Disclaimer: Characters don't belong to me (although their alter-egos do), I'm just borrowing them for a while. I'll put them back once I'm done. :)
A/N: Okay, so this was totally random. Spurred on by a post I made on my tumblr that basically detailed their alter egos (I added a link to the post on my profile if you want to check it out). And then Claudia's first line popped into my head and… well, this happened. Forgive any typos, my eyes are bleeding.
"You were fraternizing with the enemy." The Kilobyte Kid was staring up at her through the photochromic-like screen of her visor from her position a few feet in front of her in the centre of their team's floor in The Warehouse. The visor was a solid piece that wrapped around the front of her head; she'd based it off something she'd seen in one of the various Star Trek iterations, and had constructed the view piece from a material of her own design. She was able to change the opacity of it with a tiny control pad she'd wired into the glove of her right hand, reflecting any of the potentially blinding energy she was putting forth when darkened, and providing her with perfect vision when clear; like it was now, her dark eyes slatted and suspicious as they roved the taller woman's face. Recall reached for her shoulder, snapping loose the almost invisible clasp that held her cowl in place and then pulling it off in one smooth motion. Unruly curls sprung forth, bouncing about Myka's shoulders as she scowled at her friend.
"I was not fraternizing, Claude." She said, feeling dirty even as the word left her mouth. It sounded so seedy, so wrong. And there wasn't anything about her conversations with Helena – "no," she reminded herself with a barely contained eye roll, "The Artificer" – that ever seemed wrong. Maybe that was the problem. Claudia slid her visor up to perch atop her forehead and it's slight, ethereal glow dimmed. The younger woman folded her gauntleted arms across her chest – wrapped in blue-black body armour that had similar reflective properties to her visor and could easily withstand the blast of a bullet – and cocked a hip, waiting for an explanation she knew Myka either hadn't thought up yet or would be reluctant to give. Myka fiddled with the straps that held her own body armour in place – black against the red of her under suit - and avoiding the prying gaze of her partner.
"Well," Claudia said after a moment of silence, starting to turn and walk away. "Your silence speaks terabytes." Myka's arm shot out without against her will, just grazing the shorter woman's shoulder but the touch was enough to make her stall. She turn back, eyebrow raised in question.
"I wasn't fraternizing." She insisted, trepidation lacing her words as her eyebrows knitted together; that combined with the gentle worrying of her lower lip told Claudia that she was losing herself in thought. "We were…" Myka sighed heavily, lifting a hand to needlessly brush her hair away from her face. "We were just talking."
"You were just talking?" Claudia repeated, her skepticism evident in the shadows clouding her face. "With The Artificer?" She watched as Myka flinched at the name, actually flinched, and silently began to contemplate the meaning behind that action.
"I…" She started, stopped, and then tried again. "I wasn't. Not… it wasn't…" Her frustration and confusion showing in her expression, her posture. If Leena had been there, she'd have been able to read what Myka was feeling with little more than a glance; not that she would have vocalised her findings. "I was talking to Helena." She finally got out, pushing the words past her lips as if she were afraid speaking them might set the building on fire.
"Helena?" Claudia countered, eyes wide with incredulity. She hefted her arms up in the air and then let them plummet to her sides. "It's Helena now, is it?"
"Who's Helena?" Pete – more universally known as The Déjà Dude –asked around a mouthful of food, sauntering over from the elevator in his street clothes and attempting to save the remnants of chilidog that were trying to escape by way of his chin. He caught the gob with his thumb, scooping it into his mouth before taking another enormous bite from the half he still held in his hand. Claudia's eyebrows hiked again and she kept her eyes pointedly focused on the woman in front of her as she spoke.
"Myka's new girlfriend." He coughed, the food – if you could call it that – catching painfully in his throat mid-swallow. Pete gasped for a moment, pounding on his chest as she tried to get the chunk to dislodge. When it finally did, he stared at Myka with watery eyes.
"Her what-now?" Claudia opened her mouth to repeat the statement, but Myka had had enough.
"Nothing! There's nothing to talk about here! Claudia has a bee in her bonnet that will sting her if she keeps agitating it." She warned, glancing between the worryingly red-faced man and the younger woman. And in true Claudia fashion, she chose to completely ignore the advice of her partner in crime. Or, anti-crime.
"I caught her," she threw an accusatory finger in Myka's direction, despite the complete lack of necessity. "Chatting up The Artificer. Or at least she was letting herself be chatted up." As Pete gaped open-mouthed at her, Myka's hands went to her hair, fingers threading through her curls to grip a little too harshly once she had two handfuls.
"That is not-" But Claudia had turned to Pete and he was willingly losing himself in the tale she was weaving.
"They totally thought they were out of view up on the roof of the library, you know, the place where the books live?" Pete made a face, but let the good-natured jibe go. "But I could see them. And she-" her hand darts out again to indicate exactly why 'she' is, and Myka has to take a deep breath to stop herself from grabbing the hand and flipping Claudia to dump her on her ass. "Was playing 'shy bookworm' to H.G.'s 'brooding bad girl' and was leaning against the door for the roof access like she'd swoon at any given second, while Inspector-freaking-Gadget hovered over her looking like she wanted to eat her face." Myka didn't even have the energy to balk outwardly, but inside she was raging. "Oh, and? They both had their masks off. Just as a totally, meaningless, afterthought." And the way she said it left no room for suspecting she might have actually meant the words. Pete turned to look at her, a thoroughly scandalized expression on his face. Then he clucked his tongue at her, and she wanted to scream.
