Disclaimer: I do not own Kim Possible. She is owned by Disney and Mark McCorkle and Bob Schooley. Any original characters shown or mentioned belong to me and cannot be used without permission. Got it?
Maternal Instinct: Spotlight
Chapter 10: Spyder & Longbow-Pleasant Conversations
Longbow stood inside the specially designed archery range that was an addition to the mansion's regular training room. It was built on a conveyer belt system that would move each target aside to collection bin where the used arrows were dumped and returned to her while the target rotated back onto the belt. It all seemed a little elaborate to her, and honestly she really was the only one that had any use for it, but if Global Justice wanted to spend the extra money on something to keep her happy, who was she to argue? Besides, she really did like the fact that she was the only one who used this range. It allowed her to be alone with her thoughts. Somewhere else in the mansion besides her room where she could be alone and think things over. It was quiet and peaceful.
At least it was. That peace was about to be interrupted by the figure crawling along the ceiling. She had spotted him a few minutes ago out of the corner of her eye and hoped he was just going to leave, but apparently that wasn't the case. She let out a small sigh as released the arrow and it flew effortlessly to the exact middle of the target board.
"I know you're there Spyder," she said as she lowered her bow. "You can come down now."
She heard a guffaw of surprise then turned to head to watch as Spyder climbed down the wall to her left. He paused for a second to crock his head upwards and look at her. Though his mask covered his face, she could tell he was giving her a surprised look.
"Alright, I gotta know, when did you spot me?" he asked in his thick Irish accent.
"The second you came in actually."
"That long?!"
"These eyes don't miss anything," she remarked, pointing to the solid white eye pieces in her mask.
"Guess they don't," he muttered before flipping down onto the floor.
As he walked over to her, she saw he unzipped his leather jacket and figured he had it closed so it wouldn't dangle down while he was crawling along the ceiling. She also assumed he undid the jacket to try and show off to her. She shook her head slightly in annoyance before picking up her bow and drawing another arrow to get back to her practicing. Unfortunately, that didn't seem to detract the red haired Irishman and he stopped next to her then crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the wall.
"So watcha doin' here luv?" he asked in an almost cocky tone.
"Practicing," she simply replied.
She then let the arrow she had readied go and they both watched as it hit the center of the newest target.
"Doesn't seem like you need to do much practicin' to me," he compliment.
"Gotta keep my skills sharp," she said, still not looking at him.
"Was that a joke? From you?"
"Nope," she muttered, firing another arrow.
"Shame, woulda been a good one."
"Is there something in particular you want?"
"Eh, just came by here to talk really. Shoot the breeze. See what's up."
"Well you've seen 'what's up' can you go now?"
Spyder sighed and shook his head.
"Really gonna make this hard on me, aren't you?"
"Can you do me a favor and never use any combination of the words 'hard' and 'on' while you're around me?"
Despite the situation, he chuckled a bit. When he noticed that she was giving him a rather dirty look even though her dark blue domino mask. He threw his hands up in a "I give up" manner that she snorted at before turning her attention back to the target range again.
"Okay so I'm sorry about that," he apologized, "but I'm not about to leave just yet."
"Why not?" she asked in an exasperated breath.
"Because I honestly want to get to know you better. Specifically because no one else around here seems to know anything about you at all."
"That is how secret identities are all about, aren't they?" she asked, arching an eyebrow.
"Yeah from the general public, and maybe to some of the more shady Global Justice agents, but not to each other. We're supposed to be a team, right? And teammates are suppose to be able to trust each other."
"Says the man in the full face mask."
"Alright ya got me there. But maybe this will help."
With that, he reached up to the top of his mask near the edge of his hairline, then pulled it down so that it hung loosely around his neck. Despite herself, Longbow glanced over at him and not surprisingly saw a smirk playing across his fairly handsome face. Though she didn't care much for the scruffy red goatee hanging off his chin. There was also a mischievous glint in his teal colored eyes that put her a little on edge. She ignored it though and turned her attention back to her the target in front of her. She shot another arrow while Spyder shifted his weight from foot to foot rather nervously.
"So?" he asked, sounding a bit impatient.
"So what?" she asked back, drawing another arrow.
"I got my mask off, so why not take off yours?"
"Not gonna happen."
"What is it with you?!" he finally screamed. "I'm trying to make a connection here but you're giving me nothin'!"
