Disclaimer: I own nothing. The Devil owns Sky High. I mean Disney.

The Unseen

"Isn't it exciting, honey!?"

Josie Stronghold was holding a frying pan in one hand, and holding out a formal looking letter up to her son with the other, an expectant smile gracing her face. Will Stronghold leaned on the kitchen counter, straining to read the shaking manuscript as it jolted every time his mother sauteed the pan over the stove.

"Did you tell him yet, Josie?" Steve Stronghold asked proudly, entering the dining room, and taking a seat at the table. Will's father, in his characteristic charmingly arrogant manner, tapped his watch in mock annoyance. "Dinner was supposed to be on the table twenty minutes ago."

Josie glared at her husband over the rim of her glasses. "I'm telling him right now, Steve." She turned off the stove, and motioned for her son the take the letter. "Will is very excited," Mrs. Stronghold said dryly, noting the confused expression on Will's face as he read over the sheet of paper for the third time.

"Wait. Okay, so... does this mean me too?" Will questioned his parents, joining his dad at the dinner table and sliding the letter across the glossy surface towards him.

Steve grinned broadly, regarding the letter as something precious when he smoothed out any invisible wrinkles on its surface. "You bet it does! We wouldn't be - the Stronghold Three without you!" He cocked his head in the direction of his wife, who was carrying two dishes of food through the doorway. "Did yaw hear that honey? I rhymed! Maybe that should be our new, uh, team motto! Our battle cry!"

Will and his mother shared a secret look, and both hid their smiles. "We'll come up with something Steve, don't worry." After setting the family meal out on the table, Josie finally took a seat herself. "So what do you think, Will?"

Will absorbed what the letter had suggested, and came up with a coherent synopsis. "So... basically, they want to sponsor us to go on some kind of "help-the-helpless" world tour, and they're gonna donate all the proceeds to charity?" Will surmised, sending his parents skeptical looks.

Ever since his parents (as The Commander and Jetstream, of course) had unveiled to the world that the dynamic duo had become a terrific trio (or "thrio", as his father had announced at the press conference), Will felt like he was growing up way faster than expected. It was one thing to watch your parents save a bus-full of orphans on television. It was something completely different to be there, and hear the panicked, desperate screaming of young children and feel the raging heat of the flames. His parents still refused to let him actively participate in the "family business", claiming it too dangerous for someone his age, despite his powers and that little incident last year when he'd saved an entire high school from certain doom. Will sometimes wasn't sure whether to feel patronized, or grateful for their overprotective gestures.

"That's exactly right, Will. We know that it's short notice, but how could we say no to an opportunity like this. All of these people requested our aid, and it wouldn't be right to deny them," Josie replied, her empathetic tone more convincing than the words themselves.

"Plus, they all want to be helped," Steve muttered bitterly, "It's always a pain in the butt when after the fact, they're all, "But Commander, what will we drink when you've turned the river into a crater?",or, "That was the only building we have, and you had to use it as a baseball bat?!"

There was a beat of silence, and then Will and his mother carried on as though Steve had not spoken.

"That's a lot of stops. On one of them I could have sworn that it said we were scheduled to appear tomorrow afternoon," Will remarked, before taking a swig of his soda.

"That's right," his father confirmed happily, "We leave for the airport tomorrow at 5 a.m.. Bring your cape and mask, of course, because we can't expect your mother to carry us all the way to Buenos Aires, nor can the public see the Commander and Jetstream board an aircraft with a stocky adolescent who refuses to get a haircut..."

"Steve!" Josie scolded, shooting her husband a disapproving glance.

"Stocky?" Will worded under his breath, to himself. "Wait! So, what am I gonna do about school?"

"Oh, no worries, son," Mr. Stronghold assured Will airily, "I already called you in. In case anyone asks after we get back, your Smallpox cleared up just fine."

"I know that you mean Chickenpox, Steve," Will's mother said threateningly, between clenched teeth. "And the school is going to know that he isn't sick when they notice a teenage boy accompanying the Commander and Jetstream around the globe."

