Work Text:
Andy groans when she gets the text from Miranda demanding that Starbucks be delivered to the shoot across town. Miranda at least texts a short explanation—things have been delayed due to a costume mishap and the art department's utter incompetence.
It’s probably weird that something as simple as an explanation makes Andy smile, but it’s from Miranda Priestly who would not deign to offer anybody else one. Andy doesn’t quite know what that means. She only knows that Miranda makes exceptions for her. Small ones. Like explanations, or sometimes a glass of wine if Miranda is at home when Andy drops something off there. Elevator rides. Updates about how the girls are doing in school. An occasional, 'thank you, Andrea'.
It makes Andy blush, which is ridiculous. Miranda is happy to have a good worker. That’s all.
“I’m running coffee across town!” Andy tells Emily before rushing toward the door, and she can just make out Emily’s muttered reply.
“You could use the exercise.”
Andy scoffs, rolling her eyes. Everyone in the Runway offices tells Andy things like this, and even if other employees don’t say it out loud, their eyes say everything for them. Well, almost everyone who works at Runway is like that.
By the time Andy gets to the outdoor shoot at Central Park, the costume issue has not been resolved. Nigel and two other people are sewing ivory tulle outfits by hand next to tripods set up by the bridge, all three of them looking harried. Miranda prowls beside the group while hissing insults into her phone.
Andy walks up to her with a smile, handing the coffee over and trying not to blush when their fingers brush together.
Miranda pulls the phone away from her ear long enough to say, “Thank you, Andrea.”
And Andy does blush then, but only because Nigel is kneeling nearby to help sew, and he raises his head to wink at her—curse him for clocking Andy’s crush on Miranda even before Andy herself was aware of it. She scowls at him.
“Andy!” someone exclaims, making her turn around. It's not one person, but a group of people. One that always brings a smile.
It was surprising at first to learn that the kindest people on staff at Runway were the least likely suspects. Over the last two years, Andy has been conditioned to be bashful at the sight of any of the models.
Half a dozen saunter over to her, each of them lanky, all willowy and gorgeous beyond belief. They far surpass conventionally attractive. Each of them knows it, but as they approach, Andy is the farthest thing from threatened.
“You have the best smile,” Amelia compliments after leaning in to give Andy a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek. Her uncontrollable ginger curls tickle Andy’s nose, making her laugh. Amelia drops her hands to hold Andy’s. “Such full lips. You have a cupid’s bow that would make anybody fall in love with you.”
Andy is definitely blushing now, if only because she is so unused to getting compliments like this. “I’m sure that’s not true-”
“And your hair is gorgeous ,” Aanya interrupts. She’s even taller than Amelia, with golden-brown skin and jutting cheekbones. Aanya rests an elbow on Amelia’s shoulder, playing with a strand of Andy’s hair. “Especially in the sun like right now. It usually looks inky black, but now it’s tinged with red. It’s so pretty. Like coal and fire.”
“Well, Nigel helped me learn to style-”
Andy is interrupted again as the models crowd around her, all of them with a blatant lack of personal space consideration, and all of them gushing about how nice Andy is, and how nice she looks.
“You have the deepest eyes. So dark, you know? So passionate?” Vanessa asks and then smirks. “Innocent doe eyes that promise you’re anything but innocent, I'm sure.”
Andy chokes out a shocked laugh and the models giggle with her, Vanessa winking.
Andy has no idea why they like her, why they compliment her, or why they’re all so nice. Sure, Andy often passes them the coffees that don’t meet Miranda’s standards, and gives them gifts of foot cream that Miranda doesn't want, but that doesn’t seem like enough to warrant all this.
It has been almost two years since Andy started working at Runway , and the models are the only people who have never said an unkind word to her.
“Andrea,” Miranda’s icy murmur cuts through the din of unending compliments, and Andy turns to look at her with a shy smile.
“Yes, Miranda?”
Miranda presses her lips into a thin irritated line, then nods to the spot next to her. “Come stand here. With me.”
“Okay, s-sure.” Andy nods before turning back to find a group of beautiful, pouting women, all of them sad to see her go. “Um, bye then. Th-thanks for, well… thanks.”
She turns away to five variations of reluctant farewells, and one delighted utterance of, ‘that ass, girl.'
