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Bones Fic

Researching Booth

by spikeNdru
Fandom: Bones
Genre: Drama/Humor
Pairing: Angela/Booth
Rating: PG-ish

Length: 2572 words

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She'd had completely altruistic motives when she'd begun. Booth was hot; Tempe was lonely — why not fix them up? The only thing standing in the way of a torrid romance featuring lots of hot, sweaty sex was lowfat-sexy-lawyer-lady. And really, she wasn't right for Booth at all. But the problem was, Angela didn't really know enough about their relationship. It obviously wasn't a committed one, 'cause sexy-lawyer retained her own place and only slept over at Booth's a few nights a week, so it seemed to be more fun-and-games than forever-love.

Angela had designed a complicated machine that could create a hologram of a person's face using skull measurements and other factors, but the machine couldn't do shit without the measurements to feed into it in the first place. That was the problem with Booth. She was trying to create a hologram of his relationship, without empirical data to plug in to make it come alive. Ergo, she needed facts. Her best friend needed a man; she needed facts to get that man—her duty was clear: To observe and record but never interfere. Well, except for the interfering part. But then, Joe Dawson hadn't been real good about not interfering on that TV show she'd loved when she was in high school, either. The Watchers watched immortals on Highlander all the time. She'd watch Booth.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Angela had gotten quite good at skulking over the past few weeks. Good enough, that if anyone discovered her extra-curricular hobby and fired her, she'd developed all the skills for a brand new career as a spy—or a paparazza.

She hadn't quite dared to bug Booth's apartment—he was a Feeb, after all, and electronic sweeps of his premises were probably done on a regular basis. She'd considered it, though. Any inventor worth her salt should be able to come up with a bug undetectable to current anti-bugging technology, but therein lay the problem. If she used traditional tech, it'd probably be discovered, but not necessarily traced back to her. If she developed her own prototype and it was discovered, she could be in very deep shit. So . . . electronic surveillance was a definite no-no. She'd have to make do with what she was able to observe first hand to assess the quality and depth of their relationship.

Angela casually strolled past sexy-lawyer, who was eating her 'lunch' al fresco in the park today. If one could actually call fat-free yogurt and salt-free V-8 'lunch'. It didn't even qualify as 'food' in Angela's book. Angela nonchalantly paused to adjust her shoe as sexy-lawyer spoke into her cell. So, reservations for two at the Iron Gate Inn at eight tonight. And, they were in Booth's name. She had her target.

Angela popped into BK for a Whopper with cheese and ate it on her way back to the Jeffersonian.

~~~~~~~~~~~

She stopped in the main building where the phone kiosks were, before heading back to the lab. She had to make some calls and didn't want to chance being overheard.

Angela dug around in her shoulder bag, coming up with a handful of change. She called Phil first.

“Angie . . . I've been meaning to call you, but you know how crazy things get around here.”

“Yeah, Phil. I know.”

“The market's taken a temporary downturn, and this isn't a good time to sell, but there should be an upswing soon and . . .”

“Phil. I'm not calling about the loan. Well, yeah, I am in a way, but not how you think. I need a favor.”

“Hmmm . . . a big favor?”

“No. Just a little favor.”

“How much is it worth?”

“Five percent.”

“Ten percent.”

“Six.”

“Eight.”

“Seven.”

“Done.”

“Okay.”

“So, I do you this favor, and you'll deduct eight percent of the money I owe you?”

“Seven, and yes, Phil, I'll deduct the seven percent we agreed on.”

“What do I have to do, and if it involves anything illegal, we're renegotiating the percentage!”

“I need you to go out to dinner with me tonight.”

“You mean, like a date?”

“No, Phil. Not a date. Think of yourself more along the lines of a prop . . . an accessory. You look attentive and flirt when I tell you to; you shut up and be as quiet as wallpaper when I tell you to; and it is definitely not a date.”

“Tonight? But Angela . . . the Orioles are playing tonight . . .”

“Seven percent, Phil.”

“You drive a hard bargain, Cuz, but okay.”

Angela disconnected and sorted through her change. She called the restaurant and made reservation for 7:45 in Phil's name.

~~~~~~~~~~~

On her way home from work she took a slight detour to the Iron Gate Inn. She approached the maître d'hotel, and with a dazzling smile, apologized for disturbing him, and asked if she could see the manager for just a minute.