"Then maybe you should take the hint!" she screamed back, snapping her head towards him.
"No! Not until I get you to loosen up just the tiniest bit!"
"Why do you care so much?!"
"Because I can tell you're hurtin'!"
The sudden revelation shocked her so much, it nearly caused her to drop her bow. When she recovered she put the arrow back and finally turned to face him fully. She planted the bow on the ground and leaned on it slightly like a walking stick. She placed her other hand on her hip, dangerously close to the mini crossbow strapped to her right thigh. Her lips were curled back in a snarl while her eyes narrowed a bit.
"And what makes you say that?" she growled.
"Because I've been around enough people to pick up on things like that," he said with a surprisingly sincere look on his face. "Comes with the territory of having a big family. I have three sisters and I can tell when each one of them is hurtin' over something and I'm getting that same vibe from you."
"Alright, fine, but again why exactly do you care?"
"Again, big family. You get use to trying to help the people you care about. And despite what you may think about me, I do care about you. Like I care about the other people on this team. I have a big heart, it's one of my flaws."
"The only one, right?" she asked snarkily.
"Oh no, I'm mess. I just consider that one of my best flaws."
Longbow let out a slight chuckle that she tried to hide behind her hand. Unfortunately, for her Spyder caught it and that caused him to smile.
"Ah, is that a chuckle I heard? Or even a smile I see on your face?" he asked playfully.
Her face quickly snapped back to its normal neutral and not amused face.
"No," she said quickly, a bit too quickly.
"Yes, yes it was," Spyder cheered. "I knew you had some humor tucked away inside there somewhere."
She went back to glaring silently at him.
"Oh come on!" he pleaded. "What is it that made you such a sourpuss?"
"If I tell you, will you promise to leave me alone?" she asked, slumping her shoulders a bit.
"Scouts honor," he said, holding up the required two fingers.
With that, she let out a long sigh before dipping her head down and reaching up to peel over the thin mask. When she looked up again, Spyder was a bit surprised to see that her maroon colored eyes had a bit hint of sadness in them. He was also caught a bit off guard by the fact that without her mask she looked so very familiar.
"I know you..." he mused, as he stroked his goatee in thought.
"I was a model," she explained.
He suddenly snapped his fingers.
"Yeah! That's it! You did a few of those Claudia's Closet lingerie ads!" he exclaimed as he looked down at her body, particularly focusing on the generous amount of cleavage her costume showed off. "Knew I recognized that body from somewhere."
When he finally pried his eyes off her curves, he lifted his head up to look at her face again and noticed that she now had her bow back in her hand and arrow drawn that if released would strike him right between the eyes. Instinctively he jumped back a bit and caught into a defensive stance. She smirked at him before lowering her weapon and placing the arrow back in her quiver and holding the bow by her side again. Spyder let out a soft sigh and relaxed himself when he saw he was out of danger.
"First off, gotcha," Longbow said with a smirk and a quick wink. "Secondly, since you're already staring at it, what do you think of my body?"
He looked a little apprehensive at the question.
"You're not gonna shoot me if I answer this the wrong way, are ya?" he asked nervously.
"No I won't shoot you. This time."
"Alright," he said, still not sure if she was serious or not. "Well, honestly, I'd have to say you're incredibly hot."
"And you think my body looks good?"
"Yes, very, very good."
"Well not in the modeling world," she remarked, her hand tightening around the handle of the bow. "No, there I was always being told that I was 'too big' and I should 'drop a few pounds'. In fact, if you ever read anything other than lingerie catalogues, you might remember that I was often touted as being brave for being a 'plus sided model'."
"Actually I do remember that one. And if I remember correctly there was a story about how you seemed to disappear off the face of the Earth. Guess I know where you went now."
"Yeah. One of the things I did to keep myself in shape was take up archery. As you can see I got pretty good at it."
"Yeah can definitely tell that. But I have a feeling this has more to do with just you getting upset at being called 'fat'."
"You're special intuitiveness again?"
"You could say that."
"Well you're right," she remarked as she put her mask back on and turned back to the archery range. "As irritating as it was, I could handle the constant insults because I realized how insane they were. But a lot of my friends, some good friends, bought into that propaganda and started intentionally starving themselves so they'd 'look better'. As if that wasn't bad enough at lot of the girls also started using drugs to either help them lose weight or just to fit into 'the scene'. What's even worse was a lot of the managers were actually supplying their girls with the drugs. Mostly so they could take advantage of them later. I just go so disgusted with the whole thing that I had to leave before I went insane. But first I had to teach those scumbags a lesson."
