AN: Finally an update! I'm an unfortunately slow writer—sorry guys! :-(
Big thanks to JokerCarnage5, OFIXD, Vicious0, Umeki-Nara, Mystique84, and all of the guests that reviewed the first chapter! I'm glad you all like it, and find it in-character ;w; I love and appreciate the feedback a ton! I hope ya'll like this one just as much; we're finally getting into some rather 'intimate' territory in this one. ;-)
Scarlett had managed to settle Max back into his makeshift medical bed with a little help from her droids, and then had begun her assessment of the damage to his injury meticulously. His adventure into the labyrinth of her lair's hallways had cost his body at least a few days' work of repair to his muscle tissue, which meant his stay with her would be extended at least a week longer. Scarlett sighed in aggravation as she watched a pair of droids clean the blood—fresh and dried—off of Max's right side and leg. She thought for a moment in-between typing condition updates into the Max's medical log, that it could be seen as odd to be so casual about having your ex-partner be more-or-less nude behind you. Of course, she wasn't directly looking, and Max was covering his "private area" with a sheet due to what is probably the only hint of humility inside of his soul, but it would probably still be seen as socially awkward. Not that society has any inclination that a woman of science such as herself has no apprehension about a nude body, or further, that Max's nude body isn't anything she hasn't seen before. Not that they were ever lovers, no, but living with Max had its fair share of run-ins with either of them in compromising situations. Scarlett wrinkled her nose at the idea of a sexual relationship between them, and the aggressive rumors that there certainly had been, before turning to the man in question. The droids had replaced his bloodied, plain boxer shorts with a new, crisp, white pair, but Max still shifted uncomfortably under her gaze.
"Max—" She started, but hesitated as she reran the possible branches of where this conversation could lead, depending on her approach. She wanted to scream at him about what the Hell he thought he was going to accomplish by trying to run off, but she already knew the answer—some kind of mix of "unburdening" her of himself, and some self-indulgent angst about their past relationship. And she had taken notice of a shift in atmosphere between them, which wasn't so much as uncomfortable, but rather broken off. Max blinked slowly, sadly, and stared at his knuckles, purposefully keeping his eyes away from her. She sighed—better to go the professional route, she decided. "Your wound's been widened slightly. A few centimeters in diameter—nothing catastrophic, but it will extend your need for supervision."
He didn't raise his head, only pressed his lips to keep himself from muttering curses as he wanted to. Scarlett waited a moment, unsure if he planned to respond, and after a few more seconds he nodded his head slightly, still focused despondently on his hand. Scarlett tilted her head somewhat, unaccustomed to a somber Max, before continuing.
"Alright." She stood and straightened her lab coat, carefully ignoring the smear of blood on the front of it. "Make sure to rest. The droids will bring you dinner at 6:00 PM."
She waited again, but only got his dull frown towards his fingers as a response. She wanted to try and prompt him into responding with an additional remark, as social needs want, but restrained herself. Instead she ignored her discomfort towards her normally chatty ex-partner's dismal silence, and left to distract herself from his presence with projects.
It didn't work, of course.
Scarlett stirred her dinner—pasta in a cream sauce—and stared at one of her monitors idly. She had turned the monitor with the camera footage of Max's room off, since that seemed to be the only way she could manage to keep her eyes off of it. She drug a forkful of noodles up above the plate, watching them drip and dangle helplessly in the air, before setting them back down to their now-lukewarm brethren.
"I hate you." Scarlett told her dinner, which unwillingly substituted as Max for the evening, since she was banned from looking at him for the rest of the night. "I really do."
She sighed unhappily and set her fork down against the plate's edge. She leaned back into her chair, catching sight of the currently black-screened monitor that should show her ex-partner lying helplessly in bed, before darting her eyes away and scolding herself. A thought crossed her mind that asked her if she truly did hate Max, or just said it so often to remind herself that she should. Said "thought" was lucky it was an intangible concept of mental processes, and therefore could not be killed for suggesting such a stupid thing. Scarlett pinched the bridge of her nose and groaned in the back of her throat—she had every possible right and ability to hate him; the idea that she, an evil genius, would decide to not hate him, when so much evidence could be brought forth that she indeed should hate him, was absurd.
And yet, she struggled.
Against her will her mind brought her back to a time when she had been attracted to him. She hissed in spite at her own overpowered conscious, but it was futile—the memories flashed in an instant, months of emotional and social build-up rushed through her mind in mere seconds, flying too quickly for her to wretch them from her sight and bury them into the back of her skull where they belonged.
She remembered their beginning partnership—after their stint on Total Drama: Pahkitew Island—and how easily she could scare Max into withdrawing his arrogance and replace it with trembling loyalty. As time passed, however, she got lazy and he got braver. He took more and she bit less—how stupid, she reminded herself. She would throw him a warning tone, and he would wave her off, knowing now his boundaries to not push further, but still not have to retract his insult. Scarlett sneered; she should have bit off his head for some of the irritating things he did and said, and yet, he got away unscathed. She grew too comfortable, too settled with his pompous behavior, too accepting that there was work to be done, and Max's annoying personality was just a skip in their otherwise perfect record of work. It was all just a bump that could be ignored, until it had grown into a mass that needed to be extracted, and she had done so with little kindness. "But what about the times before that?" Her mind prompted her, and in a flash she was pulled back to before her escape from that wretched existence below such a worthless man. Her eyes winced; they had gotten so close.
