#why is duck so goddamn expensive in the united states

[gu6chan]

i would kill for a cup of this right now

[nothingpersonal1234]

mister congeniality (bellarke)

as you can likely guess, this is a miss congeniality AU

read here or on AO3

The worst part of the whole thing is that if he takes a step back, he understands exactly why he was chosen to play this role. It makes perfect tactical sense. He’s the only one in the agency who is 1) young enough to pass as college-aged, 2) good at undercover work, and 3) male.

So really, if he were anyone else but himself, he’d totally get why he was chosen to go undercover at America’s first and only male beauty pageant. 

But he is himself. And currently, he’s getting the ever-loving shit plucked out of his eyebrows while Clarke fucking Griffin eats a bagel and smirks at him.

So really, his complaints are one hundred percent justified.

“Jesus Christ, can someone get me a fucking donut, at least? There’s two whole trays of them right there!” He catches sight of a woman approaching with a bottle of Nair; he stops her cold with a look. “What the fuck do you think you’re going to do with that?”

Clarke pushes herself off the table she’d been leaning against and approaches the rigged dentist’s chair he’s currently sprawled out on. “Can you please,” she says patiently, “stop terrorizing the beauticians? They’re just doing their jobs.”

“Yeah, and I want to get back to doing mine,” he says, batting away the goddamn tweezers as they approach his face again. “I’m an FBI agent! I didn’t go to fucking Quantico for this!”

“Yeah, and I didn’t go to get stuck babysitting you,” she replies through a bite of bagel. “Yet here we are. Hold still, or I’m going to knock you out.”

He glares at her for half a second longer before groaning and letting his head fall back. The woman with the tweezers hesitantly starts going at it again at Clarke’s nod. “I don’t understand why the fuck I have to do this,” Bellamy says, for possibly the tenth time in the past two hours.

“Because,” Clarke responds, bored, “some Christian fundamentalist group is convinced this pageant promotes homosexuality and threatened to bomb it, and you’re a highly qualified agent dedicated to protecting the people of the United States of America.”

“Yeah, I got that part,” he says, gritting his teeth as the tweezers rip another hair out of his face. “But why do I have to be the one to do this?”

She sighs. “You just want to hear me say that you’re the best undercover op we have in our class again, don’t you?”

"It wouldn’t hurt,” he grumbles, and pretends he can’t hear her snickering.

So maybe it’s the coffee, or the sleep deprivation, or something in the air, but Clarke legitimately cannot take her eyes off Bellamy Blake as he strides out toward her in the morning sunlight. 

Behind her, Raven whistles. “Boy cleans up good,” she says, before sliding into the driver’s seat of their SUV and starting the engine.

Bellamy stops a few feet in front of Clarke and slides his sunglasses off to meet her gaze. “Well?” he asks, going for nonchalant and missing it by a few notes. “Is my movie makeover adequate?”

“Uh,” she starts, then stops. 

A smirk grows on his face. “Alright, I think that’s the answer I needed.”

The cockiness is what snaps her out of it. “Don’t be such an ass,” she replies, before reaching up to run her fingers through his hair. He ducks down automatically, although the expression on his face goes from smug to stunned pretty quickly. “The gel isn’t a good look on you,” she says in response to his unasked question. “Messy is much better.”

He clears his throat. “I, uh... do I need to look that great right now? We’re just going to the hotel.”

“Yeah, you’ll be meeting all the other competitors. And I think they have a full schedule planned out for you, actually. Dress rehearsals and publicity stunts, probably.”

“Hence the monkey suit,” he supplies. 

“The expensive, fitted, designer monkey suit,” she says, finishing up with his hair. He rolls his eyes as he straightens up.

The SUV window rolls down then. “Hey, lovebirds,” Raven calls. “If you could stop with the PDA and get into the damn car, maybe we’ll have time to hit a Starbucks before we drop Bellamy off at hell.”

“Snarky when she gets no sleep, huh?” Bellamy says, finally hitting that casual tone before sliding into the car. 

Clarke hopes no one can see her face turning red.

“There’s a what?” 

“A swimsuit portion,” says the backstage crew member, unruffled. “Come on, you have to have known that. That’s the most infamous part.”

Bellamy looks like he’s about to pass out. The music on stage is starting though, and half the contestants have already gotten changed. Clarke grabs the - well, it’d be generous to call it a swimsuit, it’s like a scrap of black fabric - from the guy’s hands and shoves it at Bellamy, forcing herself to be professional despite Raven’s cackling in their earpieces.

“Bell, do it for America,” she says, and God help her if her voice doesn’t crack.

“Fucking - “ He snatches it from her and stomps away toward the changing rooms.

“He’s just mad because he knows we’re going to make fun of him for literally forever,” says Raven. “Right, Miller?”

“I’ve already got alerts set on every social media website for his name,” Miller deadpans, and Clarke really can’t tell if he’s being serious or not.

Of course, that’s when Bellamy comes storming back out toward her, and literally all human thought leaves her brain.