"Myka, Myka, Myka." She couldn't stand it when he got like this. Whenever she trod half a step in the wrong direction during sparring, whenever she slipped and missed something – though granted, that was rare – whenever she did something decidedly un-Myka-like. He got that shit-eating grin that she just wanted to wipe off his face with Henry Solomon Wellcome's handkerchief. He couldn't grin like that if he didn't have a mouth. "I totally knew it. Ever since you guys bumped heads over the whole 'world destruction' thing and came back talking about how you didn't think she was really all that bad deep down, I knew this was going to happen. I could see it coming a mile away. With like, bright neon lights." Myka shifted, swaying close to him, and stomped a heavy-booted foot down onto Pete's bare foot, hard. He winced, face going red again as he bit back the womanly scream trying to escape.
"Did you see that coming?" And Myka had a shit-eating grin of her own for just such occasions.
"Look, it's not that you like her." Claudia began and the smile dropped from Myka's face as the urge to scream rose. "It's that she's, you know, kind of batshit crazy."
"Okay, listen-" The taller woman's face was all thunder and ire as she tried to interrupt, but Claudia held up a hand, wearing a knowing expression on her face.
"Please, defending her so valiantly is only hindering your case." Myka's lips became a thin line, and she bit her tongue. She was hot, she wanted to go, get out of this damn armour and take a shower. She wanted to curl up with a book and be alone with her thoughts. "She tried to freeze the globe, Myka. I know you think that she was driven by grief and that's she better now," and there were so many things wrong with that sentence, but she didn't even want to begin pointing them out. "But she's not safe. And that means you're not safe either when you're with her." Myka bristled, squaring her shoulders and straightening herself to her full height.
"I can take care of myself." Claudia dismissed her bravado with a wave of her hand, eyes darting to the elevator as the doors pinged open to reveal Sooth standing inside.
"You brain is brilliant when it comes to soaking up knowledge, Myka, but your freaking heart has a habit of getting in the way of common sense. I get it, okay? You crossed wires, sparks flew," she snapped her thumb and forefinger to emphasize her point, shards of electricity blooming from them like tiny fireworks of purple and white. "Shit got charged. Attraction flared. I've seen her; she's not exactly hard on the eyes-" Myka tilted her head back and closed her eyes, the groan she'd been keeping at bay finally bursting from her, loud and long.
"I am not attracted to H.G. Wells!" She bellowed, voice filling the space of the livingroom-come-kitchen. Steve strode by, his bandolier tight across his chest and bandana hanging limp in his left hand while he brought an apple up towards his mouth with his right, glancing at them in passing.
"She's lying." Claudia slapped a high-five into his waiting hand as he dangled it behind him. Myka's eyes popped open, glaring daggers into the retreating man's back.
"Ah ha!" Pete called, pointing a finger wildly in Myka's direction. "I knew it!" Claudia regarded her, a look of faux-disappointment on her face.
"You know this is like the biggest comic book faux pas there is, right? Having the hots for the bad guy?" Myka exploded, yet somehow didn't move from her spot.
"There are no hots! I don't have the hots for her! Any her!" Claudia rolled her eyes.
"Oh don't give me that. The idea that you're not attracted to H.G. because she's a woman is as ridiculous as the notion that you're not attracted to her at all."
"Claudia!" Myka said, her voice high-pitched as she stood her foot like a five-year-old.
"Myka!" The redhead mimicked, her tone an octave or two higher. "You know what?" She asked, dropped her gloved hands to her hips. "It's fine." A smile grew on Claudia's face that made Myka's stomach knot. "Enjoy your time jumping across rooftops with The Warehouse's most wanted. But can I please be there when you explain your forbidden love to Artie?" And with that, it appeared as though the conversation was over. Claudia strode away with a smirk on her face, probably off to fill Steve in on the 'hilarious' events of the day, leaving her alone with Pete, who was regarding her with a look that lay somewhere between intrigue and confusion. She leveled him with a stare, prompting him to voice his thoughts.
"I bet she's a cat in the sack." Her blush brought forth a wave of laughter that had her anger simmering, but never quite boiling over. Pete elbowed her in the ribs, still chuckling as he swung an arm around her shoulders and lifted his half eat chilidog up towards her. "You want some? I foresee this going right to my thighs and my tights are already, well, tight." Myka snorted, albeit delicately.
"I can't believe you actually wear tights." She said, shaking her head at the cliché.
"I can't believe you've actually gone cuckoo for cocoa puffs over an evil genius." He sighed wistfully. "Star-crossed lovers." He removed his arm, pressing his free hand to his while he shoved the rest of the chilidog into his mouth, spewing bits of mangled bread and meat product with his next words. "It's so romantic."
Sometimes, Myka wondered why she bothered. She'd imagined the life of a superhero as a glamorous one, one that would find her be adored by millions and in a position to become a positive role model for the youth of today, and while that was sometimes true, she found that there were days when the cons did indeed outweigh the pros. But then her thoughts would wander to a woman who'd inexplicably weaseled her way into Myka's every waking thought, every fragmented dream, and a small smile would slowly curve along her lips.
She really hated it when her teammates were right.
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