Rider was apparently taking his new job very seriously. So much so that he didn't make another appearance to steal something for over a week. When he did show up, it was amazingly awkward as he acted as if nothing had happened the last time they met on a rooftop, as if he wasn't hurt, and she tried to act as if she hadn't been stalking him while he worked in the building where she slept and showered and hid her secret identity. He gave up on the pearls he had tried to steal fairly quickly.

He gave up on trying to kiss her well before that.

So frustrating. Like taking eight steps backwards would cover up their one step forward. Like regressing would take her mind off it and make her forget.

His irrational behavior just further convinced Rapunzel that he was plotting something heinous. Why else would he put so much effort into being a pizza boy and so little effort into seducing her and burglarizing people?

The problem was that she could not for the life of her figure out what he was up to. And following him around to make sure he was delivering pizzas instead of something more sinister was starting to detract from her duties. He wasn't the only criminal in town. The under world did not revolve around him, no matter how much he thought it did.

And if he wasn't going to put one hundred percent into his criminal activities, she wasn't going to put a hundred percent into stopping him. If she put in more effort than he did, it meant he had won, and she would never allow that.

Maybe he was working to distract her from some larger nefarious scheme. Of course, his collaboration with someone was unusual – not unheard of, but unusual. His being the distraction while someone else carried out the heist, thus getting all the glory and possibly all the profit, was unfathomable. But it seemed the most plausible explanation and she wasn't going to spend another moment thinking about him or letting him get to her.

So Saturday night, one of the busier nights for the pizzeria, she decided to ignore Rider and hit the streets once again.

She always found it hard to find trouble. With Rider she somehow always knew where he'd go. Or at least she used to. Dealing with strangers again was a bit like starting from scratch and she spent most of the night slipping unseen through the darker, sketchier parts of town, watching and waiting for a crime to happen in front of her.

This was not the most economical process and around three o'clock she considered that maybe she was just hiding from her problems rather than working diligently to stop crime. At 3:05, she decided that she could do both simultaneously.

At five, she considered that maybe she had lost her touch. Maybe her whole job had become chasing Rider and without him she had no purpose.

This rankled her so much that she squared her shoulders and decided to give in and ask Sargent Weaver if there was anything with which she could help. Maybe it was giving up. But Rapunzel decided to look at it differently: it was brave to ask for help when you needed it, and he would probably have something big for her. Something scary and dangerous. Something where she could be a real benefit to the community rather than someone who wonders around the city at night in a funny outfit, looking a bit lost.

She wrote him a note, phrased as mysteriously and menacingly as possible (no pleases or thank yous, no doodles of turtles) and slipped it under the windshield wiper of his car just as the sun began to rise.

He lived on a cute residential street with his wife and daughter in what looked like a nice town house. It made him kind of anxious knowing that Rapunzel knew where he lived and liked leaving messages for him to find at home. But she'd been better about it recently. No notes slipped in the mail slot or written in the fog of his kitchen window. She restricted their communication to the street, thinking that would make it better, make him more comfortable.

It was just easier to get in touch with him at home, rather than at work. People gave her looks when she walked into a police station, and a few times they had tried to arrest her or interrogate her for her involvement in property damage and assault charges. Plus, she'd found that she had more free reign if she was off the books than on them.

Rapunzel was really bad at filling out paperwork. Even the most basic questions caused her anxiety. What was her name? What was her address? What was her hair color?

She hurried home, not wanting anyone to see her re-enter her building, which they surely would if the sun was out. Surely. Because people just waited around staring at her fire escape for things like this to happen.

It was a struggle to stay awake enough to wash her face, brush her teeth, and run a comb through her shortened hair, even though she felt a hundred times better once she did, like she had washed off the grime of defeat. Her pajamas welcomed her like a hug, and with that she collapsed exhausted into her bed without remembering to climb under the covers.

It couldn't have been too long before Rapunzel woke to a loud, sharp knock at the door. The noise startled her, jerking her from her sleep, but even after she realized what it was she was genuinely concerned. No one ever knocked on her door.

Once one of the diners at the pizzeria had an allergic reaction to something and Charlie had frantically knocked on her door to beg her to look after the restaurant while he dealt with the paramedics and the police. But that was it.

She took wild guesses as to who it was, each prospect more horrible than the last, until whoever it was knocked again, snapping her out of her thoughts and out of her bed.

She took just a moment to make sure her appearance was in order - pajama pants with sleepy sheep on them and hair short, brown, and disheveled. It would have to do.

Then she opened the door to find a sight more awful than she could have predicted, a sight that jerked her to full wakefulness enough to realize that all those previous guesses were a result of being half asleep. Had she really just thought there would be giant goldfish outside her door?

"Hey," Rider said, shifting his weight as his eyes swept over her night clothes then pointedly rolled to the top of her door frame. "Umm, so this is awkward." He cleared his throat then spoke slowly and clearly. "Charlie's concerned you haven't been by all week and he's worried about you, or worried that you're mad at him. So he sent me to check on you and bring you coffee as a kind of peace offering." He held out a paper cup full of coffee.

She stated at it.

After a moment, he ducked a bit to try to get a look at her face, to read her expression. He'd need a lot of luck to do so because even she wasn't really sure what she was feeling.

"It's not poisoned," he said, waving it back and forth a bit, holding it from above by its plastic lid.

That got a reaction as she sucked in a breath, her eyes widening. She fought down the urge to glare at him, and ended up closing her eyes and shaking her head to brush the feelings away like hovering flies. "What are you doing here?"

"Bringing you coffee, because it's morning and time to get up. See? Brewed just a half hour ago in the finest $8 coffee maker in Corona. Can you smell it? Mmm. Smells good, right?"

She stared at him blankly until he sighed, rolling his neck and shoulders. He'd been up all night too, hadn't he?

"Look, I'm just the delivery boy. If you're upset at Charlie for something, just let the man know and stop all the passive-aggressive-ness."

"Why would I be mad at him?"

"Why haven't you been by to see him? And why won't you take the coffee?"

He held the cup out again. She took it mechanically this time, which seemed to please him.

"He didn't know how you took it," he said, digging into his coat pocket and pulling out a crumpled stack of sugar packets and a few dented creamer cartons. He held the mess cupped in both hands and presented it proudly for her inspection.

"One creamer and a sugar," she said, her voice small and hollow. "The white packet."

With some juggling, he managed to pull out what she wanted and shove the rest of the pink and blue packets back into his pocket. She blinked, then hastily removed the lid from her coffee, holding it in her free hand as he opened the sugar packet and poured it in for her.

What was going on? What was he doing? Had he gone insane? Had she?

She wanted to pinch herself, but her hands were full. Maybe that was his plan. He could attack her now and she wouldn't be able to defend herself because she had to hold onto this coffee cup.

"Shit," he muttered. "I forgot a stir stick."

"That's okay." She gave the cup a swirl. She might be able to get the milk mixed, but definitely not the sugar. It didn't matter. There was no way she was drinking it. Maybe he had poisoned it. Or poisoned the creamer so he wasn't really lying to her when he said the coffee was safe.

