Snippets of Forever:
So Not... An Unhappy Median.
-x-
It was honestly a miracle that they had managed to roll him up the stairs to Kim's loft without causing any serious injury.
Ron was lying down on the floor, nestled inside Doctor P's anti-anti-matter containment ball, and wedged between Kim's bed and the wall by her desk. His eyes were glued to the ceiling as he tried his hardest to ignore the fact that he had to stare through the layer of hard plastic in order to focus. He crossed his hands over his chest, huffing out a faint sigh.
It was getting kind of late in the evening, but after escaping the Mathter with just a fraction of remaining normality, Ron was desperate to spend as much time with Kim as he could before their curfew. He was dreading the thought of having to go to school the next day, despite how much he knew his girlfriend was right and that he needed to try and make the best of his situation. Somehow, though, the echoes he could hear of Bonnie's evil cackling and his football team mates making jokes at his expense were speaking a much louder volume in that moment.
A tiny squeak interrupted all of his self-wallowing as Ron's brown eyes shifted over to where Rufus was standing on the edge of Kim's bed. His little, pink pal offered another tittering murmur of support as he gently patted the outside of his human's ball. Ron smiled softly, licking his bottom lip to speak. But before he could, the sound of a door slamming shut rattled out loud from downstairs.
Sitting up in his place on the ground, Ron raised an eyebrow, his curiosity growing with each hurried footstep he could hear thumping up the stairs to Kim's room. And then, his jaw dropped open.
"Mission time, bubble boy," Kim announced playfully. She tore into her room like a hurricane, ascending the stairs with a quick pivot as she dashed towards her closet.
"Wade just left a message on the Kimmunicator while I was showering - "
Ron wished he could have been paying more attention to what Kim was beginning to explain to him. It wasn't for a lack of trying. But it was due to the distraction caused by her bursting into her room from the downstairs bathroom with nothing but a towel wrapped tightly around her torso.
" - I figured Hego more than owed us one, so he's sending the Go-Craft for us, and then we've gotta' call Wade back. Something about Drakken, and Shego, and a hydro-electricity plant? So not what we need on our plate right now!"
As she vanished fully into her closet, Ron quickly thought it best to pick his jaw up from the floor and return his bulging eyes to their sockets. He came to his feet, wobbling all the way as he tried to maintain his balance in the ball. By the time he glanced back across the room, Kim had reappeared from behind her closet doors.
The teen hero was dressed from the waist down, her black mission pants hugging her legs as she hopped into one shoe after the other. She flicked her red locks out of her face as she stood upright and dashed over to her bed, hastily searching through a pile of clothes for her shirt. A matching purple bra was all that clung to her chest as Ron felt a thump from his heart ricochet through the rest of his body.
"I mean, the hovercraft ride could be kinda' fun - but seriously! You'd think these villains would at least have the decency to only make us deal with them one at a time."
Ron wasn't even sure he heard Kim's joke. He sighed, murmuring under his breath as he held his gaze on her.
"You've gotta' be kidding me..."
Snapping her neck around at the sound of his whispers, Kim raised an uncertain eyebrow. She spoke gently, "What?"
Ron didn't answer her straight away. He slowly shook his head to himself, erasing the slightly more animalistic thoughts that had momentarily crossed him as he focused on what was really wrong. The reality of his predicament was truly starting to dawn on him - hard.
"I just..." he sighed again, "You have no idea how much I wish I could hug you right now."
Kim felt her heart splinter, punctuated by the sound of a tiny, sympathetic 'aw' from Rufus.
"Oh, Ron..." Kim cooed sweetly. She quickly pulled her shirt over her head, strolling across the room to her boyfriend.
It wasn't like the thought hadn't tormented her, either. No matter how much Kim might have told Ron to simply make the best of the situation he was in, that didn't mean the sight of him vaporizing anything he touched wasn't haunting as all hell. But she couldn't let him know she was worried. Not if she didn't want him spiraling into any more of a panic.
