Summary: Tao draped himself over M-21 and Takeo's shoulders. "It. Is. Scorching." "Your observational skills are amazing."

Set after season 5, I guess.

If you don't know, I'm in the Philippines right now so this is pretty relevant to me, ahaha.


Quest for Ice Cream

By Dark Ice Dragon


Tao draped himself over M-21 and Takeo's shoulders, leaning his weight on them. "It. Is. Scorching." He reached around, fanning himself with some paper towels.

It was true - according to the news, the temperature was at the highest it had been for the entire year. It was also humid with dead air, so going into the shade only gave small relief.

"Your observation skills are amazing," M-21 said anyway, his voice flat, and that earned him a swat.

"Of course they are!" Tao declared. Tao let them go and M-21 tugged on the back of his own collar, unsticking it from his neck, seeing Takeo do the same with his ponytail.

"C'mon," Tao said, pointing in the direction of the gate and striding towards it.

"Where to?" Takeo asked, but they followed after him, like they always did.

"To get ice cream, of course!" Tao threw over his shoulder, wagging a finger in the air. "That's what you're supposed to do on hot days."

"Not stay in front of the fan?" M-21 muttered, knowing Tao would hear it.

Tao stuck his tongue out at him. "We can do that after. Ice cream first. It's my treat."

M-21 shared a look with Takeo. "You have money?" That was the second most complaint Tao had, after his workload.

"Yup!" Tao twirled a wrist, and the paper towels were replaced with a wad of cash.

…Right, they'd just been paid.

"Fine," M-21 said with a shrug. It was the end of the school day and they'd finished up their final patrol so they didn't have anything else to do.

"Great – Ik-han told me about this awesome place, but if we don't hurry it'll be busy by the time we get there!"

xOx

M-21 looked down the street, seeing the winding queue that took up half the street and could guess where it lead to. So much for arriving before it got busy.

Tao slumped. "Aww! I wanted ice cream…"

Takeo patted him on the shoulder. "We could wait if you want."

But Tao waved his arms in the air. "We'd've melted before we even reached the doors! I don't want it that badly."

"So we go back?"

Tao gave the queue one last forlorn look and turned towards home. "Yeah."

xOx

Home was cooler than outside and M-21 breathed a sigh of relief at the difference as he changed into his slippers, the beads of sweat threatening to trickle down his skin even more noticeable now.

"Ah, there you are." M-21 looked up to see Frankenstein smiling in the entranceway.

"Boss? What's up?" Tao asked, the first one to get his slippers on. M-21 had the feeling his cables had a hand in that, undoing his laces while Tao worked on the other shoe, as well as fetching his slippers. "Do you need something?"

"Well," Frankenstein said, "I just finished a new batch of ice cream and I was wondering if you were free to taste it?"

Tao whooped. "Yesss! Race ya down there!" Tao was gone before he'd finished talking.

"Ta-!"

"We don't even have our slippers on yet!" And they were not going to run in Frankenstein's house without them.

M-21 shoved his slippers on and bolted through the door, Frankenstein already stepped out of the way. If he and Takeo transformed, they might be able to catch up-!