Peter Zablowski, who went by 'Pierre', prided himself on his rudeness and superiority, seeming to think those attributes made him appear more 'French'. He was no match for Angela. He'd succumbed in under two minutes, and trotted off quite happily to track down the manager. Angela quickly flipped through the reservation book.

Not only were the reservations under Booth's name; sexy-lawyer had chosen a booth—hee!—for privacy, rather than the courtyard. Perfect! Angela's strategy was mapped out by the time Peter/Pierre returned with the manager.

Using information she'd gleaned from watching Monk, she explained that her cousin suffered from agoraphobia ever since the tragedy, and his agreeing to join her for dinner was a real breakthrough. He would only agree, however, if they dined at the Iron Gate, which he considered the finest restaurant in the city, and if it wouldn't be too much trouble, could they possibly reserve booth #8, as it was his lucky number, and he'd feel much more secure enclosed in the intimate space of a booth.

Mission accomplished, Angela thanked them both profusely and left with another dazzling smile.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Angela gritted her teeth and tried to shoo away the server. Wouldn't you know it? And just when things were getting interesting in the next booth, too!

Upon their arrival at the restaurant, Angela chose the seat against the wall shared with the adjoining booth. When she pressed her ear to the wood, she could hear the conversation in Booth's booth perfectly.

Initially, it wasn't very interesting. Sexy-lawyer—Tessa; her name was Tessa—had done most of the talking. Angela was glad she never had the desire to become a corporate attorney. It sounded like a mind-numbingly boring job, if Tessa's descriptions of her work were an accurate representation of what corporate attorneys actually did.

Angela encouraged Phil to keep up an ongoing stream of chatter—while she provided occasional smiles and nods whenever he paused for breath—without actually listening to a word he said.

Then, just as sexy-lawyer finally stopped whining about her stupid, boring job and Booth started talking, the server appeared to describe—in excruciating detail—the specials of the evening. With opportunistic flair, Phil ordered the most expensive entrée on the interminable list. Angela chose the next offering mentioned, just to shut the server up and make him go away.

The second the server turned to go, Angela pressed her ear against the booth again. What had she missed? Were they actually contemplating living together? Nooooo! She was dying to know who suggested that idea! Oooo! It must have been Tessa, 'cause Booth was saying something about job constraints and . . .

The server was back with their meals. Damn!

The voices got louder. She could hear the sound, if not the actual words, even without physical contact with the wall. Uh-oh. Tessa was storming out of the restaurant. Would Booth go after her? Angela added up the costs of their dinner in her head, added tax and a 20% gratuity and hoped she had enough cash to cover it. If Booth left in a hurry, she wanted to be able to follow him without the delay of waiting for the server to present the bill and process her credit card. And there was no way she was leaving her card anywhere in Phil's vicinity, hostage to his questionable morals. He may be her cousin, but a gambler was a gambler—whether he played the market or the ponies.

Oh, good! With the $50 bill she kept tucked between the photos in her wallet for emergencies, she had enough cash. As she saw Booth heading for the exit, she slapped the cash on the table and casually followed.

He didn't go directly home, but stopped at a gym/health club instead. Angela grabbed an armful of towels, and tried to look like an employee, which was difficult to do in her best cocktail dress and three-inch heels. But, people saw what they expected to see, and what they saw was someone handing out towels.

Angela rapidly scanned the various rooms without success, until she arrived in the gallery overlooking the racquetball court. Booth was there, playing with himself. Racquetball! He was playing racquetball by himself. Hot, sweaty, shirtless Booth was playing racquetball and . . . Oh, my! The muscles of his back rippled as he turned following the ball. His broad shoulders and defined biceps gave power to his serves as he pounded the ball against the wall. He chased after the ball to return it and his firm pectoral muscles and rippling abs . . .

