"..-and that's how we can secure the lab better!" Tara finished her spiel to her boss, leaning back off the workbench he had all of his equipment on. She took a deeeeep breath and sighed it out. Man, monologuing really took it out of you!
"Do you think we can get that sort of thing past the brain trust?" Doctor D asked as he shooed one of the daffodils away from the scribbly-scrabbly notebook he was writing in.
"I dunno. We could run it by James, see what he thinks?"
"Bah!" He made a spitting motion. "Like I need that overblown chump to help out with anything."
"Oh." An awkward silence fell upon them.
This always happened whenever James was brought up. Tara didn't know exactly what had happened between the two men beyond Kim being James' daughter. Doctor D had gone on a mini-rant about it once, mentioning robots named 'Bebe', but he'd cut himself off partway through when he was describing the utter revenge he would have wreaked upon the men if Kim hadn't been there for some reason. It was probably something embarrassing. He tended to do that with most of his embarrassing stuff.
The silence was unbearable after a few minutes. She was so used to him talking at this point that the quiet was barely tolerable for even one minute, let alone several!
How could she break it?
...should she ask about Shego? It had been a few days since she was last mentioned. Bonnie's party was tomorrow, so she didn't wanna upset him then. Well, everything was already really awkward...
"Heya, Doctor D?"
He jumped. Apparently he'd forgotten she was there. He did that sometimes. "What?!"
"I, ah, was wondering if you could tell me about Shego? About what you guys did and stuff when you were all villain-y?" She'd been curious for a while now - ever since she was hired under him, really - about what his villain life had been like. There hadn't been an easy segway to ask. Until she just thought about Shego's role in his life! Two birds, one stone!
"Oh really?" The curious tone confused her. Why would he be curious about her being curious?
"Yeah," she confirmed.
"Well…" He put down the tool he'd been using and seemed to think hard on her question. "Shego was my sidekick. She did the dirty work while I did the smart guy stuff. She was the brawn, I was the brain."
"What did you guys do when you weren't being bad?"
"What? Like our hobbies?" Tara nodded. Drew hummed, "Well, I mostly just worked on my schemes…"
"Karaoke? Bowling?"
"Villainous bonding," he insisted ineffectually.
"Then why do you still wanna do them?" She had him there!
"I… Erm… Nnnngh…" He sputtered and spat, "Next question!"
No fair! She decided not to press it in case he decided to stop his hobby things out of misplaced vengeance and asked, "And Shego?"
"She liked to take her frustrations out on me whenever things went wrong, which happened a lot." He made an explosion noise. "She also really likes to sunbathe, and mock me. Lots of mocking me." Straightening up, Doctor D said as if just realized it, "In fact, I think that was probably her favorite hobby… Hmph!" He bent back down, this time to look at his notebook. "And she loved to not listen to me."
"So, she was your sidekick that stole stuff, fought Kim, made fun of you and hurt you a bunch, and never listened to you?"
"Yes…?" He snorted as he noted, "When you say it like that it sounds pretty nasty!"
"She was hurting you, yeah?" He nodded as if it was obvious. "And you were her boss?" Another nod. "So why didn't you fire her?"
"I needed her to fend off Kim Possible," Doctor D answered.
"She never won!"
"She was very skilled at infiltration and stealing stuff," he muttered defensively.
"But you just said that you hired her to take on Kim!"
"She got me money and the items I needed for my schemes," he pointed out. "She also stuck around, even after the mess with Hank and the henchmen! She wasn't exactly some kind of appendix to my operation."
"But she was mean and hurt you and stuff!" she bother-bothered, ignoring the story that was begging to be told about the Hank guy. "And I'm sure there're other people you could've hired that could've helped and not hurt you."
"I also like-liked her, okay?" he shouted, frustrated. "Is that too hard to understand?"
"No, well... Yeah, kinda?" Tara seemed as confused as Doctor D looked at her protest, so she continued with determination, "I mean, she was mean! Why would you like her? What nice stuff is there about her at all?"
"Well," Doctor D started, pausing to frown in thought before snapping his fingers and raising his fingers with air quotes, "Well, what 'nice stuff' is there about your Bonnie friend?"
That caught her off guard.
"You remembered her name?"
"Focus, Missy!" her boss said. "I asked you what's so great about your friend? You know, the one you're trying to impress with this whole party mess we'll be going to tomorrow?"
"I, ah…" Tara felt a bit stuck. "I mean, she's cool, and strong…"
"So's Shego," he said flatly.
