Disclaimer: I do not own Kim Possible or have any claim to it.

Author's Note: I'm working on what could easily turn into an epic series, but I recently re-watched Bad Boy and got this idea. This takes place immediately after the lair blows up.

Plasma Repellent

"There goes another lair," Dr. Drakken remarked mournfully as the dust settled. He and Shego had managed to find cover far enough away from the main blast that they were reasonably well protected. They were covered in concrete dust and had suffered a few scrapes and bruises, but it could have been much worse. He levered himself out of their hiding place and began the time-honored tradition of picking through the rubble for anything salvageable. Shego reluctantly joined him, and he glared at her.

"So, will you be content to work with someone who's not all that bad, or will you be seeking other employment?" he asked.

"Actually, I've decided that you're just bad enough," she told him.

"Really?"

"Yeah. Now that I've seen a real evil mastermind…well, honestly, he's not so great to work for."

"Hmph. Well, that's gratifying, I suppose." Drakken sounded doubtful.

"I mean, he had a better chance of succeeding…" Shego admitted, leading Drakken to growl and sigh simultaneously – a fascinating sound. "…but he didn't care about anything. At least you never threatened to feed me to the sharks when I irritated you."

"He did that?" Drakken seemed torn between being impressed and horrified. "Hmm. I'll have to keep that option in mind." As his eyes met Shego's, however, they both knew that he would never do it. He looked away, and there was an uncomfortable pause. Shego had a question she wanted to ask. She knew it might be risky, but her curiosity got the best of her. That particular trait would likely kill her one day.

"Did you know you had a shield against my plasma blasts?" she blurted out.

"Hm? Oh, that," he replied distractedly. "I finished it last week, but I hadn't tested it yet…did you find it?"

"No, Zorpox did. He used it."

"And it worked? Excellent!" Drakken was initially elated, but then his face suddenly fell. "He took it with him, didn't he?"

"I guess so. He had it on his belt."

"Oh, well. I can always build another one." He bent to sift through the remains of the lair again, but Shego still had a few more questions.

"How long have you known you could do that?" she demanded. "Negate my abilities, I mean?"

"I came up with the theory about a year ago."

"Why didn't you do anything with it then?"

"It didn't seem necessary."

"Didn't...seem…necessary?" Shego repeated, feeling unusually slow. Drakken straightened up, frowning as though his point was obvious.

"It amuses you to threaten me with your powers," he shrugged. "As long as I'm not in any real danger, I'm willing to let it go. Call it a part of your benefits package, if you wish. I don't believe you'd actually try to hurt me, as long as you were in your right mind."

Shego gaped at her boss open-mouthed, sure that she looked like a landed bass. He accepted her abuse as a sort of condition of her employment? He let her bully him because it made her happy? She had a hard time wrapping her mind around that. Either she was a really good employee, or he really liked her. At the moment, she wasn't certain which she preferred. Even more disturbing was the fact that he'd picked up on how poor her aim usually was when she targeted him. Well, she wouldn't want to endanger her meal ticket, would she? There certainly couldn't be any other reason she would hold back with him. Whatever their reasons, it was clear that neither of them was as dangerous as they pretended to be.

"Then again, you did throw me headfirst out of the hovercar just hours ago," Drakken mused when she didn't respond.

"I just gave you a shove!" she protested. "I didn't know you'd land on your head."

"At least the potato salad I landed in was tasty."

"So what made you decide to make the shield thing after all?" Shego dragged the conversation back onto the topic that most interested her.

"It was…a certain incident recently when you clearly weren't in your right mind," he answered, looking a little uncomfortable. He returned to his task. "You seemed to literally be trying to kill me, and I decided it would be prudent to have some defense in place, just in case."

It took Shego a moment to realize that he was talking about the time she was under the influence of the Moodulator. That had only been a few weeks ago, which did seem to coincide with when he said he'd completed the new invention.

"I'm…sorry about that," she said, determining that an apology was her best course of action. Besides, it helped take her mind off of the less violent but more embarrassing things she had done that day. She was doing her best to forget that entire episode. "And I'm sorry I threw you out of the hovercar. You were just being so nauseating."

"That's all right. I suppose I was a bit insufferable," Drakken waved away her apology, which made her confused and angry. It wasn't supposed to be like this. He was supposed to hold a grudge, punish her, something. They were villains, after all. For him to make things this easy on her was just…wrong. That machine had been right; Dr. Drakken wasn't very bad at all. There were times, in fact, when he could be infuriatingly nice, like the year he paid for her Christmas vacation. That wasn't the worst part, though. The worst part was that Shego suddenly realized that she liked that about him. What was the matter with her?

"You have got to be the most impossible man on the planet!" she snapped, upset with her own inner conflict. Drakken faced her and crossed his arms across his chest, giving her a thoroughly perplexed expression.

"What have I done now?" he demanded angrily.

"Everything! Nothing! I don't know!" she shouted, her inability to express herself coherently only making her angrier. Drakken blinked at her a few times before throwing up his hands in defeat.

"You know, Shego, there are days when I think I don't understand you at all," he said at last, turning from her and picking his way across the debris to what used to be other rooms. Shego could only stare after him, mentally cursing him for having the gall to leave in the middle of an argument. However, she recognized the inanity of her situation and forced herself to breathe more slowly and deeply.

"Yeah, well, right back at you, Doc," she muttered as she, too, went to recover any of her belongings she could find.

Author's Note: It occurred to me that there were a number of unanswered questions at the end of this episode, namely regarding that shield device that neutralized Shego's plasma attacks. Did Drakken know he had it? If so, why hadn't he used it? Where did he get it? Please tell me what you think!