After doing as Miranda asked, Andy buries her face in her hands as if trying to wipe away her heated blush somehow. Gosh, it’s just so many compliments and Andy doesn’t know what to do with them. Not even her old boyfriends gave her compliments like this. Andy might resolve to get better standars if her idiot heart hadn't already decided on the impossible.
She peers out of the corner of her eye to find Miranda glaring after the retreating models, then cutting blues are on Andy—on her lips, her hair, her eyes. Then her hips. It’s a good thing she’s already blushing so hard.
Andy looks away—searching for anything else at all to focus on—only to catch another of Nigel’s teasing winks. Andy clears her throat, fidgeting with her fingers as she awaits whatever order Miranda will give her next.
Miranda sighs and gestures to the garments. “Acceptable, Nigel. Go.”
And then everyone is in a flurry of compliance that Miranda would usually oversee with unparalleled efficiency, but today she stays put, standing next to Andy in a strange, anticipatory silence. Andy risks another glance.
Miranda’s lips are pursed, but not with displeasure. She’s thoughtful as she looks down at the coffee Andy brought her. Miranda clears her throat, assessing the commotion in front of them before she murmurs, “You certainly seem pleased.”
“Hm?” Andy asks, playing innocent so she doesn’t have to talk about this. “With what?”
“With the models,” Miranda huffs, waving her free hand between them with disinterest that must be forced since Miranda is bothering to ask about it. “With their… compliments.”
“Oh… Well, yeah,” Andy says before a nervous chuckle escapes, knowing that whatever blush had receded from her cheeks has returned twice over. “It’s nice to know at least some people think I’m nice to look at. I don’t hear things like that often.”
“Some people? Nice to look-” Miranda scoffs, turning to Andy in her subtle version of shock—slightly wider eyes and barely raised brows. “Andrea, surely you must be aware?”
Andy’s brows furrow. She lifts her shoulder in a half-shrug, shaking her head as she gives Miranda an apologetic smile. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Andrea,” Miranda says, and Andy’s gaze flickers down to the ghost of a smile turning up the corners of her lips. Blue eyes are focused on her, stealing Andy’s breath. “Andrea, you are one of the most beautiful and intelligent women I have ever met.”
Whatever Andy was expecting, it was not that. Her heart thunders and the scorching heat of her blush recedes into a familiar, gentle warmth that settles deep in her chest. It’s like a comforting embrace she wants to return but knows she never can. “Oh.”
“Oh, ” Miranda repeats, shaking her head and chuckling. “It’s not hard to see, Andrea. Surely you own a mirror?”
Andy bites her lip and averts her eyes, unable to look at Miranda as Andy remembers all the insults that have ever been thrown at her—Nate asking if she got the job at Runway because it was a phone interview, or Emily calling her a veritable dictionary of creative insults. Her sister was always the pretty one, not Andy. Not to mention Andy’s dad telling her she is wasting her talents because she’s not a fashion girl, or how her mom’s endless criticisms about how pretty Andy could be if she tried have evolved into hurtful barbs about how Andy won’t be young for much longer.
Andy is a confident woman, yes. She is sure of her skill and her work ethic. She knows she is smart and capable. She can accomplish anything she sets her mind to, and these are the things that matter to Andy the most.
But it’s still hurtful to get comments on her looks and to be told she is substandard. She has been insulted like this by everyone, including Miranda a time or two. Everyone in Andy’s life has called her something they perceived as undesirable—stupid, useless, unattractive, overweight… the list goes on. Regardless of whether Andy believes these things to be insults, they have been used against her in that way more times than she can count.
Rationally, she knows there is nothing wrong with being fat, having fat, and that there’s nothing wrong with not conforming to what is popularly regarded as conventionally attractive. Andy knows that. But an insult is an insult, and it’s painful all the same. She can't really help feeling hurt by it sometimes.
As much as Andy refuses to admit that, her silence says it for her.
“I see,” Miranda’s murmur cuts through Andy’s discomfort—regret and compassion swimming in blue eyes. “Then I shall take it upon myself to remind you of your beauty and worth until you can believe it for yourself. Acceptable?”
Andy makes a strange choking noise at the back of her throat instead of talking, her eyes wide with disbelief.