As she stepped up to the anti-matter dome between them, Kim looked at Ron with an reassuring smile. She brought a hand up to the clear plastic, placing it there and waiting for him to mimic her.
She could tell that he could sense the warmth of her touch.
"Head in the game, okay?" she offered with a firm kind of comfort, "Let's go squash whatever crazy plan Drakken is working on - in record time, and then we can focus on hunting down the Mathter and fixing your whole anti-matter sitch."
"And then hugs?"
"Oh, so much more than just hugs."
She grinned at him then, surprised that the heat from the blush on his cheeks didn't fog up the space inside the ball.
"Okay. Got it - head in the game," he echoed obediently.
"There's a good little hamster."
Ron rolled his eyes in the same way he took a first step to roll forward. Her teasing smirk made him want to chase her at full force, but it probably wasn't the safest of ideas he'd ever had at the top of her stairs. He only hoped that whatever transport Hego had delivered to them was fitted with all the proper restraints.
Ron's eyes widened then.
"Wait... did you say hovercraft?"
"Finally," Drakken huffed through gritted teeth, "Finally, I've done it, Shego. Finally, I've executed an undoubted, bonafide, fool-proof - "
"Do not say it," Shego suddenly sniped, "Do not even think about calling this a 'fool-proof plan'. If I had a nickel for every time one of your 'fool-proof plans' went up in smoke, I'd have enough coin to buy my own private, Greek island and pay Midas for daily, two-hour hot-stone massages."
Drakken grumbled out loud, shooting his sidekick an irritated scowl, "Your confidence in me is just breathtaking."
"As breathtaking as your track record?"
"Ngghh, can it, Shego!" the doctor snapped, "Genius at work here! Not only will I be able to generate enough electricity to power my latest doomsday laser, but in doing so, I will completely deplete each reservoir, stream and river in the tri-state area of every precious, last drop of water!"
"Right," Shego droned, rolling her eyes, "So, you're planning on taking over the world by using you fancy hydra- "
"Hydroelectricity, Shego!" he corrected harshly, "The laser is powered by electricity, which is generated by water - is it really that difficult to understand?"
"Hm, I dunno'. I'm kinda' surprised you can wrap your own head around it."
The sudden sound of the all too familiar teenaged voice made both Drakken and Shego shoot their vision up to the rafters hanging high above the hydro plant.
"Kim Possible!"
Drakken's agitated shouts were punctuated by the red headed hero standing proudly with her hands on her hips above her two arch foes. Kim had busted through the paneling in the ceiling of the power plant that Drakken had infiltrated and was more than ready to leap down and launch into butt-kicking action.
It was just a shame that the platform where she stood wasn't exactly the widest landing space.
"Wah-ahh!"
Kim visibly cringed when Ron ricocheted off the rafters and bounced all the way down to the floor at Drakken and Shego's feet. Rufus squeaked with equal concern and held on tight to Kim's collar as the cheerleader tumbled forward and landed with much more precision in the centre of the room.
Before she could even get to her boyfriend's side to check on him, the scientist and his sidekick were already in fits of laughter.
"Aw, man," Ron groaned, standing back up inside the ball to dust himself off.
Kim sighed with a shrug of her shoulders, "I did warn you that they'd probably laugh."
"Oh, this is too rich," Shego snorted through arrogant chuckles, "I mean, I know Kimmie does always treat you like her lap-dog, but who knew she'd go and turn you into an actual pet! One gerbil wasn't enough for you two?"
Kim curled her hands into fists as Ron leaped to their little pal's defence, "Rufus is not a gerbil!" he yelped, "Don't make me bust out of this thing and vaporise you!"
"Vaporise?" Shego challenged, watching Kim roll her eyes.
"Long story," the teenager growled, "Ron was zapped by a funky, green ray that's made him vaporise anything he touches."
"Really? Green? I'd say it was more of a funky yellow..."
"So not the point!" Kim snapped at Ron's interjection.
Ignoring their painfully juvenile teenaged angst, Shego cut back in, "Ohh, vaporise," she repeated, dragging the word out, "You mean, like this?"