She took a deep breath, then looked up at him again, narrowing her eyes. "...Eugene? Right?"

He grinned. "You remembered. Honestly wasn't expecting that."

Of course she remembered. She'd been stalking him.

"What- Umm- Tell Charlie I've just been busy. I miss him too."

"Alright. But you know, it'd make more of an impact if you told him. What are you doing tonight?"

"What?"

"Are you busy tonight? You should stop by."

She narrowed her eyes at him. Was he asking if she'd be out tonight? If she said no, he could go on a full blown crime spree while she was occupied at the pizzeria. He was trying to use her personal ties against her already.

If she said yes, maybe he'd manage to meet up with her. At the moment, that didn't seem appealing.

"I don't know. I'll have to see."

"Well, just try. He won't shut up about you. It's getting kind of old."

Oh no, what had Charlie told him?

They stood for a moment in awkward silence. Before he shook himself. "Alright. See you around." Then he walked away, waving at her over his shoulder.

"...Yeah. See you."

She waited for him to disappear down the stairs before closing the door and slumping back against it.

She had to find another apartment.


She went back to bed and fell into a restless sleep until Sargent Weaver called her in the late morning. He had the number to her dinky, throw away cellphone that only came with 100 minutes. She still had about 70 left.

He grouched at her for coming to his house, sounding as tired as she felt, sounding like he was just going through the motions of scolding her. Had she been anyone else, he probably would have had her arrested long ago. Had she ever acted as entitled as the League of Peace, he probably wouldn't ever call her back. He would have traced her phone long ago. But as it was, they had developed an odd relationship, where he was the only one who could treat her like a child when she was in costume - slightly protective, slightly mentoring, slightly annoyed. He felt like the only parental figure she had ever really had. Maybe because he had a daughter of his own. Maybe because he acted so gruff, yet he was kind when it came down to it, and because he treated her with respect when few others thought she had much to offer. He was like Charlie, only with enough authority that she didn't feel like she could walk all over him if she wanted.

She could almost hear his mustache bristle over the phone.

"There actually is something you can look into," he said, shuffling folders around on his desk to find it. "Corblan Incorporated had their internal network hacked three days ago. It seems all that the hacker saw was shipping dates, and since nothing was stolen really, the case has been put on the back burner. But Corblan Inc. is worried and they keep calling me. Go see if you can find anything. Even if it's really nothing, it'll pacify them that someone's working on their case."

"Alright. What does Corblan Inc. do?"

"Weapons manufacturing."

"Weapons manufacturing?"

"Yep."

"... And that's been put on the back burner?"

"Welcome to the Corona Police Department!"

Rapunzel groaned. "Do you have an address? I can stop by tonight."

He read some contact information to her, which she scribbled down with a purple pen.

"No sign of Rider lately. Have you seen him?"

It was completely conversational, and it made complete sense that he would ask, but that didn't prevent her heart from stopping. Her eyes wandered across the room to where the coffee from earlier that morning sat untouched and cold next to her sink.

"No. No, I haven't seen him."

"Hrumpf. He must be planning something."

"Yeah."

"Well, good luck."

Then he hung up, leaving her and her coffee to stare at one another.


An hour after nightfall, it wasn't terribly difficult to get into Corblan Inc's building. They had a security guard at the front desk, surrounded by monitors, and there were key card locks on all the doors, but that didn't stop them from having very poor security on their ventilation shafts on the roof.

She dropped down into wide room of cubicles, full of flimsy padded walls and pale blue nighttime lights. No one was supposed to be working late, but with the company in as dire straights as they were possibly in, someone would surely be scrambling into the wee hours. In fact, in places like this, she expected someone was always scrambling even if there wasn't an emergency. And maybe Sargent Weaver had told someone that she was coming.

Silently, she followed the glow and hum of a half dozen computers to a cubicle about half way down the aisle. A man with furrowed eyebrows and a large nose sat staring intently at a monitor, chewing on the end of a pen. She watched him silently for a moment, taking in the pictures he had pinned to his wall of what she assumed were his wife and dog. Given the position of his cubicle, he wouldn't have a view of outside, even in the day. His fingers were like spiders, long and bony as they pattered against his keyboard. He could type without looking at the letters, which she always found impressive. It was a skill she should learn.

She took a seat cross-legged on the desk behind him. It was always fun to sneak up on people like this. They always thought she was much more intimidating if she appeared out of the dark like a ghost. It was like she could go anywhere. She was always watching. When she first realized that that was what was happening when she popped in on people, she found it a bit upsetting. She didn't want people to be afraid of her. She was there to help.

But eventually she realized that there was really no good way to start a conversation with people when she was in costume. (Although, maybe that was just her natural social ineptitude, as it happened in her normal life too, just with less drastic results.) Plus, she decided that her way of sneaking up on people was much less intimidating than the way other super heroes tended to do it. She'd heard that Glass Slipper popped up behind people and put a knife to their throat before asking questions so that people rarely saw her face.

So even if it was a little mean and intimidating, Rapunzel decided that she was okay with that. It got results and it wasn't that mean. And this guy was so entranced by his computer that it would be hard not to startle him.

"Hello, Roger," she said, using the name on the plastic plaque adhered to the outside of his cubicle.

As expected, he jumped so badly that he almost toppled out of his chair before spinning around to face her, his eyes unnaturally wide, his pen falling from his mouth.

"Good Lord," he shouted, pressing one of his gangly hands to his forehead.

Yeah, surprising people was fun. She bit down a smirk.

"Word is you have a problem."

He stared at her, blinking slowly, as if unsure if he was awake, unsure if he should trust his strained eyes in the dark. "A- a problem?"

"The kind of problem where someone hacked your network and copied your shipping schedule."

"How did- Who told-"

He seemed to realize that asking those kinds of questions just gave him away, so he stopped talking and gaped at her, one hand pressed across his mouth as if to hold in the words, the other wrapped around his mid-drift as if he was about to be sick. She just cocked her head to the side and watched him for a moment until he realized that she had very impressive and high-tech and dangerous methods of getting information. He swallowed.

Again, she had to admit that this was kind of fun.

"You seem worried."

He let out a humorless, desperate laugh, then stifled it.

"What are you worried they'll take?"

"You know who they are?"

"I will once I know what they're after."

He thought on this for a moment, before setting his jaw. "That's classified."

She shrugged, a more girlish gesture than she intended it to be. "Can't help you unless you help me."

His eyes narrowed, his mouth contorting into a frown. "How do I know you're not working with them?"

Then it was her turn to laugh, and again it came out a bit too girlish, not callous enough, a bit too light and ringing. "Come on, Roger. What are they after and when's it coming in?"

He blinked a bit more, trying to stitch together the dueling impressions that she was both threatening and adorable. Eventually he either decided to trust her or decided that she was a hallucination brought on by lack of sleep and over abundance of stress. He spun slowly in his office chair, clearly uncomfortable turning his back on her, and she hopped up to peer over his shoulder at the shipping schedule he brought up on his computer.

