Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Kim didn't want to be an asshole about it. Especially because of her own glass roofs. Because it was the thought that mattered. And the company.

If only 'the company' acted like he gave a damn.

John, her boyfriend of a few months, had promised her an "awesome date night" after a grueling day with two back-to-back exams at the university and a court appearance. That Drakken's idea of calling her as a witness for his defense was but the second-stupidest event of the day spoke volumes. Instead of 'awesome' or 'romantic' or even 'nice', she found herself trapped in her own apartment, on the laziest date ever.

She cringed at the meal she found herself preparing, almost as much as she cringed when her thoughts went back to John lazily sitting on the couch. Sure, putting two frozen pizzas in the oven for a while and taking them out when ready was not exactly "saving the world" levels of work, but opening the date with "Hey, Kim, will you put these in the oven?" had really rubbed her the wrong way. To add insult to injury, three months in, he somehow thought it would be a good idea to buy Kim a Hawaiian pizza. She'd had a rough day and was in no condition to protest - she might say something she'd later regret.

Kim had liked John's idea of sticking to her place for their date night, she had even told Monique she was looking forward to not having to leave her apartment after such a long day. Now, she questioned whether the thoughtful gesture had simply been laziness of the highest order. And after hearing Ron describe in detail the lengths he was going to in preparing for his own date, Kim felt like she was stuck with a third-rate effort.

She looked at her microwave's digital clock, she had been standing next to the oven for five minutes, being negative. The pizzas would need at least fifteen more minutes, which meant that decisions were now unavoidable. Kim wanted the date to go well. She needed it to go well. She did not want to add John to the string of disappointments that started with Josh and slowly but steadily grew longer, embarrassingly so. John had seemed so nice and… Kim retracted the statement inside her mind: not nice, he was hot, she admitted. She'd been interested before he even said a word. And now she wondered how much of his being nice was an artifact of her own hormones clouding her judgement.

But it was wrong of her to judge him so harshly, she was still recovering from a long and tortuous day. Drakken's stunt had drained her patience down to dangerous levels, and she was only saved from making a scene by the judge's even shorter patience with the blue villain's antics. It wasn't fair to John to expect him to carry the date. Besides, she had probably scared him with her ungrateful welcome.

And yet, John was completely absorbed by a game on TV. Go City University playing against... Someone. Whom, exactly, didn't matter, no team could have made the situation less sinful. The camera switched back to the GCU cheerleaders, led by none other than Bonnie Rockwaller. And John was more interested in Bonnie than in his girlfriend.

Again, Kim took a deep breath and told herself she was making the worst possible interpretation of a perfectly benign situation. So what if Bonnie was on TV? John was watching the game, not Bonnie. And it wasn't Bonnie's place he would spend the night at. Kim sat down next to her boyfriend, hoping to have her fears disproven.

"Hey babe, think the pizzas will be ready by halftime?"

Was that the best he had to offer?

"Why," she asked with more than a hint of irritation, "don't want to miss the show?"

"Definitely not," he answered as he idly ran his hand over his blonde hair, "my buddy Greg says that the GCU cheerleaders have this epic new routine that has to be seen to be believed!"

So much for getting rid of her fears. Kim got up again, she wanted to get away to avoid the risk of making a scene. And John did not care enough to reach out to her, to hold her… Or even to ask where she was going. In a weird way, it was liberating, she now felt unconstrained by the need to have the date go well.

Kim sat down on one of the stools that stood next to the raised counter that doubled as a table. She rested her elbows on said surface and let her head drop into her hands. Her thoughts wandered from her disaster of a date to her best friend's own date, hoping he was having a better time. Maybe next time she should have the guy take some lessons from Ron… At least then she might not get stuck with frozen pizza – its deceivingly pleasant smell was beginning to be noticeable in the kitchen, but to Kim it was just a harbinger of more drama. It would be a perfect time for Wade to call with some emergency… Or even a cat needing to be coaxed off a tree.

Her moment of self-pity was interrupted by the timer announcing that dinner was ready. She sighed and put on oven mitts to retrieve the pizzas, which looked about as good as frozen pizzas could look – somewhere between "mystery meat" and "Cow & Chow on a bad day". Unsurprisingly, John either missed the beeping or couldn't be bothered to show up, so Kim took up the chore of summoning him.

"Dinner's ready, let's eat."

"Just a minute, Kim, the GCU girls are doing their thing."

"Spankin'," Kim replied. She looked at the TV and saw that the routine was nothing particularly exciting. Bonnie was doing a decent enough job, she had to admit, but the team was just not putting on much of a show. Being ignored in favor of Bonnie was one thing, but being ignored in favor of Bonnie on a bad day stung harder. "That's really nothing too special, we used to do better back in high school."

"I dunno, Kim, that was pretty epic!"

"No, it really wasn't," she deadpanned. "Let's eat."

John finally acquiesced and joined Kim in the kitchen. They sat down to eat but exchanged few words.

"I heard Stoppable got himself a date," John said apropos of nothing, it seemed.

"Yeah," Kim answered. Overcoming her initial confusion, she added, "some girl named Beverly who works part-time at the bookstore off University Avenue."

"Really? I know her from high school… Man, she's way out of his league…"

Kim glared at John, "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well, you know, she's a hot redhead who could get any guy she wanted, and he's… Well, you know, he's weird, his pet is weird, his career is in a dead end and it's just gotten started…" He must have missed the ire growing in Kim's face because he just kept on going. "Honestly, he's a loser."

That was the last straw.

Kim raised her voice, "What gives you the right!? Ron is a million times the man you are, and you have the audacity to come into my house and diss him?" She added in a mocking tone, "Mister 'frozen pizza for our date' thinks that Ron Stoppable is a loser? Get out of here!"

John tried to justify himself, "Geez, I'm sorry, Kim, I didn't mean it as an insult."

"So you just want to insult my intelligence instead? Well, let me stoop down to your level of intelligence: We. Are. Over. Get the hell out of here before I roundhouse you out the window!"

For once, John understood the nuances of his situation and wasted no time in leaving Kim's apartment.

As her anger died down, the catharsis Kim felt was little consolation in the face of the returning loneliness. Part of her feared that she was feeding the rumor mill with fresh new evidence of her bad mood, but Kim knew that she couldn't allow Ron to be mistreated, even if in an absentee manner. Her first instinct was to call him to vent, his moral support would have been a great help – but she remembered that he had his own date going on and did not want to interrupt him. Instead, she took her phone and called Monique.

"Hey, Monique," Kim said as cheerily as she could fake.

"Oh no, you're not fooling me with that one, girl. No way you're calling me on a date night and everything's fine, so you'd better spill."

Defeated, Kim had no chance but to tell her friend the truth and submit herself to whatever judgement was in store.

"…so I kinda threatened him with physical violence if he didn't leave immediately."

"Honestly, good on you, Kim," Monique answered. "Stand by your Ron, he means a lot more to you than mister pretty-face-of-the-month."

"Yeah, he does, doesn't he?" Kim said absentmindedly as she stared out the window at the lights of Upperton at night. Rather than pay attention to Monique's well-rehearsed speech ("too good for him", "better off this way", "someone who actually cares", "shopping", and probably other clichés), she found herself again wondering how Ron was doing and which of the lights was his.

Chapter Text

The thing that bothered Ron the most about dating wasn't the rejection - he'd had plenty of that in high school and learned to live with it. It was the feeling that he was the only one making an effort.

This was his second date with Beverly, supposedly a friend of a friend of Felix's, if one didn't examine the story too carefully. However they'd actually ended up crossing paths was not relevant, ultimately, and what mattered was the here and now. And things were on shaky ground, after what had been a nice enough first date - nice enough for Ron to invite her to dinner at his place. Equipped with his cooking skills, his experience working at Upperton's most acclaimed restaurant, and most of the way through a masters' program in hotel and restaurant management, he'd been confident he could impress his date.

"You mean I have to make my own food? What kind of date is that?"

Impressed she was not at Ron's idea of making their pizzas as part of the date.

"Well, uh, you know what they say," Ron offered, "it's the road as much as the destination?"

"Like, whatever, just put stuff on mine, I have to call Jennifer," she replied, unimpressed, and left the kitchen before Ron could even put together a coherent sentence.

"Who's Jennifer?" Ron looked over to the kitchen table where Rufus was gobbling up his own meal, with the vague hope of an answer. The naked mole rat just shrugged. Ron sighed and retrieved two chunks of pizza dough from the fridge. What should've been a fun activity was now little more than a chore. To make things worse, he now had to guess what ingredients his date would like. He hedged his bets by deciding on one pizza with tuna and one with pepperoni, so that he could just settle for whatever was left after Beverly had picked hers.

"That's one advantage of take-out, even if it sucks, at least you didn't spend half of the date alone in the kitchen," Ron mumbled as he rolled the dough. "No offense, Rufus."

He responded with a chitter that let Ron know he didn't need to worry about it, and Ron worked on the pizzas. He could hear his date talking away on her phone in the other room and idly wondered what the conversation might be about. It certainly did not seem any closer to concluding by the time he had both pizzas ready for the oven. After briefly considering whether to hold them back to give Beverly time to finish her phone call, Ron opted to not go down that rabbit hole, fearing endless delays to his dinner. With the food taken care of for the next few minutes, he checked in on his date, who was still on the phone.

"Can you believe the nerve? I was so pissed I swear I almost threw my drink at him… I know, right? Did he really think that was some sort of compliment? Not to mention he totally needs to get his eyes checked, my hair color is totally different…"

It still felt weird to Ron to not be the super-awkward guy girls complained about – he knew he wasn't the topic of the conversation because he definitely knew better than to start telling girls they reminded him of someone else. It also helped that Beverly didn't really remind him of anyone. With the possible exception of her hair, which was a lot like that of Mrs. Dr. P. – and he absolutely knew not to tell a girl she reminded him of his best friend's mother.

"Alright, I gotta go, I'm smelling food. No way! Oh Em Gee, how? Don't you dare not answer later, I so want to hear the rest of that story!" She looked at her phone after ending the call, then put it away. "Sorry about that, Jennifer just got home after a month in Cambodia with no cell service, except for this thing that cost a million bucks per minute."

"No worries, Bev, two badical pizzas are almost ready."

"That's nice, but we need to turn on the TV, Jennifer's sister is going to show up on the Channel 5 news."

"Oh, cool, is she like a talking head?"

"No, they interviewed her while she was camping in line for tickets to go see Brittina down in Middleton!"

Somehow, that did not seem like a very interesting sitch, but Ron did the polite thing: he kept his mouth shut and turned on the TV. The news was on, some Florida Man story about an attempted bank heist in Miami by a guy armed only with his pet alligator.

"They probably already ran it, let me try to rewind," Ron said, trying to be a good host. The backwards sequence of isolated frames was not the easiest to follow, but Ron pressed play around what seemed to be large queue.

"…can see from the footage, fans have flocked to buy tickets, some of them even camping out here to secure their spot in line. I spoke to a fan who's been here since yesterday morning, even though sales only start tomorrow at opening time. With me is Rachel, who is fourth in line and brought along this tent you see behind me. Rachel, tell us about your setup."

"Like, it's kinda over the top, I almost feel like a diva bringing a tent, like, if I hadn't, I might have been first in line!"

"But do you think you might miss out on a ticket?"

"Like, maybe, the super special backstage passes with afterparty access and meet&greet are so limited, there's, like, only 20 of them, and I cannot show up to Britina's concert with a non-super regular special backstage pass with afterparty access and meet&greet, how could I ever show my face around my friends again."

"And have you considered buying online?"

"I have, but the super special edition is only available in three locations, with an ID."

"Because of the scalping that's been reported for the first half of Brittina's tour?"

"Like, maybe, I dunno, I came here as fast as I could, I didn't have time to think why."

"Well, best of luck to you, Rachel."

Ron had to control himself to avoid blurting out that he'd flown on Brittina's private jet and even asked her to a dance, being dismissive of his date's friend's sister was impolite, after all.

"Woah, fourth in line, that girl is a superfan!" Beverly said as the report wound down.

"Well, super-special fan, anyway," Ron joked. But he didn't get as much as a chuckle out of Beverly, even after giving her a few seconds to react. Disappointed, he looked at his wristwatch to check how long the pizzas still needed, not paying much attention to the broadcast.

"…local heroine Kim Possible, at his trial. Mr. Lipski, who goes by the alias of Dr. Drakken, is charged as the head of a criminal organization, which fraudulently acquired ownership of Bueno Nacho Holdings in 2004 and attempted to distribute weapons of mass destruction disguised as toys."

Drakken showing up on the news got his attention, though. He'd offered his moral support to Kim, but she insisted that it was only Drakken, how far under her skin could he really get?

"I've spoken to several legal experts and none of them have had a good explanation for Mr. Lipski's bizarre legal strategy. His attorney's questioning of witnesses resulted in more than one reprimand from the judge today, culminating in the threat of contempt charges for Mr. Lipski and his legal team, and Miss Possible being dismissed by a visibly irritated judge."

Ron, for once, was very happy that Drakken seemed to never remember his name – that was probably the only reason he hadn't been roped into Drakken's courtroom farce.

"In a briefing to the press, the lead prosecutor on the case said, quote, 'Mr. Lipski's delaying tactics are unacceptable. We fully support his right to due process, but condemn his use of witnesses as props for a spectacle designed to further delay this trial. My team will be filing a brief in support of holding Mr. Lipski in criminal contempt of court.'"

"Ugh, I hate those Team Possible losers," Beverly said as the report went on.

"Wait, what?" Despite being focused on the report, Ron picked up on her statement.

"I can't stand their cynical publicity stunts, they're worse than that Adrenna Lynn phony from like six or seven years ago," Ron's date answered.

Did she not recognize Ron? Even with reporters not featuring him very often, he'd been on TV more than a handful of times. Was she joking? Surely she wasn't serious. Ron, in his eternal optimism, gave her the benefit of the doubt, "But… What are you saying?"

"They should keep their noses of out other people's business," Beverly's tirade had obviously been long in the works, if not outright rehearsed, "it's like they're on TV every week, I can't stand them."

"But… What about people who need help," Ron suggested.

"Puh-lease." She was doubling down, despite the offramp Ron had given her. "Anyone who deserves it can fix their own problems and lift themselves up by their bootstraps."

"Uhm, I may have gotten a gentleman's C in high school physics, but I'm pretty sure that violates Newton's laws or something."