Miranda hums. “Doe eyes indeed.”
Before Andy can think of any sort of response, Miranda’s phone rings, and she rolls her eyes before answering it. After a brief phone conversation that Andy doesn’t process because she is much to flummoxed to make sense of anyhting else, Miranda hangs up and orders, “I need you to swing by James’ studio to pick up the samples—he’ll know what you mean—and take them right to Jocelyn. Oh, and Andrea?”
“Y-yes, Miranda?” Andy asks, happy with the excuse to look down as she scribbles in her notebook, staring at the paper with her hand frozen in wait for another task. After a long beat of silence, Andy swallows and raises her head again.
Miranda’s eyes lower down Andy’s body in the usual all-seeing, critical way. She hums in thought, but when she looks up again, Miranda smirks. “Chanel forms to your body as if it were made for you.”
Andy makes another of those odd choking squeaks—definitely not a whimper, no—before clearing her throat.
“Thank you, Miranda,” Andy forces through her bashful disbelief.
“Yes. Now go,” Miranda nods once in the direction of her car, turns on her heel, and struts off to start barking orders at everyone else at the shoot, leaving Andy’s mind reeling so fast it rivals the speed at which she carries out her tasks.
She stares after Miranda for a moment before shaking her head. She turns to do her job well, which is the only thing Miranda admires her for—her efficiency. This is probably a one-time thing. Dear god , Andy hopes it’s a one-time thing.
It’s not.
It is not a one-time thing.
And the compliments aren’t exclusive to Andy’s appearance, either.
Each day, when Andy sees Miranda for the first time and the fashion queen begins her usual assessment, instead of the barely-there nod of approval Andy has previously gotten, she now receives a compliment. Including but not limited to:
“Those heels make your calves flex in a way that is attractive.”
“Andrea, you might wear your hair in waves like that more often. The style suits the shape of your face quite nicely.”
“You have the sort of smile that makes others want to know you. Use this to your advantage.”
“Your efficiency is appreciated. I’m sure you will be successful in all future endeavors.”
“Your eyes are an intriguing colour when viewed in the sunlight.”
And, “You look equally appealing no matter how much makeup you choose to wear, but your current shade of eyeshadow is particularly complimentary.”
The compliments leave Andy shaking—in disbelief, in shy acceptance, in her confusion. She has admired Miranda for longer than she knows. Before these comments started, it had taken everything Andy has not to make her feelings obvious.
Now Andy has to work twice as hard to hide her feelings, and it’s a good thing she has had this job for long enough that she can complete tasks on autopilot because otherwise, Andy’s inner turmoil would make the job impossible.
One compliment from Miranda Priestly has the same effect as every nicety Andy has ever received from all the models combined. Miranda Priestly diminishes her with a single sentence and builds her back into something better. She leaves Andy breathless, in awe, and so terribly smitten that Andy can scarcely function.
It can’t go on.
It can’t.
Andy’s heart can’t take it—the compliments that mean so much to her, but nothing at all to Miranda. Not in any real way.
“Nigel, it’s too much. I can’t handle it anymore,” Andy groans, slumping at his desk in the corner while he bends over his island table, looking at a roll of film through his photography loupe.
“Poor, poor, Andy ,” Nigel sasses, not sounding empathetic in the least. “It must be so hard for you to have La Priestly’s approval.”
“Oh, shut up. So do you,” Andy argues, making him turn and grin at her. Miranda has offered him a job, officially, as her right-hand man; a position she convinced the board to create for him due to his expertise and skill, and due to the fact that losing him would be a substantial loss to Runway.
(And a substantial loss to Miranda, but that point remains largely unsaid.)
Nigel is delighted to start next week. “I told you she’d get me back. I can’t believe you almost quit in Paris. I’m glad I convinced you to wait it out with me.”
“Oh god, I have to quit,” Andy whines, ruffling up her bangs and biting her lip. “That’s it. I have to find a new job. It’s the only way to stop this.”
“Darling, you are so dramatic.”
“This isn’t dramatic. This is… this is rationality, Nigel,” Andy says, shaking her head in disbelief. Disbelief, which has become her constant state of existence. “This is so not appropriate for the workplace.”
