Disclaimer: I do not own Max Steel, any of the characters from the show
or anything affiliated
with the show. I am just borrowing. Please don't sue me.
It's not like you'd get a
whole lot anyway. I've got a really shallow pocket.
Mindy/Morgan McGrath,
however, is my creation. I worked very hard to
come up with her, so if you
use her without my permission, I will be suing
you.
Summary: Josh's cousin comes to Del Oro. They were very close, but haven't seen one another in 5 years. They had always told each other everything. Now he has to keep her from finding out about his doubl-life as Max Steel. But can he do that, still remain as close as they have always been and protect her from his enemies at the same time?
A/N: Josh's cousin is named Mindy McGrath, but Josh calls her Morgan. It's a thing from when they were kids. I'll explain later. Sorry if it's a little confusing.
CHAPTER ONE
The airport was crowded today. Not surprising, really. In less than a month summer would be over. People were either going home or trying to cram as much fun as possible into the little time they had left before it was back to school, back to the office, or whatever. No matter what people were going back to, summer was ending and the airport was total chaos.
"Flight 227 now unloading at gate 23," said a voice over the loudspeaker.
"Finally," mumbled a youth in the crowd. His name was Josh McGrath. He was fairly tall, blond, tanned to perfection and muscular. His brown eyes focused mainly on his goal, gate 23, as he manuvered though the crowd.
Passengers came pouring out of the gate. Mostly tourists. Josh frantically searched them with his eyes. His heart was thumping in anticipation. Finally, he spotted a girl coming through the gate. A smile spread across her face as he recognized her.
She was one of the last ones off the plane. She had a tan overnight bag, her carry-on for the trip, slung over her shoulder. She scanned the crowd, pushing a stray lock of brown hair behind her ear. Would she recognize him? It had been a long time. There were so many people here. That, coupled with the fact that she was only about 5'3", was making it hard to spot him. Standing on her tip-toes, she tried to look out over the crowd. Finally, she spotted a tall, blond guy making his way through the throng of people. Elongating her body as much as possible and waved frantically, hoping he could see her.
"Josh!" she cried, throwing her arms around his neck. Immeadiatly, she was lifted off her feet. Now eye level, she planted a kiss on his cheek and hugged him tight.
He responded in kind. "Hey Morgan," he said cheerfully. After a minute he put her down and took a step back. He looked her up and down. Jeans and running shoes. No surprise there. What surprised him was the v-neck t-shirt and the changes in her figure. Five years had certainly changed her, but she was still his baby cousin.
"How was the flight?" he asked as they headed for the luggage claim area.
"Boring as hell."
"Still blunt as ever I see," he laughed.
"And proud of it."
Less than an hour later, they arrived at Josh's beach house. Josh carried her two suitcases into an extra bedroom. Then they headed over to N'Tek.
"Hey, Maureen," said Josh. Is dad in his office?"
"Yes. I'll have to call in and make sure he's available," responded the secretary. "Why don't you have a seat."
Josh nodded and pulled Morgan to some chairs while Maureen called his foster father. He was expecting them, but he might be down in the secret headquarters. Josh knew all about it. He did work there after all.
"You can go in now."
"Thanks." With that, Josh led his cousin into his foster father's office.
Jefferson Smith stood as they entered. He smiled broadly. "Mindy," he said. He moved around the desk and hugged the young woman. "It's been a long time."
"Hi, Uncle Jeff," said Mindy, hugging him back. "Five years to be exact."
"That would make you 19 now, right?"
"In about 2 weeks. The 18th."
"Hmm. Remind me, how long are you staying?"
"Two weeks."
The phone rang. He answered it. "Jefferson Smith." He listened for a moment. A frown creased his brow. "Alright." He hung up and looked apologetically at his son and niece. I'm sorry, but we'll have to talk another time. Something unexpected has come up. I'll see you both later."
Josh and Mindy said goodbye and Josh led her from the room. He knew his dad would be using the secret elevator by the look on his face. That was something Mindy didn't need to know about. He hoped whatever the unexpected business was didn't require Max Steel for the job. He'd been promised at least a week of emergency only duty. He hadn't seen his only cousin in years and wanted to spend some time with her. The rest of the team seemed to understand that. Most of the team, anyway.
On the way back to Josh's, they caught up a bit. Mostly basic stuff. School, family, friends, relationships, jobs. It was less than a half hour drive in good traffic, so they didn't get into details, for which Josh was grateful, since he couldn't really tell her about his job.