“Do not,” he intones. “I am not in the mood.”

She nods, a little busy trying not to choke on her own tongue.

Raven, however, is in charge of monitoring the feed from the camera disguised as an American flag pin on Clarke’s suit, and it’s very clear when she turns back toward that particular computer screen. “Holy shit, Blake!”

“Can we not do this right now,” he replies, a dull red flush working its way up his neck. His hand goes up to tug at his hair. Clarke watches his shoulder muscles shift and clears her throat. 

You’re a federal agent, she scolds herself, not a fucking teenager. Get a grip. 

She can’t figure out where she should be looking. Should she be making eye contact? Staring over his shoulder? Checking out his abs?

Jesus, okay, definitely should not be looking at his ass.

“Are we all done ogling Blake?” comes Miller’s voice through their earpieces. 

“Nope,” Raven replies, gleeful.

Clarke clears her throat one more time for good measure. “Uh, I think you’re on,” she says to Bellamy, gesturing at the other contestants, who are all lining up to get back on stage.

“I can’t believe,” he says, “that I’m going to be on national television in nothing but Speedos. I don’t even wear Speedos normally!”

“You’re going to be on YouTube forever,” says Miller.

“Great,” he says, and on that note, the pageant music starts up again.

Alright, so he manages to find the bomb. If his methods of making sure it safely detonated away from anyone else were a little... unorthodox... he’s sure HQ can forgive him. Better that some props backstage were blown up than the new Mr. USA’s head. 

Clarke is waiting for him when he gets off stage, shock blanket and bottle of water somehow already in hand. She has that look on her face that she gets whenever Jasper burns himself pouring hot coffee while texting: sympathetic, a little worried, but also amused, despite herself.

“What a hero,” she says, voice not quite sarcastic as she drapes the bright orange blanket around his shoulders.

“Yeah, yeah,” he replies, relieving her of the water and taking a long sip.

“How do you feel?” she asks, and it takes him a little while to respond.

“Better,” he decides, and laughs at her expression. “Not, like... I mean that now that we know there was a legitimate threat, and now that we’ve prevented it, I feel like this whole ordeal was worth it.”

“Yeah, it would’ve been a shame to wear a Speedo for no reason at all,” she says, and despite her teasing grin, he can see pink starting to creep into her cheeks.

“Not no reason,” he says, before he can help himself, and at her inquiring look, he continues, “Made you look, didn’t I?”

Raven beeps in to tell them that HQ wants to talk to him ASAP, so she doesn’t get to respond. Still, her deepening blush is all the reply Bellamy thinks he needs.

He’s greeted with a round of applause and wolf-whistles when he gets back to the office a week later. He bows once, flips off Miller (the source of most of the whistles), and settles into his seat. When he turns on his computer monitor, he finds that someone’s changed his desktop background to a picture of him assaulting the new Mr. USA to grab the explosive crown on his head. Before he can do much more than process it, a mug of coffee enters his field of vision.

“Thought you’d like a third party view of how the action went down,” Clarke says, and he takes the mug from her with a grin.

“It is pretty cool. Still, not worth the fact that I can’t do undercover ops for a while.”

“Kane says he’s thinking about giving you some overseas work,” she replies, taking a sip from her own mug. “You’d have to go with a partner though, and probably change up your look. People in Kazakhstan might not normally know who Mr. USA is, but they’ll definitely know on sight the crazy guy who attacked Mr. USA to grab his crown before it blew up.”

“Wow, I’ve become the face of America in Eastern Europe. That’s a shit deal.”

“The trials and tribulations of serving your country,” she shoots back, and he can feel everything settling back to normal, as normal as things get in this crazy office, and while that’s exactly what he wanted while he was undercover, he’s also come to realize that there are some stones you can’t leave unturned.

“Clarke,” he says, and the nerves he didn’t feel at all during the last few weeks suddenly kick in when she meets his gaze. “Listen, I... I know we fuck around a lot, and I haven’t exactly been the greatest guy to hang out with, especially at the beginning, especially at Quantico. But... you’ve been the best partner I could’ve asked for, even before this fucking ridiculous mission, and... I want to say thank you. For always having my back. And for everything you did for me these past few weeks.”

She’s looking at him with her interrogation face now, blank and a little calculating, like she’s trying to figure out how what he’s saying fits with the story she already knows. “Okay,” she says slowly, and it’s only when Raven chimes in that he realizes half the office is already listening in.

“Jesus, just kiss already,” she yells. Clarke’s expression immediately breaks into laughter, and that’s what does it for him. He can’t help ducking forward to press a kiss against her lips, quick and soft, and then her arms are twining around his neck to pull him in again, hardly able to kiss properly around the smiles both of them aren’t even trying very hard to hide.

“Fucking finally,” Raven says when they break apart, and Bellamy flips her off. 

“Kane is definitely never going to let us partner up again,” Clarke says, nearly breathless, and Bellamy laughs.

“We’ll figure something out,” he says. “We always do.”