"Why are you so focused on defending that worthless bitch, anyway?"

Ron was speechless, stunned by what he had just heard. The date wasn't going well, but this was a new low point, which merited drastic action. He stood up and finally said, "Leave. You have 30 seconds or I'll call the cops."

Beverly stared back at him for a moment, visibly confused, then answered, "You can't be serious?"

"Note. Serious. Face. 15 seconds."

"Alright, alright, I'm going," she said. On her way out the door, she added, "It's your loss, loser," causing Ron to violently slam his front door closed.

Slowly, Ron's anger began to subside, leaving him to contemplate the latest waste of time and effort in the train wreck that was his dating life. Normally, he would call Kim and ask for her help in working through things, but she had had a long day and should now be enjoying her own date, and there was no way Ron would knowingly interrupt that for anything less than a life-threatening emergency.

He was now stuck with two fresh pizzas and little appetite – though with Rufus around, that wasn't likely to be a problem for long. Ron took them out of the oven and went back to his couch, where he sat, staring out the window. Kim's light was not far away…

Chapter Text

Ron put his and Kim's trays down on the table – as had become tradition, whoever arrived last was in charge of buying lunch for both, plus Rufus. No words needed to be spoken by either of the two best friends for the essence of the truth to come out. Their regular get-together at their new adopted booth at the North Upperton Bueno Nacho had seen enough tales of disaster dates for neither Kim nor Ron to have any doubt about how the other's date had gone.

"You go first," Ron said, "I'm still trying to figure out how to frame my story politely…"

Kim chuckled sarcastically. Unlike Ron, she had decided to not paint over any part of her story. "Three words, Ron: Frozen. Hawaiian. Pizza."

He narrowed his eyes, "Did they, like, mess up his order or something?"

"Nope, he just showed up at my door with frozen pizza and told me to put it in the oven."

"Geez, I hope you told him to do better next time," Ron commented between bites of his Naco, glancing over to make sure Rufus wasn't about to steal his meal.

"There's not gonna be a next time," Kim replied. "I told him that he was welcome to go appreciate Bonnie's skills in person."

"Bonnie… Rockwaller?" Ron said. "I think you skipped a few too many details, KP…"

Kim shared the details of the prior night's disaster, occasionally drawing a shocked "wow" from Ron and even a facepalm or two from Rufus.

"I was going to say that breaking up with a guy for showing up to a date with pizzas and soda was –"

Kim interrupted Ron's take on the situation, "No soda, just frozen pizza."

"Okay, that is getting into deep phoning it in territory," Ron continued, "but my point is: He's on a date with a badical babe, but he'd rather stare into the TV admiring Bonnie's, uh –"

"Assets?" Kim offered.

"I was going to say 'cheer routine that is competent, but lacking in creativity', but let's go with her assets, to use your words. Nice as they are on TV, they can't compete with a gorgeous babe who's actually in the room."

Kim raised an eyebrow, she took a second to choose which part of Ron's statement to pick out first. "What should I infer from you calling me a 'badical, gorgeous babe'?"

Ron was unphased, "The Ronman calls them as he sees them," he answered between bites of his food.

Kim cracked a small smile. "What about the babe at your place yesterday," she asked, sarcastically emphasizing, "what went wrong?"

"Some things are too wrong-sick to bring up in this sacred place, KP."

"Sacred? It's not even our regular booth back home."

"It's built to the same blueprints, 'Suburban 1990' with the '97 changes to better fit the new, more reliable ice cream machines without interfering with the cashiers and you're totally going to hit me with the Puppy Dog Pout, aren't you?"

"Hm-hmm," she answered affirmatively.

"Fine… Beverly, as it turns out, didn't realize who I was."

"O…kay…"

"Hold on, that's not the problem. So, you showed up on TV, at Drakken's trial, and the news is doing their shtick about the trial, and contempt charges, yadda yadda. Anyway, you show up and she starts ranting about how much she hates Team Possible."

"Ouch."

"I wasn't going to make a scene, but then she called you a 'fake, attention-seeking bitch', so I threw her out."

Kim was dumbfounded at the thought of Ron getting irritated enough to do such a thing. "You threw her out?"

"Not literally, of course, but I wasn't going to put up with her dissing you."

"What I'm hearing is that you chose me over a total hottie," she teased, leaving Ron to try to piece together a coherent answer, but not giving him the time to do so. "Well, to be honest, I only told John to take a hike after he insulted you."

Ron was outraged, "He insulted me? What did he say?" He said, waving his food around and accidentally throwing bits onto Rufus' now-empty tray, much to his pink friend's satisfaction.

"He called you a loser and said your job was a dead end."

Ron put on his serious face, "That's rich coming from the guy struggling to get his degree in Philosophy to keep playing college football."

Kim nodded in agreement, "We're really great at this dating thing, aren't we?"

"My leftover pizza dough can testify to that. Speaking of which, you might want to drop by my place tonight, I'm doing a pizza night to use it all up – and Rufus definitely can't stuff his face again like he did last night, so I'd appreciate the help, not to mention the company."

"Count on me, Ron," Kim answered. "It would take a lot for me to pass up on Ron's pizzeria, so I'll definitely work hard to be better company."

Ron finished his Naco, then said, "Won't be difficult, KP…"

He was interrupted by Kim's message notification, she looked at her wrist. "It's Monique, I think I agreed to a therapy session yesterday on the phone…"

"Is that what she calls shopping now?"

"I'm not complaining," Kim replied, "a Club Banana employee discount is not something I can say 'no' to. You're welcome to tag along…"

Ron scratched his chin, "Hmm, I do need to buy some shirts."

"The sitch with Dementor?" Kim asked him.

"The sitch with Dementor. I'm still not sure who would want a ray-gun that only zaps clothing. And of course that has to happen the one time I'm not wearing mission gear." In a weird way, Ron missed Drakken's schemes, which at least rarely seemed to damage his clothing – belt excluded, of course.

Kim wasted no time, "Awesome, that means you can help carry our stuff," she said, smiling.

"Wait, I didn't agree to –"

Kim interrupted his protest by flashing him the puppy dog pout. Ron stood no chance against the sudden assault on his free will and quickly yielded.

"Oh, alright, you win. But you drive, I'm not carrying bags hanging from my scooter again."

"Deal."

With their meal finished, the two friends put away their trays and left their surrogate Bueno Nacho. Kim had brought her car along, in anticipation of driving onwards to Middleton. She and Ron got in and drove off, chatting along the way.

Kim and Ron had barely stepped foot inside the Middleton Mall when they spotted a familiar face running towards them. "Hey Kim," Monique said as she hugged her. "How're you doing?"

"Just another breakup," Kim said, "so not the drama."

Monique looked unconvinced, but instead turned her attention to Ron. "And who's this handsome stranger?"

"Very funny, Monique, I told you that the only reason I was going to skip the show last night was that I had a date."

"And was it worth it?" Judging by her tone of voice, she knew the answer was a hard 'no'.

"Let's just say I'm not the only one who spent the night getting rid of guests who overstayed their welcome," Kim offered.

"The benefits of being single," Monique said, not very convincingly.

"That's not what I hear," Ron said with a nonchalant tone that did not do justice to the significance of his words.

Kim was left wide-eyed, shocked that such a revelation had come through Ron. "What's going on? Spill!"

"Nothing's going on," Monique answered, but her façade soon broke. "Nothing serious, anyway."

Kim latched on to that. "So there is something!"

"Alright, fine," Monique answered with a deep breath. "I'm kinda seeing Felix."

"Felix Renton?" Kim said, still processing the information.

"I'm not sure 'kinda seeing' really describes it," Ron said, "Felix's phone was blowing up with text messages full of hearts and lovey-doveyness the other day. I wasn't going to pry, but when he started losing at Zombie Mayhem, I knew it was serious."

"But why all the secrecy?" Kim asked.

"It's not a secret, we just didn't decide to tell anyone."

Monique's statement was met with skepticism by her friends. "You should go into politics if the fashion biz becomes too much for you, Monique," Kim replied.

"Doing very well, thanks for asking. Now, shall we get to the fashion and let our little snitch go do snitch things in some snitch store?"

"Actually, Monique, Ron here needs to shop for clothes," Kim said, making a point of emphasizing his name.

It was Monique's turn to be skeptical, "Ron Stoppable. Not shopping at Smarty Mart?"

"Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later, the dream couldn't live forever," Ron replied. He raised his arm against his forehead for dramatic effect, "A Smarty Mart product let me down. Oh, how we wept!"

"Sounds like a bit too much drama, even by your standards," Monique commented.

"You misunderstand, me and Rufus literally wept, there's something about Smarty Mart dress shirts that really messes with our eyes, even after three washes! Three!"

Monique examined him for a few seconds, looking over him intensely, up and down his body. "I know just the place, come on."

"Woah, wait a minute, I'm a big man, I can buy my own clothes," he said, mildly offended.

"Hmm, and I can make dinner for myself," Kim countered, "but I'd never turn down your cooking…"

"But that's completely different," he protested. Getting little traction, he called for help, "Back me up here, Rufus…"

The naked mole rat, who had been watching the whole exchange from one of Ron's many pants pockets, chittered out his agreement with Ron's position.

"Come on, time to let Monique work her magic," Kim insisted, dragging him along behind their friend all the way to a discreet store tucked away in an isolated corner of the mall.

The store looked decidedly fancier than Ron was used to, and the moment they stepped inside, Monique took out a tailor's tape measure and began to examine him.

"You, uh," he said while she poked and prodded, "carry that around all the time?"

"Tools of the trade," she said simply. Satisfied with her measurement, Monique went to talk to the clerk who was working the store. She told him something, he nodded and went off to the backroom. Monique looked back and said, "We'll just be a minute."

Ron tried to discreetly check a few price tags and was relieved to find relatively reasonable figures. Not Smarty Mart prices, but manageable, as long as he managed to avoid unexpected encounters with bad guys that might bring a premature demise to his purchases.

Kim flashed him a smile, "See? You gotta learn to trust the experts."

"Point taken, KP, point taken."

Monique received the items she had requested, a stack of shirts, and rejoined her friends. "Okay, so, you're going to try this one on first. If it doesn't pass inspection, we'll move down the stack until we find one that does. Then we'll talk colors. Understood?"

"Uh, I guess… Can you guys take care of Rufus while I'm in there?"

Kim nodded and reached out her hand for Rufus to hop on. He did so and ran up to her shoulder, and Ron went off to try on the first shirt.

"It's going to be good, trust me Kim," Monique announced.

After a minute or two, Ron stepped out of the dressing room, wearing the shirt Monique had picked out. "How do I look?"

"Spankin'," Kim said without hesitation, while Rufus gave Ron a thumbs up. This only highlighted Monique's silence. Kim looked to her side and found her friend staring wide-eyed at Ron. A quick nudge and a scowl from Kim made her snap back to reality.

"Uh, looking good, Ron. It's, uh, the perfect fit. I'm just… Uh, trying to picture other colors, but, uhm, you can change back… If you really want to."

"Yeah, I don't like wearing stuff I just bought while walking out of the store, it just feels kinda weird," he answered and returned to his booth to change back.

Kim turned to Monique, "You were totally ogling him!"

Monique contested Kim's whispered accusation, "Girl, I was totally COG – Caught Off-Guard," she added after seeing Kim's confused look, "– he looks a lot better when he's not wearing that baggy stuff he loves. How come he doesn't wear a proper shirt more often?"

"I don't know, it's not like I'm his mother."

"No, but you're, let's call you an 'influential figure in his life', if you catch my drift."

"I think I do? I'm not sure why you felt the need to say that."

"Girl. You need to push him in the right direction. And you need to stake your claim."

Kim answered the first half, "Been there, done that. Can't mess with the 'Essential Ronness'."

"Aren't you the one who says she can do anything? I'm not saying you should get him a makeover, I'm just saying that's a waste of a fine boy."

Kim raised her eyebrow, "What exactly are you suggesting, Monique?"

She did not get an answer, Ron rejoined the two girls, back in his usual baggy attire. Monique quickly dragged him off to pick out a few different shirts, leaving Kim behind, still trying to make sense of her friend's cryptic words. She was soon rejoined by Monique and Ron, now carrying the first bag of the shopping trip.

After a modestly successful therapy session for Kim, she and Ron said goodbye to Monique and drove back to Upperton.

"Monique and Felix, huh?" Kim said from behind the wheel, halfway to their destination.

"Never would've guessed," Ron mused. "Remember that betting pool on who would end up dating, back in high school? I guess I should be glad they never took my money, I'd never have won anything."

"Did they ever tell you why they didn't want you participating?" She asked, quickly adding, "Not that you should have, of course…"

"Something about me rigging the whole thing. Dunno how, maybe they got me mixed up with Reiger, somehow."

Neither of them was particularly convinced by the explanation, but better ideas were in short supply and the conversation soon shifted.

"What's up with those two," Kim wondered aloud, "they're obviously dating but don't want to tell people that they're dating?"

"Yeah, I don't get it. It's not like either of them should be embarrassed or anything like that. I say 'good on them', hope it works out for them."

"Yeah…"

Chapter Text

Kim stepped onto the fifth and last floor. Even she had to admit that walking up all those flights of stairs was not the most practical of options and that waiting for the elevator wouldn't have been so bad. Ron's door was the furthest from the stairs going down, which gave her a few seconds to catch her breath before ringing the doorbell. It was purely a courtesy, because Kim and Ron had each other's house keys – because of course they did. Kim never understood why people tended to think of that as weird, it never crossed her mind to do things differently. All part of saving the world, of course. And they had great respect for each other's privacy. Of course. So not the drama.

The door opened and she was greeted by the same smile that always greeted her.

"Glad you could make it, KP!" Ron reached out for a hug. "Rufus was pressuring me to get started with dinner and that you'd much prefer that he eat first instead of waiting for you."

"He told you that?" Kim gently teased.

"Not in so many words," Ron admitted. "And I may be embellishing the quote a bit…"

"Just a little bit, no doubt. So, I believe we have pizzas to make?"

"Indeed we do, and rest assured, I asked Rufus to do a sweep of the place, there's not a hint of pineapple that might ruin our day."

Rufus made his way back up to Ron's shoulder and enthusiastically nodded, "All clean!"

"Well," Ron said, "make yourself at home, KP…"

"I like what you've done with the place," she remarked after taking a good look at the dining table, which Ron had set up like a fancy restaurant.