When they arrived, Mindy went to unpack. Josh rested for a few minutes. After a while, he picked up the phone. He dialed Pete Costas number.
"Hello?"
"Hey, man."
"Josh. What's up?"
"Well, uh, Mindy came to visit today. I was thinking about taking her ice skating. You wanna go?"
"Mindy? As in the pest from hell Mindy?" groaned Pete. "No thanks."
"Oh, come on. She's not that annoying."
Pete snorted. "Yeah, and your job isn't hazardous to your health. Josh she followed you around like a puppy whenever she came to visit. Besides, I don't think my nose has recovered from the trauma she inflicted yet."
Josh rolled his eyes. "Pete it was six years ago when she broke your nose. Get over it." "She broke my nose and gave me a black eye, man."
"Well, if you'd tripped me into fountain in the middle of a crowded mall, on purpose I might add , I would've punched you, too. You knew she was a tomboy. It served you right. Do you want to go or not?"
"I don't know. She's a pain in the ass."
"Only if she wants to be. Besides," he said, lowering his voice, "something came up at N'Tek today. They haven't called me in, but if they do, I can't just up and leave her alone."
Pete sighed. He knew how important it was to keep N'Tek's real work a secret. If Josh just up and dissapeared on Mindy, it would be hard to explain. Josh had saved his sorry butt so many times, he supposed he could put up with Mindy for a few hours. "Alright, but if she starts something you'd better protect me."
"Deal. Meet us there at 6:00." He hung up and went to Mindy's room. "Hey cuz, how about going ice skating tonight?"
"Sure. It's been a while since I've done that. They still have skate rentals, right?"
"Of course. Oh, Pete's gonna meet us there."
She looked up at him, horrified. "Why?"
"Oh, come on Morgan. He's not that bad. And, as I recall, you used to have a crush on him."
"That was 8 years ago and I've realized what a waste of space he is since then. Why do I have to see Pete?" she whined.
"Morgan, I'm not going to argue with you. We either go skating with Pete or we stay here." She opened her mouth to respond.
"On second thought," he said," We're going skating. Period."
"Aww. But, Josh," she whined.
"Please. For me?"
"Oh, no! Not the eyes!" she cried as he gave her a pitiful look. "Oh, alright. But if he gets on my nerves, so help me... I beat him up once, I can do it again."
"Fair enough. But would you at least try to be nice?"
She made a face.
Pete got to the rink a few minutes early. He skated around, hoping to impress the laidies. It didn't appear to be working. So, he thought up ways to annoy Mindy. He could always call her Morgan. She hated that. The only person she allowed to call her that was Josh. Ever since they were kids. He wasn't sure why. Some private joke or something.
He spotted Josh on the opposite side of the rink. On his way over, he tried one one last trick to get the girls attention. He got their attention alright, but not the way he'd hoped. Other skaters laughed as he fell flat on his ass.
Josh shook his head and skated over. "I should've known better than to ask you to a skating rink," he said as he helped him up. "You'll probably kill yourself trying to get a girl."
"Yeah, but what a way to go."
Josh just shook his head.
Mindy laced up her rented skates as Josh stepped out onto the ice. He must have reinded her 5,000 times on the way here that she'd promised to at least try to be nice. Knowing Pete, he wasn't going to make it easy. She finished her skates and went to the edge of the ice. Looking around for her cousin, she spotted a few girls giggling and pointing. It wasn't an 'oh, he's so cute giggle', it was more like a 'geez, what an idiot' kind of giggle. Must be Pete, she thought sourly. Sure enough, there was Pete being helped up by Josh. She let out a small groan before skating up to them.
Pete saw a pretty girl skating towards him. Maybe this night could be salvaged after all. He smiled as she skated up.
"There you are," said Josh. "Took you long enough."
"Shut up," she responded, playfully smacking him on the arm. "It didn't take me that long. Besides, I don't have my skating legs back yet." That was about when she noticed Pete checking her out. "What?" she asked.
"Josh, aren't you going to introduce me to your lovely friend here?"
Both of them looked at him as if he was am idiot. "That's Mindy, Pete."
Pete just about fell over again. That was Mindy? The skinny, flat- chested little tomboy terror he'd had to put up with all those years ago? Well, good-bye skinny little tomboy, hello curvey babe.
