-PatB-

Pinky and I lean back against Crawler's glass form, Calvert, with a bag over his head, asleep at our feet.

"Crawler's too dead, I think," she tells me, "I can't feel his power at all."

I nudge Calvert with a blue-armored foot, only now noticing that my big toe is separate, but the others are bundled together, like tabi socks. I wiggle my toes, watch my armor shift with them, "This is different."

Amy looks at me, follows my gaze. I hold my foot up a bit and wiggle my toes.

"From the source material."

"Could you go Vibram Five Fingers with them?"

"I guess so?" she looks at her feet, and the armor wraps down between her toes, "I think this'll make my feet wider," she goes up on the balls of her feet a moment, her toes spreading out.

"Feet aren't supposed to be shoe-shaped."

"Then why are shoes?"

"Because some idiot decided they were pretty? Like how they'd bind girl's feet in China?"

"Hmm," she says, laying an armored hand on my shoulder. My toes stretch apart as the armor flows between them, and I wiggle them up and down, like piano scales. Not that I've ever played piano.

"Incoming," Tattletale says, over the repurposed motorcycle intercom we're using with our radios.

A PRT van stops a safe distance from us. A couple men get out the side door.

"You wanted to give us a parahuman prisoner?"

"Yes, he'd infiltrated the PRT, and was causing trouble," I say, my armor changing my voice, lifting it a half-octave.

"New heroes?"

"Something like that."

"Who is he?"

"Coil."

"Coil's dead."

"Rumors of his death were exaggerated, or, more precisely, he faked his own death. I'm going to remove the restraints I put on him, but he'll be sedated for a few more hours. Get him into an MRI before he wakes up, he had access to a lot of money, and a lot of secrets, so you need to prove he's a parahuman before you let him unmask."

"Let him?"

"Infiltrated the PRT. Lots of blackmail."

"That'll do it," Tattletale says, as the PRT troopers pick up Calvert's stretcher, "He's in the hands of Internal Affairs, and will be going into an MRI before they take his mask off. He's done."

"Good," I whisper back at her.

Pinky leads the way, sauntering off with a deliberate sway to her pink-highlighted armored hips.

I follow after. A few blocks, and a few turns, later, we cut through an abandoned building. Lisa joins us, watching as Amy's armor practically vanishes. Mine takes a bit longer, contracting into something not entirely unlike a set of quarterback pads, under my t-shirt, down my spine. I pat Amy's back, rap my knuckles against the armor over her belly, "I'd feel safer if you had something protecting your head."

"It'd show too much, currently."

Lisa's looking at us, "How," she pauses, "Shatter-" she pauses again, then gathers my girlfriend up and kisses her, "In case," she says, "I haven't told you recently how sexy you are."

Amy laughs in her face.

"There is a food-truck near the boardwalk, at the opposite end from my lair. Greek, supposedly fairly good."

Amy grabs my hand, "That sounds good to me," she holds out her other hand, "Lisa?"

Lisa gathers up my other hand, "Me too."

Amy cuddles closer as we walk, slowing us down a bit, and Lisa follows suit. Amy squeaks, and I look to find Lisa's index finger in her back pocket. I ponder how that's even possible, my arms wrapped around each of their shoulders.

"I'm horning in on your first outside date, aren't I?" Lisa asks, suddenly, "Would you like me to butt out?"

"We invited you along," Amy says, "Unless you'd prefer to continue risking dying a virgin?"

Lisa and I just stop, and Amy swings around to look at us, "We don't have to," she says, looking down at my feet.

"I'm just surprised we're jumping from over-the-bra groping to threesome."

"You almost died. I could have killed myself tripping out of the Zwauth. He could have killed Lisa instead of locking her up," her eyes shimmer, tears gathering at the corners, but her voice doesn't shake much.

I gather her into a hug, and Lisa wraps herself around us both.

After a bit she wiggles, pulling back.

I smile at her, "If that's what you want, I'm willing."

Lisa has a grin on her face, "I can't think of any objections."

Amy looks at her, "Liar."

"OK," she says, "All of my objections are drowned under the thought of having the two of you in bed with me."

"Taylor is that hot, isn't she?"

Lisa nods, happily, "She is," she says, taking Amy's other side, and slipping her hand in Amy's back pocket.

I wrap an arm around Amy's shoulders again, and we continue along the slowly-recovering street.

After lunch, we walk up the shattered boardwalk, looking in on shops where the owners are cleaning up, past the ones still boarded from Leviathan, past a couple that are actually open for business. I make a point of spending a bit in each of those. It's mostly, well, entirely, fripperies, but some of them make Amy or Lisa smile, and Imp might like that, Grue that, I have no idea if Regent will like that, but I got it anyway.

I'm carrying a pile of bags by the time we get back to my lair, and I drop them in the bug room before following the other two up the stairs.

They are standing, Amy already nervous, shifting uneasily, looking around, her gaze refusing to settle. Lisa's getting there, pulling at her shirt a bit, glancing at the bed, then Amy, then me.

I take a deep breath, then pull my shirt off, dropping it on the floor, start on my belt, "Bath?" I ask, working the buttons before shimmying my pants off.

They catch on my shoes, so I hop once, twice, then fall on my butt, jeans around my ankles, both hands on my left shoe. All of their attention is on me, as intended, but it is still a fight not to blush. It's not like I'm anywhere near naked, my armor covers me from neck to halfway down my panties, even if my position . . .

I force that shoe off, yank the cuff over my foot, free that leg. I untie the other shoe, and it comes off much easier.

Amy tosses her shirt in my face, and I look up, stare a moment. She jiggles a little, tiny movements of feet and calves and knees, and her bare breasts jiggle a lot, her lens a green gem in a gold pendant.

"Meep," someone says softly. Lisa's looking back at me when l look to see if she said it.

"That's totally not fair!" Lisa sheds her scoop-neck shirt, then her bra, a little more naked than Amy in ten seconds or less, "Why are other people's boobies fascinating?" She cups hers, shaking them a moment.

Amy's eyes go wide, "Because reproductive success?" she asks. She bends a little, picking up one foot, then the other, shedding her shoes, then slides her slacks down, kicks them off, straightens, shoulders back, hands on her hips, head high, chin tucked back, white ankle-high socks and green panties.

"What?" Lisa asks, after several moments of admiration.

"How many grandbabies would you have if you spent all your time playing with your breasts?" Amy asks, picking her heels a half inch off the ground, then dropping back down again. Boing. She grins at me, I can see it in my peripheral vision.

I throw my socks after my pants, then peel my armor off, get my feet under me, and shove my panties an inch down one hip. Both of them are watching me. It feels . . . I shove the other side down an inch. Lisa whimpers, and I blink at her, surprised. Amy steps up, one hand on either of my hips, her thumbs reaching into my waistband, "May I?" she asks, so close.

I manage a nod.

She steps a little closer, nipples brushing against my belly as she drops to a knee, plants a kiss to my solar plexus, giggles at the way it makes me jerk, pushing my underwear towards my knees.

She stands, stepping back, her hands going to my waist as I shake my panties off my feet. The blatant admiration, the want, in her gaze. I shiver, and it's not because of the warm room.

Lisa moves, toeing off her low-heeled shoes, a slide, a zipper, then her skirt, grey panties following with a shake of a leg. I don't know if I'm surprised, but her mons, to use Heinlein's words, is bald as a grape.

Amy pushes her panties down, an inch at a time, side to side, but quicker than I had. Her curtains, as I should have expected, match the drapes, a short thatch of red-orange curls.

-PatB-

A/N: Even when one knows better, hormones make dumb decisions so attractive.