Disclaimer: I don't own Max or 99 or anything related to Get Smart. I am actually glad I don't, because as cute as he is, I think Max would really drive me crazy.
AN: I'm not very good with comedy – especially not the zany, witty variety featured in Get Smart, and so this more serious, but hopefully not out of character version will have to do. You may notice I haven't focused on Max as a bumbler here, for though of course he is, he also does quite a lot right, not the least of which is having 99 by his side. Enjoy.

When it came right down to it, the first things she really noticed were his hands.

While typical of her, 99 wasn't sure where this penchant for focusing on those particular physical attributes had originated. She hadn't given it much thought before, when she would quite unconsciously pick out a few details – "slim fingers" "blocky knuckles" "trimmed nails" – and let them slip into the netherworld of similar trivial observances.

Perhaps the tendency came from her evanescent career as a model, where the human body served as the raison d'être for the fashion industry. Perhaps it had been developed and drilled into her throughout the intensive coursework of Spy School, where prospective agents were taught to discern such characteristics as walk, talk, carriage, and build and file them away for future reference. Perhaps it was simply a part of her psychological make-up and perception; she really had no idea.

Whatever the reason, his hands had captured her interest immediately, although early on in their working relationship, she often wondered why she was so fascinated by them. They weren't particularly handsome – in fact, they were almost a smidge too large for his wrists and arms, with blunt, square fingers and the calluses of a gunman; at first glance, his hands seemed – and often were – clumsy and awkward.

Yet as the days melded into weeks and then months and then years, she watched him skillfully light a cigarette and hold it easily, almost casually, between two fingers, or swiftly palm his Smith and Wesson and aim with deadly accuracy, or deliver a brutal karate chop to the back of an assailant's neck, or slam a crushing punch into an enemy agent's jaw. In spite of their initial, rather ungainly appearance, she came to admit his hands possessed a practical grace entirely their own. They were an expressive extension of his personality: assertive, supremely confident, with a heaping helping of swagger in spite of himself, and all too cognizant of his masculinity.

She knew firsthand they were also strong and steady, capable of holding her up and helping – and sometimes hauling – her along, of giving her an encouraging, if tentative, pat on the shoulder or squeezing her own hand in friendly comfort. He used them to protect her when she needed it and even when she didn't, and many times over she tended to cuts and abrasions suffered in the line of duty or carefully kneaded away the soreness of a rough-and-tumble fight.

Much later, when her surname had been changed to his, she found those hands exceedingly clever, with nimble fingers and a light, gentle touch of which she hadn't quite thought him capable. Sometimes he pinched, and sometimes his grip was a little too tight, but these were innocent mistakes, always followed with profuse apologies and a return to the surprisingly tender caresses that set her nerve endings on fire and sent her head spinning.

Occasionally, she found herself shouldering the burden thrust upon them by the peculiar nature of their work. No matter his blithe statements about saving the country and the world from the forces of evil and rottenness, no matter how deserving the sentence carried out had been; his hands had killed, had taken life and dealt destruction. The beauty she found in them was stained permanently by blood. Then again, to be fair, she should – and truly could – say the same about her own. Out, damn plank. Out, indeed.

Mired in those moments of melancholy, she would eventually find her hand encompassed in the warmth of his, and his finger would kindly but firmly raise her chin, and she would meet his concerned gaze. "Brown study, 99?" he would ask and then smile, the goofy, lopsided flash of white teeth which may well have been the second thing to catch her attention. "I've just the cure."