“It’s a fashion magazine. It's her job to comment on people’s clothes. Just be glad that now she’s not going into an in-depth history about cerulean to knock you down a few pegs.”
“At least I knew what to do then!” Andy complains and glowers at him. “Don’t say pegs. ”
Nigel barks a laugh, tidying up his work before he grins at her.
“You seem more stressed than usual,” Nigel says, coming to lean on his desk and look down at her. “Must have been quite the compliment today. What was it this time? A sonnet?”
“No,” Andy chuckles, smiling despite herself as her cheeks warm. She closes her eyes, trying to ignore the way her heart flutters. Miranda will never feel this way for her no matter how many compliments she offers.
“Andy, I know I tease you about your crush, but…” Nigel trails off, dipping his head until Andy looks at him. “Exactly how bad do you have it for her?”
“Bad, Nigel. Real bad,” Andy admits. “The worst…” Despite herself, Andy can’t help a bittersweet smile. “...And the best”
“Oh my,” he says, taking off his glasses to clean them, a contemplative frown deepening the wrinkles around his mouth.
“And she’s just… so captivating,” Andy rambles, unable to help herself. “And complex, and irritating. She’s ambitious. She never talks about her feelings—or even admits to having any. She’s ruthless and powerful, and even after two years, she still manages to take my breath away. She’s imperfect and intriguing, and she’s nowhere close to the sort of person I imagined myself falling for, but I have. Because she’s so much better. She just. She looks at people, and she sees them. And yeah, sometimes she uses that to cut people down, but she also uses it to rebuild them, you know? To prove to them that they can be better than anything they thought possible. She makes me…”
“Better?” Nigel murmurs.
“No. I made me better. I chose to grow. But she made me want to try,” Andy explains. “She made me think it was possible—that anything is. Miranda has never told me I couldn’t succeed in something. From the very first day, even when I knew nothing at all, she expected me to do any number of impossible things and was genuinely shocked if I couldn’t. She never saw me as just some scrubby girl from Cincinnati. She looked at me and saw me as capable. Nobody else ever looked at me like that before she did. She saw something in me, and then I found it in myself.”
Nigel puts a hand on her shoulder and offers an empathetic smile—a real one this time. Andy squeezes his hand in thanks. “You okay, kid?”
“No,” Andy admits with a tired sigh. “Today she called me into her office because she was too busy to talk to me all morning, and she didn’t even have anything for me to do. She just looked and smiled. She said, ‘You’re lovely, Andrea.’ Just that. I can’t hear that, Nigel. Not from her. Not when I know she doesn’t mean it like I want her to. It’s breaking my heart.”
“Then I think you need to tell her, Andy,” he says, sitting in the seat next to hers and rolling it in front of her so he can hold her hands. “This isn’t good for you.”
She scoffs. “Tell her what?”
“That’s up to you,” Nigel explains. “Tell her how you feel, tell her you don’t want to hear her compliments. Tell her you have to quit if that's what you need to do. You’ve been here long enough to work anywhere, and I’m sure she’ll give you a killer recommendation.”
“You think so? Even if I leave like this?”
“You’ve impressed her. That’s not an easy thing to do. She wouldn’t take just anybody back after that dramatic little stunt you pulled in Paris.”
Andy lets out a wet chuckle, remembering the evening Nigel spent in her hotel room telling her what an idiot she was being—he was right, of course. She’s glad he came to stop her from leaving.
“I’ve known Miranda for over twenty years, and not even I can predict what she’ll do, but I do know one thing,” Nigel says.
“What’s that?”
“That from the very moment she decided to hire the scrubby girl from Cincinnati, Miranda has wanted you to succeed. She won’t hold you back from that now. No matter what you decide to tell her.”
“I’m nervous,” Andy admits, sure that Nigel can already tell by how clammy her hands are. “What if I disappoint her?”
He raises an eyebrow. “Have I ever been wrong?”
Andy laughs, shaking her head.
No. Nigel has never led her astray. He has always been brutally honest, and that’s one of the many things Andy likes about him. He doesn’t put up with her bullshit, and he calls her out if necessary.
Andy bites her lip, hoping beyond reason that Nigel is right about this, too.
