HI!

People have been wondering why I don't do disclaimers. That, dear reader, is because I do own H.I.V.E. Yes, your beloved pigeonattack holds all the rights to H.I.V.E. and its affiliates. Heh heh.

Wonder how many legal threats I'll get.

xxxxx

"Intriguing." – H.I.V., on the thought processes of emotional humans.

xxxxx

"Er, Shelby?"

Shelby slapped her hand over the little heart doodle and looked up at her lab partner. "Huh?"

"Shouldn't we be identifying our compounds?" asked Wing, gingerly prodding a gray lump with a pair of tongs.

"Yeah." Shelby, now resting her hand on the side of her palm to cover the initials in the heart, had gone back to what she considered a rather more important task.

Wing sighed. He squinted at the board, but made no sense of the symbols and diagrams. Their assignment was to identify the elements within their compound, with nothing more than an Alpha particle gun, an Ohmmeter, tongs, a battery, wire, and a small sheet of gold leaf. Shelby had long since pocketed the gold, and Wing didn't know what to do with it anyways, so that left them with two tools. Leaning back just a tiny bit, he peered around Shelby's back at the pair on her right, who were animatedly discussing something well beyond his level. They'd wired the metal parts of their two tongs to the battery, and were now arguing over how to attack the lump.

He quickly reverted his eyes to his own gray lump as Professor Pike walked by. Wing did not want anyone to have even the faintest notion that he was trying to cheat. Which he wasn't. Most definitely not. He unrolled some wire and set about connecting the two tongs to the battery, straining his ear to listen to the conversation going on between the two chattering Alphas on his right.

"No. It'll just short out. I say we put them down one right after the other," Otto was insisting. Wing positioned one pair of tongs in each hand, and peeked at them out of the corner of his eyes.

"Yeah, but the discharge would be far greater if our tongs touch simultaneously—"

Shelby's head snapped up. "Is someone making out?"

There was a silence. Heads turned. Shelby looked around. "I heard somethin' about—"

"Tongs," Wing whispered, "not tongues."

"Oh." Shelby went back to her doodle like nothing had happened, though she did look rather disappointed.

Otto and Laura were both as red as the latter's hair, but they quietly went back to their work.

Wing had trouble concentrating for the rest of the class, his mind wandering every time someone uttered "tongs". Which was, as it happened, quite often. After completing her intricate doodle, Shelby helpfully swiped an oblivious neighbor's work, copied it down, and returned it with the helper none the wiser. Wing gave her a disapproving frown, but didn't comment further. He never could stay upset at her for long, and anyways, she'd just saved their grade.

As the class filed out of the doors, Wing half heard Laura berating Shelby; his mind was somewhere in the tong-tongue regions.

"Next time, could you maybe think a bit before embarrassing me? What were you doodling, anyways? I know I saw part of a heart—"

"Tongs, tongues, what's the difference? They're tools, they both start with "T", they grab stuff…"

Wing registered only the last part, but that was enough to give him uninvited fantasies of a certain blonde. He shook his head, but couldn't seem to shake the thoughts. He'd be shaky around the subject of tongs for quite a while.

Huh. That was fun. Maybe a bit rushed, though the blur was the feeling I was trying to put forth.

Please drop a review. I'd really appreciate cc, but just a little "Hi, read your story" so I know who's awesome enough to read the work of the pigeon would fine. And of course, give me your opinion.

Failure to comply will result in gray rain from my winged buddies.

Love ya!

~pigeonattack