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Diana felt the old familiar feeling of injustice brewing in her soul, about the same discrimination she’d fought against her whole life. It seemed no matter how hard she worked, no matter how efficient and organized she was, there was always some reason that she was being hounded by the other agents. At first she paid it no mind because if there was anything she learned as a diplomat's daughter it was the ‘good old boys clubs’ happened everywhere and it took a long time to prove oneself as a valuable player. But she wasn’t a probie anymore, she wasn’t fresh out of Harvard or just coming from Quantico. She had proved her intelligence, her competence and her drive day after day for years now. So why wasn’t she accepted. It burned her that the only time the other agents seemed to want her help for a case was so she could go ‘undercover’ as a prostitute.
Michaels had asked for the help of a White Collar agent on a case, a quick consult to help them narrow down the suspects on one of their own cases. Peter sent his best agent and assigned Diana to Michaels for the week. From the start she had been ignored, belittled, humiliated and she was tired of his condescending attitude. If he’d listened to her suggestion at the beginning of the week they wouldn’t be scrambling now to fix the opp. Somehow despite ignoring her help they still managed to find a way to trick a confession from the suspect.
Big surprise it involved her going undercover as a pole dancer, despite the fact that the target was a homosexual male and the strip club in question had both male and female dancers working there. The three undercover men got to be a bouncer, a bartender, and even the DJ but she had to be a stripper even though Jordan looked a lot like two of his last known boyfriends. She knew her ‘role’ in this take down was to be eye candy for the male agents, she had heard Michaels and King commenting on her butt two days ago.
Predictably (for her anyways) the opp went sideways because King wasn’t paying attention to his job and her admittedly good pole dancing moves were not good enough to keep the marks attention when he didn’t even like women.
Now she was standing in the middle of the office surrounded by male agents in a sparkling bikini getting ripped a new one by her ‘temporary supervisor’ because she blew the opp. Umm, okay, right, sure it was her fault. Half of the men were leering at her and the others were laughing at her. God she would be so happy when she could get back to her team up in White Collar. She stood throughout the lecture noting every man who laughed and even worse the ones who didn't, the men that looked at her like she was a piece of meat. The ones whose eyes lingered too long and their hands reached out to touch.
After the lecture she headed to the locker room to change back into a work appropriate outfit. She had not expected to run into anyone from her usual team right now, so when she literally ran into Neal on her way to change she couldn’t stop the full body shudder that went through her frame.
“Neal, don’t, just don't, I am not in the mood for jokes or flirting right now.” she said, trying to hide the small tremble in her voice.
“Diana. What is wrong?” Neal whipped his suit jacket off and offered it to her.
“Nothing.” she said quietly, putting on the offered jacket.
That is the moment that Tim realized something was very very wrong. Diana was not one who was quiet, she wasn’t ashamed of herself who she was. She was a powerhouse of confidence and pride so anything that could make her quiet and mousy was a big deal.
“Did something happen on the opp today?"
Diana looked over her shoulder back at the other office, she apparently came to some sort of decision. She nodded once and the started moving
"Walk with me Caffrey."
She led the two of them into the Ladies locker room. Neal leaned on the lockers waiting for her to start talking.
"Michaels planned the opp badly, I warned him that things weren't going to turn out like he wanted. The opp went about as bad as it could go, and he's blaming me for the screw up."
"You don't want Peter to know." Tim said, reading her body language.
"It will just turn into a huge mess with HR and at best he'll get a slap on the wrist and I will get a half-hearted apology." She sighed frustrated.
"But that's not what you think will happen is it."
"Nothing good will happen if I try and fight this." She said. “It would end with me being blamed for every little thing that went wrong related to the opp, whether I worked on it or not. Then they’d start looking at everything I've done here at the agency, micro analyzing every decision and judgment call. I’d be prosecuted by the other agents' opinions if not actually brought before a court of law, just for doing my job. It probably wouldn't have bothered me so much if I wasn't facing the same thing in every direction."
"What else is going on?"
"You know how I was planning on doing the in vitro treatment for a baby, there were some complications with that idea so I looked into adoption. Despite all my research saying I am a good candidate they are claiming that I am not a good fit for the program."
"You would be an awesome Mom, why are they saying no?"
"They're claiming it's because I'm a single mother in the FBI, except they approved Jerry Fitzgerald's application down on the tenth floor and he has the same background as me except he is not a single black lesbian woman.” Diana sighed again.
"I know you can handle it but you don't have to do it alone." Tim debated for a second and then pulled out his second wallet. He passed over a card with a name and phone number on it.
"Diana, if you ever change your mind or if it gets too much, call that number. Tell them, tell them that Tim sent you and you are to be given the full family treatment. They are good and honest lawyers and they can fight any battle you don't have the strength to. If you run into more crap from Micheals or with the adoption board they can help."
Diana smiled at him, and gave him a tired snort. “You know for a white straight guy you seem very up to date on your discrimination laws.”
“That’s because I’m not a white straight guy.” Tim laughed. “Well two out of three right. Just trust me, go to these guys if you need help.” He gave her another hug and then went back upstairs to make excuses for where he’d been for the last 45 mins.
Later that night Diana called the number.
“Hello, Tim told me to call this number if I need a lawyer…” She was going to stop giving in to the hatred of others.