Static/Cling (Subparheroes)

Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

THE WORKPLACE

Kassian did not arrive at the office any earlier than normal. Well. Only ten—okay, fifteen—minutes early. And he wasn’t there early because he’d been too restless to stay home and wait for his normal departure time. He hadn’t been restless because he’d been unable to sleep. He hadn’t been unable to sleep because he kept thinking of the new recruits.

He hadn’t been thinking about the new recruits.

Well. Okay, he had. But only because he’d been trying to figure out how to save the computers from the big, dumb, pretty idiot.

“Fucking hell,” he muttered as he juggled his coffee and the cardboard box he carried so he could punch in the key code to get into the offices.

“Keep telling yourself you’re not interested, buddy.” A snicker echoed in his brain, but he shrugged it aside with the weight of the door as he pushed inside.

The box made a solid thump when he dropped it onto the conference table, glad to be rid of it after having to carry it up three flights of stairs. Or four. Or however many it was.

The only light in the room came from the lamp on April’s desk. It didn’t seem to illuminate anything beyond her wooden office dividers.

He flicked on the rest of the lights, raised the blinds and booted up the computer system. “I am not interested.”

“Hello-oo!” April’s voice hit a register that vibrated the dust motes swimming in the rays of morning sun now streaming in the windows.

Kassian shuddered and closed his eyes. He had hoped she’d turned the running of the office back over to Sal. Things always ran smoother when Sal was in charge.

“Hey, boss.”

“Not your boss.” He heard rustling from behind her screen as he settled into his chair to log in, then her voice was much closer. The baffle behind his chair creaked. She liked to lean on it. “I’m just the recruitment gal. Have you finished the computer modifications? Sal said something about electric—I don’t know. Things.”

“Better.” He waved at the box.

“What’s that?”

“Made him a suit.”

“A what, now?” Another creak of the old, disgusting baffle, and he heard her open the box.

He kept his attention on his computer screen. He’d been chasing a worrisome communication packet through the back doors of various government systems he probably—no, definitely—should not have been in, and there was a notification that it had moved again.

As long as no one was opening it, he was content to follow its progress, wait, and see where it landed. And, okay sure, maybe he burned a few hard drives and dumped some cloud storages where it had been, but nothing really invasive or serious. Computers could be replaced. And if people relied solely on their cloud storage to save important information, it was not his fault they were that dumb.

“What does it do?” April asked, pulling him out of cyberspace and back to his physical surroundings.

“What does what do?”

“The suit?”

“Oh. Dampens his electrical field. Long as he wears it, and keeps his hands covered, he can’t wreck the machines.”

“Mmm.” The box scraped across the table. “You’ll get their desks out of storage.”

“I’m doing something here.” He waved at his computer screen.

“Sal can’t carry a desk and Roger…” She sighed. “Well. Roger.”

Kassian pushed his keyboard aside. “Fine. I’ll get their desks.”

“Thank you. Was that so hard?”

It was a good thing she wasn’t their boss most of the time, because she irritated the shit out of him.

“Maybe the pretty one doesn’t need a computer,” she mused, picking at the items in the box.

“They’re both pretty,” Kassian said absently as he passed her, headed for the storage room.

“Ugh. I do not want to know.” She muttered something about workplace romance and human resources.

He spent a moment in the storage room pushing unused furniture aside to get at two more of the standard metal desks that the rest of them used. In doing so, he unearthed a huge wooden desk made to share, with one person sitting on either side, facing each other.

“This one,” he announced, because that only made sense. A metal desk would make the workday of someone prone to collect static electricity a nightmare. He ignored the part of his brain that wanted to ask why that should matter to him.

“I am not a monster,” he said after a minute of moving more furniture to get the wooden desk free.

“Yeah, but he’s not really my problem, either.”

“Don’t be an ass,” he told himself.

The mean part of his brain sulked.

It took him longer to tetris the other furniture out of the way so he could get the big desk out, but he’d committed.

“What are you doing?” April asked from the doorway at one point.

“Getting a desk.”

