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The thing was, if Zack Taylor had asked her out only a few days earlier, she would have said yes. He was cute, he was charming (when he tried) and he was really obviously into her. It was enough by Angela’s standards to at least have gotten him a first date.
The only problem was, she had a long-standing policy against dating superheroes. It was a policy that she’d never thought she would have to use. But then Rita Repulsa had attacked.
Angela had been reading comic books since she was a little kid. She loved superheroes, but she knew what happened to their girlfriends. She wasn’t going to be Gwen Stacy, and end up dead. Or end up crazy. Or put up with being lied to all the time, or anything else that happened to the girlfriend of a superhero.
And it had only taken a few days before most of Angel Grove had figured out who the Power Rangers were, even though the Rangers were valiantly attempting to pretend that they had secret identities. It was only strengthening Angela’s resolve that she should not get involved with Zack, no matter how much she liked him. Her life was turning into a comic book, and she wanted to survive it. Random civilians tended to have a much better life expectancy than girlfriends did.
The problem was letting Zack down easily without hurting him. It was hard enough turning him down at all, because the more time she spent with him, the more she really wanted to go out with him. But she wasn’t cut out to be the girlfriend of a superhero - for the same reason she could probably never date a cop. Angela knew it was selfish on some level, but she didn’t want to date someone and never know if they were going to survive the day because of their job. She didn’t want their dates cut short because of an emergency. She didn't want to lose him.
She wanted to come first for someone, and that could never happen when you dated a superhero. Saving the world would always come first, and it wasn’t the kind of thing that she could really argue with, because the world did need to be saved, and it seemed like the Rangers were the only ones who could do it.
So she used Zack having to abandon a date to fight a monster as an excuse to turn him down, all the while wishing that he would pass the powers to someone else, so they would have the chance to be together.
*
When the news came out that Zack had been selected along with two of the other Rangers for the World Peace Conference, Angela alternately wanted to cheer and cry. Cheer because at least now Zack wouldn’t be risking his life on a sometimes daily basis, and cry because even now that she could have her chance with him, he was moving to Switzerland and they still wouldn’t be able to be together.
That didn’t stop her from going to see him.
“Angela!” he said in surprise when he opened the front door. “What are you doing here?”
“Doing something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, but couldn’t bring myself to do,” she said, and she leaned in and kissed him. She was momentarily afraid that her kiss was unwelcome, and that she really had blown any chance of having a relationship with him, but soon he was leaning in to the kiss and his arms had wrapped around her. She savored every second of it, knowing that after they talked she might never get the chance to kiss him again.
When they finally (reluctantly) broke apart, Zack was looking at her with a mix of wonder and confusion.
“I’ve been chasing after you for a year,” he said finally, just as the silence was starting to reach the level of awkwardness that made Angela want to turn and flee. “And now, when I’m about to leave the country, now is when you kiss me?”
“I had to wait until you were finished with your other job,” she said, taking his wrist and rubbing her fingers over where that weird watch thing had sat for a year. “I just… I really like you, and I’m sorry that I couldn’t be with you while you were out saving the world every day, but I read enough comics to know what happens when you date a superhero.”
Zack had gone very still. “You knew?” he asked.
“Most everyone does,” Angela said. “You guys were pretty bad at the secret identity thing.”
“And that was the only reason we haven’t been going out?” he asked again.
“The danger,” she admitted, “and also I didn’t want you to think I was only going out with you because you were a superhero. I really do like you.”
“You know I’m still going to leave,” he said.
“I know,” Angela said. “But it’s not for a few weeks. And… I’m not saying we should be exclusive or anything, especially with the distance, but we’d at least have the next few weeks to remember.”
“I think I’d like that,” Zack said, and he kissed her again.
*
It was over a year later when Angela next saw Zack. He’d spent a year at the peace conference, and now he was back in Angel Grove. They had spent the last year talking, and Angela had spent a lot of her hard-earned money on international phone cards, after her parents had hit the roof when the first phone bill had come in. Figuring out the best times to call, and keeping up with their work, had been difficult, but it seemed to have worked for both of them. Because now she had Zack in her arms again, and everything seemed to be right.
And it wasn’t like she had to worry about superheroics now. Retired superheroes were pretty safe. Well, until their kids decided to take up the mantle.