A tiny 'uh oh' from Rufus was the last hint Kim needed before shoving Ron to one side and flipping out of the way of Shego's fiery, green blast of energy.
"Get to the control panel!" Kim yelled to her BF, "We've got to shut down that machine from draining all those bodies of water!"
"On it, KP!" Ron replied, suddenly sucking in a surprised gasp as his ball was knocked back once again. He shook his head, jerking his neck around to spy Drakken swinging around a metal rod like a baseball bat.
"I don't think so, sidekick!"
Unaware of her best friend being bounced around the room like a ping pong ball, Kim was totally focused on the battle at hand with the evil, green villainess. The two were locked up in a test of strength as Shego bared her teeth.
"So. Plastic ball. Evil, green ray. Wipes out everything he touches. You sure the human hamster isn't just looking for some lame excuse to let you down easy?"
"So not," Kim sniped back, throwing a punch that didn't quite connect, "I've kinda' seen the whole freaky sitch for myself."
Shego darted one boot out to the side, catching Kim's shin with a swift kick as the teen hero dropped to a knee, "Well, maybe I should break him out of there and have him be the one destroy you."
The immediate fire in Kim's eyes made Shego chuckle. She dodged another of the redhead's swipes, reefing Kim's arm behind her own back and pulling her in so she could murmur tauntingly by her ear.
"What's the matter, princess? Worried I'll pop his bubble before he can pop your cherry?"
An instant spark ignited in Kim's belly. With a fierce growl, she reached back and pulled Shego over her head, slamming her foe to the ground straight onto her back.
"Sick and wrong," she spat, quietly mimicking her boyfriend under her breath.
Ron, in the meantime, still found himself rolling aimlessly all around Drakken as he tried to build any kind of stable momentum. The mad scientist was getting increasingly more frustrated, trying his best to keep one eye on the ever-growing power of his hydroelectric machine, and another on the pesky sidekick.
"Would you hold still?" he spat, still swinging the metal pipe around his head, "I might have been more of a scholar than a sportsman, but with a target as big as yours, I can still bat your around like a baseball!"
"A scholar?" Ron scoffed, "First of all, you were a college drop out, Drew. And second, I'm the one who's a sporty member of the football team now, thank you very much!"
Just as the final word fell off his tongue, Ron took one hasty step forward inside his dome that caused him to fall over his own feet. With an almighty splat, he landed flat on his face, cringing as he heard Drakken cackling away at his misfortune all over again. Ron grunted with a roll of his eyes, "Yeah, okay, I do normally have more room to run around on the field, ya' know!"
Before he even had the chance to finish complaining, Ron braced himself and watched when Drakken swung at him again and launched his plastic ball back across the room. He came to a sharp and sudden stop, instantly recognising the sound of Kim's shriek when he collided with her. She quickly sat up, rubbing the back of her head and glaring at her boyfriend.
"Ron," she growled, annoyed.
"Not my fault!" he argued.
"Oh, but this?" Shego cut in, firing up her plasma, "This is totally on me."
The glow of her hands was as green as the emerald of Kim's eyes when she narrowed them sharply. Quickly thinking on her feet, she shot Ron an apologetic smile before reaching for the anti-matter ball and pulling it in front of her. The blonde boy squawked, needlessly covering his face when Shego's heated blast exploded into him and sent him rebounding at full force inside the ball and over toward the hydroelectric laser.
"Kim!" he screeched. Rufus watched on while Kim tangled herself back up in her brawl with Shego, his tiny eyes widening as Ron crashed straight into the control panel.
"Mm, yikes!"
"Argh! My laser!" Drakken thundered.
The reaction was almost instantaneous.
The second that the thick plastic shielding Ron smashed into the controls, the laser began to rumble and shake violently. It sparked and sputtered, and before anyone else could speak, it quickly began to back up on itself. The compartment containing the thousands and thousands of gallons of water that had been collected thus far only rattled for a moment longer before it burst wide open.