"As you can see, we get shipments all the time," he said, scrolling through the spread sheet, his tone businesslike and slightly annoyed (people tended to get that way when their stuff was about to be stolen.) "If any of them were taken it would be a loss." The way he emphasized "loss" made it clear there would be more at stake than his company's monetary suffering. "But the item that's greatly concerning..." his scrolling came to a stop, and he highlighted an item, looking slightly pleased with himself for having information she didn't or for being able to help or because he could prove and have someone else appreciate that his fears were justified. "This. Arrives in the Corona port tomorrow night."

The line had the date, time, and what she assumed was the ship name and dock number, then the phrase 5469.2 Trid-D4.

She stared at it, thinking it might make sense after a moment, but it didn't.

"What is that?"

"That is the Trident Project."

"Trident Project?"

He nodded, looking up at her with the blue light of his monitor reflected in his eyes, making his skin look sallow and drawn. "A sizable amount of Plutonium."


With the date, time, location and a horrible idea of what was at stake, Rapunzel made her way home, so lost in her own thoughts that she didn't realize where she was until she was half way through washing her face to get ready for bed. Then she had an even more depressing thought: it was still early and she should drop by the pizzeria.

Ick.

On the one hand, she did no want to see Rider and his stupid face and his stupid glasses. She didn't want to deal with all the confusion and uncomfortableness that dealing with him lately involved. And on the other hand, she was frustrated that Charlie could actually think she was mad at him, and couldn't realize that he had invited an annoying, manipulative, infuriating, good smelling criminal to work for him.

There really wasn't an upside to going down there. She should just let Charlie feel bad. She was mad at him. He was being stupid and putting them all in danger. Let him stew and keep trying to send her things to make up for it. Maybe next time he'd send cheesy bread.

So, of course, Rapunzel put on real clothes and wandered down to the kitchen. She growled at herself quietly as she did so.

At least Rider wouldn't be seeing her in her jammies. Maybe he would be out and she wouldn't see him at all. That idea filled her with a mix of buoyant, heartwarming excitement and unexplainable disappointment.

"Hey Charlie."

He turned from his dough to blink at her over his shoulder. He went back to it as she circled the counter to look him in the face. "Oh hey, girlie. Haven't seen you in a while. Been busy?"

It always confused her how people tried (but then again, didn't really try) to hide the hurt and anger in their voices and pretended like nothing was wrong when it was. If they were upset, why didn't they say something instead of pretending everything was alright? How was she supposed to know if they didn't tell her? She was just supposed to guess?

That's what she was expecting from Charlie. He'd done it to her before. But this time there wasn't a trace. His question was just a question, not an accusation. His interest in his dough rather than her face meant that he was busy too, not that he was giving her the cold shoulder.

Odd. Maybe she'd misinterpreted. That happened pretty often.

"Yeah. Busy," she said.

"Had to throw out the old pastries last night," he grinned, then reached for a paper plate on the other counter and handed it to her. "Good thing you're back. I don't like food to go to waste."

She took the plate, giving him a skeptical look that he didn't seem to notice. If he wasn't missing her then...

Then Rider was lying. Which was not at all surprising really. Just confusing.

She took a seat on the sofa to watch television, holding her plate underneath with one hand so it wouldn't flop open and spill all her pastry. It was overly delicious, and she realized that she hadn't eaten since lunch, when she rolled out of bed to talk to Sargent Weaver and had a bowl of cereal.

Tonight's infomercial was for a marker where you could draw on stains and they would magically disappear. They made cleaning so easy! And kids could use them too! If she called now, they'd throw in two more markers absolutely free! That always made her wonder. If they could just double or triple your order without charging you more, they either had way too many markers lying around or they should drastically cut the price they were selling them for.

If she had a marker like that, she would draw a mural in the stair well where there was all that water damage. Or on the grungy brick wall in the back alley. Did the markers work outdoors, or just in the kitchen? After a few more minutes and another cannolo, the program informed her that they did, indeed work outdoors! Especially on patio furniture. Except for park benches, it had never really occurred to her that you could put furniture outside. These people had a whole dinning room set that they had left in their backyard and then failed to keep clean.

How fun. She should convince Charlie to let her move the sofa outside one day and sit in the sun.

The door to the back alley opened and closed behind her and her shoulders tensed immediately. She wasn't going to turn around to look at him. Or acknowledge him. Maybe he'd go away.

She listened intently as he shed his jacket and groaned, probably stretching so his shirt rose a bit to show off a sliver of abs.

"Is this coffee fresh?" he asked.

"Meh," Charlie said.

After more shuffling, she heard his footsteps approach and she hunched further over her paper plate, hiding herself or protecting her food, it was hard to tell. She wasn't sharing with him.

Instead of walking around the sofa like a normal person, he clamored over the back to flop down next to her, a maneuver made awkward by the fact that he was holding a mug of coffee in each hand. Then, instead of greeting her like a normal person, he held out one of the mugs for her, his attention focused on the television and said, "Oh! This one! Have they showed how it cleans up dried blood yet? That's my favorite part."

Her head snapped up to stare at him, eyes wide, lips slightly parted, fingers clenching around the coffee mug. "What?"

He shrugged, reaching over to snag a cannolo off her plate. She would have scowled at him, but she was too distracted. "It's funny."

"You... You've seen this one before?"

"Yeah. It was on... night before last? Then a few nights before that too."

She blinked at him. "And you have a favorite part?"

"Yeah, when they remove that bloodstain," he repeated. "Like I said, it's funny."

"Getting out bloodstains is funny? Do you have to get out bloodstains often?" That was a stupid question. He definitely did, and asking was a mistake.

Or maybe he didn't know how to clean things properly and he just threw out his ruined shirts instead of trying to mend them. Now that she'd thought of that possibility, she was suddenly curious about his answer.

"Nah," he said dismissively, swallowing down a bite of pastry. "It's funny because it's this commercial about this overly happy family that live in the suburbs. They've got two children whose only imperfection is that they sometimes spill juice. They've got a dog that makes them laugh even when it tracks in mud because it's still the best dog ever. They've got a nice car and a nice house that only have average wear and tear and aren't falling apart into a big dilapidated pile with a broken water heater and doors that don't shut. Super perfect lives, right? Everything's peachy. Nothing can bring them down, and you kinda hate them for it.

"Oh look, and now they've got this big blood stain on the patio from the body that they already cleaned up. That clean up was easy. Maybe the dog helped. But that blood stain, that's gonna be a bitch to get out! See what I'm sayin'? It comes out of nowhere! And it's treated like it's no big deal. And now I have all these questions. Like why did this family kill a guy on the patio? Which one of them did it? I hope it was the little girl. With the pig tails. And why isn't scrubbing at the stain ruining the mom's mood? Is she on drugs? Is she a psychopath? These are very serious questions and I watch this hoping I'll get answers, but I never do."

He popped the rest of the connolo in his mouth, shaking his head. "It's disappointing."

She stared at him, not quite able to get her mind around it.

It was just so much like something she'd do.