That was the exact moment that her altruistic motives to attempt to fix up lonely Tempe with hot Booth went out the window without a backward glance. Dr. Brennan could get her own man. Angela wanted all this salty goodness for herself.

~~~~~~~~~~

Angela debated whether she should feel guilty about this highly unexpected change in target goal. Okay. She did feel vaguely guilty. Now she had to decipher why. It wasn't because she was going after her friend's man . . . Booth wasn't actually Tempe's man, and Tempe didn't know a thing about this whole plot, so . . .

It must be because of Booth! She justified her actions as 'research' when they were directed toward hooking him up with Tempe; but now that she realized she wanted him for herself, what she was doing felt less like 'research' and a whole lot more like 'stalking'.

Angela's mind registered the fact that Booth was no longer playing racquetball a split second before 180 pounds of hot, sweaty, pissed-off FBI agent slammed her against the wall, pinning her there with his forearm across her throat.

“What the hell is going on? Why have you been following me? Did Bones put you up to this? If I find out you had anything to do with the threats to kidnap Connor—” Booth drew in a deep breath, the air hissing through his teeth. “I will shoot you right between the eyes and not even feel bad about it.”

Angela frantically clawed at the arm constricting her airway, and Booth eased up enough that she could talk.

Angela took several gasping, wheezing breaths and looked at him with fear in her eyes. “Dr. Brennan doesn't know anything about this—it's nothing to do with her at all, and I don't know anything about kidnapping and besides, I'd never do that. And who's Connor?”

“Never mind.  If it's not something Brennan put you up to, why have you been following me around for the last three weeks?”

“You knew I was following you?”

Booth treated her to a world-class eye-roll. If eye-rolling were an Olympic sport, this one would have scored a '10'.

“Of course I knew that you'd been following me! I'm a highly-trained, covert-ops ex-sniper, Federal agent! And you're not exactly La Femme Nikita. At first, it was kind of amusing, and then I let it go on because I was curious as to how long you'd keep it up, but eavesdropping on my private dinner conversations is just tacky! And now that you've invaded my private sanctum—you did know that this is a private, member's only club?—where I come to work off some of the tension of my very stressful job, you crossed the line. Enough is enough! Why the fuck are you stalking me, Angela?”

“Um . . . I wasn't really stalking you . . .”

“Yeah? Well, what would you call it?”

“Research?”

“Research?”

“Okay! It was stalking! But I didn't mean any harm, and I'm really sorry and I'll never do it again, I promise! I'll leave right now and let you get back to working off that tension—'cause you seem to have developed a lot more of it in the last few minutes—as soon as you let go of my throat, okay?” Angela made flapping hand motions. “Shoo.”

Booth didn't move. Angela sighed.

“This is really embarrassing . . . When we first met you, I thought you were cute—”

“Cute?”

“Okay—not cute. Hot! Hot, sexy and manly. Very manly. Not cute at all.”

“Let's go back to 'cute'.”

“I thought you were cute and you and Tempe seemed to have some sparkage, and I thought you'd be perfect for her. But you were already in a relationship and I didn't know how seriously involved you were, so I thought I'd do some research—all right, stalking—to find out, so that's why I've been following you around. But then tonight you broke up with sexy-lawyer and then with all the working off the tension with the racquetball and the shirtlessness and all . . .” Angela took a deep breath, and finished her explanation as fast as possible to get it over with. “I-realized-I-wasn't-thinking-about-you-for-Tempe-any-more-I-was-thinking-about-you-for-me-and-that's-all-there-is-to-tell.”

“It never occurred to you to just ask if I'd be interested?”

“Uh . . . no? Would you be interested?”

Booth threw his hands up in the air. “I will never understand squints! Why do I even bother to try?”

“Is that a 'yes' or a 'no'? See, this is why I didn't 'just ask you'. Because I did just ask you now, and I don't have the vaguest idea what you said! I got more information from following you around. Maybe I should go back to— just kidding!”

Booth crossed his arms over his chest.

Angela put her hands on her hips.

They glared at each other.

“If I say I'll go out with you, do I have your word that you'll act like a normal person and stop all this craziness?”

“Will you actually mean it, or will you just be saying it to get me to stop? And, by the way, Booth, I already said I'd stop. It was a stupid idea in the first place, and I'm sorry. So, if you're just saying it to get me to stop, you don't have to, because I've already stopped.”

Booth gritted his teeth. “Would you like to go out for coffee sometime, and actually do the talking thing instead of the stalking thing?”

“Yes, I would. Thank you for asking.”

“You're a very strange person, Angela.”

“But intriguing?”

“Okay. I'll give you 'intriguing'.”

“And not boring.”

“Definitely not boring.”

“And this is just coffee and talk right?”

“For now.”

Booth hadn't noticed before what a dazzling smile she had.

“For now,” Angela agreed.

 

 

The End

 

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