“Why that one? Oh. Well, that makes sense. The pretty one will like that. Good thinking.”

“Bjorn,” he said as he pushed the desk out and towards the opposite corner to Sal and Roger’s. It was the best place for the desk. The placement had nothing to do with the fact that a slight turn of his head to the right when he sat at his own desk would afford him a view of it. And, subsequently, its occupants.

“Don’t care,” he muttered as he pulled network cables from along the baseboard and up on top of the desk for plugging in later.

He snorted at himself as he headed back into the storage room for chairs. He was in there, looking for anything that wasn’t a metal chair, when April “toodle-looed” from the doorway.

When he returned, carrying two solid oak office chairs that were probably older than his parents, she was gone

He’d barely settled back at his desk when Sal appeared from the door to the bathroom at the back of the office.

“Hey,” they mumbled, scratching at their hair.

“Hi.”

“April gone?”

“Yup.”

Sal yawned. “That’s good.”

“Were you hiding from her?”

“Maybe.”

“You sleep okay?” Kassian studied them, not for the first time wondering when they had arrived that they looked so sleepy, and had managed to get there before even April had, so they could hide from her. He was beginning to think Roger’s theory that Sal slept at the office was the correct one, as weird as that seemed to him.

Sal waved a hand at him. “Fine, thanks.”

He refrained from asking anything else as he watched them pad over to their station and curl into their massive desk chair. It was none of his business.

Roger arrived then, and a few minutes later, Bjorn and Leif.

Leif’s smile when he noticed the wooden desk and chairs was radiant. “These for us?” He ran one hand along the curved back of one of the chairs.

Kassian grunted but quickly focused back on his computer. The man’s smile could make anyone weak in the knees, and he wasn’t having it.

“That’s thoughtful,” Bjorn rumbled, in a voice that was no easier to ignore than Leif’s smile. “Thank you.”

Kassian pursed his lips. He wasn’t. Having. It. He scowled, trying to focus his concentration on whatever was on his computer screen that for a second, was making zero sense to his beefy, stupid brain.

“What about the computers?” Leif asked.

“In the box.” Kassian waved at it sitting on the table, but didn’t turn from his screen. The packet notifications were coming fast and furious and he didn’t like where they pointed.

“Is he fucking serious?” Bjorn whispered after a minute.

“Just…” Leif’s tone was conciliatory, but the fury underlying it wasn’t completely covered. “Let me talk to him.”

Frowning at his screen, Kassian tried to ignore them. He hadn’t been too worried about the packet when it had been passed around the various bureaucratic divisions, but now it was on a military server. That was bad enough, but there was also a name attached to it of an executive government officer Kassian had once heard about and it made him nervous. No one with powers needed the Ministry of Natural Resources up in their business. Having the attention of the MNR was decidedly Not Good.

“Hey.” A light knock on the metal frame of his office divider pulled at Kassian’s attention.

“Got a sec?” Leif asked.

Kassian’s shoulders lifted uncontrollably. A shiver passed down his spine, and no matter what he told himself he wasn’t having, clearly some part of him was totally on board with all the having.

“You know, I appreciate you setting up a wooden desk for us. That was thoughtful.”

“Sure. Whatever.” Ruthlessly he pushed down the preening bit of himself that was pleased at being noticed for being smart, rather than strong.

“But that overall thing. What’s that about?”

“Fuck.” Annoyed, Kassian pushed his keyboard tray aside and spun his chair.

Leif straightened, his gaze steady, and not happy. “I’m trying to be nice here,” he said, jaw tight, making his scar stand out, white against already pale skin.

“Insulating your boyfriend was easier than insulating all the machines and wires and everything else.”

Leif waved the rubber gloves Kassian had picked up at the hardware store on his way in.

“Seriously?”

Kassian squirmed. He did feel a bit bad about those, but in his defence, it had been short notice.

Leif tossed the gloves into his lap. “Fuck you. Get used to refurbishing computers.” He turned and stalked off.

Kassian grimaced.