He watched infomercials. Like she did. And he would watch them repeatedly and remembered them. Like she did. And he had a favorite part. She'd never admitted to anyone that she had favorite parts. It felt just a bit too weird, and she was always trying to lock the weird part of herself down.

And, yeah it was a little gruesome that his favorite part involved gore, but she always analyzed these too, coming up with elaborate back stories to make the people's responses and actions make sense. She did it because it always bothered her when the characters (if you could really call them that) acted unexpectedly. She was new at interacting with others and watching people behave, and when they did some of the exceptionally strange things they did on late night television, she had to work to have it make sense.

One commercial asked, "Are you tired of pens that rip apart your important documents?" Then it showed black and white footage of a man making a single stroke with his pen, pressing too hard, and tearing his paper. He then became overly angry, throwing his pen onto the desk and slamming a fist down in frustration. But why? What other awful things had happened that day that his paper tearing made him snap? Why didn't he just press more lightly or get another sheet of paper and start again?

Watching incidents like that could leave Rapunzel disturbed for hours.

She paid attention as a study in human behavior in order to help with her own slow integration into society. Rider apparently watched them because they were funny.

Not knowing what to say, she took a sip of her coffee.

It had the right amount of cream.

It had the right amount of sugar.

A creeping tingle spread through her chest that had nothing to do with the warm coffee running through her system. He'd remembered. He'd remembered and made it for her without her asking.

She felt so melty that she couldn't even focus on her suspicion that he was carefully developing a list of A Thousand Personal Things About Rapunzel: what television she watched, how she took her coffee, what pajamas she wore, where she lived, what hours she kept, all her trust issues and weaknesses.

He turned to look at her, a sheepish smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. "I know. Weird, right?"

Her gaze dropped to her coffee so he might not see the way her cheeks flushed when he looked at her like that. But looking at the coffee made her feel kind of funny too.

"Not that weird."

After a moment's hesitation, she straightened slightly from her position curled around her floppy paper plate of food. Carefully she wedged her mug between her knees, then used both hands to support the plate, holding it out to share.


She woke not knowing where she was, her vision blurred, her body warm, the television mumbling in the background. She shifted a bit, sinking back into her comfy position in an attempt to fall directly back into sleep.

Then she froze.

She was snuggled between the sofa back and Eugene, her head on his shoulder, her arm limp against his chest. Her legs were curled up the way she always slept, folded over and around his legs as if she had fallen asleep in his lap before they slipped down in the night. His legs were bent as he didn't quite fit on the sofa if he stretched out, his arms draped lazily around her, his cheek pressed to the crown of her head.

Oh no.

How had she gotten into this mess? How had she managed to fall asleep in the same building as him, much less while sitting next to him on a sofa? Her guard should never have been lowered that much. She should have never been this comfortable around him, never this relaxed. He could have murdered her in her sleep!

And how had she ended up cuddling him? She sincerely hoped that he had moved her into this position after she dozed off. That would make him disgustingly creepy. That would mean she hadn't reached for him unconsciously like a pathetic sap. That would mean she wouldn't have to die from embarrassment.

Maybe he'd made her laugh a few times as he made comments about the announcer's voice and choice of words. And maybe she'd striven to make him laugh too, because she liked the way his eyes sparkled when he was happy. She liked the way he'd lean closer to her and whisper something as if it were a secret, the way they seemed to share something, the way they felt like partners in an exceptionally minor conspiracy, the way he smelled, and the way his hair fell into his eyes. But even if all that had happened (which it shouldn't have if she'd been using her brain) that was still no excuse for getting cozy.

She tried to shift away, but his arms were dead weight across her back. His breath came evenly, deeply, her hand and her cheek rising slightly with his every inhale. For some reason (and she told herself it was the moment of terrified indecision before flight or fight) her every muscle tensed and she couldn't bring herself to move. She couldn't scream and push him away or carefully slip free.

That might wake him and he was so peaceful.

No.

No no no.

She might wake him and then he would realize what had happened and he'd be amazingly embarrassed as well.

Maybe he'd blush. That would be adorable.

No. If he woke up he would gloat and she would be embarrassed and that would be horrible because she'd never live it down. Yes. That was it.

She suddenly very much wanted to look at his face. To see him relaxed without the clench of his jaw, to see his eyelids flicker as he dreamed.

No. She wanted to check if he was really asleep. That almost made sense. She'd go with that one.

This time when she tried to move he grumbled a little, a sound that she felt in his chest more than heard, and shifted slightly, nuzzling his face deeper into her hair.

Crap.

A rustling noise from across the room caught her attention, and she looked up to see Charlie. Staring at her. Beaming.

Maybe she would die of embarrassment.

She felt her face heat to the point where she was sure it would wake Eugene, and her lips parted to form some kind of explanation or defense that died in a croak in the back of her throat. What could she possibly say?

But Charlie just grinned at her, holding up a hand, not – she realized – to cut off her protest, but to signal that there was no need to get up, then wiped his hands on his apron and strolled off to the back of the kitchen. He face only heated further.

So she waited, her body so tense she nearly gave herself a headache, easing herself free a smidgin at a time, and after what felt like hours of close calls and painfully held breaths, she freed herself and disappeared as quickly as she could up the stairs.


She slipped into the docks just after sunset, climbing to the top of a stack of crates and leaping the chain-link fence without rattling it too much. She landed on the ground in a crouch, the smell of salt and damp rope, of slowly rotting wood and sweat washing over her, pushing her down. The air was thick and humid, making it hard to move, hard to breathe through the dampness. She was swimming through the darkness as if it were a tangible thing.

She darted down the docks, slipping between shadows and hiding behind crates and large spools of heavy rope. Her footsteps sounded fuzzy and distant, yet at the same time harder to soften. Much as she tried, it was hard to stay silent, hard to control the creak of the thick, warping planking.

She took solace that she could make herself nearly invisible. Her pride in that skill only grew with time.

The docks were huge, a complex system that sprawled like the roots of a tree. The docks were the heart of Corona, living and breathing even in darkness, working despite the conditions and the hour. Workers strode past her in the fog, barking orders to one another, laughing, grunting. They were hard to see, and hard to hear over the low rumble of ship engines and machinery, over the roll and wash of the tide. Their voices rose out of the ocean far too close to her and she would pause and duck, holding her breath as they passed then disappeared once more. They threw lines to the great, dark ships that loomed overhead - lines that whipped out like loops of her hair, snapping in front of her and bringing her progress to abrupt halts before they finished and moved on. She could see forklifts move in the dark, silhouettes with blinking red lights and rhythmic beeps as they growled along. They felt more like dangerous, robotic sentinels than the workings of men going about their daily business.

Despite their nearness, none of the workers noticed her. They were too involved in their own work or unused to scanning for small, blonde super heroes who snuck around in the dead of night.

The ship she wanted had not yet docked in its spot, and she had to wait in the shadow of one of the little control buildings for the ship to come in. Such elaborate and grand actions fascinated her as a rule, and since she was well hidden and the trident was still safe in the hull of the bulking ship, she might as well sit back and watch.

