The Price We Pay

Rating: M
Setting: Post StD
Synopsis: Ron would do anything for Kim. But how high of a price would he pay to keep her safe and happily crime-fighting.
Disclaimer: I don't own them I only borrow them for a time. We all know to whom the real credit for this genius belongs. Thank you Robert Schooley and Mark McCorkle for sharing your wonderful creations with us.
Thanks: Thanks to Cloud Monet for prereading this for me and making some suggestions for changes that made the story better.

"Great, what is my excuse going to be this time?" Ron thought as his watch vibrated gently against his wrist during the last class period of the day.
"Ron, you ready for practice?" Kim asked as she neared Ron's locker.

"Sorry, KP, I'm not going to be able to make it tonight. My mom is really ticked that I haven't cleaned the basement yet."

"Ron, this is the third time you have missed this month. You can't keep missing like this."

"I know KP, but you know how she gets." Ron said with a shrug and a prayer that she buy it.

"Yeah, I know," Kim said in disappointment. "So I will see you later tonight?"

Ron leaned over and gave her a quick peck on the lips. "You can count on it."

"I wish he would tell me what is really going on," Kim thought with a frown as she watched Ron dejectedly leave the school.

"Ten minutes to the drop zone, Stoppable," the GJ pilot announced over the intercom.

Ron nodded in reply despite the fact that no one was around to see it.

"Okay, Rufus, one last time through the drill before we jump," Ron said, more to himself then to his friend, as he unfolded a map in front of them.

"Okay," Rufus replied in that high pitched almost human tone.

"HALO jump to here, about two clicks outside of Walter's lair," Ron said while pointing to the map. "Approach the lair from the north where the security is the weakest," he continued as he traced a path around the map towards a red X.

"Uh huh," Rufus replied with a nod.

"Scale the cliff face to the top, infiltrate the lair neutralizing any and all personnel encountered," Ron said with a bit of weariness in his voice. "Find Walter and silence him," he finished with a jab at the X, and refolded of the map.

"This should be just like retrieving that machine from Drakken's when Kim was sick," Ron said as he picked Rufus up and placed him in his pocket, but he knew that this was very, very different from that mission. After that mission he didn't wash his hands raw like he did after every one of these missions.

Ron eyed the last two of the eight patrolling guards reported by his intelligence as they approached his position, fortunately, the patrols and sensors where nowhere near the level reported by GJ intelligence.

When the two crossed under the tree Ron changed the grip on his pair of knives and dropped onto them. With a doubled staccato thunk the knives simultaneously burst through the guards necks an instant before Ron landed. The guards were dead before his feet touched the ground.

Silent, deadly, and efficient, this was Ron's reputation among the underworld, a reputation that he loathed and yet excelled at reinforcing.

As Ron cleaned the knives on the guard's uniforms he thought once again of what it would take to get his hands clean. How much he would have to scrub to remove the blood that seemed to soak into his skin. Just once he wished that he could get a mission where the sensors arrayed in the area wouldn't require him to work so up close and personal. There was no easy sniping, grenades, or mines for Ron Stoppable. He was only called in when GJ's ghostly specter of death was required.

Ron's infrared goggles confirmed what GJ satellites had told him, there were only ten people in the lair.

"Nine now," Ron thought as he unwrapped the piano wire from around the guard's neck that had been guarding the top of the cliff and let him tumble over the side.

"Okay Rufus, you go in and get to work on the alarms and power feed," Ron said as he pulled Rufus from of his pant pocket. "You know where you are going?" he asked before Rufus nodded and scampered away.

"Godspeed," Ron said silently to Rufus as he moved in the direction of the next closest guard in the lair.

Four dead bodies later and Ron was perched outside the room holding the remaining five people; Walter; his assistant, Rebecca; Julio, an acquaintance wanted in seventeen countries for crimes ranging from rape to terrorism; and two guards standing at the only door into the room.

Now it was time to trigger the alarm. With the push of a button on his watch Ron sent a silent signal to Rufus that he was in position.

"So, Julio, why this sudden interest in dictatorship?" Walter asked as he sipped his drink.

"Walter, don't you get tired of it all sometimes," Julio replied. "I mean don't you get tired of having to travel halfway across the globe after a job? Don't you get tired of always having to go out looking for some vulnerable and unguarded girl to take and make scream so that you can relax?" Julio finished with a lecherous sneer at Rebecca.

"I see your…," Walter started before being cutoff by the blare of klaxon alarm sirens.

"What is that?" Walter asked Rebecca as she rushed to a bank of monitors.

"I don't know," she replied, "I am not seeing anything."

"Well get on the horn and ask the guards what is going on," Julio said in contempt.

"You don't understand you arrogant ass! I don't see anything. No guards, no intruders, not even a single location for the alarm system trip," she said as panic started to creep into her voice.

"What!" Walter replied in shock. "You two, go out there and find out what is going on," he screamed at the two guards.

They turned, pressed the button that opened the reinforce blast doors, and left.

As soon as the two guards came through the blast doors Ron pushed the button on his watch again and Rufus cut all power to the lair leaving Ron's prey in the now dark and isolated room.