“The patch says Ralph,” Bjorn muttered. “He doesn’t even know my name?”

“That’s the name that was on them.” Kassian got up and took the overalls from Bjorn. “Look.” He exposed the inner lining he’d spent most of the night fabricating.

Okay, so he had safety-pinned it to the inside of the overalls, but really, he’d had to get at least some sleep. An hour hadn’t been much, and the liner could be attached better later. He was proud of the fact the filigree wires he’d embedded between the heavy cotton of the used overalls and the anti-static fabric were almost invisible except where he had carefully bent them over at the edges to contact Bjorn’s skin. He’d been very careful not to leave any sharp ends poking out, just the rounded bends to make contact and conduct the static away.

“There are micro-fibre wires under the fabric that will conduct the charge you naturally build up to these receptors.” He showed them the metal cuffs around each wrist. “And the fabric lining will dissipate any over charge harmlessly.”

He picked up one of the boots he’d included. “These heavy rubber soles will help in not accumulating more of a charge than the suit can handle. The gloves are just an added insurance that you don’t accidentally zap anything.”

Bjorn still looked unhappy, and Leif frowned.

“I’m not wearing that.”

“Maybe it’ll help?” But Leif didn’t look convinced either.

“I’ll wear the boots,” Bjorn said after a minute. “See if that makes any difference, but I am not wearing Ralph’s overalls. Or fucking rubber gloves.” He took the boots and sat, kicking his runners under the wooden desk so he could put them on.

“I spent all night on that.”

“The concept is a good one,” Sal offered from across the room.

“Execution sucks ass,” Bjorn muttered.

“I was working with what I could get my hands on. I’m hardly a clothing designer.”

“Maybe you could have taken Ralph’s name off,” Roger offered. “I’d hate to have to wear something that said I was someone I’m not.” He scrubbed lightly at his neck. “You don’t want to be wearing someone else’s name tag.”

Sal patted his shoulder. “No, honey, you don’t.”

He smiled at them, and Kassian could see the puppy in him tail wagging and drooling over their attention.

“Well, unless you plan on sitting at your desk with your hands in your lap, you’re going to have to wear it,” Kassian told Bjorn.

“This is stupid,” Bjorn muttered. He turned to Leif. “I told you this last night. I don’t belong here.”

Before anyone could say anything, he strode to the door and banged his way out.

“Bjorn!” Leif hurried after him.

“Well done,” Sal said.

“Yeah.” Roger plunked into his chair. “Well done.”

“Fuck off, both of you.”

He didn’t have time for hissy fits from the new guy. Tossing the uniform—fine, the overall—back in the general direction of the box, he returned to his computer. He had way more pressing issues to worry about.

A dozen new notifications had popped up on his screen while he’d been trying to placate Bjorn.

“Shit, shit, shit.” Furiously, he started typing.

“What?” Roger asked.

“Just…” He focused on his work, because if he didn’t get this under control, he would be in deep shit. If he got caught, it wouldn’t just be the government after his hide.

“What did you do?” Sal asked, getting up from their desk and approaching.

He could feel both of them hovering over his shoulder, and it was not helping his concentration.

At some point, the office door opened and closed and then another, bulkier presence loomed behind him.

“What’s going on?” Bjorn joined them to watch over his shoulder, and an itch started between Kassian’s shoulder blades. His fingers faltered and he lost the train of his coding for half a second.

“B,” Leif said quietly, and then Bjorn’s hulking presence at his back was gone.

A phone rang, but went ignored.

He forced his concentration back, quickly tracing the snake of his own coding through the labyrinth of traps being set to catch it.

Leif’s low, gentle voice lilted in the background. Sal murmured something. Roger’s ball bounced once, then went still.

Kassian glanced over to see Roger gripping the ball, every line of his body tense. He turned back to his work, but the silence was unnerving. “It’s fine, Rog,” he said, and the bouncing started up again.

After a minute, his fingers took up the steady cadence of his bounce-catch-bounce-catch and he settled back into the liminal headspace of computer languages.

