There's Still Fireworks: Part VIII
Testing the Limits
"I don't know what's wrong, KP, this usually doesn't happen to me."
Kim put a hand on her hip, cocking her head to one side. "Do you think you might be doing it wrong?"
"No, how else would I do it?" Ron slouched slightly. He knew what was wrong, but wasn't about to mention it to Kim. It always worked when he was alone, but there, with her, his girlfriend, the woman he…loved? There were certain performance anxieties involved.
"Do you think maybe putting in your combination and pulling up the latch might work?" Kim offered, her voice a blend of helpfulness and gentle sarcasm.
Ron stood to one side, trying to relax. He'd done it perhaps a thousand times already, and that was just the latter half of their Junior year. It wasn't rocket science – in fact, the only rocket scientist he knew personally would have agreed with his daughter about the proper way to open his locker. Except for one problem.
His hand flashed out, hitting the door with more noise than violence. Unfortunately, the door remained resolutely closed, refusing to budge one bit.
"Come on, Ron, just use your combination. I'm going to be late to cheer practice."
He took just a moment to contemplate the sight before him. He's seen her wear that particular uniform for almost four years, or at least one a lot like it. Middleton Middle School pretty much got hand-me-down uniforms from Middleton High School, so in effect she'd been wearing them since she became a cheerleader at twelve, but there was something different about her that day.
Ron Stoppable was dating the head cheerleader!
"Uh, KP, I kinda-sorta…don't actually remember my combo."
"Ugh. Let me try."
For half a heartbeat, he expected her to hit the door with some variation of the Mantis style, or any one of the other types of Kung Fu he couldn't readily name. Instead, she just grabbed the dial and spun it around a few times, finally pulling the latch upwards.
The door sprung open, sending a cascade of wrappers, some empty, some not, spilling onto the floor with about half of his school supplies and books. Kim just stood there rolling her eyes as both her boyfriend and his pet naked mole rat dug into the snackage.
"How…mumph…did you know my combo, KP?...crunch-crunch."
Shaking her head slightly, Kim carefully knelt down and started helping him collect his garbage. "It's not big, Ronnie. You gave it to me at the start of the semester just in case you forgot it. Don't tell me that's the only way you've been opening your locker."
Slightly embarrassed, he rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah, uh, that's kinda why I've been borrowing your books a lot lately. Ah, heh-heh."
"Riiiight." Kim got back up and stuffed most of what was in her arms into the nearest trash can. "I've got to get to practice. Good luck on your math test." She leaned over and gave him a quick kiss on his cheek.
"What's that in your backpack?" Ron asked as she stuffed the last of a crème filled chocolate snack cake into his mouth.
Kim looked over at the pack, which was sitting on the floor with the top flap open. She realized he was talking about the metallic ball she had found in her clothing the night before. Up until that moment, she had completely forgotten it was there.
Ron reached down, picking it up, his eyes getting wide. "Coooooool! So, what's this, some new crime-fighting orb thingy Wade slipped you?"
"I…don't know. Be careful, we don't know what it is, so don't drop it."
He tossed it a few inches in the air a couple times, easily catching it. "Give me a little more credit, KP, my middle name is careful."
Kim closed her fingers over the ball. "I thought your middle name was Dean. I'll just keep it with me until Wade has a chance to scan it. Now I'm going to be late, and so are you."
Just as she spoke, the tardy bell rang, meaning both of them were now technically late. For Kim that was less of a problem since the 'coach' overseeing the squad almost never came by, leaving it pretty much to her to keep order at practice. For Ron, it was another thing all together."
"Gah! I'm missing my math test." He started towards the class, then stopped himself, giving Kim a rather clumsy kiss on the check before speeding off again.
"If he were only that amped about schoolwork all the time." She muttered, sticking the ball back into her pack and shouldering it.
"What was that about?" Bonnie Rockwaller asked as she slowly walked by, her button nose thrust coolly into the air.
"What was what?" Kim fell into step beside her rival.
"That kiss thing with Stoppable. Don't tell me that silliness from last week was actually real. Oh, or are you just playing along so you don't hurt him?" she sneered.
"Bonnie, I am so past hurting him. For your information, we're dating now, for real."