"What the hell!" bellowed one of the guards as the lights went out.

Ron paid no attention to their words as he rose and attacked.

Jumping onto the closest guard's back Ron wrapped his legs around the guard's head and twisted around while dropping his upper body down. He quickly let the guard's head go after he heard the snap of the guard's neck and dropped onto his hands for a quick hand spring kick delivered to the other guard's throat, effectively killing the man slowly as he suffocated. Taking pity on the guard, Ron drew his blade, and drove it into the choking man's temple.

With the last of the guards eliminated Ron only had the three trapped inside the room to deal with.

Walter was terrified. He had no idea what was going on. One minute he was on top of the world plotting with Julio about how to take over a country or two, and the next his lair was apparently under attack and he was stranded in the dark.

Then the lights came back on, and the doors opened. It was then that Walter knew what true terror was. True terror was standing in his doorway.

"Stoppable!" Julio cried in dismay. "What in the hell is Stoppable doing here?" Julio thought as he reached for the gun concealed inside of his jacket.

Ron took in the scene in a second as he burst into the room. Julio was standing closest to the door and was reaching for the gun that the IR told Ron was holstered inside of his jacket, Rebecca was still standing beside the surveillance station still unaware of what was going on, and Walter was looking at him with terror in his eyes.

Julio was a trained killer. One of the world renowned assassins, so he had his gun out of its holster and part way pointed towards Ron when he felt the impact of the blade below his jaw. "Odd, I thought there would be more pain in death," he thought as his body crumpled and he thought no more.

With Julio down Ron had lost his element of surprise, but had effectively removed the largest threat in the room. He ran behind a piece of machinery as Rebecca pulled her weapon and started shooting wildly in Ron's direction.

Once behind the piece of equipment Ron planted his feet and dove back the way that he had just came. He knew that once the weapon started to walk in one direction it was hard to walk it back, and that Rebecca was mainly acting on instinct and would expect him to either stop behind the equipment or keep moving in the last direction that she had seen.

Ron was correct and when he reemerged from behind the piece of equipment in exactly the same spot that he had disappeared Rebecca only had an instant to recognize her mistake as Ron's well placed shuriken ended her life and silenced her fire.

Walter was scared, but was determined to meet death was as much poise as he could muster. He was no fighter, and harbored absolutely no illusions about his ability to defeat Stoppable. So resigning himself to whatever fate held for him Walter stepped into the open and confronted death.

"Stoppable, what are you doing here?" Walter asked although he had a sinking suspicion of the answer.

Ron just looked at him as he drew his sword. It was well known, that for all of his light heartedness, as Kim Possible's sidekick that Stoppable barely ever spoke as GJ's enforcer or Possible's protector.

"I have in no way threatened Kim Possible," he virtually pleaded, trying to dredge up some sympathy in his executioner, and apparently it worked.

"This is not personal Walter; this is simply the price that I must pay to keep Kim safe."

"The price that you pay? What being GJ's Grim Reaper is the price that you pay? Or is it the selling of your soul?" Walter pushed.

Ron just looked at him again, as if lost in thought, but never wavering in his guard.

"Well, I hope that she is worth it!" Walter nearly screamed at Ron, "I hope that you are at least tapping that ass, because if you ask me no woman is worth the price that you are paying."

Ron rushed forward and Walter closed his eyes in anticipation of what was coming. He knew as all of the people in villainy did. That when Ron Stoppable showed up at your door without Kim Possible you had done something very wrong, and that you were going to die. You had either threatened or posed a threat to Kim's safety, in which case may God have mercy on your soul because Stoppable wouldn't, or you were marked by GJ for elimination, in which case it was usually swift and painless.

"I am just glad that this isn't about Possible," Walter thought as consciousness slowly faded from his severed head.

"She is worth it," Ron replied to the now dead man's question before turning and leaving the lair.

"Hello, Possibles."

Kim perked up immediately when she heard Ron's usual greeting as he entered the Possible household.

"Ronald, how did the cleaning go?" Mr. Dr. Possible asked.

"Not at all enjoyable, Mr. Dr. P, but some things have to be done no matter how much you dislike it" Ron replied as he sat down next to Kim on the couch.

Kim gingerly took Ron's red and raw hands into her own and gave him a rather protracted kiss considering the company that they were in, and snuggled up next to him

The hands were the last sign that she needed to know that he hadn't been cleaning the basement. He had been out on another mission for GJ again.

It had actually been a fluke that she found out. While walking through a bazaar in Dubai she took a wrong turn and ran into a rather unsavory individual that actually wet himself in fear that she would tell Ron, GJ's top enforcer, that he had threatened her.

After three weeks of searching, and having Wade hack into everything he could find, Kim was approached by Dr. Director. She told Kim everything, at least as much as Kim wanted to hear.

Ron had sacrificed so much for her, and she was determined that the price he paid would not go unappreciated nor unrewarded.

Ron sighed in content as Kim snuggled up next to him and they watched the movie. This was why he paid the price.