They had moved in together after high school—Scarlett insisted on going to a University, and whether through loyalty or affection or fear of abandonment, Max followed like a fly to the aroma of food. They paid for a small rental home with royalties from worthless infomercial inventions they had made while still in high school, and stowed away extra cash by debugging hardware or selling coding programs. They had built a substantial laboratory far below their rental home, as to keep it hidden from any future tenants after their departure, and it was there that their experiments grew. But it was the work they completed above ground that hitched in Scarlett's mind now. Even with their inventing and Scarlett's class schedule and schoolwork, they somehow found themselves with a lot of down time. Anymore she wasn't sure if it was intentional or not, but they spent a lot of time enjoying each other's company. Max would cook for the both of them and they would relax on the sofa together and ridicule or praise the sci-fi or science channels' programs. And sometimes, against her judgment and ethics, she would lean against him—and sometimes, he would move his arm so she could rest more comfortably against him, and somehow his arm would end up against her back, and they would rest like that for hours, laughing at conspiracy theories, or inaccuracies in historical findings.
Scarlett felt her cheeks burn—from shame, she convinced herself—shame for letting her social needs eclipse herself so horribly. And that wasn't even as bad as it got. She tried to ignore the quick remembrance of the nights that her "toys" did little to subdue her whirling hormones, and she would think of him instead; the smell of the cologne that he wore too much of, the feel of his skin, how thick his fingers were—she shook the memory from her thoughts before it could continue.
"I was a stupid girl then." She spoke out to the nothingness around her. "It meant nothing—nothing but what the opposite sex would mean to a hormonal, male-interested, stupid girl."
She sat up again, resting her forehead in her palms. Those feelings fade, especially with time and with new partners to idle your mind, she reminded herself. Still, the heat continued to radiate from her cheeks. Scarlett began to pick at her dinner once more, contemplating her hatred for Max as she did. Perhaps it wasn't the man specifically, but all that he represented; most notably, all of her faults. He was the icon—the manifestation, even—of every mistake she had made in her youth. She had been soft with him. Forgiving, passive. She had let him get away with so much—had let him drag her down, slow her down. All she could see when she looked at him was how foolish she had been as a teenager, which of course, was the only time they had been together. Max could have grown into a well-kept, mature, suave Man of Evil, but it was worth nothing if the mere sight of him filled her with pure, unadulterated hatred.
"So it's irrelevant then." Scarlett answered her nagging thought, before biting down on her forkful of noodles.
It had been two days since Max's little stint, and Scarlett was beginning to find his silence unnerving. She presumed he was attempting to keep out of her way, but the atmosphere was so weighted with his somberness that she could hardly breathe. She was almost beginning to miss his pathetic attempts at chit-chat. Against her better judgment, she decided she had to break the silence, but she'd need a topic. As she looked over his condition VIA data charts, she noticed the half-eaten lunch cast aside on the table beside his bed. That was the third time she'd seen one of his meals left unfinished since he tried to run off.
"Max, you need to eat." Scarlett lowered her eyes on the plate before turning back to the monitor, relieved to have the silence of the room disrupted. Unfortunately, the discomfort grew back the longer Max chose to postpone his response. When it again felt unbearable, he spoke.
"I haven't had much appetite." He murmured. Scarlett looked towards him for a moment before looking to the computer screen again.
"Be that as it may, you need nutrition to repair the damage to your body." She adjusted her glasses and stood, looking at him directly now. Max looked to her long enough for Scarlett to take note of how tired his eyes were, before he looked away again. Scarlett wrinkled her nose on one side, refusing to be concerned. She continued. "If you're unwilling to eat, I'd be more than happy to supply you the nutrients needed through an IV."
"That would be fine." Max answered, staring at the opposite wall with half-lidded eyes. Scarlett's eyebrow ticked up slightly—Max had never been one to waste food. In fact, he used to get on her quite regularly when they lived together about not finishing her meals. Her eyebrows furrowed; very concerning.
"Or is it perhaps—" Scarlett hesitated, but was unable to stop herself. "—that my droids' cooking has finally become intolerable?"
Her sentence finished with an unfortunately playful tone, which made Max looked up at her in slight surprise. Scarlett tightened her jaw, already scolding herself, but the comment seemed to have the desired effect.
"Wh—no, no. Not at all." Max looked away, awkwardly scratching his knuckle. Scarlett took the moment to smirk slightly; now that sounded much more like the Max she was used to. Well, still oddly passive, but much more Max-like than a despondent man wallowing in self-pity. Her expression fell again before he could look back to her.
"Then I expect you to eat." She raised her chin slightly at the command, folding her hands behind her back. "If you're anything the man I remember, that shouldn't be much to ask."
Max blinked in confusion at the sudden glint in her cold eyes, and continued to stare after her as she turned and left. He rubbed his head, unsure if he was perhaps reading body language wrong again.
"Yes.. yes, that must be it." He nodded, still confused, before lying his head back down, unable to consider Scarlett's comments as anything meaningful.
AN: See? Scarlett's got a dirty secret ;-) Not sure if that particularly will come up in later chapters, but certainly the attraction will.. anyways, R&R please! Thanks for reading—hope I'll get another chapter out at least kind-of soon.. /sweats