Ron rubbed his neck, slightly embarrassed, "It's a bit overdone since I just have a friend over, I know, but I promised my boss I'd try out a couple of options for the place setting for the new restaurant."

"So not the drama, it's not like we're on a date."

"No, of course not," Ron said with as much emphasis as he could muster, "not that anyone was suggesting that."

"No, of course not."

For an awkward moment, neither friend knew what to say next. Fortunately for them, Rufus was still hungry and soon cued them to get on with making dinner.

Over the years, things had gotten a lot better where Kim and kitchens were concerned. The Upperton fire department didn't even develop the sort of institutional memory their Middleton colleagues dutifully preserved over the years. Still, it was thinking of everyone's best interests that Ron had kept things simple and prepared everything they would need ahead of time.

"Ok, Kim, you know the deal. Sauce, cheese, then the rest of your ingredients."

Kim started off well, but then decided that it would be easier to just turn over the box of pepperoni Ron had prepared. Seeing the impending creation of a big mess, Ron intervened and gently blocked her movement with his hand.

"Too much for one pizza?" She asked.

"Too much for three pizzas, KP. Just grab a few slices."

Kim did as instructed and spread them over her pizza. "Okay, I think it's done," she said.

"Looks good," Ron confirmed. "If you're up for a challenge –"

"You know I'm always up for a challenge," her Kimpetitiveness had entered the room.

"Good, because you'll be making our resident food critic's pizza."

"You mean…"

"Rufus, come tell KP what you want on your pizza."

Instantly, the naked mole rat was on Kim's shoulder, picking out the things she should add to his pizza. This gave Ron enough time to quickly put his own together, with occasional glances over to his right to make sure Rufus wasn't going overboard. Fortunately, the naked mole rat was not in the mood to push his luck, and soon three pizzas were in the oven.

After a very well-received dinner, Rufus scampered off to his bed, leaving Kim and Ron to share a big bowl of popcorn as the cheap melodrama of Agony County threatened to be too much even for its dedicated fan base.

"Please, Danny, don't let that be how you remember me…"

"Charity, if only you knew how much you hurt me."

"But I never meant to, it's not my fault!"

"They just keep dragging it out," Ron complained.

"Things really went downhill after they got together," Kim concurred.

"I think it was the breakup, specifically," Ron added.

"Yeah, that was ferociously wrong." Kim took a deep breath before fully expressing her frustrations with the show, "I mean, she ends up with amnesia, her creepy coworker kisses her, he ends things even though she was just the unwilling kissee, they spend half a season picking the sitch apart, and then they still don't get together again?"

"You know what they need?" "Alien invasion," Ron suggested with absolute conviction. "Nothing like being kidnapped by aliens to understand your true feelings."

"Wouldn't be the stupidest thing they did, remember the one with the creepy babies?"

Ron thought back for a moment, finished his latest handful of popcorn, then answered, "I wish I didn't."

"And... Cliffhanger," Kim announced. "Again."

"TV has for the first time disappointed me so hard I'm going to turn on the radio." He reached for another remote control and followed up on his announcement, a song was on.

More than a woman
More than a woman to me

There are stories old and true
Of people so in love like you and me

The song wouldn't have been Ron's first choice for a variety of reasons. Maybe for a date, but this wasn't a date.

Still, it was Kim and Ron's cue to notice that they were sitting a lot closer on the couch than when they had started watching the soap opera. Without either of them thinking about it or even being consciously aware of it, Kim had snuggled up against Ron. And Ron actually had his arm around her, gently embracing her. They looked into each other's eyes, quickly realizing that even their faces were a lot closer than they expected them to be.

After a few moments, Ron's anxiety broke his dam of coolness, and he hastily removed his arm. "Sorry, KP, I didn't mean, I mean, it wasn't, we're just, I don't know what, oh don't kill me!"

Kim was no less shocked, but slightly more coherent in her words, "Ron… Why would I kill you? We both just got... Carried away, I guess. Besides, it's mostly my fault, it's, uh... Okay, this is embarrassing, but it's been a while since I've, well... I guess the term is 'touch-starved'…"

"Are you serious?" Ron said, then blurted out, "What about your ex?" He regretted saying those words the instant it was too late and braced himself for an awkward moment.

Kim hesitated for a moment, collecting her thoughts, then answered, "It's kinda obvious in hindsight, now that I'm not desperate to hold the relationship together, that it was never gonna work... I don't think he ever really cared all that much about it…"

"His loss," Ron replied.

"That was the Bee Gees with 'More Than A Woman', Bob's favorite from today's Evening Album."

"That's right Bill, and did you know that 'Saturday Night Fever' came out after Star Wars?"

"Wow, I'd never thought of it that way, but you're right. And I guess that's your fun fact for this album."

"It is, Bill."

"That wraps it up, then. Tomorrow's album is Kraftwerk's The Man-Machine. Very different choice, isn't it?"

"That's right, Bill. 1977 was the epitome of Disco, so for 1978 I couldn't just do more of the same."

Ron was growing tired of the radio, too. "Are music royalties really so high that it's cheaper to fill the time with two guys saying so little?"

"I guess they are," Kim answered.

Her head had again found a comfortable position, supported by Ron's shoulder, as they listened to the radio. He decided that his arm's previous position was indeed more comfortable, and since Kim didn't seem to mind, all was well. Until Kim and Ron were startled by the Kimmunicator's ringtone.

Kim sat more upright and fumbled around to extract the device from her pocket, "What's the sitch, Wade?" She said once she managed to fish it out.

"Hey Kim, oh, sorry to interrupt your cuddle session with your boyfriend," alongside his voice, his understanding of social situations had also deepened, fortunately. Though he was still prone to misreading certain things, as the present sitch indicated.

"Hey, Wade," Ron called out as he tried to move into frame, Kim helping him by rotating the Kimmunicator slightly, "no worries, it's just me, Kim's over at my place."

"Wait, but…" Whatever he was going to say, Wade changed his mind and got back to business. "I mean, well, it's not urgent, but two things I've been looking into sort of converged in the last hour. How does a fashion show in Paris tomorrow sound like to you?"

"Better than the book club, for sure," Kim said, a few too many misadventures on her mind.

Wade began to type away, "I'll set things up, then… Uh, where do I have them pick you up?"

Kim didn't understand where the question was coming from. "My place, as usual?"

"O-kay… And Ron?"

"It's not that I mind walking three blocks to get to Kim's," Ron replied, "but if you're going to keep scheduling these pickups for like 7:00 AM, I do appreciate the extra few minutes of sleep."

Somehow, Wade looked ever more confused and distracted.

"You're awfully quiet, Wade," Kim said, "and you haven't told us what the sitch is."

"Oh, right, uh… So, I had feelers out for Shego, as you requested – didn't get anything solid, but one of them matched something else I was looking at. There's a rumor that someone is planning a heist of some sort at the show, but the details are sketchy. At the same time, one of Shego's aliases showed up on the guest list."

"They usually have jewels or other luxury fashion items at these shows, maybe Shego's trying to raise some funds," Kim suggested.

"Or just updating her look," Ron added, drawing an eye roll from Kim. "I'm just saying, she draws attention, so I'm sure she needs to keep changing her look regularly."

Kim narrowed her eyes, "Not sure I like your attention being drawn to Shego…"

Ron tried to defend himself, "On a professional basis!"

"Uh… Guys…" Wade said, interrupting the exchange, "If you don't have any more questions, uhm, pickup's tomorrow at 08:00."

"Thanks Wade. Let us know if you find out anything else," Kim said before hanging up.

"What was up with him?" Ron wondered aloud.

"Yeah," Kim agreed, "he seemed very confused about us hanging out."

"And how come he didn't know you'd broken up with your boyfriend? He used to be the first to know about these things."

With the confirmation that there was no urgent mission, Kim relaxed and again rested her head on Ron's shoulder. "That I can answer – that stopped being the case when I moved out and the Tweebs lost access to my diary… Mostly, anyway."

"Don't get me wrong, but I'm kinda glad they're your brothers and not mine. I get the benefits of being kinda like their big bro, without the drawbacks."

"Hmm… What do I get out of that deal?"

Ron thought for a moment, then offered, "A healthy dose of Ronshine?"

"Good deal," Kim said after contemplating Ron's words. "Hey, since we clearly have a mission tomorrow morning, I should get going." She began to extract herself from the comfortable position she had assumed. "It's been great, and I wish I could stay, it's been a long time since I've had a date as good as this –" She immediately realized that her statement was open to misinterpretation and tried to clear it up. "I mean, I'm not saying this was date –"

"No, of course not," Ron concurred, slightly nervous that the word "date" had been used.

"– it's just I had a great time," she concluded.

"Yeah."

"Yeah…"

After a few too many moments of silence, Kim got up from the couch. "I guess I'll be going home…"

"Yeah, I'll go with you," Ron said, again immediately regretting his imprecise wording, "To the door! I'll show you the door! I mean, not in a bad way, just, agh!"

"It's okay, Ron, I get it…"

He took a deep breath that turned into a sigh, "Why are we so random lately?"

"I wish I knew…"

Chapter Text

Whatever the source of Wade's intel was, it was looking shakier by the minute. Two hours into the show and not even a hint of what Kim and Ron were looking for. Kim was watching the show from the security office of the palace it was being held at. In hindsight, she felt that the better option would've been to blend into the crowd – it would've been about as useful as her camera-based stakeout, but with an excuse to dress up.

"Yo, KP, I'm back, did I miss anything?" Ron said as he entered the room.

"Not really," Kim replied with a yawn. "Did you bring coffee?"

"Sure did, and I spoke to some of the bartenders," he gave her one of the large coffees he was holding. "They did hear the same rumor about the heist, but no details."

"GJ's teams are all in place if Shego does show up," Kim replied. She turned back to look at the security monitors, "Would be nice if they stuck out less, though."

"You think Betty Director will let me give them some chillaxing lessons?"

"Maybe if you don't refer to yourself as 'the Ronman' and don't call it 'chillaxing'…"

"Don't mess with the system, KP –" Ron did a double take and pointed at one of the monitors. "Now that is an expensive car. "

"What car?" To Kim, none of the cars stood out in a sea of luxury brands.

"The green one," Ron answered, pointing at the monitor, "the Bonzini Tornado, those things are so expensive that you basically need to be able to afford your own private island to have one."

"Did you say 'private island'?"

"Yeah, rumor has it that if you get accepted to buy one, they actually sell for 'only' three mil – Private island! The Seniors!"

"They're probably here to steal the jewelry collection," Kim speculated.

"But it's not like them to keep such a low profile, villain code and all that. And there's still the matter with Shego… You figure she's tutoring Junior again?"

"It would neatly explain things…"

"What would?" Will Du had just walked into the security office. "Did you find anything?"

"Yeah, man," Ron replied, "did you notice the Tornado parked in the VIP lot in the back?"

"Expensive toy… No, I was by the main entrance the whole time. Didn't they only make fifteen of them?"

"Right, and I bet the Seniors have one of them," Ron concluded.

"Not the craziest thing I've heard today, but we also haven't seen any concrete signs that they're here…"

"We're going to try and spot them in person," Kim said, "keep an eye on the cameras, please and thank you."

Will was unconvinced, "Sounds like a fool's errand, but be my guest, and please take the mole rat along. I'm not in the mood to have my food disappear if I leave it out of sight for five seconds," he added, theatrically taking an energy bar out of his pocket and opening it up.

Kim and Ron left him behind and made their way to the event proper. The public areas were crawling with elegantly-dressed guests, private security wearing bland, cheap cookie-cutter suits, not-so-elegantly-dressed guests, and fashion disasters aplenty – but no sign of the Seniors. Meanwhile, models walked the runway, slightly elevated from the floor where the guests stood around observing the latest wares of the designers with enough reputation to earn or enough cash to bribe their way into the prestigious show. Kim and Ron each searched one side of the runway, then met in the middle. At the end of a brand's presentation, the lights were slowly dimmed after the last models made their exit from the runway and the emcee's voice was heard, "And now, for the world premiere of what will definitely be one of the hottest brands of Spring/Summer 2010. Please give a big round of applause for… Emilio."

The large screen behind the stage began to show what had to be one of the laziest brands ever, consisting of the name "Emilio" in a black plain, sans-serif font over a light grey background.

"This is going to either be the biggest flop or the biggest success ever," Ron commented as the music slowly returned, announcing the imminent appearance of the new brand's models.

"Head in the game, Ron," Kim said as she swept the crowd, "we still need to find the Seniors."

"Uh… KP… I… Uh… Stage."

"Ron, this is a lot easier if you use complete sentences…" Her voice trailed off as she, too, saw what Ron had seen. On the runway, a podium had been wheeled out in the dark, which elevated a figure surrounded by the models showing off the brand. "It's Senior Junior!"

"Good evening, Paris! Thank you all for coming to the launch of my new brand, it is so exciting!" Junior said, his pitch reaching ever impressive highs. "Two years ago, I said to myself that it was time to grow out of wanting to be a Pop sensation…"

Kim had heard enough, "Let's roll."

"Uh, Kim, I think he mig –" Ron's sentence was interrupted as he was dragged along and practically thrown onto the stage, causing some minor commotion among the nearby spectators and stretching the runway models' acting skills as they attempted to maneuver around the pair.

"…my own brand, Emilio, as a reflection of – Kim Possible!?"

"Time's up Junior," she said, "whatever you're planning, it's over!"

"I do not understand. Did Father send you? I told him I did not want to live the life of a villain."

Kim was confused enough that she didn't have an answer ready. She slowly became aware of the growing parade of camera flashes illuminating the scene.

Junior did not let Kim and Ron's presence deter him for long, he resumed his speech, "I am launching my own brand and naming it after the one thing I love the most in life: myself!"

"Excuse me," Ron shouted from below, "did you by any chance tell your friends you were going to steal the show?"

"I may have said something to that effect," Junior replied, annoyed, then turned his attention back to the crowd, "because the launch today is magnificent! A big round of applause for our head designer, mister Sato!"

The crowd applauded as Junior's designer joined him up on the raised platform. Kim and Ron looked at each other, trying to figure out their next move.

"Emilio is going to be the next big thing in fashion," Junior continued, "our Spring/Summer line is going to be absolutely electrifying!" As if on cue, he started shrieking in pain and fell to the floor of his platform, right next to his very shocked designer.

"I got him!"

Kim and Ron looked back, Will Du stood just behind them, holding a spent taser and still catching his breath.

"Dude! Did you not hear what he said?"

