A/N: The AU part of this involves someone not having been asleep during something crucial…

UDC 7 - Week 3 – Charlie Lippencott and Diana Powers (AU)

Attraction

He'd run out of ideas on what to do, now that Robo wasn't in need of further repairs. The only problem? Now the cyborg seemed to have inexplicable amnesia. So, for lack of anything else to try while the Chairman sat basically at his elbow, Charlie found himself thumbing through an operations manual.

Suddenly, all the computer screens in the room went staticky and both men jumped as a shower of sparks heralded the appearance of a woman in the center of the room. She nodded to Robo. "Got business with the big guy."

Charlie stared at her, dumbfounded, as she proceeded to explain her predicament and then fix what he hadn't been able to.

Love

There were too many coincidences, Charlie reflected as he saw her again on his first data probe into NeuroBrain. From Robo having information that he couldn't have gotten by himself from Pentagon computers, to the mystery of how Gadget had seen him in hologram form… "Hello again."

Diana blinked for a long moment, then smiled. "That's right. In all the excitement, I'd forgotten. You know… sort of. Hello, Charlie."

"So... no leaks in here, then?"

Her gaze went distant for a moment as she touched one of the virtual blue streams. "No. You might want to try employee access."

Under normal circumstances, he'd have asked her out for coffee.

Commitment

As they shared their first and probably only dance, Diana smiled at him. "We can't do this, you know. We're professionals."

"Can't dance?"

"This. Between us. It can't happen. I'm not…"

Charlie silenced her protests with a virtual kiss, and then whirled her around the dance floor. There would be time enough to discuss what they could and could not do. For now, though, it was just a dance, and it was just them. Alive or not, solid or not… it didn't matter to him.

Marriage

The most unusual marriage ceremony in the history of Michigan was performed by the Chairman of OCP in cyberspace, two years to the day since both parties had seen each other for the first time in the middle of a crisis. Diana had picked the day due to needing to remember it for something good, and Charlie… didn't care what day it happened on, so long as it happened.

Their lone witness had spiked into cyberspace wearing, rather uncustomarily, formal police dress blues. Neither the Chairman, nor the Bride and Groom, commented on this.

Anniversary

They were alone again in the expanse that was cyberspace, and Diana couldn't stop smiling at him. For some reason, she was incredibly glad he hadn't let her get away with the "we're so different, I'm legally and physically dead, and it'll never work" speech.

"You never did say what the bad thing was about this anniversary," Charlie said after a while.

"Aside from nearly being killed twice in the same day?"

He stared at her. "Oh."

"Dance with me?"

They did.