If You Can't Take the Heat, Get the Hell Out of the Kitchen
By: Denise N. Rodier and Milla


Spoilers: Out

A/N: A conversation at the VS3 Season Wrap party this weekend led to another partier and I writing this ficlet. Hope you enjoy!

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I should have known.

And after breaking one of my good lock-picks getting that cold-pressed virgin olive oil... well... I should have known. A bad sign from the start.

Why am I sitting here anyway? Why didn't I just tell him to shove his little mission up his ass, wheel over to the table, and open the goddamn wine?

Eyes Only rides again. It figures.

It's been raining - again - and I'm stuck here in this car with the world's biggest boy scout, off on another one of his "save the day, help the hopeless, escort the little old lady across the street" missions.

All he needs is a cape and a red "L" stuck on his chest and he could be a superhero.

MMmmm... spandex. Logan...

Damnit, Max. Focus!! Angry. Max. Hungry, Max.

Okay.

"Max! This is important!"

Damn straight. You got that one right, Logan.

Except... why am I getting so bothered about this anyway? I mean, it was just dinner. We have dinner all the time. Sure, he's the one cooking and all, but it's still dinner.

It's what friends do.

But... it was my dinner. My pots. My candles. My apartment.

This battle was supposed to be fought on my turf, but he changed the rules of engagement. This was not part of the Manticore Field Guide.

He's still talking?

"I almost died."

What? He has to remind me of that? "I had your back on that, remember?"

"Yeah, well, not everybody has a genetically-engineered universal donor looking out for them."

But you almost didn't, either. Once more I almost wasn't there. And the last time that happened...

But I can't be every place all the time. Can I? Of course not. I couldn't know. Could I?

And why does he get himself in these messes anyway, where I have to come and bail his ass out, putting mine in danger?

It's not my fault.

Right now, we would be finishing up the pasta, maybe having another glass of wine. But instead, he comes barging in, expects me to drop everything, and go save the world. It's like I'm his rainy day recreation. Put in a closet and pull out in a crisis.

I wonder if he even knows what we're getting into? "What kind of security am I going to be running into?"

"According to my source, next to nothing. Bronck is either trying to keep a low profile, or he's so insulated by the cops, he doesn't need to worry."

At least one of us doesn't have to. I tried to keep a low profile once. Look where it got me. In a car, with a man who's driving me out to a B and E job when we should be at home right now.

Eating dinner. In another life, we're probably even on dessert.

Hell, in another life, Logan wouldn't have landed his ass in a chair, and I wouldn't have been a genetically engineered escapee.

And we'd both be dead.

Let's get this bitch over with.

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The End