Chapter 2 - The Photos
It was a rare day that Kim managed to get a lie in, rather than being woken by the tuneful beeping of her kimmunicator. Thankfully, this morning had granted her that small, much needed reprieve. Between saving the world from those Lil Diablo toys, and her latest feud with Bonnie, she didn't think she'd manage to get a cat out if a tree, never mind stop a super villain.
Eventually though, the sun streaming in through the curtains managed to rouse her, and she groggily sat up in bed.
'What a night,' she thought wearily, and let out a huge yawn. Downstairs, she could already hear the sounds of construction work, no doubt her father and brothers had come up with some robotic-based solution to the robotic-based destruction that had befell their living room and front yard.
'I should probably go lend them a hand,' she sighed. She really didn't feel like doing much of anything.
She got up and started to get ready, tying her hair back in preparation for whatever manual labour she was about to get drafted into.
She picked up what remained of her prom dress and rubbed the fabric between her fingers, working towards the burnt and frayed edges. 'So much for the most magical night of my life' she thought with disgust, and launched the dress towards the bin.
'At least the clutch is still good' she mused, picking up the bag to retrieve her kimmunicator. As she reached in, her hand closed around the destroyed remains of Bonnie's phone.
Another pang of guilt shot through her, and she once again wondered if she hadn't over-reacted to Bonnie's stunt.
'I couldn't have just let her spread that photo around... Uggh, why does she always make me the bad guy?' She grimaced, and her hand clenched around the flip-phone, causing the plastic to crack further. 'What do I care, it's not like she ever feels guilt?'
She tore the back cover off the phone and flicked it into the bin. With the insides exposed, she reached in and delicately removed the device's memory card before inserting it into her kimmunicator.
Thumbnails of all the files popped onto the screen. She selected the most recent one and, in a practiced series of clicks, told it to delete.
The image flashed up for a second while the device set about erasing it, and for that brief moment Kim saw herself in Jessica's embrace, smiling.
'Uggh, stupid Bonnie, I can't believe she tricked me into sharing my first kiss with a girl'.
All evidence of her actions now carefully destroyed, the kimmunicator went back to the thumbnail viewer, displaying the last dozen photos Bonnie had taken. When Kim saw the common factor in all of them, her eyes almost fell out of her sockets.
'They're all of... me?'
The array of photos, taken at last night's prom, all appeared to feature the red-headed hero. There was Kim at the buffet table, Kim on the dancefloor, Kim chatting with Monique.
Scrolling down, the pictures fell more in-line with her expectations, a couple of pre-prom photos of Bonnie and her friends, but still interspersed with the odd snap of the hero: walking the hallways, sat in study hall, even one of her demonstrating a new cheer at practice.
'Why would she have these?' she wondered, feeling a little queazy. Was this part of some elaborate plan to humiliate her?
For a second, she felt the red mist descend again, and her clenched hand gripped the kimmunicator tight. She could rip the memory card out, cut it in half, and never have to worry about the wretched thing again.
Then a photo of Bonnie and Tara smiling in their prom dresses caught her eye, and her resolve weakened.
'No, these are her memories. It wouldn't be right. Dang it...'
She flicked through the photos again, selecting all the ones of her. There were a lot of them. Once she had them all highlighted, she went to delete them all, but found herself hesitating.
'Why does this feel like I'm violating her privacy? These are photos of me, that she took in secret! She's the one that should be feeling guilty, not me!'
With that little pep talk, she pressed her thumb down, wiping out the remaining photos of her. She ejected the memory card, and out it in her desk drawer, along with the sim card.
'I'll drop those off to her later, she can't say much fairer than that' she decided, hoping it would assuage her guilt over crushing the other girl's phone. It didn't.
Before she had the chance to properly tear into herself, her kimmunicator started ringing in her hand. It was Ron.
"What up Ron?" She answered, glad for the rescue from her own thoughts. 'Good old Ron, always the distraction'.
"Uggh, not doing so good KP," he answered, his voice sounding quite sickly. "I think I over-did it on the diablo sauce last night, though I don't really remember. The puke stains on my sweater do not bode well though."