"More like…" She made a gagging motion with her finger. "Get with the program, K, this isn't 'Date a Loser' week. The squad has standards to uphold."
"Ron is so not a loser, B, and as long as you're talking about standards, I think you need to switch with Marcella at the base of the pyramid." Kim looked a little smug, knowing that, despite the change being an 'upgrade' from being the spotter for the routine, the low spot in the formation would still grate at the tanned cheerleader.
Bonnie just glared at her for a moment as the Kimmunicator chirped from its place in her backpack.
"What you got, Wade?" She asked, after shoving the metallic object to the side so she could pull out her royal blue communications device.
"I'm meeting hard resistance finding out what Dementor stole, but I'll keep digging." He replied between bites of some unidentifiable candy bar.
"And his location." She stopped in her tracks for a moment, returning Bonnie's glare for holding them up.
"Could be anywhere. It's like Dementor vanished when he..."
"Got away, I know. Ron's been doing his best to make it up to me." She didn't add that his 'best' was a rockin' make-out session on the flight home instead of his usual profuse apologizing.
"What's that?" Wade asked, nodding toward the object in Kim's free hand.
"I don't know. Ron thinks it must be some kind of high-tech crime-fighting device you slipped me."
"I did?" He looked completely confused, pondering the sphere.
"You didn't?"
"Nope."
Kim held it a few inches from her face, close enough to see her reflection in the polished surface. "Then what is it?"
Wade touched a few buttons, causing the Kimmunicator to scan it briefly. "I'll analyze it and get back to you."
"Okay, Wade. You rock." She slipped both devices back into her pack.
Bonnie glared at Kim, her hands on her hips. "You people are so…"
Kim cut her off before she could get 'weird' out of her mouth. "Don't start, Bonnie, I'm so not in the mood."
"What are you in the mood for, K, making out with your new…'boyfriend?' Or maybe you're just with the loser because he's just a smokescreen for something else."
"Excuse me?" Kim almost snarled as she picked up her pom-poms.
"The way you're always fighting with that woman in green, maybe the reason you've never made it with a suitable guy is that you don't want one in the first place."
"Bonnie, I… Ugh, I can't even begin to go into how many levels of wrong that is. Ron is my boyfriend because I like him. HIM! That's all there is to it. Now could we get started on this routine? Pamela," She addressed one of the less-experienced girls, a dark haired, dark skinned sophomore. "I'm going to switch you with Bonnie for the pyramid sequence. Okay, on three, one, two…"
She never got to three. An incredibly annoying clip from a hip-hop song interrupted from the pile of personal gear near the stands. Bonnie was on her cell phone so quickly it was as if she had teleported from her position on the floor to he bag.
"At least this time it wasn't in the middle of the routine." Tara offered.
"Bonnie, put that thing away and turn it off. This isn't the time or the place for you to be torturing poor Brick." The lumbering quarterback may have been Bonnie's boyfriend, but he had always been kind and friendly to Kim, excepting his 'dumping' of her during a fiasco the previous year, so it tweaked her to no end that the overly tanned brunette basically led him around by his nose.
The object of her ire snapped the phone shut, shooting daggers at her from her aquamarine eyes. "I'll turn it off when you turn yours off, K." She nodded toward the Kimmunicator, which was still sitting on top of her backpack.
"That is so not the same, Bonnie, I…"
"…Save the world. Get off your ego horse, K. Most of the time you just talk to that little nerd of yours, or you just run off to do lord knows what, and I'll have you know, that was an emergency."
"What?" Kim sneered sarcastically. "Brick wanted to know if you wanted to see a chick-flick or an action movie?"
"No, I said it was a real emergency. That was Mother, she was calling to tell me my sibs were home from college this week."
Kim shook her head, almost throwing up her arms as she turned her attention back to the practice session.
Ron skidded around a corner, racing toward his math class. His destination was just in sight when he felt himself suddenly lifted from the floor, his legs still milling under him.
"No running in the hallways." Barkin said evenly, holding him by the collar of his shirt, effortlessly holding Ron's one hundred forty pounds in the air.
"Math test!" the blond teen squealed, pointing at the open door to the room where the rest of the class was already bending over their desks, intent on the day's exam.