The opening he needed appeared in the code, and he took it, frantically typing the necessary lines to turn his snake around and slither out of the trap just before it snapped shut.

He threw himself back in his chair, scrubbing his hands through his hair. When he glanced around, it was to see Sal with their headset on and fingers poised to make calls. They raised one eyebrow to disappear under the straight line of their bangs.

Kassian shook his head and they relaxed.

Tension also flowed out of Roger’s shoulders. He bounced his ball on his desk in a series of short, rapid bounce-and-catches, letting his nerves dissipate more with each bounce.

Kassian shut out the sound and glanced to the two new guys.

Leif was just motioning him away from his crouch by the wall plug.

“What are you doing?” Kassian jumped to his feet. “What are you doing?”

“If you couldn’t get out, he was going to pull the plug,” Leif explained.

“Brick my computer, you mean, and effectively burn everything on it!”

Leif shrugged. “Make sure there was nothing for—” He waved a hand in the general direction of Kassian’s machine. “—whoever—to find if they managed to follow.”

“That—” Fuck. That hadn’t been a terrible plan, actually. He huffed.

Bjorn straightened and stuck his hands in his jeans pockets. “You’re welcome, asshole.” He stumped away and slumped into the wooden chair that had its back to Kassian’s desk.

Which was when Kassian noticed his socked feet. The boots were strewn near the wall outlet, and Bjorn’s shoulders hovered around his ears.

Leif went to him, about to touch his shoulder, but Bjorn flinched away. “Don’t,” he whispered.

“What are you going to do with it?”

“Just leave it.”

“It’s a lot,” Leif said.

“It’s fine.”

“What’s a lot?” Kassian asked.

They all glanced everywhere but at Bjorn or him.

“What? What did I miss?”

“He—” Roger waved a hand around the room. “Shuffled around on the carpet in his socks.”

“He’s built up a lot of electricity.” Leif hovered a hand about an inch above Bjorn’s shoulder. An arch of power snapped between his palm and Bjorn. He gritted his teeth and drew his hand away, flexing his fingers, but hiding it from Bjorn when he glanced up.

“You okay?” the big, dumb—fucking hell, the kind—idiot asked.

“Of course.”

“Thanks for… that,” Kassian muttered.

“Did you manage to kill the file this time?” Sal asked.

“No.” That he couldn’t do more to the file than track it bugged Kassian. His first glimpse of what it contained, weeks ago, had quickly been hidden behind a shell of encryption that all his subsequent attempts to pierce bounced off of.

“What are we going to do?” Sal asked. “We can’t just leave it out there.”

“I’m working on it, Sal.”

“You’re the best coder we have.”

He peered at them. “I’m the only coder you have.”

“You know what I mean.” They blew their bangs out of their eyes. “April keeps asking if you’ve destroyed the file yet and I have to keep telling her?—”

“I know, Sal.”

“It isn’t just her. I’m hearing all kinds of chatter about a secret list. People are starting to believe it’s real.”

“It is real.”

“I know. Obviously. But they sort of want to pretend it’s just a rumour, only they’re sort of thinking it might not be just rumour. It’s starting to feel like when Dad disappeared. There were rumours then, too.”

“This isn’t like then, Sal,” Kassian promised. Though he couldn’t promise them that, he tried to sound sure anyway.

Roger made a wounded sort of sound in his throat, and both newbies looked confused and worried.

Thank the universe, Sal’s phone rang at that moment to distract everyone.

They spoke briefly, then hung up with a sigh. “Apparently, there are about three dozen file boxes in the lobby that have to come up here.”

“Why?” Kassian asked.

Sal’s gaze flicked to Bjorn.

Of course. If he was going to get up to speed, he was not going to do it by reading files on the computer. Shit.

“Come on,” Roger said. “We’ll help.”

He’d look like an asshole—okay, a bigger asshole—if he didn’t help them, so Kassian locked his computer and trudged down the stairs after Sal and Roger, leaving Leif to keep Bjorn company while the latter put his boots back on.

