A/N: I'm Back! Whoop whoop, but I wanted to get something out, before I started to feel like taking a break from writing. These two need more stories. I don't know what else to say besides giving some shoutouts to the other fandoms around. If you're reading this, you'll know exactly what I mean once you finish reading everything. Enjoy the Thundercest please!
Phoebe nonchalantly walked into the Mattress store. She knows his schedule like the back of her hand –and that's perfectly normal. Max had forgotten his lunch in the refrigerator and she just didn't think a cold sandwich and a sports drink were going to cut it, and so she decided to leave those at home.
Max doesn't always forget his lunch. Sometimes he's too busy, too focused, too preoccupied with showing off to the retired villain. Phoebe gets it. She understands in a strange way, but with Max gone all the time there's a small part of her that craves something. It stays gnawing in the back of her mind, and she chooses to ignore it.
Whatever it is.
Phoebe sees him head to one of the vending machines in the back of the store. She quietly follows and watches the groan spill from his lips when he reached into his pockets and realized he'd also forgotten his wallet. She bites down on her bottom lip to hold back the laugh, fixes her face, and folds her arms behind her back.
"Phoebe, what are you doing here?" Max sighed. She doesn't understand how he always knows it's her when she's trying to sneak up on him, he finally turns to look in her direction.
He's still faintly angry, but his eyes are tired.
Bothered, a little stressed, but mostly he's okay.
She lets out a sigh, loosening the tension she hadn't realized she'd been holding on to. "I brought you some lunch." She meekly holds up a bag of takeout, and the lines in his forehead disappear. "I brought enough for two."
Finally, she comes to the realization that she misses him.
She sees him all the time and yet she still misses him.
How ironic.
"I don't know if you're allowed in the break room." He says, and there's a shimmer of light in his eyes that she understands as astonishment because she really went through all this trouble to bring him lunch while he's too busy trying to get a one-up on all of his co-workers and impress his boss.
"Oh come on, it's not that big of a deal. Plus, you're off the clock right now aren't you?" Her eyebrows raise in a way that she only does when she's teasing him, she's never one to break the rules, but he's never one to follow them and for his sake and rumbling stomach, he leads them into the small boxy room with his key card.
"We can do the tables over there, or whatever," He mumbled, waving a hand in the general direction of a few long benched tables for multi-purpose use.
Phoebe nods amiably and they make their way over, sitting across from each other, and digging in.
Things are quiet for a time, both of them too focused on their food to focus on each other, but about halfway through her yellow rice, Phoebe looks up to Max watching her.
"What?" She asked, suddenly self-conscious. She quickly swipes a napkin across her mouth. "I've got something on my face, or...?"
"No." Max interrupted, shaking his head and smirking down at his plate. She looks at him suspiciously for a second, but when he doesn't crack she goes back to pushing her food around her plate a little.
She's hit that point where she could stop eating, this was only a dumb idea to find some time to spend with him, and now things are beginning to feel like something similar to an awkward date. Why didn't she think any of this through? Max wasn't her boyfriend, why should she care if he starved during his shifts? It wasn't her job to bring him food.
She purses her lips, pondering.
"How are things back home?" Max asks distractedly while pushing his vegetables off his plate and onto hers. She allows him too, but only because he let her split half of his spring roll.
"Really Max? It's not like you're gone that often." She said through a hearty bite, licking the excess off the corners of her mouth.
She sees Max's eyes follow the path of her tongue across her lips, a quicksilver flash away from her eyes. It's instant, almost instinctive, and she's wondering if it should it be?
She doesn't comment on it, though.
"But..." She laments, carefully sliding her plate within reach again and grabbing her fork. "I didn't realize how much you actually help around the house until I had to do it alone." It takes a moment for her to acknowledge that their conversation sounds like they're a married couple.
Max nodded his head, lazily bringing more noodles to his mouth with a simple smile. Seconds pass and his foot nudge her calf softly beneath the table and when she looks up he's biting his lip and staring steadily. She tilts her head to the side, and takes a quick breath, her heartbeat suddenly a little quicker, a little sharper.