Mindy didn't like the way Pete was looking at her. He was practically drooling. Oh, great, she thought. He couldn't have found me attractive when I was 11 or at least find me repulsive now. That is so typical.
Josh had fun in the next couple of hours. He did a few tricks that impressed everyone. What he found really amuzing was watching Pete trying to impress Mindy, and failing miserably, while she tried to get away from him.
Mindy managed to have some fun. Watching Pete fall repeatedly was pretty amuzing. And she was with Josh, who was pretty much her favorite guy in the world. Besides, she hadn't been skating in a long time. She was enjoying it. However, it was not fun to have Pete after her. She avoided him as much as humanly possible. Lucky for her, he was a lousy skater, so she managed to avoid him quite a bit. The guy made her look like an olympic champion, he was so bad. And with her so out of practice, that was saying a lot.
Pete felt lik a giant bruise. He'd lost count of how many times he'd fallen. Mindy was not the least bit impressed, nor did she appear to feel sorry for him. He skated up to Josh. Mindy had been with him, but had taken off ahead the second she saw him coming. "She doesn't like me at all, does she?"
"Well, you were a prick to her when we were kids, bro."
"That was a long time ago. She wasn't a hottie yet."
"A hottie? This from the guy who's referred to her as the pest from hell ever since he's known her?"
"Well, she's filled out since I last saw her. A lot." He eyed her as she did a quick spin up ahead.
"Dude, that's my cousin. Watch what you say and think about her when you're around me," warned Josh.
"Sorry. So, do you think there's even a chance that she likes me?"
Josh opened his mouth, then snapped it shut as he heard a familiar voice through his bio-link. "Hermano."
"Berto?" asked Josh. "What is it?"
Pete immeadiatly stopped talking. He remembered why Josh had wanted him to come along. If N'Tek was calling him now, it could be serious.
"We've got problems. Psycho just contacted us and informed us that he's about to take over the Del Oro skating rink. We need Max to stop him."
Josh froze. The skating rink? "Oh, no."
"What is it?"
"Berto, man, turn on the vid-link."
Berto obeyed and saw exactly what was distressing his friend. "Oh, man."
"Precisely. Of all the things we could've done, I had to take Morgan ice skating." He skated up to his younger cousin. He had to get her out of here.
Right then, a portion of the wall they were closest to collapsed. When the dust cleared, they could see Psycho standing in the gaping hole. And he was carrying some nasty looking weapons.
Too late. Of all the places we could've gone, thought Josh again.
Summary: Josh's cousin comes to Del Oro. They were very close, but haven't seen one another in 5 years. They had always told each other everything. Now he has to keep her from finding out about his doubl-life as Max Steel. But can he do that, still remain as close as they have always been and protect her from his enemies at the same time?
A/N: Josh's cousin is named Mindy McGrath, but Josh calls her Morgan. It's a thing from when they were kids. I'll explain later. Sorry if it's a little confusing.
CHAPTER ONE
The airport was crowded today. Not surprising, really. In less than a month summer would be over. People were either going home or trying to cram as much fun as possible into the little time they had left before it was back to school, back to the office, or whatever. No matter what people were going back to, summer was ending and the airport was total chaos.
"Flight 227 now unloading at gate 23," said a voice over the loudspeaker.
"Finally," mumbled a youth in the crowd. His name was Josh McGrath. He was fairly tall, blond, tanned to perfection and muscular. His brown eyes focused mainly on his goal, gate 23, as he manuvered though the crowd.
Passengers came pouring out of the gate. Mostly tourists. Josh frantically searched them with his eyes. His heart was thumping in anticipation. Finally, he spotted a girl coming through the gate. A smile spread across her face as he recognized her.
She was one of the last ones off the plane. She had a tan overnight bag, her carry-on for the trip, slung over her shoulder. She scanned the crowd, pushing a stray lock of brown hair behind her ear. Would she recognize him? It had been a long time. There were so many people here. That, coupled with the fact that she was only about 5'3", was making it hard to spot him. Standing on her tip-toes, she tried to look out over the crowd. Finally, she spotted a tall, blond guy making his way through the throng of people. Elongating her body as much as possible and waved frantically, hoping he could see her.
"Josh!" she cried, throwing her arms around his neck. Immeadiatly, she was lifted off her feet. Now eye level, she planted a kiss on his cheek and hugged him tight.
He responded in kind. "Hey Morgan," he said cheerfully. After a minute he put her down and took a step back. He looked her up and down. Jeans and running shoes. No surprise there. What surprised him was the v-neck t-shirt and the changes in her figure. Five years had certainly changed her, but she was still his baby cousin.