In the background, she could faintly hear a high-pitched retching noise, which she deduced to be Rufus in the process of throwing up his share of the diablo sauce.
"I'm amazed you wanted to have anything to do with the word 'diablo' after yesterday's adventure," she pointed out, though in reality she was far from surprised.
"Quite the contrary. After we kicked Drakken's butt last night, Bueno Nacho is going to go back to normal. News of that magnitude deserves, ney, demands a proper celebration!"
"Rigghht, and of course the best way of paying tribute is permanent damage to your digestive tract?" She asked, rolling her eyes.
Throughout the phone call Kim was feeling a little better, but as the topic of conversation centered around Big Mike's apparently vomit-splattered house party, Bonnie and Jessica rarely strayed far from her mind. She knew that she was going to have to do something about this, and she knew vaguely where to start.
"You and Jessica did WHAT?" Ron exclaimed, pretty much as she expected he would.
The two of them were walking together, well out of earshot of the house. Kim had offered to lend a hand on the repairs, but her Dad and brothers insisted that they had it all under control. She'd been correct in her assessment that there'd be robots involved, and her dad seemed confident that they'd have the whole repair done by the end of the day.
"It's not a big deal Ron," she insisted, hoping to downplay the whole thing in her friend's mind. She'd considered trying to keep him in the dark, but word was going to spread anyway, and he was her best friend, and friends told each other everything.
Well, almost everything. She had, in her retelling of the events, left out the part about Bonnie's phone containing dozens of covert snaps of herself. She had no idea what it could mean, she just knew it was far too embarrassing a detail to share, even with her best friend.
"No big deal?" The blonde boy practically shouted, "Kim, you made out with one of the hottest girls in school! And she's a cheerleader! That's like, the dream of every dude at Middleton!"
'For heavens sake, trust him to miss the point entirely' "Ron, I am a Middleton cheerleader!"
"Yeah, but you're you and..." he froze, instinctively knowing he had messed up.
"And I'm what Ron?" She forced out through gritted teeth. Apparently the last few days had really worn her patience down.
"I just mean, we've known each other since pre-k," he rambled, trying to salvage his point, "you're not some cheerleader to me, you're my friend! Where-as Jessica, she's like possible date material!"
"Yeah, in your dreams," she scoffed, rolling her eyes.
"That's what I was saying, she is the dream, and you totally went there!"
"She is NOT the dream, not for me! I like BOYS Ron!"
Ron put his hand to his chin, looking pensive for a moment. "You sure? That's good, it's hard enough having to compete against the other guys at school without having to worry about being upstaged by-"
"RON!"
"Okay, okay!" He conceded, putting his hands out infront as a show of surrender.
They walked in silence after that. Ron was in the dark as to what they were planning to do, and honestly, Kim wasn't much more clued in herself.
'Okay, so we knock on her door, I hand her her memory card, and then what? Apologise? But it wasn't even me that started it! Not to mention all those weird photos she'd taken of me! Besides, as if she'd ever even accept my apology anyway?'
These thoughts consumed her for the rest of the walk to Bonnie's house. In a way, she was thankful for the molecular bonding incident earlier that year, as at least it meant she knew where the other girl lived.
'I hope her sisters aren't in,' she thought as she knocked on the door, 'that could make this whole thing even more awk-weird.'
She stepped back a sensible distance from the door. Ron had apparently decided that the sensible distance for him was all the way back on the sidewalk. That was probably the best option; while she appreciated having him come along for the moral support, keeping him out of the thick of it was probably the safe move.
Back in front of her, she could hear the muffled sounds of someone coming to the door, and the latch being undone. Whether Kim was ready or not, the door began to open.
Well, that's enough for this instalment I think ;)
This chapter went through so many tweaks as I was writing it; originally Ron was nowhere to be seen, but then I figured Kim talking to herself the whole time could end up getting boring fast. Plus, you often don't get a lot of Kim & Ron friendship interactions in femmeslash, even though he's such a big part of her life, so I thought "screw it" and dragged him along for the ride, which is good, cause I had a lot of fun writing him. Till next time!