"What?" She needled, narrowing her eyes and tapping the toe of his shoe with hers.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
"Nothing." Max doesn't stop biting his lip, but he does drop his gaze, looking up at her from underneath his thick eyebrows. "Except for the fact that you miss me."
There's a slight curl of her lips and it spreads into a grin. His bottom lip is still pulled in between his teeth and he smiles through it. The cocky jerk.
"I really don't." She looks down and back up, eyes meeting his brown ones briefly, before sliding away again.
"You do." Max presses on with unreadable eyes, and she doesn't know what he's getting at, but the feeling brings an unknown sense of thrill into her.
"You wish." She challenged back, mixing his vegetables into her rice. She's getting annoyed by how good he looks in his uniform and how his stupid tie matches his eye color.
"Don't have to," He actually seemed vaguely amused, and when their eyes locked there was something in his, liquid and burning and trying to…provoke her. "No one can resist Max Thunderman's charm."
Phoebe decided it was best to leave it alone. Hardly another word was spoken between the two, and the only sound in the room was the gentle whirling of the ceiling fan. For a long moment they ate in silence –a silence that she hoped would go back to the normal she first felt before she walked into the store, instead this silence felt…heavy.
And without warning, Max's foot bumps hers again.
"I won these tickets in a radio contest…and I want to take this girl, but I think she might turn me down."
There are a million and one reasons on why he thinks he shouldn't be doing this, maybe not thinking about it too much should help (it won't), but he's here now and there is no going back, he already redeemed his coupon for one 'Mother Son Heart-to-Heart' talk.
"Tell me about this girl." Barb trails off, expectantly looking at him, unable to contain her excitement. "What does she like? Does she care about school, her family, is she pretty?"
"All the above a-and she's beautiful, but she's definitely unattainable." He avoids eye contact and he's wondering if that makes it obvious who he's talking about.
"Unattainable is she?" Barb laughs and it doesn't help Max feel any better. "Sounds like you two don't always get along."
"Most times we don't, but she's always been there…for me." He moves one leg out to stretch while folding his hands in his lap. His mother places her hand on his knee.
"Well, Max, it sounds like you really like this girl, so ask Phoebe,"
Max swears his eyes bulge out of his head. "What?" He said in a rushed breath.
"I meant ask Phoebe's opinion on this," Barb suggested stone-faced, not missing Max's sudden reaction, but pretending she didn't notice it. "See what she thinks about all this, maybe she can help you?"
Max tries really hard to ignore the way his heart lurches in his chest when he thinks about his mother's implications. The poor woman already had enough on her plate, the last thing she needed was to deal with one of her kids having forbidden feelings for their sibling.
He nodded while his mother pulls back from their hug and makes her way back up the stairs to her bedroom. He stared long and hard at the two concert tickets in his hand. Is he really going to ask her? He doesn't even like the boyband, he's more of a hard rock type of guy, but he knows they're her favorite and these thoughts have taken root in his very core, growing at a rate that he can't slow down.
"Hey, Max!"
There she is, coming through the front door, returning from dance practice. Her hair is up in a messy bun with loose strands hanging at the side of her face, she looks very much disheveled and it's messing with his head.
She sends a smile his way and walks passed him into the kitchen, and at that moment in his mind he swears time has slowed down and she's walking a runway.
Pull it together, Max. He rolled his neck and shoulders, before heading where she was.
Phoebe is leaning against the counter, head tipped back while she drinks her water, of course, dancers naturally had to keep their bodies hydrated, the fact makes his eyes run all over hers and he nervously coughs to deal with his dry throat.
"Is something wrong?" Her face squishes and her eyes light up at the thought of a quick taunt coming to mind. "On second thought, don't answer that."
Already she was starting with the teasing. Good. He could handle that.
