Simon shook out the picnic blanket he'd pulled out of his rucksack, and dropped down onto it, lying back under the brilliant dappled sunlight coming through the trees. Central Park was beautiful in the summertime. He stretched out, folding his arms behind his head, and realising that made his superhero t-shirt ride up and expose his less-than-perfectly-toned stomach, got self-conscious and put them back at his sides. He closed his eyes.

Simon ran, leaping from the edge of the skyscraper. He flew faultlessly through the air, seeing the people below on the New York streets, crawling like ants. He eventually came to land in the parking lot behind Taki's, of all places, and stood disoriented for a second wondering what he was doing there. Then she was there, striding confidently towards him. Was she wearing a Catwoman costume? Next thing he knew, she was shoving him up against the wall. She whispered in his ear. 'I'm going to show you my superpowers, nerd boy'…

Someone was shaking his shoulder. He blinked open his blurry eyes to see a shape forming, getting clearer by the second. ISABELLE.

'Hey, Simon.' He jumped back about a foot, eyes wide, and said far too loudly –' Izzy! I wasn't dreaming anything! Nice day, right?' She looked down at him with a confused expression, pushing her hair away from her face, then began to smile. 'Are you sure about that?' she smirked, and he could have sworn her eyes strayed downwards for a second. He sat up hurriedly and tried to change the subject, asking 'How was your morning? You had training, right?'

She began to tell him about their training session that morning, how Jace had yelled at her for going a little too hard on Clary, and she'd almost hit Alec for being so patronising. But Simon couldn't concentrate on her story much, because he was too distracted by the way she kept playing with her hair unconsciously and how amazing she looked in her tight black top left on from training. Halfway through her story she noticed him staring and broke off suddenly, making him glance up. As they made eye contact, Izzy began to giggle at his sheepish expression, which only made him smile in the cutest way imaginable. She shoved his shoulder, and commanded him to go get her an ice cream from the cart. As she watched him walk away, she yelled 'BETTER BE MINT CHIP, NERD BOY, OR I'M LEAAVING!' She got some stares, but it was worth it. He held his hands up as if to say 'Okay, okay!' and grinned at her.

Isabelle sank back into the blanket, stretching her arm out in front of her to examine her milk-bottle skin. She wished she could get all tan in the sun, but something about her Shadowhunter genes gave her only the palest ivory colouring. At least she'd never be as pale as Simon, she laughed silently to herself. She let her mind wander, and found herself thinking of catching him staring at her earlier. She smiled, thinking how much she'd wanted to kiss him in that moment, but how she hadn't felt courageous enough to take the leap. Ridiculous, wasn't it, that some skinny vampire could sap Isabelle Lightwood of all her confidence- but somehow he managed it.

She sat up a minute later, letting the sun warm her back, and spotted him in the distance carrying two stacked cones. Her stomach fluttered in anticipation and all of a sudden she realised she was actually, awfully, nervous. He crashed back down on the blanket beside her, handing her the huge triple-scoop of her favourite mint chip. 'Thanks', she smiled up at him. He said shyly back, 'No problem'. Izzy took a bite, and her eyes wandered over to Simon's backpack. 'Would it be too nosy if I went through the contents of your backpack, Simon? I'm intrigued to know what a vampire carries in his Eastpak'. He didn't seem taken aback, and said 'Well, sure you can, Iz, but I'm not sure it'll be all that exciting!' She guessed he knew her well enough by now to know that she was always pretty direct.

Unzipping the backpack, she found a plastic sports bottle: contents undetermined but mostly likely containing blood, a clingfilm-wrapped turkey sandwich, his wallet, and- what was that sheaf of paper at the bottom? As her hand closed around it, Simon grabbed her wrist. She looked up into his panicked face. 'You don't want to look at that, Iz! Boring.' He tried to pull her away from the backpack. Amused, she took another lick of her ice cream before raising one eyebrow and musing, 'Why, Simon? What could you possibly want to hide from me?' She reached for the backpack again, and a second later Simon had struck out with his ice cream cone, leaving a smear of chocolate across Isabelle's cheek. She just stared at him, shocked. 'SIMON!' she yelled, jabbing back at him with her own and then bursting out into giggles when he ended up with a bright green splodge on his nose.

It descended into a full scale fight with each of them getting in a few more swipes before they ended up on top of one another, Izzy pinning Simon to the blanket with her ice cream pointed at his face. She looked down into his eyes and snarled, 'Do you surrender?' He stared back defiantly for a moment and then gave in, smiling at her, and sighed, 'Yes, Izzy, you win'. A warm feeling spread through Isabelle's core, giving her the courage she so desperately needed. 'Right answer', she whispered, and then she leaned down and kissed him with all of the feeling she had inside of her. He kissed back, his hand tangling in her hair, and she felt amazing.

They finally broke apart, and Isabelle rolled to one side so she was lying beside Simon. She stared up at the perfect blue of the sky for a second, and hoped he couldn't see how much she was smiling. She felt his hand sneak into hers, and they lay there for a while, just imprinting every second of the moment into their minds forever. After several minutes, she felt she needed to break the silence, so she asked quietly, 'Simon?' His voice sounded from next to her. 'Yes?' 'Can I read it now?'

He chuckled and then a low groan escaped him. 'Oh man. I can't believe I'm about to let you do this.' Taking that for a yes, Izzy scrambled over to his backpack, and pulled out the booklet. The cover was blank, but she flipped it over to find a beautifully drawn picture… of herself in some kind of superhero costume? She was fighting what looked like a demon, with a seraph blade in her hand. Simon was there next to her, heavily muscled- she burst out laughing. 'Oh my God!' Simon grabbed the comic out of her hand and moaned, 'I knew I shouldn't have let you see it!' Izzy stopped laughing long enough to take a breath and looked at him- only to collapse in fits of giggles again. 'Is it really that stupid, Iz? I'm sorry.' He looked so worried.

She knew she had to be serious now, and she took his hand, taking a deep breath and saying, 'No, I think it's seriously adorable. Although you really were exaggerating with the muscles.' He pretended to look hurt for a second before laughing and batting her on the shoulder, and she began to speak again but was interrupted by Simon placing his hands either side of her face, brushing the glossy, jet hair away from her eyes, and kissing her the way she'd wanted him to for what seemed like forever.