Bjorn stood aside to let Sal and Roger past him on the stairs, each carrying a box filled with files. Half a floor later, he passed Kassian going up with three boxes. The man was a fucking mountain.

Sighing, he jogged down the rest of the way, bracing himself to open the door at the bottom.

“Wait!” Leif called. “Let me.”

“I gotta get rid of it somehow,” Bjorn reminded him.

“Not on a metal door. It’ll hurt.”

He wasn’t wrong, so Bjorn waited, letting Leif open the door for him. He grabbed two of the boxes, then started back up. He wasn’t such an idiot he would compete with Kassian. He knew his limits.

There were, in fact, fifty boxes of files, which took a lot of trips to bring up so many flights of stairs.

“Why isn’t he helping?” Roger complained at one point, meaning Leif, who had remained on the ground floor to open and close the door for them. The rest of the doors, Bjorn noticed, had been propped open with the heavy boxes so he didn’t have to touch any of them as he trekked up and down.

That was nice of whoever had thought of it.

“He shouldn’t carry stuff,” Bjorn said to Roger.

“Oh, c’mon. Even Sal’s helping.”

“Leave him alone,” Kassian rumbled from behind his stack of boxes.

Roger grumbled something under his breath Bjorn couldn’t hear, but not hearing it didn’t lessen his desire to trip the guy up the last few steps.

That was his guilt talking, though, and he knew it. Leif couldn’t carry the boxes without risk to his back, and that was Bjorn’s fault.

When he got back to the bottom where Leif opened the door for him, something must have shown on his face, because Leif frowned. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“Something.”

Bjorn sighed. “I’m sulking because I didn’t want to explain to them why you can’t carry boxes. Because I’m an id?—”

Leif slapped a hand over his mouth, then grabbed his arm and yanked him to the side. Electricity left over from his socks-on-carpet escapade earlier sparked and snarled between them.

Leif gasped.

“Fuck.” Pushing Leif against a wall around the corner, Bjorn leaned into him, kissing him, grounding himself in the feel of Leif’s mouth under his. God, the man could kiss, and it never failed to go straight to his cock.

Which, in this case, was good, because there was a lot of power to wrangle, and Leif grabbing him wasn’t smart when he didn’t have a good handle on it. Finding the wayward sparks, he channelled them into a point he could trail over Leif’s skin along his collarbone and the side of his neck and up under his hairline.

Leif groaned and bucked against him. His hard cock pressed into Bjorn’s thigh.

“Shit, I’m sorry,” Bjorn muttered, pressing his cheek to Leif’s. “I—that was going to hurt you otherwise.”

“I fucking hate you,” Leif said between clenched teeth, but he was chuckling. “You so owe me, now.”

“Don’t go grabbing me like that. You never know if?—”

“Don’t let fucking Kassian get into your head. He doesn’t know you.”

“No, I know.” He rubbed his cheek again. “It wasn’t even Kassian this time. He actually told Roger to drop it.”

“See? You’re not an idiot.”

Bjorn snorted. “I’m not smart.”

Leif cupped his face in both hands, forcing him away enough he could look into his eyes. “You’re not not smart.”

“What?” Bjorn squinted at him. “Did all the blood leave your brain?”

Leif pushed his groin against Bjorn again. “Obviously.”

They both snickered.

“Are you good, though?” Leif asked.

Bjorn nodded. “Fine.” He hadn’t dissipated all of it, but this was a public place and not even the lunch hour when most people occupying the first and second floors might be out of the building. He wouldn’t be able to get rid of it all this way without more time and hell of a lot more privacy.

“Where’d they go now?” Bjorn heard Roger’s voice from the lobby.

Leif sighed. “Guess we better go help.”

“Don’t you lift any of those boxes. They’re heavy.”

“I know, I know.” He pushed Bjorn away, adjusted his jeans and squirmed past him, muttering about eel soup and grandmas in saunas and other very non-sexy things.

Bjorn felt a little bit bad about that, but only enough to keep his laughter to a low chuckle. When he caught sight of Kassian whirling away from where they had been sequestered around the corner, he stopped laughing. “Voyeur much?” he muttered.