"Bonnie's also super nice to her friends," she pouted slightly. Counting off, Tara said, "She really loves Junior, like a lot, she's a big team player… And we've been BFFs since forever."
"Shego is honest and certainly never holds her tongue," Drew said with a trace of bitterness.
"Is she honest or is she blunt?" the blonde asked, knowing the answer. She knew it because Bonnie had the same problem...
"Blunt," the blue man ground out angrily. It was pretty obvious he was getting upset now. Oops!
"So… Uh…" Change the topic! "Uhm… How 'bout them Mad Dogs…?"
"I don't care about some silly little teeny-bop high school junk," Doctor D rebuffed, his tone still upset. He growled, "What I do care about is trying to figure out what it is about Shego that has me… Nnnnngh…" His hands brushed rapidly through his fauxhawk. "What is it about her that I love so much?!"
"Uh… She's dark and mysterious…?" Tara wasn't really sure what to say. His voice… It sounded all shaky and stuff. Apparently this was really bothering him...
"What about her drives me so… So insane?!" He looked to Tara for an explanation. All she could do was shrug. He snarled, "Big help you are!"
His vines began to flail, clearly agitated at their creator's angst. In their flailings, one managed to reach out far enough to grab the empty shell of the robot that had been sitting there for forever and smash part of the front panel.
Uh-oh.
"She's always so mean to me! Always! Barely had anything nice to say to me."
"She did say something nice about you at some point though, didn't she?" Tara pointed out. "She isn't always mean to you. Otherwise why would you like her so much?"
That was the wrong thing to say. His vines just flailed even harder, now reaching super high at the ceiling and around the room. Somehow, though, they kept just missing Tara and his research tools, like they were intentionally making an effort not to hurt her or their father's work.
"What do you think I'm trying to do right now, Missy? Contemplate my navel?! Don't you think I realize that is the stupidest thing I've ever heard!?" he spat.
"Uhm…" The blonde thought hard on what else that she could think of for why he liked her... "She was your voice of reason, wasn't she?"
Her boss nodded fiercely, like an angry, overly eager child, then corrected, "More in a soul-crushing way. But…" He grunted hard. "She did try. And… And Kim Possible isn't smarter than her," Doctor D added unhelpfully.
"Right…" Tara reached hard for another good descriptor. What else had she heard from other people on Shego? What good qualities did Bonnie have? It seemed like the two women were similar. "Uhm… She's confident… Self-assured… Determined…"
"Always thinks she's right."
"And she is sometimes!" Tara interrupted his bitter parade. It was generic, but he gave a grunt of affirmation.
"The most gorgeous woman I've ever seen," he breathed, eyes unfocused for a moment. Tara found that hard to believe… How could anyone be more beautiful than Vivian, or Bonnie's sister? Or Bonnie herself?
"She's assertive, and strong…" You could see him deflating. The vines calmed down as well withdrawing back into the flowerbed. It still mystified Tara how the plant matter could appear and disappear at will like that. Oh well.
"Her power is fascinating, if ouchy. And, I guess, once you get past the anger and stuff, she was pretty level-headed…" Now that Tara severely doubted. "Her snark is also frustrating…" He groaned as he muttered, "And I miss it terribly…"
"So, those are things that you find attractive?" Tara asked.
"I… Hm… Nnnngh..."
"That's a yes." She gave him a smug smile even as he sneered. "So you have your type! And now you know why she drove you so crazy! 'cause she ticked off all the boxes that you like in a person!" Tara cheered, "You can totes find someone else."
"Someone else?" He gaped. "Someone else?"
"Well, yeah!" Tara said, "I mean, you can't pine for Shego forever, can you?"
"You wanna bet?" Doctor D snarled. She'd gotten a feel for him over the weeks, though, and knew, knew that there was a layer of bemusement, like the idea hadn't even occurred to him before.
Apparently it gave him something to think on super hard, as he had an air of pensivity to him now.
This time the silence was calmer and more welcome.
"You're going to a party?" Vivian gaped at the blue man, looking up from the chart that she was drawing up of the innards of the Lorwardian walker.
"You don't have to sound so surprised," Drew grumbled as he continued trying to aim a giant huge incredibly big wire stripper at the ohm compensator. His plants were having trouble, though, wiggly about unevenly. "Just because I'm not 'hip' doesn't mean I'm dead."
"And Bonnie specifically asked for him!" Tara explained in a conspiratorial whisper, "She wanted an intellectual type at the party thing."