"And I'm assuming this is where the tights and the fancy arrows came into play."
She nodded. "Well...the trick arrows didn't come into play til just recently, but yeah it was the reason for all this," she gestured to her dark blue costume. "I just knew the cops weren't going to do anything cause most of the top modeling agents had them in their back pocket. So I took matters into my own hands. For the most part it actually worked out pretty well until..."
"'Until'...?" Spyder prompted.
Longbow sighed and closed her eyes as she lowered her head.
"I only told one person about my new identity," she started, her voice full of remorse. "She was my closet friend in the industry and someone I thought I could trust. But then...then on a night I was supposed to bring down one of the biggest suppliers to the models I stepped right into a trap. One that my 'friend' helped set up after I told her I was going to take the bastard down. Turns out she was actually one of his biggest clients and didn't want to see him go to jail because she was afraid of missing her fix. I was lucky to get out of there alive."
"Whoa," Spyder remarked, stunned. "That's...that's...well honestly I can't come up with a word to say how bad that is."
"Yeah," she replied absently, resting her head in her hand and seeming like she was holding back tears. "So now you can see why trust is a bit of an issue for me."
"Fair enough," he said as he took a step forward and rested a hand on her bare shoulder. "But let me give you a piece of advice. Yeah that sucks that that happened, but you can't let it control your life. Some people are gonna betray you, you can't do anything to prevent that. But you can't live your life expecting everyone to betray you. Cause if you do it that way, you're gonna miss out on a lot of the important things. Like making new friends who you can trust."
"But how do you know which ones those are?" she asked weakly.
"You don't. That's part of the fun of life; it's unpredictability. You gotta go out there. Throw yourself into the middle of it. Go to a bar and get drunk! Pick a fight with someone you don't know! Kiss people you just met! Or is that just me?"
She let out a small chuckle. "I think that's just you."
"Probably. Still though, that's the point. Ya gotta take the bad with the good. Life knocks you down, you gotta get up, wipe the blood from your chin and show it you're up for whatever else it throws at ya."
"I guess. I just..." she shook her head. "I don't know. I don't think I'm ready for that yet."
"That's cause you keep secluding yourself from everyone else. When you're not in here you're hole up in your room. We only get to see you during missions and in training. And you gotta admit you're not really Ms. Personality in either of those occasions."
"Yeah I know. And I appreciate all this but...I just need some more time."
"Alright," he relented as he took his hand off her shoulder and took a step back. "Just don't take too much time lass or you might find you missed out on knowing a good group of people."
He then turned and started to walk away while she went back to her target practice. Just as she pulled out another arrow, Spyder stopped midway through the room and turned around to look at her.
"And if you want to talk about anything, anything at all, I'm here for ya," he offered.
"OK," she said a bit absently.
She drew the arrow back but hesitated when she heard his footsteps growing dimmer and dimmer.
Don't turn around. Don't turn around. Don't turn around, she repeated mentally.
Finally she heard the door slid shut to signal the fact that he had left. She let out the breath she didn't even know she was holding the let the arrow fly as she had been doing almost all afternoon. It sank into the hard foam target with the usual dull thud but this time it landed a few inches to the right of the bull's eye.
"Huh," she mused as she lowered her bow. "Missed."
The End
Author's Notes: Well another chapter in the "Spotlight" series down. I know it's a fairly short one but it was never intended to be anything more than Spyder and Longbow talking so there was only so much I can do. Basically I just wanted to do a scene, which dug into Longbow's background a little more and bring the two closer together.
Now I know a couple of you might be disappointed that this chapter wasn't the Will Du/Catgirl training session I hinted at in the last chapter but honestly I don't have anything in mind for that. I'll try to think of something but I really have no idea when I'd get to it. For now it might just be a untold story that gets mentioned from time-to-time until I can figure it out. Sorry guys. If anyone wants to take a stab at it themselves, be my guest. I'll be around to offer any advice I can.
For now the next chapter is going to focus on White Knight and his background and again probably won't be that long. We'll have to see what happens when I get to it.
See ya later guys