For the rest of the day, Andy volunteers for every task that keeps her away from the office. If she has to return to drop something off at Runway, Andy passes the items to someone in the elevators, and with one utterance of Miranda’s name, she’s sure it will be delivered.
She runs around New York thinking of how much she has grown—and outgrown—and of everything Nigel said. By the end of the day, Andy still has no idea what she is going to say to Miranda. She’s sure she needs to say something, though. She can’t keep running around like this, no matter how well-practiced she has become.
Andy has put a lot of effort into learning how to walk in heels. She rushes around New York at the same pace as the average jogger, and she does it without stumbling. As she steps off the elevator to the seventeenth floor of Elias-Clark, however, Andy is unsteady on her black satin Prada stilettoes.
Her palms sweat, and however sure Andy was at first that she didn’t fit in at Runway, she has never been more reluctant to leave. She doesn’t want to leave Miranda. Andy doesn’t want to put an end to the compliments that make her feel so wonderful, but it is what must be done. For the sake of her heart, something must be done.
Runway is quiet now—nobody rushing from one office to the next, nobody typing away at their desks. Almost all the lights have shut off from lack of motion, and where Emily’s scathing remarks usually sound in an endless reel, there is silence instead.
Silence, except for Andy’s tentative steps, and the gentle rustle of paper coming from within Miranda’s office.
Andy bites her lip as she enters, staring at the most elegant woman she will ever know, and the one she can never have.
“Miranda,” Andy murmurs—a greeting that feels too much like a farewell.
“Ah, Andrea, there you are,” Miranda looks up and smiles. “I meant to tell you earlier that your blouse-”
“Stop,” Andy interrupts, wrapping her arms around herself for comfort, for protection. Maybe to hold herself together while she feels like falling apart. “Please, Miranda, you have to stop.”
“What’s the matter?” Miranda asks, rising from her desk and stepping around it, her entire focus on Andy. She raises her hands as if to offer comfort, but stops short, analyzing Andy’s face as if she might find an explanation there.
Andy takes a shuddering breath. “I can’t hear whatever you were going to say. I can’t .”
Miranda blinks in confusion. Her eyes are so blue up close like this. They remind Andy of an open sky, and all the dreams she ever had of flying. Somehow she's fallen instead.
“You deserve to know you are admirable, Andrea…” Miranda says as fact—as if it’s the easiest thing in the world to say, and not the hardest thing for Andy to hear. “You deserve the compliment.”
“You don’t mean it,” Andy says, her voice hoarse, and she’s embarrassed to feel the sting of tears.
Miranda’s brow furrows and she frowns. “When have you known me to give a compliment I didn’t mean? Or a compliment at all?”
Andy chokes out a wet laugh, shaking her head at herself as a tear rolls down her cheek.
“Maybe you mean it,” Andy concedes, swallowing the emotion that makes her throat ache. “But it means something different to me. When it comes from you, it means something different to me. So I can’t hear whatever you were going to say, because it means too much—more than it should.”
Miranda blinks in surprise, opens her mouth to say something, but no words come out. Her clear blue eyes shine, so focused on Andy that she has to look away.
“Andrea?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Andy whispers, biting her lip. “I can’t keep working like this. I can’t feel this much for you and then go about my day knowing you’ll never mean these things the way I’d mean them if I said them to you.”
“How would you mean them?” Miranda whispers, taking a step closer and placing a hand under Andy’s elbow, steadying them both. Andy looks up, helpless and shaking her head. Miranda licks her lips. “Andrea, if you said something, how would you mean it?”
Andy takes a shuddering breath. “More than you’d care for an employee to.”
“I don’t appreciate elusiveness in this topic, Andrea-”
“I mean that I think you’re beautiful,” Andy professes, her heart hammering. Miranda’s eyes grow even wider, but now that Andy has started, she can’t seem to stop. “I mean that making you laugh, even for a second, or seeing you smile reminds me of the sun. I mean that I see you—Miranda Priestly. Your relentless ambition and your dedication to everything you hold dear, and I admire you for it. You are cunning, and a perfectionist and you demand that everyone around you aim for their fullest potential. You are merciless in that, but I am in awe of that part of you, too.
