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Bill would not normally be this nervous about standing next to her girlfriend on a train full of people. That was basically just their commute home every day. It was a little strange that they were in costume, but even that - sometimes they had to pursue the evildoer of the week onto public transit. In this case, however…
Tick tick, said the timer attached to the massive bomb in front of her. (Seriously, how had whatever half-baked supervillain gotten it onto the monorail? Even leaving aside getting it past all the security measures, Bill’s back hurt just looking at the thing.)
“Well?” she asked the Doctor over her earpiece as she and Heather stared mutely at the inner workings of the explosive device. She leaned as close as she dared (tick tick), giving him as good a view as possible over her helmet cam. She wished he were here right now and not pinned down by a rogue Cyberman running amok downtown. She also wished she were anywhere but here, but such was the life of a costumed hero. “At least you’ll probably survive, babe,” she said, nudging Heather.
“Don’t say such things,” Heather chided her. “Besides, we’ve still got–” Tick tick, tick tick. “Forty whole seconds before we’re all turned into confetti.” Bill couldn’t help but chuckle, dark and low, at the thought of literally exploding into shreds of paper, like she was a pinata and the universe had taken an unexpected bat to her. “There, made you laugh - now I’m glad I’ve stuck around.”
“You two are nauseating,” the Doctor noted. (Tick tick, tick tick.) “How am I supposed to think with you two prattling on?”
“Yeah, well, you won’t have to worry about that in twenty seconds,” Bill snapped back.
“Maybe not! Look how shoddy that wiring is! If only you had some malleable, conductive material that you could force in there, you could short-circuit the whole thing!”
“Oh,” Heather said. (Tick tick.) “Uh, heh, right.” Then, closing her eyes, she dove forward as she turned into a glob of sentient quicksilver and flooded the bomb’s housing.
(Tick–)
Bill let her breath out as the timer seemed to have stopped. She counted, slowly, to twenty, and when she was not blown to atoms, she let out a long sigh. The monorail was just pulling into the next station; squinting, she could see the bomb squad waiting to properly dispose of the incendiary monstrosity her girlfriend was slowly dripping out of like a defrosting freezer. “We’re okay,” she called out, mostly for herself, somewhat for the Doctor, and just sort of incidentally for the car full of people around her. “We’re okay,” she repeated as Heather turned back into a person next to her. And then, with a goofy grin, Bill pulled her in for a kiss as the crowd cheered.