"Careful with the insults, Dweebs, you might regret it later." His eyes darken when they meet hers, and the corner of Phoebe's lips curl into a smirk and –smirking was usually his thing, but he swore to himself he would do everything in his power to get her to do it more often.
"That seems highly unlikely." She pushed passed him to finally head to her room, and Max mentally panics.
"-Almost as unlikely as these…" He holds up the two tickets and Phoebe's eyes widen. She reaches to snatch them to get a better look, but he pulls back in the nick of time.
"Where did you get those?"
"Don't worry about where, just worry about what you're going to wear."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, I'm going to take –to…to give you these so you can go with Cherry." It dawns on him that he can't do it, his thoughts have run away with him again and doubt ensues. After planning for weeks, jamming his phone signal to the radio tower, he realizes how screwed up he is.
Phoebe's looking up at him, her dark brown eyes intensely searching for some clue concerning the sudden change in his behavior. He just wants her to drop it.
"What's the catch?" She asks and tentatively reaches for the tickets he's holding out.
"There is no catch, I hate those guys, so take the tickets." He let out in a grumble, already upset with himself for getting his hopes up and crushing his dreams all at once.
"Really?" He rolled his eyes but nodded regardless. "Thank you, thank you so much, Max!"
In an instant, her arms are tucked around his back as she hugs him, the scent of cinnamon apple hits him like a sucker punch to the gut, but overall he really loves having her in his arms. She fits him like a puzzle piece and they're wound up together so tightly, he's sure she can feel his heart thumping in his chest. It's the best he's felt in a long while.
When Phoebe recognizes what she's done –what they're doing, she pulls back quickly, embarrassment all over her face as Max's hands slowly glide from off her waist and slap to his sides. She's gone in a blink and he slams the button to his lair slide.
Maybe next time.
Phoebe sighed to herself, anxiously munching on a few baby carrots. Cherry didn't come to school today because her mother made her take the day off to retake her driver's test. It meant good news for them if she passed, Phoebe wouldn't have to walk to school anymore. She refused to use Chloe like Max did, she wouldn't risk their secret being exposed.
But this meant Phoebe was alone, a nervous wreck sitting in lunch as she waited for the inevitable. She had heard the rumors all week and now, on a Friday she was ready to commence operation 'Delta'.
"Please. Just to get him off my back."
"What do I get out of this?"
"The Hero-League has intel on Dark Mayhem's secret base. I can get you the documents."
"Deal."
She knew it was a bad –terrible idea, but she was running out of them and on a day like this, it was her only chance. Everything was going to be fine, and then once it was over they would move on and never speak of it. Plus, she wasn't actually going to give him those documents in the first place. That was the plan and she was betting on everything.
Like clockwork, Bryan Daniels, who was in her Civics class before Advanced Mathematics, quickly came to take a seat across from her. He was a sweet guy, a little on the nerdy side and Phoebe could tell he had a small crush on her since the start of this year, but she just wasn't interested.
"Hello, Phoebe Thunderman." He grinned, his voice nasally and high. He sat with his hands folded on the table, an inquiring look on his freckled face.
"H-hey, Bryan. What's up?" She shifted her eyes to her ranch dressing, dipping another carrot in the cream before popping it into her mouth.
"Will you go out with me?" He practically said all in one breath, and Phoebe actually lost hers.
As in quite literally, she began choking. Beating her chest to push the food down the right pipe. Suddenly, she's looking around desperately for Max, who said he would be here on time.
"That's really…sweet of you –and um, I-I wish I could, but you see…" She tried really hard to school her features into something that looked calm and collected, but she ended up resembling someone in pain.
"Please, just one date. You know when two political parties can't come to an agreement they-"
"Hey, Pheebs!"
Max, her saving grace, quickly sat next to her. Waves of relief rippled down her spine. She wanted to pull him to the side and yell at him because as usual he was late, but she decided to shrug it off. He was already here, sitting extremely close and she didn't want to think about how naturally her body gravitated towards his. This already was a weird situation that she didn't want to draw more attention to.