Leif snickered. “I don’t mind if you don’t.”

“Can’t just let me hate the guy in peace, can you?”

“You’re not a hater.”

“Hey.” Bjorn nabbed Leif by one wrist before he got far. “Seriously.”

“Seriously what?” Leif’s gaze sparkled. “You want to hate our coworker? Because that could get awkward.”

“Are you into him?”

Leif shrugged. “I’m not not into him.” The equivocating was new. Normally he had no qualms about saying when he wanted to do some other guy.

Bjorn nodded. “Then I will try not to hate him, but I make no promises.”

“Fair enough.” Leif eased free, but patted Bjorn’s cheek, shivering at the sparks that zinged against his palm. “I will make no moves if it turns out you do hate him. Promise.”

“You don’t have to promise me that.” Bjorn kissed his palm for sincerity, but the spark he let go of, which made Leif moan, might have undermined his earnestness.

Leif blinked up at him. “Don’t I?”

Okay, so maybe he should stop deliberately turning his friend on if he seriously wanted to remind them they weren’t an item. He took a careful step back and stopped touching him. “When have we ever not moved on someone because one or the other of us wasn’t interested? Is that a thing now?”

Leif shrugged. “Maybe? Also we work with him, so it would be awkward, wouldn’t it? If we weren’t both into him?”

“Probably.” The last thing Bjorn wanted was to stop Leif finding his forever guy just because Bjorn wasn’t a fan. Leif owed him nothing. After all, they were friends. Right?

He did notice Leif watching Kassian’s ass as he held the door open for him a few minutes later, though, and couldn’t really blame him. The guy might be a jerk, but that wasn’t his ass’s fault. In fact, his ass was actually pretty nice.

The feeling of being watched made the hairs on the back of Kassian’s neck stand on end. He paused to glance over his shoulder, but there was only Leif, saying something to Bjorn as he held the door for him.

Kassian hurried forwards, because the actual feel of Bjorn’s power in the air in the enclosed stairwell made more than just the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

“Stop it,” he growled at himself.

“Hehe.”

“Fuck off.”

More silent snickering from his lizard brain. Then he reached the next landing, just as the box holding the door open slid across the floor like it had been pushed, and the door clanged shut. The ones he was carrying, that he’d been consciously trying to levitate a bit to make them lighter, just as suddenly turned very heavy.

“Fuck my life.” He braced the three boxes he held on the handrail and tried to work out if he could balance them and reach the door at the same time. He could try and use his very weak telekinesis to do one thing or the other, but the problem was the power didn’t always do what he told it to. In fact, he was pretty sure it had been his own power that had moved the doorstop instead of helping him carry the boxes.

“Hang on,” Leif called from below. “I got you.” His footsteps jogged up the steps, and Kassian glanced back to see Bjorn doing the same as he was, bracing an armload of boxes on the handrail.

Kassian could feel the jumping current skittering through the air. His skin tingled with it. It wasn’t a terrible feeling. In fact, it was downright intriguing.

He grunted.

“You good?” Bjorn asked.

“Fine.”

“Okay, okay. Keep your pants on.”

“What?” Kassian clamped down on his power, forcing it off by multiplying pie by itself in his head. Now was not the time for it to go rogue on him at the mere suggestion of clothing removal. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Bjorn tilted his head, his gaze speculative.

Thankfully, Leif had reached them then, and he put a hand on Bjorn’s hip to guide him to one side.

“Careful!” Bjorn snarled at him.

“It’s fine.” Leif touched Kassian’s elbow, so he could ease his way past in the confined space, and the sharp heat of his touch made Kassian gasp.

Leif groaned softly and swayed.

Kassian and Bjorn both reached for him, Kassian catching his wrist, and Bjorn splaying a hand across his back.

The power that snapped and sizzled in the air arched Leif’s spine.

“Fuck!” Bjorn yanked his hand away and Kassian tightened his grip to keep Leif from tumbling backwards down the stairs, but the electricity still zinged through him and had Kassian’s blood pumping in seconds, most of it south, making him a bit light-headed.