"How was the flight?" he asked as they headed for the luggage claim area.
"Boring as hell."
"Still blunt as ever I see," he laughed.
"And proud of it."
Less than an hour later, they arrived at Josh's beach house. Josh carried her two suitcases into an extra bedroom. Then they headed over to N'Tek.
"Hey, Maureen," said Josh. Is dad in his office?"
"Yes. I'll have to call in and make sure he's available," responded the secretary. "Why don't you have a seat."
Josh nodded and pulled Morgan to some chairs while Maureen called his foster father. He was expecting them, but he might be down in the secret headquarters. Josh knew all about it. He did work there after all.
"You can go in now."
"Thanks." With that, Josh led his cousin into his foster father's office.
Jefferson Smith stood as they entered. He smiled broadly. "Mindy," he said. He moved around the desk and hugged the young woman. "It's been a long time."
"Hi, Uncle Jeff," said Mindy, hugging him back. "Five years to be exact."
"That would make you 19 now, right?"
"In about 2 weeks. The 18th."
"Hmm. Remind me, how long are you staying?"
"Two weeks."
The phone rang. He answered it. "Jefferson Smith." He listened for a moment. A frown creased his brow. "Alright." He hung up and looked apologetically at his son and niece. I'm sorry, but we'll have to talk another time. Something unexpected has come up. I'll see you both later."
Josh and Mindy said goodbye and Josh led her from the room. He knew his dad would be using the secret elevator by the look on his face. That was something Mindy didn't need to know about. He hoped whatever the unexpected business was didn't require Max Steel for the job. He'd been promised at least a week of emergency only duty. He hadn't seen his only cousin in years and wanted to spend some time with her. The rest of the team seemed to understand that. Most of the team, anyway.
On the way back to Josh's, they caught up a bit. Mostly basic stuff. School, family, friends, relationships, jobs. It was less than a half hour drive in good traffic, so they didn't get into details, for which Josh was grateful, since he couldn't really tell her about his job.
When they arrived, Mindy went to unpack. Josh rested for a few minutes. After a while, he picked up the phone. He dialed Pete Costas number.
"Hello?"
"Hey, man."
"Josh. What's up?"
"Well, uh, Mindy came to visit today. I was thinking about taking her ice skating. You wanna go?"
"Mindy? As in the pest from hell Mindy?" groaned Pete. "No thanks."
"Oh, come on. She's not that annoying."
Pete snorted. "Yeah, and your job isn't hazardous to your health. Josh she followed you around like a puppy whenever she came to visit. Besides, I don't think my nose has recovered from the trauma she inflicted yet."
Josh rolled his eyes. "Pete it was six years ago when she broke your nose. Get over it." "She broke my nose and gave me a black eye, man."
"Well, if you'd tripped me into fountain in the middle of a crowded mall, on purpose I might add , I would've punched you, too. You knew she was a tomboy. It served you right. Do you want to go or not?"
"I don't know. She's a pain in the ass."
"Only if she wants to be. Besides," he said, lowering his voice, "something came up at N'Tek today. They haven't called me in, but if they do, I can't just up and leave her alone."
Pete sighed. He knew how important it was to keep N'Tek's real work a secret. If Josh just up and dissapeared on Mindy, it would be hard to explain. Josh had saved his sorry butt so many times, he supposed he could put up with Mindy for a few hours. "Alright, but if she starts something you'd better protect me."
"Deal. Meet us there at 6:00." He hung up and went to Mindy's room. "Hey cuz, how about going ice skating tonight?"
"Sure. It's been a while since I've done that. They still have skate rentals, right?"
"Of course. Oh, Pete's gonna meet us there."
She looked up at him, horrified. "Why?"
"Oh, come on Morgan. He's not that bad. And, as I recall, you used to have a crush on him."
"That was 8 years ago and I've realized what a waste of space he is since then. Why do I have to see Pete?" she whined.
"Morgan, I'm not going to argue with you. We either go skating with Pete or we stay here." She opened her mouth to respond.
"On second thought," he said," We're going skating. Period."
"Aww. But, Josh," she whined.
"Please. For me?"
"Oh, no! Not the eyes!" she cried as he gave her a pitiful look. "Oh, alright. But if he gets on my nerves, so help me... I beat him up once, I can do it again."