"Oh really?" The skepticism in Vivian's voice was painfully obvious. The assistant chose to ignore it.
"Yup. Bonnie came up with it after I said that I work at the space center. I think she was impressed!"
"Uh-huh." The svelte blonde set down her pencil and said sternly, "Doesn't that seem a little odd to you?"
"Huh?"
"She suddenly wanted you and your boss to show up after hearing you worked at the space center?"
"Yes…?" Tara didn't understand what was so weird about it.
"Your 'friend' is hanging out in the wrong circles," Vivian said pointedly. "I don't think you'll want to go."
"Bonnie's my friend," the assistant insisted. "She wouldn't have invited me if she didn't think we'd fit in."
"Nnnngh… Now I'm starting to wonder if I should go," Doctor D said, pausing again in trying to aim the stripper. "If your friend is really going to be the type to try and make us 'fit in'..."
"You hafta go! You already claimed your favor from me," Tara pointed out.
"Nnnngh… Argh… I, hrm…" He sputtered before relenting, "Fine! I guess I'll still go to your stupid party."
"Yay!" Victory!
"I can't stop you from going," Vivian started, a stern tone to her voice. "But I can tell you that it's a ferociously bad idea."
"It'll be fine," Tara assured her. "Bonnie's my BFF. She won't let anything happen!"
The other blonde woman shrugged. "If you say so." Changing gears, she asked, "So, how're you guys going to get to a private island in the middle of nowhere, and what are you planning on wearing?"
Drat! Tara forgot about the island part. How would she get there?
"I have my hovercar," Drew said snippily. "How do you think I manage to get to my own island?"
"Super secret transport tubes?" Tara had thought that was how he did it, anyway. She'd stumbled upon one when she'd gone to the bathroom last week and figured that's how people transported themselves around here.
Doctor D laughed. "Do you have any idea how impractical that would be?"
"But what about the tubes arou-.."
"And what are you going to wear?" Doctor Porter asked, cutting Tara off. That wasn't very nice!
"My bright blue cowboy tux, of course!" he said brightly, as if it was the most brilliant thing in the world.
Tara and Vivian shared a look.
"Uhm, maybe you should wear slacks? Or a nice black tux?" Tara suggested gently.
"Eh?" He tried to snip at the wire and missed. Looking over to them, he asked, "What for?"
"Because you'll look ridiculous in bright blue," Vivian said bluntly.
"Bah! What do you two know?" Doctor Lipsky waved his hands dismissively.
"More than you," the older woman grunted, clearly offended.
Even Doctor D caught that. "I, uhm, nnnngh… Fine! Ruin my fun! I won't go in my favorite dress-up outfit!" His vines tossed down the wire stripper in apparent anger, the tool falling to the ground with a loud clang. "So what should I go in?"
"I think your regular outfit should be fine. It's not basic average clothing, and it's easy," Vivian said with a shrug.
"But, but Bonnie said not to dress casual!"
"Just because it's Drew's casual doesn't mean that it's everyone's casual," the other woman pointed out. "And she also said not to dress too fancy from what you told us, too."
"I still think a tux or slacks would work better," Tara muttered grumpily.
"Really, it's up to whatever Drew's comfortable with," Vivian said, looking to the puffing blue man.
"Oh, so now it's what I'm comfortable in?" He pouted, "Maybe I'm only comfortable in my bright blue tux!"
"Then go naked or something!" Vivian threw her hands up in the air, obviously done with the conversation. "Just don't go in that."
"Hmph!" The bad doctor picked his tool back up. "I'll think about it…"
Things began settling down again. But it left Tara with one very important question. "Uhm… Doctor D?"
"WHAT?!" The blue man glared over at her. Wow! Apparently he was done with the conversation too!
"Can I hitch a ride with you…?"
Sexy bright red lipstick?
Check!
Dark blue eyeshadow to compliment her bright blue eyes?
Check!
Her voluminous blonde hair put up in a swoopy sleek side-swept ponytail?
Check!
Super cute yellow shimmery flattering scoop-backed evening dress that was probably overdoing it but looked too good to pass up?
Check!
She looked at the overall picture of herself in the full-sized mirror that hung on her closet door. Looking back was a super cute blonde that looked put together for a spankin' time!
It was time to get the party started~
A/N: Short but important chapter. I don't get the hype with Shego, so I had to ask for help with the part extolling the good things about Shego.