Mr. Stronghold's mouth opened once, closed, a blank look crossed his face, and then he quickly took a bite of his salad. "Gosh, honey, this is great. You know I love it when you put in these little baby tomatoes."

Josie released a weary sigh, got up from the table, and headed for the phone to call back the school and leave them a message concerning Will's "illness."

Will watched his parents in fond amusement. He knew how much the Stronghold Three meant to them, and he had to admit, he wasn't all that not excited about it himself. In an unusual display of cautiousness and conscientiousness, Will's father had suggested that his son wear a mask whenever he appeared publicly with his parents, at least until he graduated. Neither he nor his wife would entertain the thought of one of their supervillian foes targeting their only child in some revenge plot that their kind tended to embark on. He felt dorky wearing it with his red, white, and blue color-coded street clothes, but at least his parents were comforted by it.

Thinking back on the long list of places, dates and times that the invitation to the Stronghold Three had listed on it, Will suddenly looked across the table at his father with a surge of foreboding. "Hey Dad, how long will we be on this tour for?"

"A week?" Layla asked softly, standing with her arms crossed over her chest, and her eyebrows drawn together.

Will had run right next-door, almost immediately after his father's reply to his inquiry. It was already after 7:00, and he had to leave before dawn tomorrow morning. Will refused to go on so long a trip without telling his girlfriend goodbye properly. Layla's mom let him in after he pounded on their door a few times, informing him that he was welcome to stay for dinner in about half an hour, but from the looks of the fork he still gripped in his hand, he'd already eaten. Will had nodded thankfully, and stormed up the stairs to Layla's room, praying that she wouldn't be distressed at the news of his unexpected departure.

"Yep. But we're doing it to help people, to make a difference. It's a once in a lifetime opportunity..." Will reasoned, hoping to appeal to Layla's humanitarian streak. He laid the fork down on her dresser, and took a seat on her panda-bear bedspread.

"A whole week?" she asked again, standing still as a statue. Will could only spread his arms in apology.

"Afraid so." Will watched guiltily as Layla began to pace thoughtfully back and forth in front of the foot of her bed. "You gonna miss me?" he asked playfully, trying to lighten things up.

Layla stopped, and gave him a long searching look, her face expressionless. "Eh." she said, and began to pace again.

"Eh?"Will repeated, incredulous. "That's it?!" He couldn't believe that she was behaving so coldly towards him. It was so unlike Layla.

Layla continued to pace, and answered him deadpan. "Would it make you feel better if I threw in a "shrug"?" she asked, doing just that.

Will could feel the sickly fear that had been creeping into his gut dissipate when he caught the small smile in the corner of Layla's mouth before she could hide it. Heh. Gotcha.

Will scooted backward on Layla's bad, spread out his limbs and laid back on her pillow. "You're just saying that to punish me...," he moaned miserably. Layla stopped pacing and looked down at him. He knew it would work. He could always count on Layla to crash his pity-parties, even if they were staged.

His girlfriend grinned slightly. "Psshh. If I were gonna punish you, I could think of something way better than that."

Oh. Hello hormones. Not right now. We'll talk later, when we're alone, and we can put that sentence on memory loop.

"Yeah?" Will asked, struggling to keep any hint of suggestiveness out of his voice. "Like what?" He smiled daringly at Layla, his eyes narrowed.

Layla tilted her head slyly, uncrossing her arms, and walked up to the side of her bed, with her boyfriend in it. "Like... maybe... this!" Layla suddenly threw herself on Will, and latched herself to his side, holding onto him as hard as she could.

"Doooon't goooo!" She wailed piteously, entangling she and Will's arms and legs so that he could not escape easily.

Will burst into laughter at her antics, knowing that she was faking this rare display of absurd melodrama. "Layla, I have to...," he said, between laughs.