"No, Stoppable, I did not," he answered. "The moment I saw him get up on stage I came running from the security office with the only taser we had on hand, before he could escape."

"It was all just a publicity stunt that got misinterpreted," Kim said. "He's launching a fashion label named after himself…"

The realization slowly became evident on Will's face – he was in for a long talk with Dr. Director on the merits of not shooting before asking questions. Other GJ agents had flocked to the stage and the spectators began to trade whispers, it was beginning to be too much for Team Possible. Kim and Ron looked at each other again and silently agreed that it was time to let the professionals deal with the mess they made.

"Tell you what, Will," Ron said, "call us if any real villains show up. Don't want us freelancers getting in the way of your work…"

"Senior Junior's name is… Emilio?" It looked like Will hadn't yet snapped out of his 'made a mess' epiphany.

"Well, duh," Ron replied, "he's only been in the news for, like, seven or eight years?"

"And we're supposed to be the amateurs…" Kim said as she and Ron casually made their way to an exit, walking against the stream of paramedics, private security for the event, local cops, GJ agents and the odd journalist.

"That's a lot of heat for just the Seniors," Ron commented.

"Well, you know, everyone was prepared in case Shego showed up," Kim said.

"But then it's a lot of heat 'just in case'. I mean, sure she's kinda dangerous, but it's not like she's done anything in, like, six years? Come to think of it, we never did run into her after the whole Bueno Nacho thi –"

"I just know she's waiting to strike," Kim said a bit more forcefully than she had intended.

Ron was still skeptical, but chose not to insist.

Once outside the building, Kim took the Kimmunicator and made a call, "Wade, your intel was off."

"It was?"

"The whole 'stealing' thing? Well, Junior put that out there to brag about his new fashion label."

Wade was clearly confused, "The Seniors are doing fashion now?"

"No, just Junior, apparently," Ron said. "By the way, did you know his name is Emilio?"

"Uh, yeah. It's in his file. Don't you read the emails I send you?"

"I know it's his name, but GJ's top agent was – Wait, you send me emails?"

"Yeah," Wade said, 'ron at teampossible dot com'."

"I have an at teampossible dot com email?"

The exchange was wearing on Kim, "You boys can figure that out some other time, the point is that there's nothing going on. We'll be in town until after the show is over, so just call us on the off chance Shego does show up."

"Will do, enjoy Paris," Wade answered, adding a wink at the end that neither Kim nor Ron had a good interpretation for, and ended the call.

"Well, we're on our own in Paris for the next three hours," she said, a little more relaxed.

"I say we find a restaurant and sit down for dinner/lunch. You know how cranky Rufus gets when you mix jet lag with hunger."

Rufus rubbed his belly to reinforce Ron's words and the group began to walk in whatever direction Ron's instincts had pointed them. A few minutes later, Ron's phone rang. Although he typically kept it silenced during missions, the mission was basically over anyway, so he'd turned up the ringer again.

"Yello. Hey boss-man. Oh, they did? Finally! So we're cool for Valentine's? Awesome! Yeah, I'd be happy to, not going to turn down a free meal, hehe. Alright, talk to you tomorrow!"

"Good news?" Kim asked, tilting her head slightly.

"Yeah, they finally delivered the stoves for the new restaurant, so it's good to open on Saturday."

"The day before Valentine's… Is that going to work out well?"

"Half the team is moving over from the old one, so they'll be fine. Especially after getting some practice on Friday." Seeing Kim's inquisitive eyebrow raise, Ron added, "Soft opening night for friends and family on Friday, and the boss asked me to show up to give them feedback in exchange for a free meal for me and a plus one. You up for it?"

"Sounds spankin'," she answered.

"There is one catch, though, it's a fancier place, so we have to dress nicely."

Kim began to raise her hand as prelude to voicing her concerns, but Ron preempted her, "Don't worry, my dad's tux is not going to see its second use. I, uh, well, let's just say Tara drew a line in the sand when I suggested I might wear it to the prom. That sort of got the message across."

Kim frowned slightly, but soon pointed out a restaurant they were approaching, "Hey, this one looks good, let's go for it."

Ron had no reason to say no, and a hairless rodent impatient for his next meal, so they entered the restaurant and were quickly seated. Space was tight, and they had another occupied table just outside arm's reach of theirs. After ordering, Ron looked around, seeking good ideas to replicate and bad ones to avoid. Instead, his attention was quickly grabbed by the table next to his, where a couple sat. He couldn't get a good look at the woman, her long black hair stood out in the corner of his eye, but not nearly as much as the man she was with.

"KP," he whispered, "I think Barkin's sitting right next to you…"

"What? Don't be silly, Ron, it can't possibly…" She turned her head slightly to peek and was shocked to see that Ron might actually be right.

"OK, it might be Barkin, but you shouldn't –"

"Yo, Mr. B!"

The man turned, it was indeed Barkin, and he was not happy to see that it was Ron calling out to him. He took a deep breath and sighed.

"Stoppable."

Kim could do little more than hope for the best at this point.

"Funny meeting you here, Mr. B."

"Very funny," Barkin replied ironically.

"Someone you know, Stevie?" Barkin's date asked.

Kim looked at her, trying to figure out whom she resembled, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it. Black hair, green eyes…

Barkin sighed again, "Yes, dear. Former students of mine."

Ron took that as permission to ramble, "You know, I was skeptical about the whole senator thing – to be honest I didn't vote for you, but I was wrong. As it turns out, the same character traits that make a fascist assistant principal who oppresses his students into conforming to his concept of what school should be like are actually great for getting legislation through Congress."

Barkin was growing visibly more irritated, but Kim was still focused on his date. She seemed familiar, somehow.

"That's what I told Stevie when the idea of running for the Senate came up!" She turned to Barkin, "And aren't you going to introduce us? Where are your manners?"

Defeated, Barkin mumbled, "Victoria, Ron Stoppable, Kim Possible. Possible, Stoppable, my wife Victoria."

"Nice to meet you ma'am," Ron announced cheerfully.

"A pleasure," Kim added.

Ron decided to ask the obvious question, "Hey, shouldn't you be in Washington, you know, working?"

"You know what a filibuster is, Stoppable?"

"Of course, someone speaks forever without yielding," Ron replied without hesitation.

"Good to see that something stuck. Anyway, my colleague from Puerto Rico is doing a filibuster to protest… To be honest, I'm not sure I understand it, something about a tax deduction Smarty Mart has been abusing by categorizing their stores as traditional farmers' markets."

As Kim was still trying to figure out where she knew this Victoria woman from, it fell to Ron to try and poke holes in the story.

"Uhh, I'm not sure that really makes sense, Mr. B."

Barkin raised his voice, "Look, he's doing the mother of all filibusters, nothing's getting done until next week, at best, and I'm not going to waste away our anniversary stuck in DC."

"I mean, sure, I get that," Ron said, "but Puerto Rico isn't even a state."

Barkin ran his hand over his face, "It's a long story, Stoppable. I'll tell it if you tell me what kind of security detail I need to keep you off my back."

"Geez, I dunno, I don't think there's a security detail on this planet that could keep KP and me away… Except the president's, or maybe vice-president's."

Barkin's expression shifted, as if the proverbial lightbulb had suddenly been lit. Ron was going to push for the story, but Kim spoke up first.

"Shego."

"Huh," Ron said. Barkin and his wife didn't seem to know what to make of Kim's statement either.

"Sorry," she said, "it's just that you really remind me of someone we know."

"Oh yeah," Ron said, "yeah, I see the resemblance." Her face was a bit more rounded, not to mention the much more natural, if pale, skin tone. However, he knew better than to verbalize his detailed analysis.

"Another former student of yours, Stevie?"

"No, I don't think so," he answered, his eyes darting around until they found the help they sought. "Waiter, check please."

"It must be great to see your former students grow up to be productive members of society."

"Great, honey," Barkin said as the bill arrived. He quickly rose from his chair and said a well-rehearsed "Good night," which did little to disguise his eagerness to be anywhere else.

"Don't mind him, he's shy," His wife said, "So nice meeting you, I hope you enjoy the rest of your stay in Paris and have a wonderful date!"

Neither she nor Barkin stuck around long enough to see the shock on the two friends' faces.

Ron spoke first, "B… Barkin thinks we're… dating?"

"Gorchy…"Kim said, before hastily adding, "Not that I'm saying that it'd be gorchy, I meant Barkin…"

"No worries, KP. I… Uh… Know exactly what you mean.

Chapter Text

"So yeah, gonna make sure they know what they're doing before the big date and ah-booyah! Wait! No! What? But how!?"

"Sorry, I'm still the king of Zombie Mayhem and most fighting games, beat-em-ups and rhythm games."

Felix's gloating did little to answer Ron's question, "Dude, I was a thousand points ahead with five seconds on the clock!"

"Sorry man, I had an epic ten-brain combo lined up. I thought I might get one or two more, but I figured I'd play it safe and cash it all in."

"I think I had more fun when Monique was distracting you the other day."

"Well, I hear you have some quote-unquote 'distractions' lined up for later," Felix countered.

"Oh? Ah, yeah, new restaurant. Gotta work on my food critic persona."

"That's not what I meant," Felix answered as Ron messed around with the stage select screen, "but since you mention it – it's not about being a food critic, you have to show them who's boss."

"But I'm not the boss," Ron said, just before picking the 'Military Base' stage.

"Oh, but you are. He's going to be busy managing the team, you're going to have to speak up when they get things wrong."

"And what, show them a slide show with a chart of their KPIs on opening night in between tables?"

"Nah, you're overthinking it," Felix said as the TV screen filled with zombies. "It's not the 'what', it's the 'how', you need to dress to impress, keep them on their toes, make sure you're the scariest guest they have all night so that they're ready for the real deal when someone like the mayor, or even a congressman shows up."

"Speaking of politicians, did I mention we ran into Barkin in Paris?"

"Twice, man." Felix continued his prior train of thought, "My point is that you can't go dressed like 'MBA Ron', you need to dress like 'Big Boss Ron'."

"Yeah, I think Monique's contaminating you with too much fashion stuff."

"I'm not the one who's been going to fashion shows in Paris!"

"Well, we were there to catch Shego," Ron countered.

"Shego? Still doing that wild goose chase?"

"You know how KP is when she sets her mind to something."

"Still," Felix said, "it's been years since you two even glimpsed her."

"I won't pretend to understand why Kim is so focused on taking her down, specifically, but she's not a great one to have running around. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad we managed to finally nab Drakken for good back in '04, but I always thought Shego was the more dangerous – Oh come on, no way that hit connected! They broke the collision detection again!"

"Sorry, Ron, you just need to get better. Another round?"

"Sorry, man, I've gotta get going. I didn't think I was going to take as long as I did at my folks', I was just going to drop off Rufus so he and Hana can spend the weekend together, but then she started one of her crazy play sessions, and you know my mom and dad can't handle that."

"Right, don't want to be late for your hot date," Felix teased.

"Whatever man, same time next week at my place?"

"You got it!"

Ron drove home, the silence in Rufus' absence never ceased to feel weird, but the split custody arrangement was loved by both him and Ron's sister, so he could hardly protest. Once home, he brushed his teeth, changed his clothes, and left in a hurry. Ron hoped he wasn't overdoing it, after all, it wasn't like they were going on a date. Still, Felix's words had left him anxious about dressing the part, so he ended up wearing dark jeans with a light blue dress shirt and sport jacket, the latter a Smarty Mart package deal from a year prior with the purchase of a DVD player (HD was still not proven to not be just a fad, though that had changed after three or four months), hamster wheel (Rufus much preferred the less speciesist 'rodent wheel'), and quad-pack of insect repellent spray (good for two and a half missions to most jungles and rainforests or one and a third journeys through the purgatory on Earth aptly named Lake Wannaweep).

The elevator announced its arrival on the seventh floor, and Ron stepped out and turned right. The building was laid out with two apartments accessible to the left of the elevators and a third to the right and was maybe a year or two newer than Ron's, just enough for the small differences to show. He rang Kim's doorbell and looked back at one of the doors on the other end of the hallway – one of Kim's neighbors still had their Christmas decorations up. Thankfully the mistletoe was plastic, otherwise the scene would've been depressing and not just untimely.

Kim gave herself one last chance to go change. She wasn't uncomfortable or anything, but she hadn't dressed quite like this in more than a few years. The fit was still good, and the weather was surprisingly cooperative. In the end, she told herself that she was overthinking it and that her look suited the atmosphere Ron had described: 'elegant, sort of business casual with less of a professional overtone'.

"Girl, I have no idea what the hell that means," she recalled Monique telling her. "And you know what that means."

"Uh, what does it mean?"

"It means LBD."

"I'm not sure that really –"

"Kim, you have no idea what you're going to find, but you're a guest of honor at a restaurant's grand opening."

"Plus one at a friends and family soft opening…"

"This is why you're not a marketing major. Guest of honor. So, eyes will be on you, more than usual. And you need to look the part, without looking out of place. That means you accessorize, a lot, and then selectively get rid of the things that don't work out."

"Like a sweater?"

"Now you're getting it – but think bigger."

"Overcoat?" Kim had meant it a lot less facetiously than it ended up sounding, but her thoughts were derailed by the ringing of the doorbell. She wasn't going to make Ron wait needlessly, she was not one to play silly games with dates. Much less with friends.

She opened the door, it was silent enough that Ron didn't notice – he was still inspecting the Clarksons' ferociously overdue-for-removal decorations.

"Hey, Ron." He looked good. As usual, Monique was right, he should wear baggy clothes less often.

"Oh, hey KP," Ron began to turn around, "I was kinda surprised these…" His words trailed off as he saw Kim, his jaw dropped, though not quite as much as the last time she had worn that dress – simple, sleeveless, and short.

"Too much? I'm kinda having a déjà vu here," she said, with a nervous smile.

Ron began to recompose himself, "Wow, uh, sorry, I was, uh, caught off guard… No, you look great… And there's no such thing as bon-diggity babe who's too well-dressed." He couldn't really put a finger on it, but Kim's look had just the right elegant touch. Simple gold earrings and her wristwatch-sized Kimmunicator replaced what had once been bright red accessories. She was wearing heels, that much was obvious from the fact that her height now seemed to match or even slightly exceed Ron's, but he couldn't say much more about them, his gaze didn't seem to make it that far down before he needed to make a concerted effort not to stare.