The ship moved slowly, much more slowly than she would have expected, but she wasn't sure why she would think that. Its form steadily grew nearer and darker as it maneuvered into position, and eventually she could see it as a wall of metal rising out of the sea to a deck several stories over her head. She couldn't tell the color of the ship, but she imagined it was a light, pastel green, because that was always a nice color.

It rocked into place and the first of the ropes were thrown down, and the ship's name became clear for the first time, tall, white letters in a crisp font.

Pleased that she was in the right place, she waited for the engines to shift into a softer roar and for the dock to clear slightly before she sprung from her hiding spot, checked the tension of the rope tied to the nearest cleat, then ran up it. The rope was thick as her leg and it was not difficult to balance on it as long as she threw out her arms and kept moving as quickly as she could. Even then it was slippery in places and it undulated ever so slightly beneath her feet.

The rope brought her to about half way up the side of the ship, where she dropped into a crouch to steady herself with one hand. She threw out a rope of hair to whip around a beam on the deck. Then she swung out and hoisted herself up.

Her hair was really not behaving well in the humidity.

Landing lightly on the deck, she dropped once more into the shadows, listening for signs she'd been spotted and checking for a clue as to her next destination. Below deck probably, and to do that she'd have to cross a span of barren deck, then go in through one of the hatches and down through the maze of corridors where people were sure to see her and she would have nowhere to hide.

She narrowed her eyes at the deck hands, who scurried about in efficient chaos. There really wasn't much hope but to go for it, stay low and to the shadows and pray they were all too busy.

She took a deep breath and bolted, skittering along the deck and staying as close to the edges as she could. She gasped and froze, pressed to the side of the railing as someone shouted, but a moment later it was clear that their attention was not directed at her. So she hurried on, ducking across a wide expanse of deck, empty except for the fog. Then she flattened her back against the hatch leading to the lower decks, lifting her chin and calming her beating heart.

As she reached for the door, it clanged, then opened as three men stomped out. She had to adjust course, swerving to move with the door as it opened, to hide behind it unseen as they left. They let the hatch fall closed behind them without noticing her, and she grabbed it to stop it from closing all the way, slipping inside before they were even out of ear shot.

Inside the ship was lit by yellow lights from above, making it easier to navigate, but also easier for someone to see her. It was less damp, but still hot, somehow more oppressive in the tight confines. Funny, she'd thought it would be cool inside, surrounded by metal. Instead it smelled like unwashed deckhands living and working in close proximity.

She moved as swiftly as she could, wishing her feet didn't clank as much as she ran, even though they actually made very little sound at all. She hurried off the main thoroughfare, into areas that were more poorly lit and seemed less traveled, less lived in. She slipped down ladders wherever she could, following infrequent signs placed at odd intervals. Cargo Bay 1-A to the left. Cargo Bay 4-C to the right. It never occurred to her that there would be more than one cargo bay.

The first one she came to was 2-A, and she happened upon it suddenly, finding herself standing on a catwalk that stretched over the cavernous room. It was filled with large, metal shipping crates, stacked three high and spaced evenly through the room below her. On the far side of the room was a little office. It had a different, more intense light than the rest of the cargo bay, and she could see the man sitting there, reclining back in his chair. She could faintly hear the sound of a television.

She slipped forward, trying to determine if he was a security guard and if so if he was armed, trying to determine if he would know where the trident was. With a detailed inspection, getting so close that it was shocking he didn't notice her, she could just make out a stack of papers attached to a clipboard on his desk that looked like some sort of inventory.

Seemed a good start.

Reaching into a compartment on her belt, she pulled out a zip-lock bag full of yogurt covered crasins. They'd been in the bag a while, and were a little stale. She popped one in her mouth anyway. A little stale, but still good. Taking careful aim and staying carefully out of sight in the shadows on the catwalk, she threw one at the yellowing plexiglass widow of the office, striking it with a happy plunk.

The security guard's head snapped up, staring at the window as if whatever hit it would do so again. Rapunzel held her breath, then threw a handful of craisins into the dark of the cargo bay. They rained down on the metal crates with enough noise to send the security guard scurrying out of his chair.

His flashlight fizzled to life, not shedding much light over the scene at all, mostly just causing dark shadows to loom out from behind crates.

"Hello?"

He was answered by another handful of craisins rattling deep within the cargo hold, and he set out in a hurry to investigate.

Rapunzel dropped softly to the ground, grabbed the itinerary and scanned it quickly, ducking down behind the man's desk so as not to be seen through the window. She found it on page four, cargo hold 3-B, crate number 51076. The number 51076 was like 226 squared. She could remember that.

She slipped the clipboard back into place and inspected a map tacked to a bulletin board along with pictures of women in swim suits and a banner for the West Corona Fighting Tunas. Then she was back outside, hauling herself back onto the catwalk before the confused security guard could return.

With the help of the map – was it called a map if it was of a ship? It seemed like ships had different names for everything. Maybe a schematic? - she found 3-B, which looked remarkably similar to 2-A, complete with darkened catwalk to allow for easy sneaking. Crate 51076 was more difficult to find because the crates weren't arranged in any sort of order that she could make out. Maybe it was really complex. She wished she had more time to study the pattern.

But as it was, she just had to search, happy when the numbers were written large and clear, slightly annoyed when they were obscured by rust or grime or stacked in such a way as to block the numbers.

It took far too long to find it. She could already hear the dock workers moving crates from other cargo bays, shouting at one another, and spurring their forklifts to roar and beep. That was fine, she supposed. If they got the crate shipped off before anyone popped up to steal it, she wouldn't really have to do anything, just follow it until it reached Corblan Inc. and then go home. The problem would be if the bad guys found it before she did.

As it was, the crate looked as though it hadn't been touched. It looked innocuous, no different from the crates it was wedged between. It made her wonder if the other crates had radioactive material in them as well. Maybe they were full of poisonous snakes, or canned Ebola, or stacks and stacks of swords! Maybe they were full of down pillows or rubber bath ducks that had no idea they were so close to such danger. It was all very exciting and mysterious, and made her want to open all the crates to see what was inside.

She restrained herself, settling on the catwalk to keep watch.

Slowly, the sounds of movement drew closer, louder. She considered moving when the workers got to her shipping bay so she wouldn't be seen, but then she remembered how Flynn had dressed like a security guard and she changed her mind. What was to stop someone from dressing like a dock worker and coming in to take the trident? They could waltz right in and waltz right out.

Then she was distracted by thinking about what other professions Flynn could impersonate. She was still kind of hoping for pediatrician. He could even keep his silly glasses on for that one. She wouldn't mind as long as he wore the lab coat too.

"Hey! What-" The shot cut off with a thud and a gurgle.

Rapunzel jumped to her feet, leaning over the catwalk railing for a view of the security guard station, where two men in black hoodies and ski masks were dragging the security guard's unconscious body into the office, shoving him under his desk. Rapunzel ducked, her eyes wide, her breath coming faster.

"Hurry up," one of them grunted, his voice carrying through the bay, dampened but echoing, making the words sound muddy.

"Shit. It'll take a week to find this damned thing."

Their flashlights swept back and forth and Rapunzel held very still.