"Nooooo!" Layla moaned into his ear, laughing herself. "Don't leeaavve meee!" Layla was holding him to her so hard that Will could not move from the bearhug/bodylock she had him captured in without using his powers, not that he would want to.

"I'm sorry, but it's only for one week." Will found that whenever he tried to sit up, Layla would use all her strength to wrestle him back down to the bed. Maybe I should take world-tours more often...

Layla was giggling like a maniac now. "No! I won't let you! You're staying!" She wrapped her arms around his chest and neck and continued her attempt to hug him to death.

Will began to pretend to wrestle away from her, as though he didn't enjoy every second of her affection. "I can't!"

Layla wouldn't have it. "You will! You're not moving from this spot!" She wrapped both of her legs around one of his in a pseudo leglock and laid her head on his shoulder. "They'll have to pry my cold, dead, hands off you."

Will relaxed into her deathgrip. "I do have super-strength, you know..."

Layla lifted her head from his shoulder and met his eyes with her own. "So what? I know your weakness, Will Stronghold." she drawled slowly, a warmly mischievous glint in her eye.

"What!?" Will smiled wide, anticipating what her next sentence could possibly be.

"I am your kryptonite!" Layla declared overdramatically, as she renewed her struggle to squeeze the life out of him.

Loving this seldom seen side of her that he was sure he was the only one to have ever experienced, Will played along, and decided to dish out a little payback. "Well I know yours too!" He slid away from her a bit on the bed, only to reach out his hands and quickly run his fingers along her sides and stomach.

Layla screamed, and began laughing in a high pitched tone as she tried to unintelligibly demand for him to stop tickling her. Finally, after about thirty seconds, Layla relented. "All right, all right, I give, I give!"

Layla loosed her grip on her boyfriend, and turned over to lay on her back. Both she and Will stared up at her bedroom ceiling, panting happily as they lay side-by-side on her bed.

"Okay then." Will turned his head to smile at her. " See you next week," he said, and hopped off the bed with no warning.

"Wait!" Layla grabbed his arm in panic. "You can't just leave." She looked up at him imploringly, and not for the first time, Will thanked whoever was listening for his good fortune.

Will helped her up off the bed so she could stand beside him. "So you will miss me, then...?" he asked softly, brushing a thumb across her cheek.

Layla smiled gently a him. "...Of course I'll miss you..." She pulled Will to her and kissed him tenderly, causing him to lose all sense of time and space.

When she let go, and the world again had sounds and sights and smells to it besides Layla, Layla, and Layla, her face split into a beaming grin. "Have fun," she said sincerely, and turned him towards the door.

Will stumbled a few steps towards her bedroom door, but then turned right back around and began walking back towards Layla. "You know, maybe I can still talk them out of it..." Before he could even finish his sentence, she had put her hands on his shoulders, made him about-face, and was pushing him out the door.

"Go," She insisted, giggling. Just before she could shut the door in his face, Will stole one last quick kiss, then allowed the door to close.

Layla leaned back against her closed bedroom door for a few seconds, her eyes closed in that post-Will euphoria that she always got whenever they spent time together. Then, gingerly, she made her way back to her bed, and fell on to it. Turning onto her back, she exhaled a content, yet wistful sigh.

Her cell phone on her bedstand erupted in the ringtone to Captain Planet. Layla answered it half-heartedly, her eyes closed.

"Hello?"

"I was just walking down your stairs, and I missed you, so I thought I'd call..." Layla couldn't help laughing when she recognized Will's voice on the other end.

Author's Notes: Please excuse the fluffiness. It is there so that I can contrast this relationship with others. I'll admit that I am a huge Layla/Warren fan, but I also am a slave to canon. This is my first Sky High fic, so I hope that not everyone is too out-of-character. I had a lot of fun writing for the Commander, hehe. The other kids at Sky High will appear in the next chapter, and then I can get into what the story is actually about. (Hint: It's inspired by Greek Mythology) Also, Layla will be much more mellow, no worries.

P.S.: For all you anal-retentives out there like me, no, I did not forget about the fork!