"Uh, Bryan this is Max, my b-"
"-Boyfriend." He interrupted while slipping an arm gracelessly around her waist, pulling her even closer to the point where it felt like she was sitting in his lap.
"Boyfriend?" Bryan skeptically repeated which he should have been because the uneasy expression on Phoebe's face surely was going to give them away. "Just yesterday I saw him fraternizing with Rebecca Miller. Certainly not boyfriend material if you ask me."
Who the heck is Rebecca Miller? Phoebe's mind enviously thought –no it wasn't envy and it wasn't jealousy either.
"No. She was asking for notes and I told her to take a hike." Max explained smugly to the geek making false accusations, all while his fingers slowly ran up and down the side of her body, unknowingly making her mind spin dizzily. "Phoebe, is my girlfriend."
"What are you doing?" Phoebe asked, through her wide-eyed smile, while trying to keep track of his face. He was totally going off script, the PDA was supposed to go no further than hand holding. She didn't even want to think about the way he called her his 'girlfriend' made her heart pound wildly against her ribcage.
He only ignored her, but she saw the glint flicker in his eyes. Did he think this was funny? She quickly pulled his roaming hand from off her thigh and yanked it around her shoulders. Forcibly laughing and smiling through her humiliation. Things were happening way too fast and she didn't know what was going on.
But Bryan still looked unconvinced. "How long have you two been dating?"
"A year."
"Two weeks."
They both said in unison, and Bryan crossed his arms and squinted his eyes in disbelief. They weren't helping their case.
"…Uh, what we meant to say was…a year and two weeks." Phoebe lamely added, distractedly, secretly wishing Max would stop playing with the strands of her hair around her neck, but also praying he'd never stop.
"This doesn't make any sense," Bryan exclaimed, arms flying up, exasperated. "Usually, you two are seen around school arguing."
"Hey, we don't argue we bicker, sometimes it's called flirting, get it right." Max quickly corrected, and Phoebe just sat there arguably stunned and fascinated. She didn't have a clue where all this was coming from, but she couldn't help but wonder if their bickering could be seen as flirting to some. Was this the reason why none of the boys in their school tried to ask her out?
"But statistics have shown couples who-"
"Look, kid, Phoebe and I are dating, always have, always will be, okay." His eyebrows narrowed and Phoebe could feel it in his grip around her. He was obviously getting annoyed. "Now do you want it in writing or should I just show you how unavailable she is?" The tone in his voice was serious, really serious.
Phoebe finds herself worried by how much of a natural Max is at this role. No, she's not attracted to him taking charge of the situation, there was nothing hot about the way his jaw clenched in anger, and her mind wasn't screaming 'yes' that her boyfriend –Max (an honest mistake) should just kiss her so Bryan would leave them alone.
Calm down you dork none of this is real! And she doesn't know if her mind is telling Max or herself this.
Poor Bryan didn't stand a chance, and he got the hint and quickly shuffled his things and was back inside the Mess Hall. Max smirked and watched him wander off because his brilliant –yet very risky plan had worked.
And then Phoebe smacked him.
"Hey! What was that for?!" He pulled away from her to rub on his now hurting arm.
"For fraternizing with Rebecca Miller." She smiled tightly, gathered up her books and walked away right before the second bell rang.
She always wanted to talk, and he kind of listened on and on about whatever nonsense that happened in her day. But today she didn't want to talk.
The Max Phoebe twin thing was over.
He messed up. Just about the biggest mistake anyone can make, he'd gone and done it. Of all the stupid things he's done in his life, he can definitely write this as number one in the chronicle sitting in his hands.
In his mind she'll forgive him, that's what he's trying to reprogram his brain to believe. She'll smack a book out of his hand and stick her tongue out at him. He'd rather that then let his mind betray him (again) and envision the way her eyes lit up, or how that cute little dimple on her cheek would pop up when she scrunches her face in embarrassment.