One of them slapped the other's arm. "Split up." And they separated in opposite directions. Seeing as the crate was near the middle, she would have some time. Five minutes? Ten? How long had it taken her?

She dropped to the floor and scurried to the crate, pulling a lock picking set from her belt and dislodging it from a braided friendship bracelet in purple and yellow. Her hands shook a bit in excitement and fear, but after a minute the lock opened with a clunck, nearly falling to the ground before she caught it with a flail.

She slipped inside the crate, to find it mostly empty, just a smaller, wooden crate inside, held in place by cables attached to the walls, like it had been caught in a spider web. The box was sealed shut with industrial staples, that came out easy enough with some leverage from her pen knife and several creaking snaps the rang through the metal compartment.

She pried three boards off the top, then reached into the the sawdust and crinkled paper to pull out a metal cylinder she could hold in both hands. It had a strap that allowed for easy transport attached to her back. It was heavier than she expected, but smaller at the same time. Given such a large crate and such a big fuss, she expected something bigger.

It didn't even glow. Weren't radioactive things supposed to glow?

She shoved the boards she'd removed back in the box, then slipped out of the compartment, feeling her time running short. She secured the lock back into place and slipped back up to the catwalk to see the nearest hooligan only one row away.

She chose silence over speed as she retreated from the catwalk, leaving the men to either steal an empty crate, or find the trident missing and throw a fit without an audience. She didn't really care what their reaction was and she wasn't going to stick around for a fight.

The winding corridors of the ship were easier to navigate given that the many of the cargo bays had been opened to allow for easier removal of their wares. She slipped into a nearly empty bay, then climbed easily through the opened ceiling. The dark of night and the fog obscured her once more, even as cranes moved overhead and workers paced nearby.

Now it was just a matter of escaping the docks and delivering the trident to Corblan Inc downtown. Shouldn't be a long walk.

As she used a loop of her hair to zip-line down one of the ropes holding the ship to the dock, she wondered if they would be surprised to see her. She hoped so. That would be fun. Probably not as much fun as when it was Flynn who she surprised, but still fun.

She jogged down the dock, still sticking to the shadows, but much less intent on being sneaky now that she was making her escape. If they saw her, she could just run for it.

The dock below her creaked under her feet, and for a moment she attributed it to her hurried footsteps and tried to move more lightly.

Then there was a snap.

Then wooden dock ahead of her buckled and erupted, and she threw herself to the side to duck behind a spool of rope as splinters exploded into the night. The dock continued to creak, rocking beneath her, threatening to topple the whole section into the sea, and she hurried from her hiding spot to back up, to get away.

Three tentacles, thicker than her torso and two stories tall waved from the gaping hole in the dock, writhing, swinging back and forth as if searching for her, trying blindly to grab her. She ducked as one swung past her head then scurried back, out of reach.

A few more wild swings, and the tentacles retreated, closing together and reaching for the sky in a great spire before twirling down again into the water. Rapunzel held very still, trying to control her breath. The monster might not be able to find her if she didn't move.

Part of the dock collapsed and fell away, leaving a jagged hole she couldn't hope to cross. She was trapped, as were all the dock workers behind her. The lights from the city flickered through the fog, calling her to try to jump the chasm before the monster came back, to make a run for it.

But the dock exploded again, from the side this time, four black tentacles bursting from the water with a crash and a spray, flailing to find her, wrapping around what remained of the dock and rocking it violently. She couldn't keep her feet and fell to the ground, clutching at the warped wood. A tentacle swept towards her, dragging across the ground, and she rolled to avoid it, tumbling from the side of the dock, grabbing hold of the edge at the last moment.

Catching herself so suddenly caused her shoulder to snap unpleasantly, sending a burn up her arm, through her chest. The trident bounced against her back, and she held on as a wave from the monster's splashing struck her with full force. She blew burning salt water from her nose. Her now sodden hair felt as though it were dragging her down.

Then it was dragging her down, wrapped up in a tentacle that pulled at her, prying her loose as her fingernails dug into the dock. The strands of her hair tangled unevenly in the suction cups, making it snag and smell like fish. Wet and snarled, it clung to the tentacle and Rapunzel feared that if she managed to get free, her hair might not come with her.

All she could do as she was lifted into the air was clutch at her hair to try to give herself some slack, so it wouldn't rip from her scalp, snapping her neck. Her foe seemed to find her struggles amusing, and a slow laugh rolled down a tentacle, through Rapunzel's hair, into her bones.

"And what do we have here?" The words were velvety, deep, half a coo and half the push of a wave as the monster settled in the water, crossing her arms across her chest as she held Rapunzel up for inspection. "Trying to steal the trident before me? How clever."

She gave Rapunzel a shake, causing her to squeak as she was flung about like a rag doll.

"Aren't you a little..." the monster leaned forward to emphasize her words, "out of your league?"

Rapunzel kicked out at the tentacle holding her, hitting it soundly, her foot sinking into the squishy flesh. "Give up now, Ursula. I'll go easy on you."

Maybe it wasn't the most intimidating thing she'd ever said, especially given their size difference and her current, helpless vulnerability. But she was used to being the underdog. She was used to her enemies underestimating her. And as long as she didn't feel helpless, she wouldn't be.

The sea monster laughed, clapping a hand to her cheek and rolling on the dock to look at Rapunzel from a prone position on her back. "Oh, that is too precious." She laughed harder bouncing her prey carelessly through the air.

Rapunzel aimed another kick, this one causing the tentacle to flinch, only to have another rise up easily, wrapping tightly around her torso. She couldn't use her arms or legs, but it took the strain off her hair.

"I'll tell you what," Ursula said, pouting her lips to bring out a dimple in her cheek. "You give me the trident, and I'll let you run along home."

"No."

"You sure? You could get a good night's sleep. You could be dry. You could go about your little business. Come join in with the big girls again when you're good and ready."

"You can't have it."

Ursula glared. Her voice dropped to a snarl. "I said, give it to me."

"No!"

The tentacle shook her, quick, nasty shakes that made her brain rattle and her vision blur.

Ursula's face swam in front of her as the tentacle began to squeeze, bit by bit, pressing her elbows to her ribs until she thought they might snap, forcing the air from her lungs and pressing agonizingly into her belly and thigh. Sticky suction cups bit into the side of her face. "Be a good girl."

A second tentacle approached, holding out the very tip like a hand waiting to receive the trident.

She couldn't hand it over even if she wanted to. The canister was pressed painfully against her spine.

It was hard to find breath to answer, and she gasped. Fuzzy, colored spots popped before her eyes. "I..."

Then she hit the water, dumped in without time to hold her breath. The surface slapped against her face, the salt and nasty foam of the port stinging her eyes. The force of the water threatened to crush her just as much as the tentacle.

She surfaced gasping and spluttering, her hair plastered to the side of her face, her extremities numb and her vision unfocused. The undulation of the ocean amplified by the movement of the tentacle was all it took for her to slump into a momentary blackout.

She fell to what was left of the dock in a heap, landing hard on her shoulder, the trident thumping against the ground, against her back. It took far too much effort to raise her head, then more than she thought she had in her to push herself unsteadily to her feet.

