Three days earlier…

The portal started to collapse behind Rivet as she stumbled into her hideout, the violet shards falling into place, disappearing. It seemed pretty normal by now—mundane even; though, she was out of breath this time. She attempted to stand upright, control her breathing, stay calm. The lombax gave the room a once-over, the damage still being repaired from her previous adventure. The process had been painstaking. Nothing really was out of place today, nothing besides a new, familiar face that greeted her. She smiled at the little, yellow robot unevenly between breaths; she was keeping a secret. Can robots smell fear? What about sex? She certainly hoped not.

Kit could plainly see something was off about her friend. "Rivet!" the robot exclaimed, jumping down from the workbench. She was collaborating on a project with Clank. "You've been gone for over two days! What happened to you?" There was a small twinge of disappointment in her words.

"Oh, nothing!" Rivet lied, nearly panting though her perfectly white canines. She put up her gloved hands, revealing open palms. "Just—y'know, hanging out with Ratchet—learning more Lombax stuff! The usual."

Kit remained skeptical, much to the lombax's chagrin. As she approached Rivet she ran a preliminary scan without her even knowing, now noticing how sloppily her clothing was hanging off her body. Was she rushed out? "Are you sure? Your heart is racing … and ... my sensors indicate that you're in distress, and—oh my!"

"W-what?" Rivet stammered; her voice was shaky at best, she had to think of something fast. Backed into a corner, she grinned crookedly on pure instinct, forcing herself to maintain eye contact like a trapped wild animal. "We w-went for a little—race! Yeah, a race! That's what we did. And I won ... obviously." She shrugged her shoulders, feigning a sense of self-assuredness.

The robot would have blushed if she had the ability, deciding to play dumb instead. Rivet wreaked of something, and Kit wasn't as naive as the rest of her friends suspected. "Oh," she said, turning back towards the workbench, "I see. It ... all makes sense now. That explains everything." It was her turn to lie. Was the situation defused? Probably, for the time being. Her scan revealed Rivet's pheromone levels had nearly quadrupled since the last time they saw each other, and the traces of him—it was unmistakable.

Semen. And other bodily fluids. Concentrated below the belt. There was partially dried saliva saturating the crook of her neck, too—definitely lombax saliva. It didn't take a detective to fit the pieces together. Best not to mention it, but there was no doubt in the robot's mind. A decent shower might have even covered up the evidence. It was too late now. "Well, I'm glad you had a good visit!" the robot said delightedly, changing the subject.

Rivet exhaled the longest breath of her life, shivering in her boots with relief. She knew her secret was safe.

About 5 minutes earlier than that…

An orange fur ball frantically stumbled around the bedroom, the late morning sun shining through the blinds of his apartment. His room was a mess. His bed was a mess. "Nononono! Nonono—nonononono! I need pants! I need a shirt! Or—something! My armor, where is it?" Ratchet was naked, worst of all, and feeling like a completely helpless idiot. A haphazard step plunged his toe into a metal dresser, knocking over the Dimensionator and sending it crashing to the floor with a loud 'clunk'. "Grrh!" He bit his lip to keep himself from yelping out in pain, now hopping around on one foot.

Rivet jolted awake from the noise, dazed, her face previously buried in a plushy pillow. "Huh?" she sputtered. The sun trickling into the room caught her blue eyes through a tuft of white hair that obscured her vision; her earrings flickered in the light, reflecting onto the walls. She blinked several times, wetting her eyes, and shook her head trying to gather herself. "W-what's going on?" she asked no one in particular. "W-what time is it?" Ratchet nearly fell over onto the bed, fumbling with a pair of pants he found. He fought in vain to put his furry feet through the holes. She could hear the dread in his voice, "Clank's gonna' be here any minute—" he barely managed the words, as if relaying information for a suicide mission. "—he doesn't know about us yet. This is not good."

The grey lombax pushed herself up from the pillow into a severe arch, cracking her back like popcorn in a microwave; she watched the muscles of Ratchet's back and shoulders shudder and ripple through her squinted, sleepy gaze. Then her eyes widened—the gears were starting to turn. "Oh, crap!" she yelled; there was a noticeable echo throughout the room, likely audible in the next apartment over. "I fell asleep!? But—how!?" her voice jumped an octave.

"Shhh!" Ratchet shushed her, now glaring as their eyes met. "Where are your boots?" he hissed, trying to get her moving with some urgency.

She threw the covers off of herself using her bionic arm, revealing her nakedness; she was a mess of frazzled, grey fur, and she had to sweep the tuft of silvery hair on her head out of her eyes. On the bed was an established wet spot near where she had slept, a mixture of products of hot, lombax sex. Clank's sensors would find that for sure. "Where are your boots?" she hissed right back at him, snarling her teeth. She jumped out of the bed using her powerful legs. Ratchet couldn't help but stare at her rear as she planted her feet, he had become intimately familiar with it the last few days.

"Err—" he hesitated, caught off guard whilst staring. "Um, under the bed I think."

She flicked her poofy tail angrily in his direction, noticing he was stealing a peek. "Focus, or we're never doing this again!" Another lie, this time with some venom behind it. That would be impossible to keep up, but the empty threat of no more sex was enough to get Ratchet back on track.

"R-right," was all he mustered.

For the next three minutes and forty-seven seconds the lombaxes raced around the room trying to put on random pieces of clothing, failed, said the occasional curse word, attempted to help each other out with the tighter-fitting things, and stole glances at each others' backsides—mostly Ratchet—because hormones were still hard at work. Formerly adept killing machines, they were now reduced to frightened children with their hands in a cookie jar. They'd never live this down if they got caught.

Then they stopped in their tracks. So close to the finish line. However, Rivet had no top, still bare chested. Ratchet had heard the apartment door. Clank. There was a closet in his room at the south end. The lombaxes locked eyes, they had maybe ten seconds. "The Dimensionator," they said in unison.

"Ratchet?" Clank called out. They froze solid, neither dared to make a move. No response from the lombax. Suspicious. Speed would be critical to mission success. Three seconds were gone already.

Then, they bolted. Ratchet scooped up the weapon, darting for the closet while Rivet bounded over the bed, finding grace in her movements now. He threw open the doors and opened fire, tearing open a shimmering, violet portal inside the closet—Rivet's armored top. It was right there the whole time. How did it get in the closet? He tossed it to her like it was a cooked grenade, milliseconds from detonating; she slung the heavy thing over her head, squeezing her long ears through the head hole as he slammed shut the closet doors behind her.

"Ratchet?" Clank called again. "Are you still here?" The doorknob twisted, and the bedroom door creaked open; Ratchet's heart thumped in his chest. Then, he could hear the portal collapse within the closet. He dropped the Dimensionator on the floor, another loud 'clunk'. "Oh, there you are, Ratchet," said the chrome robot. "And just exactly what is going on in here?"