guestsurprise, who owns Cassie, asked for this one. Here you go, Amiga! Enjoy! :)

Ben 10 belongs to Cartoon Network and Man of Action. My Favorite Martian belongs to Disney. I only own Rachel.

A Suit To Cheer You Up

"Oh, can this day get any worse?" Cassie groaned as she gathered the laundry to take it to the washroom. There was a lot of laundry, but with how she was feeling, it felt like there was a giant mountain of laundry to do.

The reason for her feeling terrible was because when she had been in town picking up some groceries for her aunt Rachel, she had heard some gossipers speaking poorly of her family and then some bullies who hadn't bothered in a while had called her father, Four Arms, a monster.

Well, that made her upset and she called the bullies out on it before racing for home, angry.

She now pulled out a silver suit and placed it in the washing machine. "Better put this on the gentle cycle," she said to herself.

Just as she was about to start the washing machine, she heard sputtering. "Hey! I already had a bath!" A voice said as the silver suit jumped out of the washing machine. It turned to her and she looked shocked. "What gives?! I was sleeping! Who do you think you are tossing me in the wash?! I can take a bath myself if I need to!"

Cassie now began running, completely terrified. "Just leave me alone!" She snapped back at him. "You're just like the bullies! Ugh! This day can't get any worse now!"

With that, she continued running.

The silver suit, better known as Zoot, stood there in shock. He hadn't expected the kid to react that way and now he began feeling a bit bad about snapping at her and then realized something.

"She must be one of Rachel and Rook's nieces," he said to himself. "Oh, man. If I don't find her and help her feel better, Rachel's gonna really wring me out."

He would never admit this to anyone, but Rachel scared him when she was angry and he knew that one way to spark her anger was to either attack or say something hurtful to her family members. He quickly began searching for the young girl, glad Rachel was out in the city that day with her uncles to help them straighten out some things the bank had mistakenly put down in the statements.

Hopefully, she wouldn't hear about this. If he could find the girl and fix this mistake in time.

Cassie was about to head into her room when Zoot saw her. "Hey, girl! Wait up!" He called to her.

She turned around and screamed. "Leave me alone!" She yelled at him and took off running.

"Wait!" He called out again, following after her swiftly. Despite being just a suit, he could move pretty fast if he needed to.

"Go away!" Cassie yelled at him. "You big, mean, alien creature!"

Zoot winced a bit at those words. "Kid, come on! Stop running a moment!" He said, trying to keep his tone pleading so she didn't take it the wrong way.

"Why should I when you yelled at me?" She asked him, still running. "You're nothing but a big meanie!"

Okay, Zoot freely admitted to himself that he deserved that one. "Come on, kid," he said, seeing her pause a moment to catch her breath, but he didn't come closer as he wanted to give her some space too. "I'm not that mean. Will you let me make it up to you?"

She looked at him. "How can you?" She asked. "A suit can't feel anything."

Chuckling to himself as he knew she hadn't met someone like him before, he got ready to chase her again. "Oh, I've got feelings," he said, a smile in his voice that she heard and was about ready to take off again. "And I'm willing to prove it to you. Even if I've got to chase you all over the mansion."

"You won't catch me!" Cassie said defiantly as she began running again.

Zoot chuckled. "Oh, I think I can," he said before adding to himself. "And soon too. Preferably before Rachel gets home."

He chased after Cassie, glancing at the time as well and seeing he had two hours before Rachel walked in the front door. "Hopefully, she won't come home early," he said to himself as he kept running after the young girl.

Cassie had to stop a moment to catch her breath again and Zoot was becoming desperate and decided to take drastic measures. As he caught up to her again and she was about to run again, he went to tackle her and quickly wrapped himself around her so that she was wearing him. "Gotcha!" He said.

She screamed. "Get off me!" She begged, trying to run, but Zoot quickly took control so that she couldn't run.

"Wait, kid. Please," he pleaded with her. "Look, I'm not going hurt you, but I need you to stop running and listen to me."

Cassie was about to hyperventilate as she realized she couldn't move her limbs because of him. "Why?" She managed to squeak out.