She doesn't need to be saving his life or keeping his deep secrets of villainy. He doesn't need to be skipping classes so she gets the lead in choir or staying up all night rolling Japanese fireworks. But they do it anyways. That's also the part 'Max Phoebe twin thing'.
Phoebe has grown so much over the years, both mentally and physically. He's noticed, God help him, he's very much aware. He's grown too, maybe it's more physical than mental, but does regret what he's done. He swears to the moon and stars that this isn't over, and she's not done wasting her time on him.
It's been three days! Three days since she stormed out of his lair, and he felt like they were the longest three days in his whole life. She ignored him during dinner, in school, at home but everywhere he went she somehow found her way back in his mind.
I'm gonna fix this.
Here he was, standing in front of her room door. He knocks once, then twice and waits. The door slowly opens, revealing Phoebe, who looks all the way done and he hasn't even said two words yet, she closes her room door behind her, standing with him in their quiet hallway.
"Pheebs, listen I know you said you're done with the 'Max Phoebe twin thing' but I'm hoping all this changes your mind." He squints his face, and his stomach is feeling queasy as he sheepishly waits for some kind of answer.
"I don't know, Max." She quickly breathed, and her back is already turned towards her door.
"Wait." Before his mind knows what he's doing he's reaching out to her, his hand brushing gently across her back as Phoebe all but reluctantly turned around to face him. "I know you don't think I have a heart, but I do, it's…small but it's there-"
"You still going with that?" He could feel she was about two seconds away from slamming her door in his face.
Max looks up defeated, frustrated, but patient all at once. "This time it's true, okay." His voice is light and Phoebe crosses her arms, willing to listen but doubt written all over her face. At least she's willing to give him her undivided attention, he appreciates that. "I'm not good at this…"
"So you thought you could just waltz up here and I'd magically forgive you?" Phoebe interrogated further because clearly there was just no way in hell she was going to let something like this go.
"Kinda hoping…?" He trails off, running a hand through his unruly hair and he's pleading with her at this point because that's all he's got.
"I thought you had my back, but obviously I was wrong." She fired back, all disappointed and it grated at his nerves. She was doing something to him that was making him feel wrong.
"I did –I still do."
"No," She shook her head. "You're always hurting me and I don't understand why. Is some diary more important than me?"
"N-no, look I can't think straight and I'm trying to make things right and you aren't letting me." He stepped closer to her, hoping that this new proximity would get her to back away from this topic.
"Why should I make it easy for you all the time?" She stepped closer a couple inches, matching the intensity of his gaze. "I've been doing that all my life. Why can't you tell me why you always hurt me?"
"…I don't know why," He breaks off, but in the deep recesses of his mind he knows exactly why. The terrifying part is her not having a clue. "I just do it."
"Why?" She cried out, aggravated. "What have I ever done to you-"
Without thinking, Max surges forward, cupping her face in his hands, and she gasps, struggling for breath as she desperately waits for him to do something. Anything. The air around them is thick with a subtle but very much present longing for intimacy. Phoebe's face has abandoned all concern and she's left looking up at Max with a yielding expression on her face. Watching for any movement he makes.
She stared at him, at the open desperation on his face and it's something she's never seen before. He is still for what seems to be an eternity, not sure what to do next, except allow this all-consuming need to kiss her like his life depended on it to run hot pursuit in his mind. His thumbs trace the corners of her parted lips, and his eyes - heavy with desire - selfishly follow.
This is a moment of clarity, so severe and utterly real, so solid, that they both have difficulty breathing. He drops his head closer to their demise, and Phoebe unconsciously shrinks a little more of the distance. It's all enough to make him snap back to reality and he takes full responsibility for what he was about to put them through.
Max just squeezes his eyes shut and touches his forehead to hers, it reaches up and grabs hold of him, the guilt he feels. Phoebe looks down, face sober but torn.
"I care about you..." Max begins.
"Way more than I should." Phoebe finishes.
It's not even that it would never happen, but that it can't happen.