"So, lead the way?" Kim suggested. Of course, she knew the way, but it was Ron's name on the reservation. And he looked like he needed a gentle nudge in the right direction.

"Huh? Oh, yeah, if you're ready."

Kim nodded and stepped out into the hallway, locking the door behind them. Ron offered his arm, which was unexpected, but not something she was going to turn down, that would just be a sign of insecurity. And rude.

They took the elevator down and walked a few minutes to the restaurant. All the renovation work had ended, obviously, but the signs on the wall were still covered.

"Feels a bit transgressive," Kim said.

"Uhh… School word?"

"Improper, Ron…"

"Oh, well, it's a matter of perspective, I guess," he said "it's best to not overthink it. Waste of energy, you know?"

They were approached by Ron's colleague, who greeted them as he would any other customer – apart from a wink at the end.

"Yo, Mike," Ron said to the maître d', "Reservation for two, please."

"Excellent, we set you up with the Chef's Table."

"That was not part of this deal, Mike," Ron said.

"Chef Juan says otherwise. Don't worry, you two look the part, couldn't have asked for a better-looking couple."

Kim blushed and Ron let out an annoyed grumble. The Chef's Table had been his idea, taking the concept and making it more approachable to typical customers, while making the best of an annoying pair of pillars that obstructed the mostly-open dining room – by setting up some flower pots between them, they had set up a table that was more intimate and closer to the kitchen than to the rest of the guests, but not completely disconnected from the restaurant's experience. Great for dates, a bit awkward for two best friends on a fun night out everyone else seemed to insist was a date. Still, they both made the best of it.

Due to the tight timeline involved, both Friday's and Saturday's services had been set up for the Valentine's special menu – special for the restaurant, simplifying things and allowing for more prep than usual to be frontloaded during the day. Kim chose the pan-seared salmon, Ron the New York strip steak, and both accepted the suggested wine pairings along with the 'chef's appetizer of the day'".

"You know, Ron, I like this spot," Kim said shortly after they had ordered. "It's surprisingly quiet, despite the kitchen being right over there."

"The trick is the glass," Ron explained, "it helps to deflect some of the noise, and nothing ruins the illusion of being a special guest like too much noise."

"So, how come we get the honor?"

Ron thought about it for a moment, then decided it was best to go to the source, "Excuse me for a sec." He got up and approached the glass-less section of the counter. "Yo, boss-man," he yelled into the kitchen, drawing a few looks, including Chef Juan's, "when you have a minute, KP wants to talk to you!"

"Two minutes," the man answered.

Ron acknowledged this with a nod and rejoined Kim at the table.

"You sure it's okay?" Kim asked, "I don't want to bother him while the whole kitchen is busy."

"No, it's okay, don't want things to go too smoothly and give them a false sense of security for Sunday."

"So what you're saying is that your job today is to cause distractions," she teased.

"Ah-Booyah."

Ron's boss soon showed up at their table, "Miss Possible, welcome! It's a great honor to have you dining with us, I hope you are enjoying the Chef's Table."

"It's a nice spot," she answered with a smile.

"Thank you, we tried to make it that little bit more romantic, for our special guests. It's not every day that we have customers who save the world as often as you do."

"That's because I work for you and don't normally pay to eat at work," Ron jabbed, drawing a few laughs.

"Really, Miss Possible, thank you for everything and thank you for being here with us, today. I'd just like to ask you to stay just a minute after your meal so that we can take the first of what I hope will be many pictures of illustrious guests that we can hang by the entrance."

"No big," Kim replied, "we'd be happy to."

The two friends discussed the restaurant's décor while they waited for their mystery appetizer, it was a far cry from the old pizzeria that had occupied the space for two decades. Cheesy granite tiles were replaced with classy wood trim, steel chairs gave way to wooden ones, real cloth towels instead of paper liners… Their discussion was interrupted by the arrival of the appetizers.

The mystery was not quite what they were being served, but 'what the hell is the chef thinking?' – a young waiter delivered two plates with chunks of melon topped with slices of some sort of dry-cured ham, maybe prosciutto. The two friends looked at each other, the same thought on both their faces: this would either be terrible or great, there was no middle ground.

"On three…" Kim suggested

Ron nodded. "One… Two… Three…"

Quickly, the bizarre combination proved itself worthy and overcame the two friends' skepticism.

"Wow," Kim said, "this is really good."

"Sure beats my expectations," Ron agreed, "whoever put these two together should get a medal," he added, waving his knife around as pointing stick. "Pretty easy to make, too, and we can prep it in advance. Yeah, it's really going to make things easier on Sunday…"

"So you're going to spend the whole day working, like last year?"

"Yeah, pretty much. Market run in the morning, lunch service, then the whole afternoon prepping, and finally dinner. I think the last reservation is for 9:30, so yeah, long day." Ron sighed, then added, "It's, like, the one day of the year when I'm happy to not have a girlfriend…"

"You can always celebrate with her a day or two later," Kim suggested. "Or earlier."

"I'll cross that bridge when I get there, KP…"

In the meantime, their main courses had arrived, and the young waiter was struggling with the large plates. Though the food looked delicious, its presentation was ruined by the mess that developed on the way to their table, leaving Ron no option but to speak up.

"Hey man, you have to pay attention to what you're doing. Chef Juan spent his time plating this perfectly for our guest of honor, you can't just press another plate into the food – look, the mashed potatoes look ridiculous, like someone sat on them, and the steak… Ah, geez, the plate's all dirty underneath."

"Sorry, Chef Ron… I'll get this fixed right away."

As the young waiter hurried away with the plates, Ron let out a frustrated sigh. "Sorry about that, KP, they'll have it fixed in just a minute."

"It's no big, really," she answered with a smile.

Some indistinct shouting was heard coming from the kitchen, evidently related to the messy delivery of Kim and Ron's food.

"I hope he's not getting into trouble," Kim said.

"Don't worry, Rich is a good kid and Chef Juan knows that. He's just frustrated, but it's an easy fix, the mashed potatoes are always ready to go, and my plate will clean up easily."

Indeed, he was soon back with both dishes correctly presented and with another waiter in tow, who offered the two friends more wine.

"Please and thank you," Kim answered.

"Thanks," Ron said after their glasses were refilled.

The food was excellent, as was to be expected. It was Kim's first opportunity to taste Chef Juan's menu, but knowing that Ron worked for him was all she really needed to know. For his part, Ron was satisfied that the team was working well enough on opening night, even if they weren't facing the full rush of real customers yet – but more than that, he was happy that Kim was enjoying the experience, her smile gave him the confidence he needed for what was definitely going to be a tricky weekend.

"Excuse me for a minute, KP, I have to go to the bathroom," he said after they'd ordered dessert.

Kim smiled in acknowledgement and Ron walked to the restrooms in the back. Standing at the urinal, he began to hear familiar voices.

"…was totally, I dunno…"

"It's not personal, Chef Ron's a great guy, but he has to correct your mistakes – better him than a customer."

"I guess, I mean, he wasn't mean or anything…"

"See what I mean?"

"Yeah… I guess he's also gotta impress his wife."

The older server chuckled at his colleague's words.

"What? Have you seen her? Wow, she's… Holy crap, I was, like, speechless."

"Don't watch the news much, do you? She's Kim Possible."

"Wait, the Kim Possible? Holy crap, I gotta – "

"You gotta stay professional, that's you gotta do. And, by the way, they're not married."

"Probably not too far off, the way they look at each other."

Finished with his business, Ron washed his hands, walked out of the restroom and straight into the neighboring staff room. "Yo, fellas," he said, "turns out you can hear everything that's said in here while you're standing at the urinals next door. We're going to have to figure out some way of fixing that, but until then, try and keep things quiet and professional in here."

"Can do, Chef Ron," the older waiter answered, "right, Rich?"

The younger one's face was pale, and he couldn't muster an answer.

"Chill," Ron said, "no harm done and we've all learned a lesson: Don't discuss the customers until after they've left the premises."

"Yes, Chef Ron," the young waiter finally answered, and Ron made his way back to Kim.

"What's the sitch?" she asked after Ron rejoined her at the table, he obviously had something on his mind.

"Nothing much, just a little detail about the men's room that we'll need to fix." It wasn't a lie, but it was not the full story either, and he knew better than to try to lie to Kim – he wasn't good at it, not that it mattered with her Puppy Dog Pout. "Turns out you can hear the staff gossiping in the staff room from the men's room next door."

"How bad?"

"By restaurant gossip standards? Like a 2 out of 10. But it's a bad look, especially if they were to gossip about special guests, that's just sick and wrong."

"So…" Kim said, "What're they saying about us?"

Ron ripped off the awkward band-aid, "Rich thought we were married."

Kim laughed, "Obviously, he's not into gossip rags. Somehow, my fiasco date on Monday ran on two or three of them yesterday."

"Let me guess," Ron said, "'Kim Possible ASSAULTS boyfriend after he FAILS TO SATSIFY her on DATE FROM HELL'. Emphasis theirs."

"Close," she replied, "'Kim Possible THROWS OUT ex-boyfriend in NIGHTMARE DATE gone wrong.' The other one was something like 'threatens to throw date OUT THE WINDOW'."

"They're getting better sources than they used to," Ron mused.

Kim shrugged, "I guess that's because Bonnie's not in the neighborhood to feed them trash about me."

The arrival of their desserts was a welcome distraction from Kim's worries. Seven Layers of Heaven, with a side of ice cream.

Kim immediately took a bite of hers, while Ron inspected his own slice. He cut off a small cross-section and tasted it.

Kim couldn't help but poke fun at him, "Does it meet with your approval, Chef Ron?"

He theatrically looked around for eavesdroppers, then whispered, "Mine's better. Great team, but they don't have the special touch needed to make this perfect."

"Hmm, special touch… You're planning on sharing, I hope?"

"I could probably be persuaded…"

"Sounds like a challenge," she said with a devious grin.

Neither slice of cake lasted long, and it was soon time for the picture that would inaugurate the VIP wall. Alex, one of the waiters, brought out a camera and snapped the picture of Kim, Ron, and Chef Juan standing in front of the still-busy kitchen. Once they were shown the result, it dawned on Kim and Ron that they were perhaps a bit too close to each other and that people might get the wrong idea. But drawing attention to that fact felt like it would be counterproductive, so neither of them objected to the picture. They would just have to live with looking like a happy couple in some picture that would hopefully soon be lost in a sea of pictures of more famous people.

Ron decided to move on from the subject as quickly as possible. "Have a minute for some feedback for the team?"

"Let's talk tomorrow so the whole team can hear it," his boss replied. "Besides… You probably have other plans or, dare I say, obligations?"

"Not really, no, Rufus is with my sister and KP and I don't have plans, but yeah, tomorrow's a good idea."

It was a good thing, too, Kim was looking forward to spending some more time with Ron – taking thirty or sixty minutes out of the evening to discuss the finer points of running a restaurant was so not her idea of fun. The plans would just have to materialize during the walk back to her place.

As they walked out of the restaurant, Kim's attempts at planning something were derailed when Ron surprised her by putting his arm around her. More surprising than that, it wasn't all that awkweird.

"I had a great time, Ron," she said as they arrived at the entrance to her building.

Ron almost suggested another walk around the block but figured it would just be silly. Instead, he simply answered, "Same, KP…"

"It's still pretty early…" She hesitated before suggesting, "Want to come join me for coffee and a movie?"

"Sounds great, sure," Ron said.

Kim and Ron walked into the building and took the elevator up to the seventh floor. Ron's arm was still around Kim's waist, keeping her close in an arrangement that suited them both, only broken when Kim reached into her purse to grab her house keys.

"Make yourself at home, I'll get the coffee going," she said as she took off her shoes.

"Sure, I'll get the TV set up," Ron said. He approached the TV and examined the open DVD box set that sat in front of it. "Hey," he shouted in the direction of Kim's kitchen, "Pals Season 4 Disc 2 is next up, are we going for that one?"

"Sure," Kim answered in the distance.

Ron inserted the disc, picked up the remote for the DVD player, and sat on the couch. Kim joined him with two large mugs of coffee just in time for the last of the seemingly infinite copyright warnings and unskippable ads.

"Didn't we watch this one last week?" Ron asked once the cold open gave way to the intro.

"No, last week she broke up with Bobby," Kim replied, "now she's breaking up with Billy."

"Seems slightly derivative…"

"The first half of Season 4 was bumpy…" After taking another sip of her coffee, Kim continued, "It was rushed, so they had to recycle discarded ideas."

As they continued watching, both Kim and Ron settled into more comfortable positions on the couch. Coincidentally, these positions also involved a lot more physical proximity, though neither of them minded this.

"I have five dates lined up for the next three days, it's going to be great."

"Jim, how the hell do you want to make that work?"

Ron felt the need to express his dissatisfaction with the writing, "These B-plots are getting outrageous."

"Yeah," Kim concurred, "any guy with half a brain would schedule that better."

"I actually meant the 'five dates' part," Ron said. "It's hard enough to get one date, and they want me to believe that guy can get five in less than a week? That's giving kids the wrong expectations!"

"I… I think I see your point, Ron… And if you have it rough, I'd hate to imagine what other guys go through…"

He gave Kim a puzzled look, "What do you mean, KP?"

"Well, uh, you've kinda been on a few dates recently."

"I mean, sure, but they've all either been terrible or total disasters. Okay, maybe one or two or decent, but the second date was inevitably a disaster!" Ron realized he was beginning to whine and tried to come back down to Earth, "It makes you feel a special kind of unattractive when you figure out that a girl only went out with you to get a free meal."

"You do realize a lot of girls are attracted to you? I mean, legitimately, not like what you mentioned…"

"Well, if that's true, prove it," he said. Almost immediately, he regretted his words, it was an automatic response more than anything else, and a fairly rude one, too. But before he could issue a retraction, Kim was upon him, locking lips with him and holding him tightly.

She had taken his words a bit more literally than he'd intended and wasted little time before answering the challenge. Kim had missed the fireworks, and their return helped her push aside her built-up anxieties and doubts, validating her actions. A few seconds later, she moved her head back just enough to be able to focus on Ron's face and was glad to see that he was obviously enjoying the experience, his goofy grin alleviating her worst fears.

"Wow," he said.

Kim felt herself blushing, "Oh, come on, you don't need to act like it's your first kiss… Or even our first kiss," she added, shyly. Like all those years ago, Ron had really gotten into it after overcoming the initial shock.

"I, uh, well…" Ron struggled to assemble a meaningful thought, "I'm not used to, uh, making out with a babe of, uhm, of your caliber?"