Ron gulped, watching the tidal wave of water barrel towards him as he imitated his little buddy, "...Yikes is right."
"Ron!" Kim shouted, diving towards him. Rufus leaped up as well, keeping a tight hold on the pocket of her pants when they both landed on top of Ron's dome right before the absolute flood of water completely engulfed the the power plant.
The redhead breathed a sigh of relief, looking back over her shoulder as Drakken and Shego scrambled to grab onto the lighting rigged above their heads to keep afloat.
They were drenched. But they were breathing.
"You think you're all that, Kim Possible! But you're not!"
Kim grinned triumphantly, looking ahead as she and the boys ebbed and flowed their way right out of the plant and down the hill where it was perched.
She blew out a soft sigh of relief, and glanced down below where she was sitting on top of the anti-matter ball. Peering through the plastic beneath her, she smiled at Ron as they continued to harmlessly drift along the waves and back to safety.
"Nice job, bubble boy," she spoke sweetly, "You know what comes next?"
Ron smirked right back up at her. A successful mission, a rescued city or two, and a foiled Drakken? Whatever came next had to be some kind of celebration. Particularly if it was one that gave Ron his life back.
"We totally crush the Mathter and bust me outta' here?"
"Well... eventually," Kim admitted. She always had been realistic enough for the both of them.
"But not before we face school tomorrow."
And just like that, Ron was drowning in nerves all over again.
"Aw, man..."
Kim wasn't sure if Ron had ever felt as warm as he did in that moment.
It wasn't just her sense of touch that was causing tingles to explode all across her body, either. His scent brought an unmistakable level of calm, and the sound of his heart beating lightly in her ear where she lay against his chest was the soundtrack to all her happiness.
Kim took in a deep breath and blew out a soft sigh, smiling to herself when Ron tightened his arm around her waist as she did. It had only been one day since the blonde sidekick had been zapped by the seriously sinister green (or yellow?) Calculaser, and already the two heroes had successfully foiled the Mathter and all of his evilly mathematical plans - not without the help of Hego and Mister Stoppable, of course. While Kim might have immediately wrapped her boyfriend in a tight embrace the very second he was freed from his round, plastic prison, none of that compared to how it felt to have Ron safely back in her arms now.
It was a little later in the evening, and the two were nestled comfortably on the couch in the Possibles' living room, with Rufus snuggled in between them. Kim was sure she had tuned out of whatever trash reality show was playing on the T.V. a few minutes ago now, though. She glimpsed out of the corner of her eye up at Ron, before tilting her head fully to face him. Her chin was sort of digging into the dip of his collarbone, and the pinching sensation immediately made his glance fall down to meet hers.
His freckled features turned up into a sweet smile.
"Everything okay?"
Kim nodded her head in the crook of his shoulder, "Just relieved."
"Man, you really were worried about me," Ron observed through narrowed eyes, "Like, more than you let on, I mean. Wasn't it you telling me not to panic and to make the best of it?"
Kim scrunched up her nose at him, refusing to admit at first just how right Ron was. She could still taste the words on her tongue from earlier that afternoon when she had crushed him with her hug and expressed how scared she had been at the thought of never getting to do so again. But as much as she had tried not to be dramatic about the whole thing, there really was no hiding it now.
"Let's be honest - I've kinda' mastered the art of internalising my feelings to stop you from totally freaking."
"But that's so not fair," Ron argued, "I wanna' be here for you, too."
Her eyes widened for a split second when Kim realised the sharp and serious turn their conversation had suddenly taken. She swallowed back a lump in her throat, considering her words carefully, "You are. Always."
She shuffled away from him just slightly so she could sit up fully, still close by his side. Kim waited a moment then, allowing the stoic nature of the air around them to fizzle away before shooting her boyfriend a sheepish grin.
"Okay. Feelings all out on the table? I was worried," she gently confessed, "We've been so good for so long, and the thought of some reject villain from Team GO's glory days ruining that for us forever was so beyond flawed."
Ron's expression matched Kim's as he chuckled under his breath, "I hear that."
