Disclaimer: I own nothing of Kim Possible.
Quirked Lime
By: Imyoshi
Saving the world was her obsession. Compulsively powerful and she couldn't cure it. She couldn't—didn't want to.
It was her obsession.
...
She ran into the classroom with books tucked in her hand and hair less than perfect. The loud swing of the class door garnered the attention of the entire room as she stumbled tiredly into her seat.
"Late again, Miss Possible?" Professor Tool asked with the entire room watching her. "This is the third time this month."
"I'm sorry, I had to do run off and stop this bank robber. Then my roommate decided that in the middle of fall was the perfect time to spring clean and move all my stuff around. And then—!"
"Your trivial squabbles do not concern me." He held his hand, stopping her repeated ramble. "Now, I'm sure you have today's assignment."
She forgot the assignment.
...
College wasn't high school. It wasn't. The teachers—professors didn't care whether or not students participated; slack off for all they cared. However, this left no room for wiggle room either. No makeup tests for stopping some lunatic from robbing an art museum or helping an old lady cross the street. Not like high school.
No. Definitely not like high school.
Ring! Ring! Ring!
The hero groaned in her pillow, having recently returned from another mission at stopping Drakken from stealing the world's largest rubber band ball. Somehow, beyond his incompetence, the blue scientist managed to get that thing in his lair across Greenland.
She had only just returned from that mission late at night and fell headfirst into bed, falling asleep instantly.
Ring! Ring! Ring!
Groaning, she wondered why she had set such an annoying sound to play on her Kimmunicator in the morning.
Ring! Ring! Ring!
"All right! I'm up, I'm up!"
Oh yeah, that was why.
...
It was harder.
The classes required more brain power than high school standards. More than she could give without being completely exhausted. And Kim gave a lot.
Chemistry, Physics, Math, Political Affairs, and English proved more than she could handle and far more challenging and time-consuming to properly juggle without tripping on her own two feet. At desperate times she had to abandon one to save to the other. None of that bolded too well with her.
Heroes weren't allowed to abandon anything.
Today was the day her English professor handed back their midterm papers.
"D?" Kim cried, looking at her English essay in pure incredulity. No way was this her grade! Kim Possible didn't do bad grades.
That was not an option.
She silently waited until the end of class before confronting her English professor, having drowned out the rest of her class lecture in silence as she stared helplessly at her graded paper.
End of class, paper in hand, Kim stopped the professor before she could get out the room.
"Excuse me, Mrs. Beatles? Could I know what I did wrong on my paper?"
She turned, glancing at her student. "Ah, yes, you didn't answer the question at all. I had a topic change a couple of weeks ago."
Time slowed, her brain ceased functioning.
Topic change? Topic change!
"What topic change!" Kim asked, scrunching up her paper.
Miss Beatles seemed unfazed.
"You ran out before I could discuss the topic change that day, something about stopping this mad golfer. Just be happy I didn't give you a zero for completely missing the point."
She left an almost empty room.
...
It never got easier.
She wished it did. Waited for a miracle to fix all her problems. But it didn't. It never did.
Assignments and due dates stacked together ruthlessly. Professors said that they weren't there to babysit. And the bad guys had seemed to up their game in the past months. It was like after high school the world around her got very real, very fast, and she wasn't fast enough to keep up with it. Or maybe, she was just a bit too fast, to begin with.
For once, after a mission, she made it to class on time.
Satisfied with her new luck, Kim sighed in her chair, falling easier into it. Beside her, a random student tapped her shoulder to get her attention. "Hey? Did you study for the test today?"
Kim sat up straighter in her chair. "There's a test today?"
...
Sometimes, she thought it got harder just for her.
Of course, she was just imagining things, right? Right?
Don't pass out. Don't pass out. Don't. Pass. Out.
"What?" Kim fell, leaning on the dean's desk. "You can't be serious?!"
The tall, cleanly dressed, middle-aged man appeared unconcerned for her outburst. He eyed her, judging the lack of respect this young adult aired from his comfy chair. This wasn't the first time this happened, and he knew for a fact it wouldn't be the last.
"Oh, I'm very serious, Miss Possible. As of the last 24 hours, you have been placed on academic probation."
Kim fell into a nearby chair, trembling. "How can this be?"
The dean rested easier on his chair. "Usually, it has something to do with bad grades."