He pulled Leif towards him, grateful when the tiny man wrapped an arm around his waist to steady himself. It freed him to keep his stack of boxes from sliding down the rail into Bjorn’s stack.

“Leif?” Bjorn’s face was pale, his eyes huge, his expression one of horror.

“I’m okay,” Leif whispered, his face buried in Kassian’s side.

Bjorn had a hand out, as if he wanted to touch Leif, but power still crackled off the ends of his fingers, so he didn’t.

“How much power did you pull?” Kassian asked.

“Had to make sure it would be enough.”

“Doesn’t take that much to fry a computer.”

“What part of ‘can’t control it’ don’t you get?” Bjorn snapped.

“I’m just trying to understand.”

“Guys.” Leif rubbed a cheek against Kassian’s shirt and sighed. “Fuck.” He groaned softly. “You smell good.”

“What?” That was not at all something he thought he’d hear under the circumstances. He thought maybe “fucking ow” or “fuck, that hurt” or something, but “you smell good” was not what he’d anticipated following that expletive.

Bjorn grunted, and Kassian expected a glare, but Bjorn only flicked his gaze between Leif and Kassian, still speculating.

“Um.” Kassian shifted his weight, lifting a leg to brace the boxes better, accidentally brushing his thigh against Leif’s crotch in the process.

Leif moaned. His hips swayed in tight.

Kassian often got referred to as a mountain of a man, but he was not made of stone and Leif’s obvious erection did not go unnoticed.

“Jesus,” he whispered.

Leif chuckled, low and filthy. “Sorry. Can’t help it. Fucking turns me inside out, that.” But he did push himself upright at last. “Don’t tell HR, yeah?”

Kassian grunted. “We don’t have an HR.” He gripped his boxes with both hands, because he was only human, and the look Leif was directing at him seemed designed to test the virtue of a saint.

“Still. I’m sorry about that. It got away from me a bit, but in my defence, you do smell really great.” He patted Kassian’s bicep. “And, well.” He shrugged, his cheeks got pink, and he pulled his hand back. “Sorry.”

“I—it’s okay.” Kassian felt heat in his own face, and he glanced from Leif to Bjorn. “I’m not offended,” he said, to both of them, because for some reason, that seemed appropriate.

“But are you interested?” Leif asked with a wink.

“Am I… what?”

“Dude,” Bjorn said, more gently than not. “These boxes are not filled with feathers.”

“Right. Sorry!” Leif straightened and started up the stairs.

Kassian had a moment of regret at the loss of his warmth, and when he glanced down at Bjorn, instead of anger or jealousy, he saw… sympathy?

“Small but deadly,” Bjorn muttered. “I get it, believe me.”

“But you should be pissed.”

Bjorn shrugged. “Not how we work.” He smiled, and it seemed genuine. “You’ll see.” And he jerked his head up the stairs, because he couldn’t go up until Kassian did.

When all the boxes had been assembled on and under and beside the conference table, they all stood around the pile frowning at it. It made Leif really glad he’d be doing the bulk of his training online. With videos.

“Guess that explains the empty file cabinets,” Roger observed.

“That’s a lot of boxes,” Sal said.

“It’s a lot of reading,” Kassian added.

“And filing,” Leif agreed.

Bjorn sighed, took the lid off the nearest box, conveniently marked with a big, black number one on the side, and pulled out the first file, which he silently took to his desk, sat, and began to leaf through.

Leif opened up the backpack he’d brought, pulled out a tin of coffee, and got to work cleaning and filling the old coffee maker.

Everyone perked up as the smell of it permeated the room. He took a tiny bit of perverse pleasure watching them all deflate a bit when he only pulled two ceramic mugs from his pack.

But he wasn’t an asshole, so he quickly brought out the other three he had and poured the brew for everyone. Really, he had nothing against Roger and Sal. They seemed okay, and as soon as he glanced up at them, they came over to doctor their drinks and thank him.

