#Candy made him apologise and release him from the basement

[sega-megadeth]

[julieverne]

Ok, but like, a coffee shop AU where Root is a secretly evil librarian and Shaw is the disgruntled waitress and every day Root comes in for coffee and to see Shaw snarl at people and every day there is a small pink confection on her saucer and every day Root is plotting to get back at the people who killed her childhood best friend and one day Shaw isn't there.

And Root's heart breaks a little.

And she asks the new waitress where the small confection is, and the waitress looks at her blankly, unaware that such a thing existed.

And the next day Shaw is back but Root doesn't ask because Shaw is 5 feet of compact muscle and only communicates in grunts and eyerolls like some sort of feral animal that Root so badly wants to adopt.

And Root finds her small pink confection on her saucer but, unnerved, she leaves it there. She takes off her glasses and outside there is a commotion and she runs out to help a pedestrian that has been hit by a car and Shaw sees her unattended bag and slips in a small bag of home-made candy. A sheet of paper catches her eye and Shaw realises Root is after her boss, the head of the candy mafia.

Root comes back and Shaw's hand is still in her bag so Root draws an impossibly tiny gun and marches Shaw out of the coffee shop and into a dingy basement somewhere downtown where she apologises as she ties Shaw up, hands lingering on Shaw's bared flesh. Shaw is feisty and plucky.

'If I must be imprisoned, at least release me from the trapping of the workforce,' Shaw days, gesturing to her apron and Root takes it off for Shaw, blushing as her hands brush Shaw's chest.

Shaw is in the basement overnight; she has been provided for. The next day Root comes in bloodied; she's been winged by a bullet and despite being tied up Shaw longs to hold her. Root releases her, her job completed.

Shaw mops up Roots wounds in the light of the dim bulb in the basement, careful in a way Root hadn't suspected she could be. 'I killed him,' Root says softly. Shaw looks up.

'He was my boss,' Shaw says quietly. Shaw looks away, and Root sighs. 'I'm really free now?' Shaw asks, and Root looks at her sadly.

'As free as any of us are,' Root says, and Shaw nods, leaves the basement.

A week goes by. Shaw has left the coffee shop; Root looks through the window every day but Shaw has disappeared.

She goes back to the library, uncaffeinated. On her desk lies a single pink candy.

---

This was going to just be a cute AU where Shaw is grumpy but makes Root candy but the possibility of a candy mafia was too appealing