"Because if I don't make amends with you, your aunt Rachel is going to literally string me up."

She looked at him puzzledly as he said that and saw him nod. "Yeah, your aunt Rachel warned me about scaring her family members when I come visit here and…well, let's just say I tend to fly off the handle and act before I think," he admitted. "And between you and me, kid, when your aunt gets mad, she looks ready to spit fire and I'm not flame retardant."

Cassie couldn't help the giggle that escaped her. "Yeah, she does get very protective of us," she said.

"Extremely protective," he said, chuckling as he felt her relax and decided he could let her go and so got up, detaching himself from her. "By the way, I'm Zoot."

She blinked. "Zoot?" She asked before a smile came to her face. "That's a cool name."

"Thanks, kid," he said. "And what about you?"

"Cassie," she said.

"That's a cute name for a cute kid," Zoot said sincerely, making her look bashful. "I know something else that makes a cute kid look even cuter."

"What?" She asked.

The next thing she knew, he had moved behind her and was tickling her. Now, how he could tickle her when he didn't have hands was beyond her, but that didn't seem to stop him as he tickled her underarms first and she fell down laughing.

"AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" She laughed and squirmed.

"Yup, you look even cuter as you're getting tickled," Zoot said teasingly. He chuckled as she tried to protect her tickle spots, but the good thing about having thin arms was that he could slip underneath her arms that tried to protect her tickle spots and tickle her all the same.

Cassie squealed as Zoot started tickling her stomach. "Oh, look how sensitive this little tummy is," he said teasingly. "I love sensitive tummies. They're so much fun to tickle."

The young girl tried to protect her stomach, but once again, that was very hard to do when Zoot just kept breaking through her defenses with his thin arms and playful, teasing words. Suddenly, Zoot stopped and Cassie went limp as she continued giggling. "You know what else I love about sensitive tummies?" He asked her with a chuckle.

Although she had a good idea as to what he was about to do, she was curious too. "What?" She asked.

Zoot lifted up his arms and carefully lifted up Cassie's shirt just a little to expose her stomach. "They're absolutely delicious to munch on!" He said before blowing a raspberry into her stomach, making her really squeal. She then felt him very gently pretend to eat her stomach, which tickled as bad as the raspberries did.

"Yummy! This little tummy is very delicious!" Zoot said playfully before blowing more raspberries into Cassie's stomach and she squealed again, her giggles filling the house and making him chuckle as her laughter was really contagious.

"Well, this is something that chases away a bad day," said a familiar voice and Zoot stopped tickling Cassie as he turned to see who was behind him and the young girl tilted her head slightly to see who was there.

Rachel stood there with Rook behind her and both were smiling. Cassie went to stand up and Zoot instantly assisted her. "You were having a bad day too, Aunt Rachel?" The teenager asked.

Rachel nodded. "Yes," she said to her niece. "It took a lot of patience on my part and your great uncles' parts to finally convince the guy in charge of making the statements that he had made a few typos. The manager finally came and straightened it out, thankfully, before my patience snapped."

She then looked at Cassie. "Goop also heard about your bad day too," she said. "It took Rook, Goop, Frankenstrike, and I to keep your dad from charging out to go find those bullies and the gossipers."

Cassie giggled and Zoot chuckled. "And I thought you were scary when you got mad," he said. "Tetramands are really scary when they get mad."

Rachel nodded. "But it's a good thing you were here to cheer Cassie up," she said. "Especially after you realized she had a really bad day."

Zoot saw the older woman wink secretly at him, which told him she knew about the washing machine incident, but Rachel's smile told her that because he had made things right with Cassie, she forgave him.

"Speaking about that," Zoot suddenly remembered. "Weren't you doing laundry, kiddo?"

Cassie gasped. "Oh, shoot! I was," she said.

She felt Zoot's arm gently wrap around her shoulders. "Come on, I'll give you a hand," he said.

Smiling at the hidden joke, she nodded and led the way to the washroom.

Or rather, ran to the washroom laughing as Zoot began playfully tickling her again as he gave chase.

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GoldGuardian2418