Kim Possible didn't believe him. "But sir, I get good grades."
He raised an eyebrow to her claim, pulling out a folder from a cabinet shortly after. The man leaned further back in his chair, reading over the context of the lettering, ignoring the groveling stare from the young adult across from him. "Let's see here, shall we. First, you got a C minus on your first math exam."
"I had to stop these robbers." Kim reasoned. "I didn't have time to study."
"What about being late to class on many multiple occasions?"
"The missions sometimes make me get home late and I sleep in sometimes."
"The failed chemistry exam?"
"I was busy stopping DNAmy."
"Your class experiment?"
"Left it at a villain's lair."
The man sighed, throwing the folder down on his desk. "Miss Possible we can go on like this for next half hour but it's obvious what you must do. Either give up this hero work you do or drop out. Or continue doing what you're doing and flunk out. The choice is yours."
No room was left for discussion as the dean reminded her that she had class five minutes ago.
...
It was her first time home since college started. She sat in the living room with the rest of the family nearby to hear her talk about how wonderful college had been. Only Ron, who sat beside her, detected the hollow joy in her voice but chose to move aside his curiosity for now. However, hours later in her old bedroom, with the rest of the family asleep, Ron came up to give her a surprise hug. He made no sound and held her stubbornly close.
"What's this for, Ron?" Kim smiled, wondering why he was giving her a hug after already giving everybody one downstairs.
"Because it looks like you need it, KP."
The hero girl tried to ignore the inviting warmth that blanketed over her from the prolonged hug. Her stubborn didn't allow for cracks in her armor, even if she felt like throwing in the towel, if only for a little while.
"Ron... That's sweet and all, but I don't need a hug."
She tried to push him off, but he pulled her closer with a firmer hold. A second time proved to be just as fruitless with Ron ignoring her lackluster lies. The third time was when he tightened his hold and wrapped his hands around her shoulders.
"KP."
Seconds later, she didn't know why her knees gave out, they just did, and Kim wasn't completely sure that was a bad thing. Ron simply held her, taking a big amount of burden off her shoulders while she surrendered to the embrace, burying her tired body as close as possible to his. For the first time in a long time, she gave up and allowed her body to shut down. The knots in her entire body hurt and he felt them with the simple brush of his fingers.
"Do you want me to rub your shoulders?"
"Please..." she muffled gently into his shirt.
That heartwarming shoulder rub led to a simple attempt of a cheek-kiss for her appreciation. Be it her peculiar luck that Ron turned at the last second to come in contact with her lips. Only seconds passed in stunned silence before Kim grabbed Ron by the shirt and buried her lips hard between his, wanting more.
Poor Ron remained too stunned to think before her tongue snaked in and all remote thought shut down for the remainder of the night.
Somewhere, in her oxygen-deprived brain, a single thought came to. She was doing this with Ron. Ron?! Not Ron who wasn't a boy, but Ron-Ron. She didn't remember him quite like this.
What happened to that lanky boy from her memories? Where did he get these muscles her fingers found beneath his shirt? Was his jaw always this defined? How did she miss ever noticing how nice his messy blond hair was, especially when running her fingers through it constantly. Above all else, those eyes sent delightful shivers down her aching spine.
She seemed to forget Ron joined the football team during the senior year of high school just to prove Mr. Barkin wrong that he was, in fact, a man and to shut Bonnie up.
And gosh was Ron proving them both wrong.
She couldn't remember or care enough to figure how they got to her bed. Kim was just glad that she had her room soundproof a few years back when the Tweebs decided blowing up their experiments was a fun and loud annoying thing to do late at night.
She barely questioned the removal of clothes.
She was a girl, a female. Obvious. He was a male, a strong male. Very obvious. They were friends, best friends. She was frustrated, aching everywhere. Her body burned with a quenchable thirst with want and he reacted. Trust existed between the two. It was the basics of chemistry and the girl understood this very well, yet, she was still failing that class.
Go figure.
Kimberly tried to question it harder. Why her best friend? Why Ron? But her focus got shot. Ron at some time decided to play with her ear and run his hands on her—concentrate! Ignore his big hands playing with her—dammit!
Her will was strong.
Oh!
But that not that strong.
Gasp!
She'd figure it all out in the morning.
Moan!
Make it the afternoon.
Author Notes: Edited - 6/5/2018