He poured coffee for Kassian too. He’d been a gentleman in the stairwell, when he could have been a creep or an asshole about Leif’s embarrassing reaction, and that counted for something.

After the adrenaline rush of the near miss with his digital snooping, carrying the lion’s share of the boxes up, then being confronted with Leif’s weirdness, Kassian had had a difficult morning.

The least he deserved was a cup of coffee.

But because he’d been taught, and he firmly believed, that you danced with the one who brought you—at least until they agreed to adding a third dance partner—he brought Bjorn his coffee first.

“Thanks, babe,” Bjorn said absently, taking the cup and sipping like he totally trusted Leif to make sure it was the right sweetness, the right colour and the right temperature.

It was cute how he called Leif “babe” when he was preoccupied. There had been a time when Leif thought he should remind Bjorn they were only roommates and friends. But whatever. It wasn’t like he had wall-to-wall dates lined up with anyone else.

“Sure.” He lifted a hand to tussle Bjorn’s hair, but Bjorn pulled away.

“Not yet,” he whispered.

“Oh.”

Bjorn smiled weakly at him. “Too much still.”

“I shouldn’t have suggested you use your power on his computer. That was a lot.”

“No, you should have. I should have thought of it myself. It was the right thing to do. Just turned out he didn’t need the assist.”

“I guess.”

“It’ll be fine. Just give it some time.” He sighed and turned his attention back to his reading. “I’ll get rid of it one way or another.”

Leif grunted and left him to it.

Since Kassian hadn’t gotten up for his coffee, Leif carried it over.

“You didn’t have to,” Kassian muttered, but he took it.

“No, I didn’t. But I’m not an asshole.”

“No. You’re not.” He set the coffee down and finally looked away from his screen. “Thanks for thinking of a Plan B earlier.”

“Thank Bjorn. He’s the one carrying a heart-stopping amount of static electricity in his body now.”

“Idiot. He didn’t have to do that. I had it covered.”

“You almost didn’t actually, and how’s this. You call him an idiot again, I will knee you in the nuts.”

“I have a black belt you know.”

Leif cocked his head. “So?” In his experience, a black belt didn’t mean a whole lot when you were trying to retrieve your balls from your nasal cavities.

Kassian snorted. “So nothing. Just thank him for having my back earlier.”

“You thank him.”

Kassian huffed.

Leif stood over him another heartbeat.

“Was there something else?”

“That suit. Will it really help him?”

“In theory. I have no way of knowing until he actually tries it, though.”

Leif nodded. “Fine. I’ll fix it tonight, and we’ll see.”

“Fix it?”

“Come on. It’s an orange construction overall with glow tape across the back and someone else’s name on it. Are you really that oblivious?”

“It’s what I could find. He’s not exactly small.”

“But it’s the lining that matters? Not what the suit is made of?”

“Natural fibres are better. Less conductive. Why?”

“I’ll sew it into his regular clothes. If it works, you can make some more so he can have more than a single outfit.”

“Sure I can.” His voice dripped with venomous sarcasm.

Leif curled a lip in distaste, because the tone didn’t suit him at all. “You will, because this is supposed to be a team, and that’s the part you’re really good at.”

Kassian blinked at him, clearly confused. “What part?”

“What do you mean what part? The tech part? Isn’t that your gig?”

For a moment, Kassian stared at him.

“What?”

“You do know that most people assume I’m the muscle.”

“Well.” Leif frowned, because he didn’t get why people would assume that. It was obvious looking at him that he was a lot more than just a big guy. “You can do that too. If you want. I guess. But I need you to do what you’re actually good at, and help me make Bjorn’s life less… awful.”

“I’m good at being the fighter. A lot better than anyone else here. I have a black belt. Three, actually.”

“Good for you. Will you help?”

“Yeah. I’ll help.” Kassian’s brows drew down. “Thanks for asking.”

Leif threw up his hands. “Whatever, dude. Just.” He waved at Kassian’s computer. “Do your spy thing, and figure out why he almost had to melt down your precious baby.”