone since me, I nearly threw myself at him on the spot.  I had spent so much time hating him for cheating on me when all he had been doing was keeping me safe.  Although, to be fair, once I knew his secret my safety had flown out the window, so he had been accurate in his reasoning.  Even if it had broken my heart.

“I had a plan.” He kissed me hard and I savored every second of it.  I was going to enjoy my kiss.

“Oh you did?” I spoke between panted breaths, the ones his kiss stole.

This was neither the time nor the place for this, considering the dead bodies, the maimed professor of evil, and the possibility of victims being present, but fuck it.  I had been without Danny for seven long years, for no other reason than my pride and mistrust and I almost lost him forever less than a half an hour ago.

“I was going to woo the crap outta you.” He squeezed me a bit tighter.

“After you did some major begging?” Not that begging was actually needed.  There was no way I would waste any more time being apart from him.  Not now. Not ever.

“You know me well.” He kissed me again. “I know you want to get out of these ropes, but I just need to hold you for a minute first, let it sink in that you are really here and safe.”

“You are the one who’s hurt.”

“Kevlar.” He smirked as if I hadn’t felt him flinch.  I gave him my best “Really?” eyes.  “It hurts like a mother and knocked me on my ass, but at the worst I have a broken rib or two.”

“Because that is the equivalent of a papercut.” I nestled closer, his presence managing to block out all of the commotion happening around us.

“Hell no, papercuts hurt like hell.” He laid me down on my side. “Here, let me get these now.” Within seconds he had my arms and legs free and was rubbing my ankles, probably to encourage the circulation to fully return.  Thanks goodness I had decent tights on, because rope burn on top of all of this would’ve sucked monkey balls.

“Hey, D’s girl!” A guy I’d only seen briefly during the whatever you called the mess I was just in waved at us. “You really did some damage to Irving.  Nice job.” Hell to the fucking yeah on that one.  He deserved it, and so much more.

“I hope his balls shrivel up and fall off.”

“They just may.” The guy winked before turning to Daniel.  “Hey, D, why don’t you take her back home, get her feeling all safe and warm.” His tone was filled with far too much innuendo, and Daniel glared laser eyes at him.

“Shut your pie hole.”

“Take her home, we got your back,” he restated.  “If you need a medic, call.  We can have one sent over, but we need to secure this site and the more civilians here, the bigger the paper trail.”

“We know how you like paper work,” Daniel replied in a more normal tone, their tiff apparently just how they communicated.  It would’ve been funny given another situation.  “Did you give Grey the 4-1-1?”

“All done.”  

“Any girls?” Daniel was still in work mode. His pain must’ve been subsiding, which I hoped meant nothing broken, just bruised.

“No, not yet, but the files are here as is a hell of a lot of video footage.  The dude went old school.  We have our work cut out for us.” That wasn’t what any of us wanted to hear, but at least they had something to go on.  Baby steps.  “Now scram.  I had Deek get your car for your lazy ass.  You’re probably going to milk this into a week off.”

“Two.” I held up my fingers, which was a mistake.  As unscathed as my ankles were, my wrists were going to scar, and seeing that for the first time was hard to stomach.

“Oh, I like your girl.” He winked at Daniel.  It was nice to see he had someone in his life he could banter and be playful with, even if said guy was being a dick. 

“Fuck off, Caz.” Daniel’s hand left my ankle long enough to flip him the bird.  “Have Scott call when he has more info.  We need to find those girls.”

“We will.  Now you go take care of yours.”

It was painful getting up and taking my first few steps, but the motivation to get out of there was strong enough for me to continue on without complaint.  It wasn’t until we got in the car and had left the university grounds that I let the first of many tears fall.