Kim giggled, "That's sweet of you to say, but don't sell yourself short." She had moved over onto Ron's lap and was about to move in for another kiss when he preempted her by kissing her first.

"It just gets better," he said quietly, almost to himself. "Thanks, KP, this is awesome…"

"Oh, you're not getting away with it just like that," she said. Kim saw the apprehension building up in Ron's eyes and quickly moved to quash it. She took his right hand, which had slid down her back, and guided it back up to her neck. "There's the zipper. Get to work," she whispered her demand into his ear.

"You mean you want me to –"

"Please and thank you." In the face of his speechlessness, she added, "This is where you say 'booyah'…"

Chapter Text

Kim let out a contended "hmmm" as she was awoken by the sunlight entering her window. "Ron…" She groped around blindly next to her, but soon realized that she was alone. "Ron?" She sat up against the headboard and looked around. She saw her dress hanging neatly on the wall, then looked more closely at her bed – it was messy, but it wouldn't have been the first time, even without company…

Kim stretched for a moment, then got up and retrieved a nightgown from her closet, which she slipped into. Her room seemed a little bit too tidy for her recollection of the past night. She opened the door to the room and immediately smelled what she could best describe as 'breakfast', which led her to the kitchen, where Ron – dressed in what seemed to be a spare set of mission clothes – was cooking.

"Good morning, KP," he said once he noticed her presence, "I didn't want to wake you, so I figured I'd make you breakfast. I'll bring it to you in bed in just a minute, ok?"

"Spankin'," Kim answered. She returned to bed, satisfied with her sitch even though she didn't fully understand it yet. Ron soon showed up with their breakfast, he assembled two trays, gave one to Kim, and sat down on her bed, facing her.

Neither she nor Ron seemed eager to discuss the elephant in the room as they ate the elaborate breakfast he'd prepared – in fact, it was better than Kim had seen at some hotels Wade had arranged on short notice, with scrambled eggs, toast, bacon, pancakes, and way more fruit than she had at home.

"I went to the corner store to stock up," he said in response to her confused look, "I may have overdone the fruit."

"It's okay, as long as you help me out," she said, though it sounded a bit more like a tease than she'd intended.

"Yeah, sure," he said.

They ate their breakfast, chitchatting and doing their best to avoid the sensitive subject.

"Thanks, Ron, I needed that," Kim said when she finished.

Ron was just about done with his, with one or two grapes left on his plate. "Hey, breakfast in bed is the least I can do for you." The distractions had run their course, so he tried to reach for the speech he'd rehearsed practically since getting up, "I, uh… I won't be offended if you say it's never gonna happen again –"

"Ron…"

"– wildest dreams, and I never meant to make things awkward, and I realize we both had a –"

"Ron," she said more forcefully.

"– consent and all that. So yeah, I'm willing to just put this behind us and we can go on with our lives."

"Here's a better idea…" Kim got out of bed and, with slow, deliberate movements, took off the nightgown she had put on not too long ago. Whatever conflict Ron had going on inside his head was quickly won by the 'take it all in' side and he made little effort to disguise it – which only encouraged Kim. "How about you join me in the shower," she said, emphasizing her suggestion with her finger.

"But… Th… They say shower sex is awful," Ron blurted out.

Kim was not about to let that deter her, "So not the drama, we'll just have to get creative. I'm sure we can find ways of… having fun," she said with a grin.

Later, Kim and Ron stepped out of the shower and back into her room, still exchanging kisses, and threw themselves onto the bed.

"Oh, snap!" Kim had just glanced at her alarm clock, "I promised Monique I'd meet her for brunch in 20 minutes! I've gotta get dressed!"

"And I have to be at work in 30 minutes!" Ron rushed to put on his clothes from the day before, they only had to get him home as there was no way he'd show up dressed like that, it would invite way more gossip than he was comfortable being the protagonist of. As Kim rushed out of her bathroom, he reached out to briefly put his arm around her and bring her close for a kiss. "I'm off work at 8:00 PM, dinner at my place?"

Kim accepted Ron's offer without hesitation, "Sounds spankin'."

"Alright, see you later, babe," he said just before rushing out the door.

Much as Kim would have liked to enjoy the moment, she had appearances to keep up, and showing up late was not going to be conducive to that. Neither was the very visible hickey on her neck. Some makeup could've largely disguised it, but it would have taken too long – instead, her cunning plan was to just wear her mission outfit, since nobody would realistically question her wearing it and the black turtleneck would probably do a good job covering up the evidence. Kim dashed out to meet Monique, thankful that they were meeting at a nearby coffee shop.

On arriving, she spotted Monique already sitting at a table in the far corner and joined her, "Hey Monique!"

"Hey, you're awfully happy for someone who just came back from a morning mission." Her friend immediately commented.

"Huh? Oh, the clothes… No, just, uh, cycling through the sets at the bottom of the drawer."

"Right… So, had fun last night?"

"Why do you ask?" Even Kim recognized how terrible her attempt at a nonchalant answer was.

"You've got that je ne sais quois about you today. And you smell like Ron's shampoo."

"What? That's impossible, he used mine, how could I…" Kim realized the trap she'd just fallen into and hunched over the table to whisper, "How did you know?"

"The GPDH you've tried to hide with the turtleneck sorta gives it away. And since you were on hot date with Ron…"

"It wasn't a date."

"Uh huh," Monique replied skeptically, "so what might it have been?"

"Uhmm…"

"I rest my case. It doesn't take a genius to put two and two together and figure out that you got a taste of Essential Ronness –"

"Mo!"

"Plus round two in the shower this morning, apparently."

Kim blushed, probably more so than ever before, and tried to avoid eye contact.

"Round three?"

She replied with an embarrassed nod.

"And? You're not thinking of withholding details, are you?"

"Monique!"

"Fine, be like that, I'll just have to use my imagination and put the pieces together." She closed her eyes and began mumbling. "Hmm, that's hot, girl. He did what? Score!"

"Monique! Alright, fine, but you're so keeping this to yourself."

"Deal, but we go shopping afterwards."

"We were already going to do that."

"Let's just say I'm adding a stop or two to our itinerary," she said with a grin Kim would've sworn was evil.

Ron made it to work just on time. He was confident he could get his point across fairly quickly, but he needed the team's undivided attention, which meant showing up before prep started in earnest for the lunch service.

Gina, one of the line cooks, called out to him as he entered the kitchen, "Hey, Chef Ron, good job yesterday!"

Ron was momentarily confused, after all, he hadn't worked the day before. He replied with a polite "thanks" and kept his quick pace to go and get changed, rehearsing his speech under his breath while doing so.

"Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please," Chef Juan announced, "Chef Ron is going to let us know what worked well and what didn't yesterday – assuming his attention was not totally drawn elsewhere…"

"Nice try, man," Ron answered, "your food is good, but not quite that good." A few of the employees chuckled, amused by the exchange, and Ron pressed on with his debriefing – lots of good work, but the front of the house needed to be more careful to meet the standards expected of a high-end restaurant. A few whispers among the crowd were to be expected, but Ron felt that something was off.

"Hey, man…" He said to maître d' Mike after the meeting. "Quick question."

"Sure thing," Mike answered.

"Am I like wearing my shirt inside-out? Why was everyone whispering and conspiring back there?"

Mike struggled to contain a chuckle, "Well, Ron, let me put it like this: half the room wanted to congratulate you, the other half was envious as hell."

"I'm not following you, Mike."

"When you look at yourself in the mirror, check the left side of your neck," he answered with a wink.

Without a word, Ron walked to the restroom as quickly as he could while pretending to be relaxed. He'd barely had time to change, and this now meant that he'd shown up at work with a very visible smudge of lipstick on his neck. Attentive coworkers would no doubt have identified the color as that which Kim had worn the night before. The damage was done, and all Ron could do was play it cool and deflect any questions. Obviously there would be gossip, but that was just another day ending in 'y' in the restaurant business.

With the stain finally cleaned out, Ron realized that it wasn't as much that he didn't want to talk about the prior night – though he very much did not – but that he didn't know what had really happened. Obviously, he knew what had happened, but not what it meant. More of it would be nice, though. Work would keep him busy and distracted enough for the moment. Still, once his shift was over, he didn't want to hang around. More than wanting to avoid the subject, he was eager to meet up with Kim.

"KP, are you here?" He said as he stepped into his apartment.

"Hey, in the kitchen, I'm making us dessert!"

His curiosity piqued, he wasted no time before investigating what Kim was up to. She greeted him with a quick kiss and began to describe her work in progress.

"I didn't want to leave you to deal with everything, so I figured I could fumble my way through dessert. So not the drama, right?"

The kitchen was intact, whatever was in the oven smelled nice, and Kim was uninjured – the only negative was the seemingly excessive volume of dirty dishes for a single dessert, but that was an outcome Ron could easily live with. "So what is it?" He asked.

"I'm not sure what they call it, I printed out the recipe, but the title's been washed off by raspberry juice. It's got all the kinds of berries they had at the supermarket and all the nuts they had, and, uh…" She glanced at the printout, "Flour and sugar. Wow, that's a lot of sugar, now that I'm thinking about it…"

Ron peeked into the oven, keeping the glass clean was a tiresome chore, but it paid dividends on occasions such as this. "How much longer does it need?"

"It's about done, I was about to take it out." She grabbed a pair of oven mitts and extracted the product of her efforts, laying the borosilicate glass pie plate on a cork base, a previous hard lesson on the effects of thermal stresses on glass cookware bearing fruit.

"Looks great," Ron said, "but let's eat our dinner first. I brought, uh, something."

Kim peeked into the take-out tray Ron placed on the kitchen counter. "Something?"

"I couldn't pronounce it, it's cod with fries and onions and stuff. Rachel, the new sous-chef, says it's her grandma's recipe. I haven't tried it yet, but some of the guys vouch for it."

Kim helped Ron set the table and they sat down to eat.

"Think I could make this myself?" Kim asked.

"Sure, there's not all that much to it, the hardest part here must be cutting the onions, the whole thing just goes in the oven. I can get you the recipe, if you'd like."

"Please and thank you. There's someone I'd like to impress."

"You'd think being a beautiful babe who saves the world would be enough to do that," Ron mused. "Now, as for this dessert of yours…" He examined it for a moment, trying to decide whether to approach it with a fork or a spoon, ultimately deciding on the latter. "Mmm… Hey, it's actually pretty good, KP!"

"You really think so?" She asked with excitement.

"Totally," he replied between spoonfuls. "Second-best thing at this table…"

"Hmm, what might the first one be?"

"Tell you what, KP, give me a few minutes to load up the dishwasher and clean up, then I'll join you and we can, uh, analyze that subject…"

"I think we're past the 'analysis' stage and well into the 'action' stage," she teased.

Ron gulped and rushed to finish his tasks, so that he could join Kim for what was promising to be another very interesting evening.

In the morning, Ron was awoken by Kim running her hand across his hair. He opened his eyes and was faced with her irresistible smile.

"Good morning, Ron… Happy Valentine's Day."

"Hey… Thanks," he said. "I wish I could stay here with you the whole day, but happy couples will be expecting their food."

"Too bad we can't join them… Maybe we should start celebrating early?"

Ron didn't need to hear anything else, he turned around and began to fumble around in his nightstand.

"Nuh uh," she whispered in his ear. "First you need to promise to behave. Your handiwork yesterday was so obvious that Monique figured it out in under a minute."

Ron froze, "You mean that Monique knows that we're…"

"Yup. So today, you have to be careful with that mouth of yours. I'd hate to miss out on all the fun we've been having just because I'm trying to avoid embarrassment."

"So, are you s-saying anything goes," Ron stuttered as he tried to process Kim's words, "a-as long as it's discreet?"

"Hmm, now I'm wondering what you have in mind…"

Having learned the previous day's lesson, Kim and Ron made sure that he'd be able to get to work on time and without rushing. He had hoped that the rumor mill wouldn't have transmitted the previous day's news to the team working at the 'old' restaurant.

"Yo, Chef Ron!"

He looked into the kitchen to see who was calling him, but there were too many people looking at him to really tell.

"Hadn't scored that big since high school football, huh?"

So much for that. Fortunately, the novelty of teasing him wore off quickly and things were soon as they were on any other day, apart from all the extra buzz of preparing for Valentine's Day. The simplified menu helped, but the kitchen was still in 'semi-controlled chaos' mode by the time the first patrons showed up for lunch. To no one's surprise, they were fully booked for lunch and dinner, both with extended hours, and Ron found himself having to be extra vigilant to any inappropriate shortcuts or substandard food – not that his team was likely to do so, but the margin for error was smaller than on a typical day. More like a mission than work, he thought to himself at one point.

Once lunch mostly wrapped up – only two or three tables were still eating desserts or otherwise drawing out their moment, Ron stepped outside for some fresh air. It was a beautiful day, but he was going to miss basically all of it. Not that he wanted to celebrate Valentines Day, it wasn't something he'd had much of an opportunity to celebrate, and the one time he did was one best forgotten.

"Missing ya girl, Chef Ron?" Jimmy, one of the waiters, had also decided to take a break. "Don't worry, you can always take her out tomorrow."

"No, it's really not like that…" Ron's words dropped off. Wasn't it? They hadn't yet actually discussed anything, apart from Monique knowing that something was going on. He'd tried the day before, but was quickly shut down – in the very best way to ever get shut down, but still, the questions lingered. His track record getting this sort of answer was rough, and Kim had been a big part of that with her 'there's still fireworks' statement – the metaphorical band-aid being ripped off hurt, even if Ron never held it against her, what with the mood-altering nonsense and all that.

Ultimately, he knew he had to man up. Best case, everyone would be happy. Worst case, everyone would at least be on the same page with a minimum of heartache.

Kim opened the door to Ron's apartment. She felt a smidgen of guilt for intruding on Ron's home, but her mind was made up: she had once let fear paralyze her and miss the best shot she'd ever had. She was not going to make the same mistake twice. So what if she was outside her comfort zone? It was just another mission, and no one was likely to get hurt. Worst case, she'd just have to turn up the heat a tad. Beyond that, it was all just a matter of patience.

In the back of her mind, a voice told her that she would only be delaying the inevitable. Once the novelty wore off, there would only be awkwardness left. Since said voice did not actually suggest any alternatives, she pushed it aside. All that was left was to wait for Ron.