"Fair enough. But would you at least try to be nice?"
She made a face.
Pete got to the rink a few minutes early. He skated around, hoping to impress the laidies. It didn't appear to be working. So, he thought up ways to annoy Mindy. He could always call her Morgan. She hated that. The only person she allowed to call her that was Josh. Ever since they were kids. He wasn't sure why. Some private joke or something.
He spotted Josh on the opposite side of the rink. On his way over, he tried one one last trick to get the girls attention. He got their attention alright, but not the way he'd hoped. Other skaters laughed as he fell flat on his ass.
Josh shook his head and skated over. "I should've known better than to ask you to a skating rink," he said as he helped him up. "You'll probably kill yourself trying to get a girl."
"Yeah, but what a way to go."
Josh just shook his head.
Mindy laced up her rented skates as Josh stepped out onto the ice. He must have reinded her 5,000 times on the way here that she'd promised to at least try to be nice. Knowing Pete, he wasn't going to make it easy. She finished her skates and went to the edge of the ice. Looking around for her cousin, she spotted a few girls giggling and pointing. It wasn't an 'oh, he's so cute giggle', it was more like a 'geez, what an idiot' kind of giggle. Must be Pete, she thought sourly. Sure enough, there was Pete being helped up by Josh. She let out a small groan before skating up to them.
Pete saw a pretty girl skating towards him. Maybe this night could be salvaged after all. He smiled as she skated up.
"There you are," said Josh. "Took you long enough."
"Shut up," she responded, playfully smacking him on the arm. "It didn't take me that long. Besides, I don't have my skating legs back yet." That was about when she noticed Pete checking her out. "What?" she asked.
"Josh, aren't you going to introduce me to your lovely friend here?"
Both of them looked at him as if he was am idiot. "That's Mindy, Pete."
Pete just about fell over again. That was Mindy? The skinny, flat- chested little tomboy terror he'd had to put up with all those years ago? Well, good-bye skinny little tomboy, hello curvey babe.
Mindy didn't like the way Pete was looking at her. He was practically drooling. Oh, great, she thought. He couldn't have found me attractive when I was 11 or at least find me repulsive now. That is so typical.
Josh had fun in the next couple of hours. He did a few tricks that impressed everyone. What he found really amuzing was watching Pete trying to impress Mindy, and failing miserably, while she tried to get away from him.
Mindy managed to have some fun. Watching Pete fall repeatedly was pretty amuzing. And she was with Josh, who was pretty much her favorite guy in the world. Besides, she hadn't been skating in a long time. She was enjoying it. However, it was not fun to have Pete after her. She avoided him as much as humanly possible. Lucky for her, he was a lousy skater, so she managed to avoid him quite a bit. The guy made her look like an olympic champion, he was so bad. And with her so out of practice, that was saying a lot.
Pete felt lik a giant bruise. He'd lost count of how many times he'd fallen. Mindy was not the least bit impressed, nor did she appear to feel sorry for him. He skated up to Josh. Mindy had been with him, but had taken off ahead the second she saw him coming. "She doesn't like me at all, does she?"
"Well, you were a prick to her when we were kids, bro."
"That was a long time ago. She wasn't a hottie yet."
"A hottie? This from the guy who's referred to her as the pest from hell ever since he's known her?"
"Well, she's filled out since I last saw her. A lot." He eyed her as she did a quick spin up ahead.
"Dude, that's my cousin. Watch what you say and think about her when you're around me," warned Josh.
"Sorry. So, do you think there's even a chance that she likes me?"
Josh opened his mouth, then snapped it shut as he heard a familiar voice through his bio-link. "Hermano."
"Berto?" asked Josh. "What is it?"
Pete immeadiatly stopped talking. He remembered why Josh had wanted him to come along. If N'Tek was calling him now, it could be serious.
"We've got problems. Psycho just contacted us and informed us that he's about to take over the Del Oro skating rink. We need Max to stop him."
Josh froze. The skating rink? "Oh, no."
"What is it?"
"Berto, man, turn on the vid-link."
Berto obeyed and saw exactly what was distressing his friend. "Oh, man."
"Precisely. Of all the things we could've done, I had to take Morgan ice skating." He skated up to his younger cousin. He had to get her out of here.
Right then, a portion of the wall they were closest to collapsed. When the dust cleared, they could see Psycho standing in the gaping hole. And he was carrying some nasty looking weapons.
Too late. Of all the places we could've gone, thought Josh again.