road test

by starhawk

Ziggy actually felt kind of bad about it afterwards. Another feeling he wasn't so familiar with. There were things that had to be done, of course, and things that should be done, and they weren't always the same. At the end of the day, he tried to do one or the other of them the best he could--and whichever one it was, he didn't make a habit of regretting it.

This thing, though. The thing with Dillon. He'd done that on purpose, and not just out of curiosity. He'd asked because he wanted Dillon to know that any loyalty he had went to whoever it was in his best interests to support. As the strongest of the Rangers, Dillon was definitely the one Ziggy would side with in a shootout.

He figured his chances of surviving said shootout would be increased if Dillon knew that.

It had seemed to upset Dillon more than anything, though, and now he didn't have any better idea what the guy was thinking than he had before. He didn't regret it, exactly. But he did feel a little bad, because after making fun of Scott, mocking Dr. K was Dillon's favorite pasttime... and with the exception of the hand incident, Dillon went out of his way to avoid Dr. K for days.

They'd lost contact with her during the road test. Busy, Scott said. Dr. K had too much to do to monitor them every second. He'd sounded confident, but Summer and Flynn were silent, and Ziggy could see the slight dip in Dillon's head on the monitor in his (extremely cool) zord. Even through the helmet, it was a look that said Dillon was Not Impressed with this explanation.

"Flynn," he said a moment later.

"Ranger Blue," Scott corrected.

Dillon ignored him. "What did you do with that hand?"

"What?" Flynn sounded surprised. "I didna do anything with it. Gave it a bit of a stomp as we left, that's all. Dr. K must've cleaned it up."

"She in the habit of doing that?" Dillon asked. His tone was grim, and Ziggy's board thing flashed what was probably a warning as Zord 5 broke formation.

"Well, no," Flynn said, like he hadn't noticed anything. "Now that you mention it."

"Black," Scott's voice snapped. "What are you doing?"

There was no answer.

"Dr. K," Summer repeated, her voice more urgent this time. "Please respond."

Ziggy waited until Scott activated the zord recall, mostly because he wasn't sure he could make it back up the streets any faster on his own. Dillon obviously could, though, because he and Dr. K were facing off in the garage by the time they got there. There was a black-gloved hand between them that looked even worse than it had the last time Ziggy saw it.

"I was running tests on that," Dr. K said calmly. She looked kind of ridiculous standing across from Dillon, actually. He had to be, like, three feet taller than she was.

"Yeah, well, it was winning," Dillon muttered, going down on one knee to yank something out of the place where a wrist would have attached. A wire or something.

How did he do that, Ziggy wondered? How did he make it look like he always knew what he was doing? Ziggy had coveted that look for years before he accepted the fact that his skill lay in looking exactly the opposite.

"Self-repair," Dr. K remarked, eyeing the hand as Dillon stood up with it again. "Fascinating."

"Deadly." Dillon pressed his thumb and finger together in the middle of the "palm" until they met. Ziggy winced at the crackle of who knew what, and maybe it was his imagination but he thought Flynn flinched a little too. "Can you get a burn permit in this city?"

Dr. K lifted her chin, which Ziggy might have found cute if he wasn't still trying to picture a giant K and a weird soundwave imitation where her face was. "I should think it would be obvious," she said, glancing around the garage. "I can get anything."

"Great." Dillon handed her the, well, hand. "Good luck with that."

Apparently tired of being left out, Scott demanded, "Is everything okay here?"

"Of course," Dr. K said. She looked remarkably composed for someone who might or might not have recently fought a disembodied robotic hand. "I assume you didn't complete the road test."

"Ah, no offense, Doc," Flynn said kindly, "but the fact that you don't know? Is kind of the reason we didn't."

"I hope this answers your question," Summer murmured, obviously counting on Dillon to hear.

He did. So did everyone else. Summer just tossed her head, pretty gold hair swirling over her operator suit. She was smiling in spite of the frown Dr. K gave her.

"If you're implying that I did not have this situation completely under control," the doctor said stiffly, "I assure you, nothing could be farther from the truth."

"Besides," Dillon added, "I could have been testing her. Not like I can judge her physical abilities in simulation."

"Do you ever stop?" Scott sounded incredulous. "Be dark and tortured on your own time. We have a road test to finish."

And they did, but what Ziggy thought was even more interesting was the fact that Dillon only smirked at Scott for the scathing retort. No other comeback, no protest: just a wry acknowledgment that made Scott roll his eyes. Or at least, Ziggy thought he was rolling his eyes. Scott's eye rolls were usually accompanied by a little shake of the head, and that Ziggy could detect from behind.

He didn't see Dillon alone with Dr. K for almost a week after that.