The lunch service had been fairly smooth, all things considered, and the kitchen had been able to catch up on additional prep work during the afternoon, but with reservations from 05:00 PM to 09:00 PM, dinner was always going to be a ton of work. That said, Ron underestimated just how exhausted he would be by the time the last tables had been served around 10:30 PM. Another hour or so of cleanup and closing down for the night meant that he would only get home around midnight.

Ron opened his door and mumbled to himself, "Man, I left the lights on again?" It was when he walked into his living room that he realized that the situation was slightly different from what he'd assumed. "Oh, KP, didn't expect to see you he…" His words were left hanging as he took in the sight in front of him. Though he'd recognized his best friend's glorious red mane from the corner of his eye, that had not adequately prepared him for the full-frontal assault on his self-control that occupied his couch.

"Hi, Ron. I didn't want you to have to spend the night alone after feeding all the happy couples, so I let myself in. Hope you don't mind…"

How he would ever mind a beautiful nude woman waiting for him on his couch, he didn't know. Neither did he know what to do next, so it was fortunate that Kim took the initiative by getting up from the couch and walking up to Ron. In fact, she did her best to minimize the distance between them, pressing her body against Ron's and passionately kissing him.

"This was just what I needed," he said in the first break of the unexpected make-out session.

"Really?" Kim asked, obviously teasing something. "In that case, I need you to do me a favor. Carry me to your bed?" She asked, sheepishly biting her lip.

"Kim… I'd… I'd love to."

"But…?" There was some worried disappointment on her face.

"I've kinda been skipping arm day for the last few… Uh, years?"

Kim rolled her eyes, but at least her worries hadn't come true, "Fine, I'll carry you…" She then whispered in his ear, "But I'm taking the lead."

Chapter Text

The reduction in hours slept, though in service of a good cause, was beginning to impose a heavy cost. Kim and Ron were awoken by his alarm clock at 07:00 AM, still quite entangled to better deal with the cold – or at least that would be their rationalization, if anyone were to challenge them on it.

"Why so early?" Kim asked while trying to suppress a yawn.

"Sorry," Ron answered, "have to go pick up Rufus, and it'd be rude to show up after Mom's left for work. Man, Dad has it easy, he can just –"

"I know, I know, he can work anywhere. Your Mom totally could, too, it's not like she needs a lab. All those meetings would probably be easier over Skype, too."

"I just don't see it happening, KP, not in the next decade…" He paused as if to ponder on some deep secret of the universe. "Have I told you how badical it is waking up next to you?"

"Not in so many words…" Kim bit her lip and flashed Ron a suggestive smile as she let her hand wander, "But definitely in other ways…"

"Geez," he answered upon his self-control's victory in its latest challenge, "I hate to disappoint you, but I really need to get going. I'd, uh, I'd love it if you came along, of course."

Kim was slightly disappointed, but she recognized that Ron was right. Either way, she wasn't going to skip an opportunity to spend more time with him.

"I might just take you up on that offer…"

In Ron's car, as they approached their parents' neighborhood, both Kim and Ron had danced around the elephant in the room during the whole drive. Though neither of them genuinely wanted to shake the status quo by poking at it, there just was no other option.

Ron sighed, then said, "So…"

"So…" Kim concurred.

"What are we going to tell Rufus?"

"Rufus?"

Ron stopped the car at a convenient parking spot, to buy himself and Kim a few more minutes. "Yeah, like, we can't just keep doing this like things have always been like this, he's a smart guy and he'll start asking questions like 'why are they spending so much time alone in the bedroom' or if we happen to be at your place, 'where's my 10:00 PM snack'…"

"So what you're saying is that we need to figure out what this is."

"Yeah," he answered simply. Though he had thoughts and feelings gathered over the past few days, not to mention two decades of context, expressing them was still a bridge too far.

Kim took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment. She knew what she wanted, but was afraid of pushing the envelope and scaring Ron away. She had postponed any serious discussion of the topic for two days, but now Ron was right – the conversation could not be further delayed. That didn't mean that it would be any easier.

"Before you say anything, KP, I just want you to know that I'll always have your back, whatever happens."

"Thanks, Ron, that means a lot to me." Ron's interruption bought her a few precious seconds to figure out her gameplan, which she hoped would keep her from seeming clingy, desperate, crazy or manipulative – all accusations she had received at one point or another, and which now shaped her response. "To be honest, the other day at your place was a great first date."

"Just 'great'?" Ron thought that a joke might make the conversation as a whole flow better. "Not awesome?"

"There was a small detail missing… We didn't kiss."

"Yeah, I guess I understand what you're say– Hold on, are you saying I should've, uh, made a move?"

"And here I thought it was just because Wade interrupted us," she teased. It was at least partially true, she had entertained some… interesting idle thoughts on how that night might have played out, even though she realized that it had taken a very stacked deck for her to finally make a move.

"To be honest, KP, I… I, well, I would have said something if I'd known that you were, uh, interested in giving this a try."

"You really mean that?" Kim tried to contain her excitement, not wanting to sound like the proverbial crazy girlfriend.

"Sure," he said. It was the 'coolest' answer he could come up with on short notice. "A babe like you, what guy could say no?"

"The hard part was finding a guy who's not a jerk," she added, wistfully.

As Kim and Ron again fell silent, he began to seriously consider how to put the one, major lingering question into words. Weighing the risk of coming across as a pathetic loser, his desire for an answer, and the sheer magnitude of the task that faced him. "Are we, uh, … Dating?" Ron finally asked.

"This is way more intense than anything I've ever had with a guy, I guess that's a point in the yes column. And I kinda like the sound of it…"

"I have to admit, KP, it's scary…" After a brief silence, Ron added, "So, you say you liked the sound of 'us dating'?"

"Yeah." Kim's answer was followed by more silence, she'd expected Ron to say something, anything. Was he on board? Was it too much for him? Was he confused? Did he have second thoughts or regrets?

In truth, Ron was stunned. Over the years, he'd spent way too long, longer than he would admit to anyone, imagining what things could've been like if he were to date Kim. But she was beyond unobtainable, in a way like a mythical figure. The whole thing was a fantasy much more than it was a dream, a crazy hypothetical. He knew it wouldn't all be sunshine and roses, and that their friendship was at stake if he messed it up, but he felt compelled to say something meaningful.

"Ah-booyah."

Kim chuckled, "So… I think we've answered your question."

"Uh, the dating question or the 'what do we tell Rufus' question?"

"Both," she answered with a smirk and reached over to Ron for a kiss. "We wouldn't want to lie to him, now would we?"

"Hey Mom, hey Dad, I'm here," Ron called out after closing the door behind him, stepping into his parents' living room.

"Ronald, come on in, son," his father said from the couch as he stood up to greet Ron. "You're looking good, a lot more relaxed than on Friday."

"Oh, you know, work and stuff," Ron answered, trying to keep up the nonchalant act. "But with Valentines behind us, things will be quieter until Mother's Day comes around." He looked around, and asked, "Speaking of which, where's Mom?"

"Oh, she's upstairs with your sister."

"Okay, so I guess I'll go talk to them upstairs and get Rufus. Good seeing you, Dad."

He went up to his old room and knocked on the door.

"Ron?" His mother's voice answered from the other side, "Is that you? Come on in."

"Hi, Mom," he replied as he opened the door, "Hi Hana!"

"Hi, Ron," his little sister said.

"Hope you haven't given Mom and Dad too much trouble…"

"I've been playing with Mr. Rufus," she answered.

"Rufus really is a godsend, Ron. He's the only one with enough energy to keep up with her. He even keeps her from climbing up the walls. Most of the time."

"Where is he?"

"Over on the desk," his mother answered, "sleeping after the morning play session."

"We played hide and seek!" Hana added with her adorable enthusiasm .

"Oh," Ron answered, "and who won?"

"Mr. Rufus did. He's good."

"That he is," Ron mused.

In the meantime, his mother had finished packing something into Hana's schoolbag.

"Come on Hana, go and say 'bye' to Rufus and your brother, you have to go to kindergarten."

"Okay…" She said, then headed over to Rufus' gym-slash-room-slash-cage. The table was barely below her eye level, and she didn't even try to reach to knock on his cage. "Mr. Rufus…"

Rufus woke up and looked around. He saw Ron and immediately jumped out of bed and ran up onto Ron's shoulder, from where he waved, adding a squeaky "buh-bye". As always, Hana giggled at that sight.

Kim stepped into her parents' home.

"Mom, Dad, anyone home?"

Instead of either parent, a synchronized pair of male voices answered her call, "Sis!"

One major advantage of the Tweebs' growth was that their sheer size made them far less sneaky, and the sound of their footsteps as they ran down the stairs was unmistakable.

"Hey sis, –"

"– whatcha doing here?"

"To what do we owe, –"

"– this pleasant surprise?"

Though they had gotten considerably less annoying – in some ways – as they grew, Jim and Tim were being far too polite and were far too interested in Kim's unannounced visit. She narrowed her eyes, trying to coax them into revealing their secret. "What's up with the two of you? Why did you come running?"

Both Jim and Tim tried to suppress grins, which only made them look guiltier.

"Well," Jim began, "we were checking the cameras we setup around the neighborhood, –"

"– for strictly legal purposes, of course…"

"Of course," Kim said ironically.

"And we saw something weird."

Kim raised her eyebrow, still trying to figure out where they were going.

"Ron's car was parked just around the block, –"

Kim's eyes jumped wide open. So much for being discreet.

Tim continued, though it was obvious where the conversation was headed, "– so we went for a closer look…"

"To see if everything was okay…"

"And now, –"

"…we wanted to hear your version of the events."

"Practicing a play?"

"Practicing CPR?"

"Sucking out poison from a snake bite?"

"Or just trying to mess with us?"

Lacking any good ideas, Kim fell back on the tried-and-true basics. "Tweebs!" She shouted.

The twins recoiled instinctively, though they were now meaningfully taller than Kim, she was still perfectly willing and able to kick their asses if need be.

"Relax, sis, …"

"We think you chose well."

"What?" Kim was again caught off-guard, in the brief moments she'd had to game out the rest of the conversation, this scenario had not even been on the table.

"Ron's a great guy," Tim said.

"Much better than that loser John," Jim concurred.

"We're not even going to blackmail you!"

"That's how much we want this to work out!"

"Gee, thanks a lot for your kindness," Kim said, though beneath the irony, she did appreciate the gesture. Ordinarily, she fully expected them to weaponize their ill-gotten information. She took a deep breath and added, "Ok, since you know about it already, I'm going to level with you: We just started dating, we're still figuring things out. We are so not ready to tell our parents, so you two have to keep quiet!"

"Sure thing, sis," Tim said.

"But if you keep going like this, they'll find out on their own," Jim added.

"Hopefully not by walking in on the two of you," both said in unison, before running away.

Kim couldn't even muster her usual annoyance, instead letting out an exasperated equivalent, "Tweebs…". She walked up the stairs, where she finally ran into her mother.

"Kimmie, I thought I heard you!" She greeted her daughter with a hug. "I wasn't expecting you, honey."

"Yeah, Ron brought me along since he was going to pick up Rufus."

Kim's mother smiled when she mentioned Ron, and said, "You really should invite him over for dinner one of these days, we haven't seen him in ages."

"It helps that the TV crews don't show him nearly as much as they should."

"That might be, but we miss him. I'm on call the next two weekends, but maybe the weekend after… So, March sixth?"

Kim was unsure, but she knew she'd have to deal with a ferocious Puppy Dog Pout that she'd have no chance against if she tried to say no. They would just have to act casual, in the worst case. "Sure, Mom, I'll invite him…"

"You should stay the night, don't want you driving late at night…"

"Moooom…"

"You know we worry about you, honey. I'm on my way out, so say 'hi' to Ron for me."

"Sure thing, Mom…"

Ron knocked on the Possibles' door. It wasn't something he was very used to doing, but he figured he needed to be a little less casual about such things now.

Kim ran down the two flights of stairs to greet Ron at the door, reminding herself to keep a polite distance since Rufus probably hadn't yet been told about the whole 'dating' sitch.

"Hey again, Ron!" She said after opening the door.

"Yo, KP, I've got Rufus back," he answered, pointing at Rufus, who was perched on his shoulder.

She waved at the naked mole rat, who waved back with his usual enthusiasm. "Come on in guys, it's just us and the Tweebs, but I talked to them and they're going to stay out of our way…"

"The Tweebs?"

"Oh yeah," Kim answered.

It was a good thing that Rufus was sitting on Ron's shoulder and thus missed his horrified expression. Kim tried to calm his nerves by smiling and motioning for Ron to follow her up the stairs and into her room.

Ron tried deep breaths to relax and followed Kim, but Rufus probably was beginning to pick up that something weird was going on.

Kim closed the door to her room. Even though the Tweebs knew about the sitch, she definitely didn't want them snooping in on an important conversation. "Have a seat, guys," she offered, and sat down on her bed.

Ron did as instructed. He then took a deep breath, cleared his throat, and began trying to put together a coherent story for his rodent friend. "So, Rufus… KP and I… Well, I guess we have something to tell you."

The naked mole rat tilted his head questioningly.

Kim finished Ron's thought, "We're kinda, sorta, well… Dating."

Rufus stared at his humans for a moment, then ran up to Kim's shoulder to give her the biggest hug he could manage, squeaking in joy. She was surprised and ended up gently patting Rufus as she looked at Ron.

"Okay," Ron said, "I didn't know what to expect, but it was definitely not that." Rufus went over to Ron and hugged him as well, maybe he didn't want Ron to feel left out. "Okay, buddy, thanks."

"I guess that's another fan we have, that's three today," Kim said.

"Three? You mean… Jim and Tim…"

"They… Well, they said they wouldn't even blackmail me"

"And they're not going to kill me?" Kim might not have been intimidated by the size of her brothers, but Ron figured that his only chance, should they decide to hurt him, would be to run like he'd never run before.

"They seemed cool with it," she answered. "Happy, even."

"Oh, wow. Phew, that's a bullet dodged."

Though immediate danger had been averted, there was still some tension in the room, a feeling of 'what now?' Fortunately, the awkwardness was interrupted by the very audible rumbling of Ron's stomach.

"I guess my stomach's complaining about having skipped breakfast, so how about we head over to Bueno Nacho and reclaim our booth?"

Rufus chittered his approval as Kim confirmed her own, "Sounds great."

Chapter Text

Despite the near-identical nature of their new closest Bueno Nacho in Upperton, both Kim and Ron felt that there was something special about the Middleton location.