“I mean that you inspire people. You inspire me to be better because it’s what I deserve. I mean that I know you—the worst things and the best—and that I wouldn’t change a damn thing. You pick fights when you’ve had a bad day. You hate breaking promises, especially ones you make to your daughters. You don’t like being seen as vulnerable, and you don’t want to let anybody close enough to know you.
“But I do. I know you. And I think you know me better than anyone else has ever cared to try, so really, how could I help it?” Andy stops long enough to take another shuddering breath, too far past the point of reason to care about the tears spilling down her cheeks. “How could I do anything other than fall in love with you?”
“Andrea-” Miranda murmurs, raising her hands to grasp Andy’s shoulders, but Andy shakes her head and squeezes her eyes shut.
“And now you’re calling me lovely—all these wonderful things that I want you mean so much more than you do-”
“I mean them,” Miranda interrupts. Her eyes are as hard and as sure as they have ever been, and Andy’s breath gets caught in her throat. “I told you. I have never given a compliment I don’t mean. You are lovely, Andrea, and evidently, I mean that more than you know.”
Andy blinks at her, her lips parting as Miranda’s thumbs wipe the tears away from Andy’s cheeks. “Miranda?”
“You mustn’t say such things, Andrea-”
“I know-”
“-because it means I can’t help doing this,” Miranda whispers, closing the distance between them until their bodies are flush together, and Miranda’s soft lips are pressing against Andy’s own.
Andy’s eyes flutter shut, and after a moment’s shock, she melts. She whimpers into the kiss, the fingers of one hand caressing the silver hair at the nape of Miranda’s neck, the other resting on the small of Miranda’s back, pulling them closer together.
It feels like Andy is soaring.
Miranda pulls away, a breathless sigh escaping between their first kiss and the next, her lids heavy. Andy can’t get enough. Her body is thrumming with warmth, and before she knows it, she has backed Miranda up into the desk, making Miranda release a breathless, stifled little moan that Andy longs to hear more of.
She groans, squeezing Miranda’s hips and biting her lower lip before begging access, grinning when Miranda moans again, allowing the eager tongue. She tastes like coffee and those expensive no-calorie butterscotch candies Miranda pretends she doesn’t like because they make her feel old, and Andy has to pull away to smile, letting out a breathless laugh.
“Andrea?” Miranda is nearly inaudible, her eyes more vulnerable than Andy has ever seen them, so Andy kisses her again. Slowly this time, and gentle, easing their passion into familiar warmth. She kisses Miranda’s soft lips, loving that her sharp tongue is sweeter than anyone would ever guess. She kisses the corner of Miranda’s mouth, her cheek, the tip of her nose, and her lips again for good measure before she pulls away.
Miranda is breathing hard, clinging to the lapels on Andy’s blazer, and her blue eyes search hers once again.
“Butterscotch,” Andy murmurs, enamored beyond belief, and even more so when a rosepetal pink blush spreads across Miranda’s cheeks.
“Yes. Well…”
“I like that, too,” Andy says, kissing her again. “I love that. I… I love you.”
Miranda licks her lips, looking up at Andy, so unsure of herself for once. Andy can see her, does know Miranda, and she sees the fear shining in diamond blue eyes—the vulnerability that Miranda pretends isn’t there. Andy sees a hundred questions, each wondering why Andy loves her, or how. She knows of Miranda’s surety that good things never last, are never genuine, and certainly never meant for her.
But Andy has proved her wrong before, and with this, she’ll do it again.
“I love you,” Andy repeats, sure enough for them both, and intent on repeating it as often as she can until Miranda believes it for herself. “I know who you are, and I know what it means.”
“Andrea,” Miranda murmurs, and she doesn’t say it back, but Andy sees the truth in her eyes. “My Andrea.”
Andy kisses her again, knowing that no matter what happens or how they move forward from this, Andy has enough determination for them both.
Miranda, if it means getting what she wants, will come up with a plan of action with relentless, ruthless efficiency.
Andy knows they will disagree on things, but that their similarities are much more substantial than any argument they may have, and that theirs is a connection formed by truly knowing each other—the faults, the flaws, and every shocking, beautiful thing that makes up for them. Andy knows that where she and Miranda Priestly are concerned, they are two women who are willing to work for what they desire.
And above all, Andy knows they understand one another, see what the other needs, and she knows what they will always choose.