Ursula looked unimpressed, her tentacles waving around her slowly, almost independently, like dandelions in the wind.

Rapunzel slowly took hold of her hair.

When the first blow came, she was ready for it, ducking into a roll and lassoing it as it whipped by, bracing herself against one of the now exposed pier beams, looping her hair to catch around the beam and dampen some of the strain when the tentacle caught. It was slightly effective, causing the beam to snap and Rapunzel to cry out as she was jerked forward, but she survived. And she was ready for the next tentacle that slapped down at her from above, dodging it and the splintering dock, leaping over it, entrapping it in heavy hair. The third sailed over her head and the forth was blocked as she yanked her hair with all her strength, causing the ensnared tentacles to catch the blow.

And then they were in a mess, her hair and half of Ursula's tentacles knotted together. For a moment the monster just looked disgusted.

Then she was hit in the face by a handful of flying craisins.

Ursula jerked back, an indignant noise bursting from her lips.

And her look of anger and confusion changed to shock when the shifting of her weight caused the dock to collapse beneath her. She began to topple, falling backwards off the dock and into the sea, unable to stop herself from falling with her tentacles bound together. They slapped uselessly at the dock, at the ships around them, at Rapunzel, trying to find purchase, trying to halt her slide into the sea.

And as the monster was engulfed once more by the surf, Rapunzel frantically sawed at her hair with her pen knife, ripping through it in clumps, gasping and crying and trying to brace herself before she followed into the churning water. The nearest tentacle flailed, grabbed a pier beam and held firm, and she had a moment more to saw through the last of her hair before the beam gave way and the whole dock crashed into the water.

The water bubbled and swirled, taking several long moments to settle once again into a black mass of rolling waves. With the battle over, shouts could be heard, sirens wailing and growing louder. Overhead, a helicopter rattled by, a searchlight scanning the gap in the pier without a sign of Ursula or Rapunzel.


Sargent Weaver inspected the damage, kneeling to look down into the wreckage. Dinghies arranged to ferry the workers from the damaged pier back to the main port passed nearby, their occupants craning their necks to get a look at the battle ground. The red and blue flashes of police lights lit up the receding fog, as another part of the dock fell loose, splashing into the water.

Even the chaos felt somehow subdued.

He sighed and pushed himself to his feet, feeling far too old, and far too tired.

He really hadn't excepted this when he put the girl on the case. He thought it'd turn out to be nothing, or she would handle it as she'd handled just about everything else.

He rubbed his forehead. At least they'd probably find her body when they trolled the water for the Plutonium.

He stuffed his hands into his coat pockets and headed back to his car, ready to go home and do the paperwork tomorrow. This one was going to be a ton of paperwork.

He stopped when he opened the car door, staring down at the radioactive canister and the ever growing puddle that had been left in his seat for him to find.

He sighed again. Way too old.


Eugene's face fell from his cheery morning grin to a look of horror as soon as Rapunzel opened the door. It took her several blurry moments to remember that there was a reason for his stare.

"What happened?"

Her hand jumped to her hair, then to her mid-drift, relieved to find she had in fact made it into her pajamas.

He shifted the coffee he held in one hand into the crook of his elbow, and with the utmost concern, reached for her face, tilting her chin so he could inspect what must be a spectacular bruise on her cheek. His inspection was rather more detailed than she would have liked, and she swallowed, trying and failing to look away from the way his concern changed to rage, the way the muscles in his jaw tightened.

"Who did this?"

"It's nothing."

He blinked at her like she was crazy, his gaze slipping from her cheek to her eyes.

"Have you even cleaned it?"

Probably not. She couldn't remember and if he was asking about it, it most likely looked pretty bad.

He rolled his eyes and let go of her chin only to take her by the shoulder and guide her inside.

Her eyes widened in fear that outweighed her exhaustion and a protest caught in her throat. Rider was in her apartment! He couldn't be in her apartment! Standing outside it was bad enough. This was just unacceptable.

To her surprise, he didn't pause to look around, to case the place or comment on the color of her bedspread. Maybe he was just being sneaky. He didn't need much time to take in a room.

He pushed her straight into the bathroom, carelessly balanced her coffee on the edge of the sink, and sat her on the edge of the bathtub before grabbing her washcloth and running it under warm water.

For a moment she was hypnotized by the deft way his hands moved, and the determined look on his face as he knelt in front of her and as gently as possible dabbed at her cheek. She cringed, the painful resurgence of a dull throb lighting up the side of her face and shooting down her spine, down her throat. He muttered an apology he didn't mean and refused to stop.

The pain mixed with anticipation as his fingers brushed her skin, and suddenly she was on her feet.

"I can wash my face myself."

Maybe her voice was a bit too frantic, but he gave her an irritated look and stepped aside anyway.

On second thought, turning her back on him was probably not the best idea, but she had to get away from him and there wasn't much room to hide in the bathroom. Besides, every time she glanced at him in the mirror, his entire focus was directed at her. Or it seemed that way.

She wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not.

Her bruise was pretty bad, a deep purple from the side of her nose, up her cheek bone to her temple, just missing her eye. She could see the scrapes where the edge of her mask had cut into her skin. Between watery scrubs, she checked to see if the shape of the cuts was too obviously like the shape of her mask. Drying her face, she decided they weren't.

Then Eugene was back in her personal space again, digging through the small pharmacy that was her medicine cabinet. Half an indignant protest and a syllable of a lying explanation slipped from her lips before he grabbed a bottle of aspirin and handed her a pill. She swallowed it dry without protest, realizing that he probably had a similar stock of drugs, and this was one of those things they were just going to pretend they didn't notice.

He washed his hands and plucked up some band-aids and a tube of antiseptic. He went after her face again, rubbing glops of medicine onto her cuts as if he didn't trust her to do it properly herself. It still twinged terribly, and she wasn't sure if it was just from someone else touching a fresh bruise, or if it was because he was touching her and churning up all the vulnerability in her stomach, both thrilling and terrifying her.

"Do you have ice you can put on this?"

"No." Did it look like she had a freezer? Had he really not noticed that or was it a nicety to ask? Or was he pretending that he hadn't already filed away every last detail of his surroundings?

"I'll get you some from downstairs," he said absently, peeling open a band-aid and plastering it neatly and tightly to her cheek over one of the more brutal cuts.

He stood back a bit to inspect his work, but seemed unsatisfied. "And you're not going to tell me what happened."

"Nothing happened."

"If bruises like that are just popping up, you probably have some kind of serious medical condition."

"I'll look into it."

"Do you have more?"

"What?"

His eyes scanned over her form, over her arms, down her legs and chest as if he could see through her pajamas, as if he was undressing her with his eyes to look for further injury rather than desirable girl parts.

Annoying on so many levels.

She crossed her arms over her chest and shifted, doing a quick, mental check. Her side felt stiff and twinging too. And her arms hurt. Was there one on her leg too? Shifting her weight again, she decided that that one didn't feel as bad.

Eugene sighed. "Let's see it."