"Yo, Ned, three grande Naco combos."

Perhaps it was the familiar faces…

"So," Ron continued while Ned punched in the order, "how's the whole 'regional manager' thing going?"

"Not too bad, all things considered. Corporate has greenlit moving Upperton to my area of responsibility, something about roofs being torn off?"

"Oh, yeah, Dementor did accidentally rip the roof off Bueno Nacho 593 while trying to steal KP's battlesuit, I think it was this past November? Kinda weird that sort of thing keeps happening." Ron looked around to check that Kim had successfully claimed their booth. "I'm glad we're here early, wouldn't want to fight with some kids to get our booth back…"

"Oh, you wouldn't have to," Ned answered, "most kids stay away from that booth, they think it brings them bad luck."

Ron was downright offended that his booth could be seen as jinxed. "What? Why?"

"Something about 'the physical manifestation of the friendzone'. Can't say I understand it…" Ned turned around to retrieve Ron's order from the rack and swiftly placed it on Ron's tray. "Anyway, have a muy bueno day."

Ron carried the trays to the booth, mulling over Ned's words. Before he could reach a meaningful conclusion, the Kimmunicator rang and Kim immediately answered it.

"What up, Wade?"

"Got a hit, someone sneaked into Drakken's old Caribbean lair."

"And you figure it was Shego?"

"Could be, but whoever it was, we should probably investigate. GJ's put this on their medium-priority list, so they'll pick you up at tomorrow afternoon, but they don't have anyone to drop you off."

"Ron, you don't work tomorrow, right?"

"Next shift's on Wednesday, why do you ask?"

"Get us a ride there ASAP, we'll wait for the pick-up."

"An hour from now at the Tri-City airport?"

"Please and thank you."

She put down the Kimmunicator and saw Ron's confused look.

"Why did you set up what sounds like a camping trip to an uninhabited Caribbean island – oh, wait, now that I say it out loud, it's making a lot more sense." Kim's expression validated his reading of the situation, as he stroked his chin, working through the scenario in his mind. "Hey, Rufus, uh, you okay sleeping alone in your own tent?"

The flight over to Drakken's Island was unusually quiet. Kim's mission mode was nothing new, but she seemed to take it to the extreme whenever Shego might show up. Normally, they'd be chatting the whole trip, or maybe taking a nap. A makeout session in a crowded cargo hold also sounded like something Ron would enjoy… But Kim was laser-focused on the mission and barely engaged with Ron's attempts at starting a conversation.

"Alright, folks, ten minutes to the drop zone," someone up front announced over the PA.

Kim and Ron checked each other's chutes, with Rufus doing his own final inspection. The loadmaster joined them right as they were finishing their checks.

"You folks ready to go?"

"Let's roll," Kim answered.

Ron, as usual, was not particularly enthused about the thought of jumping out of an airplane, but kept his mouth shut.

"Okay, hook yourselves up and I'll lower the ramp. We're five minutes from the target."

Kim and Ron did as instructed.

"You two really are pros, better than some guys I've seen do this."

Ordinarily, Ron would've expected Kim to reply with something like "no big," but instead she replied matter-of-factly.

"167 jumps. 192 if you count jumps with a jetpack."

The sergeant gave the usual 'good joke' laugh, obviously skeptical of the ludicrous numbers, and positioned himself at the ramp controls. Soon, the ramp slowly opened and, on cue, Kim and Ron jumped out of yet another perfectly good plane. Less than a minute later, they deployed their parachutes, aiming at the once-familiar beach. Kim landed first, having gone for that little bit of extra free-fall, and, as usual, did so elegantly. Ron would've have also had a picture-perfect landing, had he not landed on precisely the most degraded section of the pier, which collapsed with the force of his impact. Kim turned around, startled by the noise.

"Ron! Are you okay?"

"Just a bruised ego and soaked pants," he answered as tried to stand back up. "But seriously, this stupid thing is just an accident waiting to happen."

Kim reached out to help Ron out of the surf, amidst the collapsed wooden structure's remains.

"Thanks, KP. You okay, Rufus?"

"Uh huh," the naked mole rat replied.

They looked around, everything looked much the same as it did six years earlier, but grimier.

"Uh, front door this time?" Ron suggested. "Doesn't look like anyone's home." Kim nodded in agreement, and they started walking towards the main entrance. "Why would Shego come here, that's like having a neon sign saying 'arrest me please', and it's not like she's drawn much attention to herself over the years."

"Maybe she wanted to grab something, I don't know. But if she's here, I'm taking her down."

"I dunno, maybe we should try looking in a Greek resort next time. The weather's nice here, but the lack of maintenance is a downer."

"Ron. Head in the game…"

"Sorry."

Kim tried to slowly open the door, it was unlocked, but hard to open thanks to the rust that had built up in its hinges. She managed to open it just enough for Rufus to comfortably fit through before it got stuck.

"Allow me," Ron said. He prepared to throw himself against the door.

Kim took a step back, "Uhm, you should be careful, Ron, I don't think the door needs all that much…"

But he didn't heed her words. The door opened far more easily than Ron had expected, and he essentially threw himself onto the floor past the door.

"Yeah, ow, it wasn't very stuck…"

Kim again helped him get up. Inside Drakken's lair, the scene was about as expected: a few things out of place, a layer of dust on everything, but few signs of recent visitors.

"Do you remember where the security office was?" Kim asked.

Ron was surprised by her question, "Drakken had a security office?"

"That's what's in the briefing, can't say I remember it either…" She reached for the wristwatch Kimmunicator. "Wade, we're in, but the place looks empty."

"Not a huge surprise," he answered, "plug the Kimmunicator into Drakken's systems and I'll start dumping the footage."

"Yeah, uh, sure thing Wade," Ron said, "but first we need directions."

"Third door on the right, then up the stairs and second door on the left," he immediately answered.

Kim and Ron followed the instructions, fortunately the doors inside had aged a little less poorly and could be opened less violently. They arrived at Drakken's security office and Kim plugged in the full-size Kimmunicator for Wade to do his thing.

"Got something," he announced after a few moments, "the timestamp matches the alarms that were tripped."

Wade was kind enough to present the surveillance video on Drakken's wall of screens – fancy and futuristic in the late 90s, a lot less so a decade and change into the future. Still, it was good enough to review the CCTV images.

"Let me just fast-forward to the relevant bit… And here we go."

The video showed a group of five men, two in overalls, three dressed fairly casually. Between them, they had six large tool cases, two clipboards, and zero idea of where to go next – if their facial expressions were to be believed.

"Who are these guys?" Kim wondered aloud.

"I'm checking every bad guy database I know of, but no hits," Wade replied with growing frustration.

While Ron was walking around the room, some would say 'aimlessly', Rufus noticed an object that had ended up underneath one of the consoles and began to draw attention to it.

"Hey, KP, I think Rufus found something…" Ron knelt down and reached to pick up the object. "It's… Uh, a pack of cigarettes? In, uh, yeah, I can't read this."

Ron walked back over to Kim and she took a picture of the cigarette pack.

"Wade, Ron found this, I guess the Cyrillic label narrows things down a bit."

"Scanning now…" Wade said with some relief, "It's Bulgarian."

"What the hell does Shego want, why is she hiring a Bulgarian team to break into Drakken's old lair?"

Wade was skeptical, "You might, uh, be jumping to conclusions, Kim, we haven't really seen any signs that Shego's involved."

"She has to be involved, who else would even think of coming here?"

"I don't know," Wade admitted, "but we have to keep an open mind to avoid tunnel vision, it could really be anything."

Kim kept raising her voice, "We really need something better than that, we can't just –"

"Hey, wait a minute," Ron said out of the blue, interrupting the increasingly heated exchange, "how come this place still has power? Surely Drakken isn't paying the bills from his cell."

Kim opened her mouth but found that she didn't have an answer to give. She and Ron looked at Wade on the screen, he too had been caught off guard by the question.

"I'll, uh, give that a check…"

As Wade typed away as if his life depended on it, Kim glanced over at Ron to get a better feeling for his thought process. He simply answered her unspoken question with a shrug.

"It's a lot of lights, KP…" He added upon her silent insistence.

"Got it!" Wade announced, interrupting their moment, "Apparently he has a deal with the French, Dutch and British governments to host a VOR/DME installation on the roof, they must be footing the bill for his power, too!"

"English, Wade?" Kim requested.

"It's a radio-navigation station for aircraft. Apparently, a number of islands use it as part of the procedures at their airports."

"Maybe Drakken should've gone into business," Ron mused, "he seems to be more successful as a businessman than as a villain."

"But that doesn't get us closer to figuring out who these guys are," Kim said, frustrated.

Wade typed away furiously, as usual, and replied, "Maybe it does. I'm just finishing a quick search… And there we go! I got an ID! Turns out these guys are a Bulgarian maintenance team from a company that does repairs and maintenance for NAVAIDs, they must've been sent here to work on the VOR/DME."

Kim was still somewhat skeptical, "And then they just got lost?"

"It is a pretty labyrinthic lair, we're just used to it."

Kim couldn't let that one go unaddressed. "Labyrinthine, Ron…"

"Huh?"

"Labyrinthine," Kim insisted.

"Oh, yeah, it did sound kinda weird as I was saying it…"

"Anyway," Wade interjected, "these guys look clean. Worst I have on them is a parking ticket in Italy for one of them and a late payment of some tax bill for another guy. No signs of Shego, or anyone else being involved."

Kim closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Well, in that case, we're all in agreement that there's nothing more to do here, right?"

Ron nodded, "Ready to leave, KP…"

"Nothing more on my end," Wade said, "I set up a backdoor to Drakken's CCTV system so that you don't have to physically travel the next time someone stumbles into that place."

"Any word on our ride home, Wade?" Kim inquired.

"No news, sometime tomorrow. GJ will update us tomorrow morning…"

"Spankin'," Kim replied with a hint of irony. "Call us if anything changes." She hung up the call and began to massage her temples.

"I'm really beginning to think that we should give up on this whole 'chasing Shego' thing, KP," Ron offered in the face of Kim's frustration.

"Yeah, no. The minute we do that, that's when she'll decide to show up. Let's just get outta here…"

Ron nodded and they made their way back outside, the sun was making its way down towards the horizon. Ron shielded his eyes with his hand as he looked at the seemingly endless ocean.

"So now what?"

"Now," Kim said, "since the mission is over and we're not going anywhere until tomorrow…" She closed the distance to Ron and brought her hand to his face. "…it's time to enjoy the beach with my BF."

Ron took the hint and kissed Kim, but before things could get too heated, Rufus jumped out of Ron's pocket, startling the couple. He had put on a Hawaiian shirt and carried a miniature beach towel and umbrella.

"Let me guess…" Kim said, "Smarty Mart."

"Kinda. The shirt is, but the towel and umbrella are actually a gift from Bueno Nacho corporate. Well, more like payment, really, for that ad campaign that starred Rufus after the Naked Mole Rap got big in '04."

In the meantime, Rufus had found a spot he liked and set up shop. He immediately began to snore away.

"He's the only one who wears more clothing to the beach," Kim commented. "You did pack for the occasion, right, Ron?"

"Sure, I mean, best case was several hours on the beach – no way I'd stay inside Drakken's lair, that place is scary."

"Because of the creepy echoes and just how run-down it is?"

"That too, I guess, but I was thinking of the multiple OSHA nightmares in there."

"Well," Kim concluded, "let's not waste any more time, then."

She quickly removed her turtleneck top and unbuckled her belt to take off her pants. She was beginning to pull at her sports bra when Ron whispered to her, with urgency in his voice.

"KP! You're not going to change out in the open like that, are you?"

Kim looked around, partly to convince herself that Ron was overreacting, part as a theatrical move to communicate to him how silly his concern was.

"Ron. We're on a deserted island, we're the only ones around for miles." While Ron formulated his reply, she reached into her backpack to retrieve the bikini she had packed.

"But Rufus is here with us!" Ron answered, simultaneously casting a curious glance at Kim's bikini, which she now held in her hand.

"Okay, two things: A) He's asleep. B) Has he ever seen you naked?"

"I mean, it's not like I walk around with no clothes on in front of him, but it's happened a handful of –" Ron trailed off as Kim continued to undress immediately after his admission. In the blink of an eye – a metaphorical one, since Ron, despite his protests, had his eyes firmly locked onto his girlfriend – she was first naked, and a few instants later she had put on her bikini.

"Are you going to stare, or are you going to change?" She asked, with mock indignation.

Ron had never been one to be pushed around by social pressures, but on this occasion, he felt it would be weird to awkwardly cover up with a towel while changing, so he followed Kim's lead. What he hadn't counted on was that Kim would stare unblinkingly at him during the process.

"Now you know how it feels," she teased.

"I was going to cover up," he protested, "you're the one who insisted!"

"You're right, I'm sorry," she said, putting on a sultry smile, "however can I apologize?"

"Oh, don't worry about it, KP, this is all still pretty new for both of us," Ron answered.

Kim rolled her eyes, "Indeed it is… That was your cue to ask for a kiss… Or something else."

"Oh. Ohhhhh… Am I too late?"

Kim nodded, "Hm-hmm. Don't worry, there'll be other chances."

"Okay," Ron said pensively, "how about you apologize for… Uh… Hmm… Ah, for wearing that tiny bikini!"

"No gaming the system, Ron. But as for this," Kim pulled lightly on a strap. It was a pretty standard bikini as far as the top was concerned, mostly standing out by the metallic-looking plastic rings that joined its various straps to the larger blue fabric segments. The rest of it continued the same style, but its coverage could raise some eyebrows, even Kim's when she first saw it. "Monique insisted that I buy it. It's a Club Banana early sale of the upcoming collection. It's a bit more revealing –"

"A lot more revealing…" Ron blurted out.

Kim frowned slightly, "More revealing than I normally wear, but the color is nice… And it's more comfortable than I thought it would be."

"Yeah…"

"Only one problem," she said, turning around slowly to model her outfit, "My BF is too distracted while I'm wearing it."

"Yeah," Ron answered absentmindedly, looking Kim up and down. "Oh wait, I'm your BF! I wasn't distracted, I was just looking at the hoops!"

"Distracted by shiny objects, no less. I think it's your turn to apologize…"

This time, Ron caught on. He wrapped his arms around Kim and whispered in her ear, "I promise to only be distracted by my beautiful GF."

"Deal," Kim said. Both moved in for a kiss.