Sigh "It's always the tardy who run. Fine, go take your test, Stoppable. I'll take this up with you later in Room Twelve."
"Aw man, detention? But I haven't been tardy three times!"
"Are you questioning my authority again, Stoppable?"
Rather than answer, Ron simply backed through the classroom door, picking up a copy of the test from the teacher's desk and made his way to his seat. Barkin simply glared at him through the door, still angry, but not wishing to disrupt a class over his ire. Moments later, as he turned his attention to the test itself, the large substitute teacher simply moved on, hopefully to harass some other supposed slacker.
It was as if his eyes couldn't focus on the test itself. Oh, he understood the words, at least individually on the paper, but he couldn't get his mind to focus on the problems. That in and of itself wasn't unusual, but the cause was. Normally, his mind would jump from video games, to snackage later at Bueno Nacho (or the fact that their afternoon trip there would be delayed by a stint in detention.) Instead, it was focused like a laser on one thing…
…or rather, one person. Kim.
Math, in the past, was just something Ron wanted to survive. He honestly believed he would never actually have to use it in the real world, at least not what they were teaching. Oh, he could count out change, and with his Dad's help, he could balance a checkbook (a pastime his father insisted on after the Naco Royalties debacle) but word problems? Who cared if one train was leaving the Tri-City and another was leaving Go-City at the same time?
That all changed the moment Kim kissed him in front of her locker. Even though he spent the rest of the day stressing over how he would gently end that aspect of their relationship, deep down inside something changed within him. Suddenly, he honestly wanted to be worthy of her, even if on the surface he didn't want to keep her. That meant stepping up, not only in their missions, but in his own little world as well.
Ron Stoppable wanted to do well on the test to impress Kim!
Slowly, he relaxed, and put his mind to the task of actually trying on the exam. He was on the final problem, momentarily stumped when a little voice inside his head said "Carry the one!" He entered his answer with a flourish and turned the paper in.
The object of his newfound determination was leaned on the lockers across the hallway. Practice had just ended, and she had a light sheen of sweat still on her forehead, having skipped the showers for a moment with her new boyfriend.
"So, how'd it go?" She asked, gently pushing a strand of his hair behind his ear.
"It was touch and go there, but I think I pulled it out in the end." He offered with one of his trademark goofy grins.
She rapped on his head gently with her knuckles. "See, there's more than air beneath that pretty blond hair."
"Pretty?" He pulled back slightly, screwing his nose up at the term.
"Uh huh, pretty, though you could use a haircut." Her fingers hesitated on the back curve of his large ear, a touch that was close to making his eyes roll back in his head.
He shook his head slightly. "Uh-uh, KP. No more funky haircuts for the Ronster."
"Right." She grinned, remembering the incident early in their sophomore year. "All I have to do sixth period is hand in a paper, think you could blow off yours and head to BN early?"
Ron's jaw almost dropped. Kim was actually suggesting he flake on a class, just so they could get away from school early. Then the incident with Barkin rushed back to the forefront of his mind. "Can't, Barkin gave me detention this afternoon for being late to math class."
"That's alright. I talked to him a few minutes ago and told him we were doing some necessary follow up to our mission…but you're right, you'd better go to class. Wouldn't want to push it any more than we can."
Kim looked both ways. The hallway was full of students on their way to the final class of the day, and for some reason, there wasn't a faculty member in sight. Emboldened, the hand that had been caressing Ron's ear reached behind his head and pulled him close. After her verbal tussle with Bonnie, she wanted the whole school to see just exactly who it was she wanted to be with, who she wanted to be kissing, regardless of the fact it was against the rules to do so there in the school.
Ron leaned into the kiss, fully enjoying it. His free hand snaked around her bare, and slightly damp waist, pulling her even closer as the kiss turned from a quick bus into a deep, long, loving joining of their faces.
Kim relaxed slightly, arching her back, slightly surprised with the intensity Ron was returning the kiss with, but loving it just the same. Almost absently, she let her backpack slip off her shoulder, dropping to the floor.
The kept kissing despite the slight pop and hiss coming from the pack, not noticing the amber mist that surrounded them.
Kim Possible and all related characters © Disney