"See what?"

He gave her blank look.

"Who invited you in here, anyway?"

"No one. Now let me see it."

"Why do you want to see my bruises? That's weird."

"Are you gonna show me, or do I have to go looking?"

"You wouldn't!"

He opened his mouth to argue further, only to snap it shut again because she was absolutely right. Eugene would never go looking. Stripping off her clothes to prove some point was pure Rider, and he was slipping way too far into that personality already.

If she was honest with herself, she was slipping too.

He exhaled, the tension slipping from his face to be replaced with fatigue and concern. He ran a hand through his hair. "I'm sorry. I just want to help. Let me help?"

She shifted again, looking anywhere but his face. "I don't think there's much you can really do."

He laughed, something hollow and breathy. "Humor me."

She bit her lip in internal debate, then hesitantly lifted the hem on her sweatshirt enough to show the bruise across her ribs. A regular pattern of round, darker bruises marked the spots where the suckers had bit into her skin. Stupid, obvious tentacle bruise.

Eugene bent to look at it, one hand resting lightly, temptingly on her hip to hold her still, his eyes scrutinizing her wound with a professionalism that she both appreciated and despised. She hoped somewhere in his brain he noticed the adorableness of her belly button.

He made a noise in the back of his throat, something that sounded like disapproval and resignation as he straightened and let her sweatshirt slip back into place.

She blinked at him, waiting a bit anxiously for his assessment. "Well? How does it look?"

"Pretty gross."

"What?" She looked down to check it again, pulling her sweatshirt back up and running her fingers carefully over her ribs. Yeah, it was pretty gross, but he didn't have to say it.

He laughed, a real laugh this time. "I think you need two bags of ice."

"Well, thank you, Eugene, for that professional opinion!"

"Hey, I never claimed to be an expert on big, mysterious bruises." He smiled, shifting closer, his hand had returning to her hip. "Now tell me who did it and I can beat them senseless for you."

She scoffed. "No, you won't."

"No, I guess not. I'd send them a poisoned pizza. That's just as good, right?"

"How is that helpful?"

"Teach them a lesson? Make me feel better?"

"I think I'm the one that needs to feel better."

"Ah. Of course. Sorry." He was very near now, and she recognized the moment when their proximity dawned on him as well, the moment when he decided not to pull away. He drew closer, leaning in, the warmth of his hands and the smell of him and the rolling sound of his voice washing over her.

Usually, at this point her eyelids would grow heavy and her lips would part and she would shove him against the nearest wall and bite him. But the nearest wall was where she hung her fluffy, blue towel, and he was wearing glasses and looking like he cared, and instead of slipping closed, her eyes were frozen, wide and staring as the painful, fluttering churn of her chest built into terror.

The fear burst in a gasp. "W- what are you doing?"

He jerked back, blinking as if he'd been slapped. "Um. Nothing?"

She starred at him, and he cringed in that way he did where he thought no one could notice.

"Sorry. I shouldn't have-"

"I- No, I'm sorry."

"No, no. It's alright." He offered a weak smile and held up a hand to reassure her. Somehow it felt as though he were pushing her away.

Her eyes dropped to the floor, contemplating the space between their feet. "You just... startled me is all."

"Yeah," he sighed. "Sorry... Really. I'll just... I'll go now. See ya 'round."

He moved to leave, stuffing his hands in his jacket pockets, and she found herself stepping forward, only just stopping herself before reaching for him, grasping desperately for something to say.

"I won't be startled now."

He paused, then turned slowly back towards her, his narrowed gaze causing her to fidget out of a mix of discomfort and excitement.

"I mean, if you wanted to- to try again?"

He circled back to her, considering her, waiting for her to change her mind. She bit her lip and swallowed before remembering that she needed to not bite her lip for him to kiss her.

And why was she so afraid of that? He'd kissed her before. She'd kissed him. He'd held her tight and touched her in places that made her blush to think about.

So now she was blushing. Great job, Rapunzel.

But now it was different. They weren't on opposing sides, their hearts weren't already racing or their systems pumped with adrenaline. They couldn't blame it on the heat of the moment, or pure lust. There wasn't anything forbidden or dangerous about it - at least not any that either of them was supposed to know about. This time they were just normal people and they kind of knew things about each other and kind of liked each other. This time there was some slight, unspoken possibility that they could have more, that it could mean something.

And that was terrifying.

He took her by the shoulders, far more gently than he'd ever held her before, not trying to restrain her or entice her, treating her hesitantly, giving her an easy escape route if it was too much and she needed to shrug him off. His tentativeness was weird in and of itself.

And then he bent towards her, not pulling her close or pressing against her, but keeping her at an easy distance. Like touching her anywhere else might graze a bruise and hurt her. Like he'd been wanting to kiss her for days but was afraid, and him being afraid was just as crazy as her being afraid.

He was slow, cautious. And he was so tender that she realized it was the first time she'd felt his lips as more than a frantic pressure or an urgent rush of heat. He explored, cataloging each movement, each reaction and sensation, to wrap them both up and revel in every last feeling. And underneath the simplicity and the sweetness, she could feel his restraint like a tangible thing. She could feel him struggle, his determination both meltingly endearing and endlessly frustrating.

She reached for him, trying to exercise the same level of control even as her emotions rolled and seared inside her, and she ended up holding his elbows lightly, almost teasingly so, as part of her desperately wanted to fist the collar of his jacket and pull him close. She wanted to pounce on him just to make the lightheaded feeling fade, just to make it more physical and less intimate. She wanted to be Blondie, because Rapunzel was freaking out and she couldn't handle it by herself.

But this was Eugene. And he was gentle and kind, and he was offering a first kiss to reflect that. He was offering her a first kiss, and that meant there would be a second and a third, and she trembled from excitement and anxiety, the shivers pulsing down her spine with the movements of his mouth.

He eased away enough to rest his forehead against hers, to look down into her eyes with his lips parted and his breathing labored and raw adoration printed across his face. He made her want more, which was delicious and aggravating, and she sucked her lips into her mouth to taste him again and replay the moment with a gentle press of her tongue.

"Dinner?" he breathed.

"What?"

"Come and have dinner with me. I know a place."

She stared at him blankly and hoped the place he knew wasn't the pizzeria.

He raised his eyebrows and she realized she hadn't answered.

"Oh. Yes?"

"Yes?"

"Yes." She nodded just to emphasize the point, then smiled at the way it looked like he didn't quite believe her. "Dinner sounds nice."

He grinned and started walking backward towards her front door so he could keep grinning. And that was full on endearing without having to share room with any sort of other conflicting emotion, which only made her smile broaden.

"I'll get you that ice then. And don't forget your coffee."

She laughed a bit as she opened the door for him. "It's probably gone cold now."

He paused, half way out of her apartment. "You want another?"

"No, thank you."

"Ah," he said. "Good. Okay. Ice!" He pointed down the hallway towards the stairs as if reminding himself what he was doing, and set off.

She closed the door behind him, shaking her head and beaming at the idiocy of it all.

What on earth were they supposed to talk about over dinner?