"Especially with..." Kim trailed off, hesitating, "I mean, the Mathter literally tried to erase you from existence. On top of the obvious and why it was so the drama... we've just been getting so much closer lately. And I didn't want to lose any of that."
She wasn't sure how exactly Ron was going to react to her statement. He would still often find himself stumbling and stuttering his way through an awkward blush whenever Kim initiated any conversation about their extra activities outside of just hugging and kissing. But in this case, it seemed that words - even awkward ones, weren't enough to do his own feelings justice.
A surprised smirk across Kim's mouth caught Ron's lips against hers when he simply leaned down and pecked at her tenderly. After a few blissful seconds, he pulled back, lightly brushing the very end of his nose against his girlfriend's as he did.
Kim silently glanced up at him with a curiously cocked eyebrow. Ron only stared right back with a shy shrug of his shoulders.
"Things are good. Like, the way they are right now. Us taking things slow, I mean," he explained as best he could, "I don't want to lose any of it, either."
His adorable ramblings made her heart flutter. Kim couldn't agree more even if she tried.
"Well," she announced, her tone a little more playful, "I guess we'll have to request full profiles on future, new villains before offering any more of our valuable services, hm?"
Ron chuckled again with a nod of his head. His eyes were quick to fall back to Kim's mouth for the first instance, before he calmly locked his vision with hers again, "But, ya' know... I guess for now, we kinda' have some lost time to make up for, right?"
Kim's heart thumped just once in her chest as she chewed down on the corner of her bottom lip, "Stoppable Style?"
God, she knew just how to get to him.
"Oh yeah..."
"Whoa, watch out! Dad in the room!"
The sudden sound of James Possible's voice made Ron nearly jump out of his skin as he sprung away from Kim. She held down a giggle at the sweet show of chivalry from her boyfriend. Chivalry that was mixed with a healthy level of fear, no doubt - and Kim resisted a subtle roll of her eyes at her dad as he strolled past the two teenagers with a fresh bowl of popcorn to plant himself down in his leather armchair.
She supposed she couldn't really blame her father (and apparently neither could Rufus as he suddenly skipped across the couch to help himself to the buttery, late evening snack) - after all, Kim and Ron were watching James' television, on James' couch, in James' living room, under James' roof. But none of that meant that the wily redhead was able to willingly overlook her dad's overly protective nature.
"Oh, Dad, please feel free to join us," she jabbed with the safest level of teasing sarcasm.
The grin from James matched his daughter's, "Assuming neither of you mind," he responded, reaching for the T.V. remote. He paused, shifting his vision back over towards the couch, "Right, Ronald?"
Ron cleared his throat, quickly finding his voice, "Uh, yeah, of course not, Mr. Dr. P., sir."
The roll of her eyes did escape her then. After close to five months of dating, Kim genuinely wondered if Ron was always going to be subjected to these little fatherly tests from James. But even so, she wasn't going to let the pressure get to him.
The soft brown of his eyes instantly lit up with relief when Kim slipped her hand down to join with Ron's. She squeezed affectionately, meeting his glance with an adoring smile. The tightness in his chest deflated, and he settled into the back of the couch as the disruptive sound of James flicking through channels murmured in the background.
As he sank further into the cushions, Ron shot one last side-eye over towards James, almost making the subconscious decision to shuffle away slightly from his girlfriend. But Kim wasn't having any of that.
Ron felt his heart rate spike when Kim took his arm and threw it back around her shoulders, allowing herself to nuzzle into his side again. His eyes widened at first, but she looked up at him with a calming expression and simply wrapped her own arm across his torso. It's not like they were tangled together as tightly as they had been previously. Kim's head was resting innocently on Ron's shoulder, rather than against his chest, and both sets of hands were placed clearly and firmly well above each other's waist.
But still. James couldn't help but keep one suspicious eye on his daughter and her boyfriend.
He knew his Kimmie wasn't a little girl anymore. And he knew that Ron would never dream of doing anything to hurt her. They cared about each other. James was only beginning to wonder just how deeply those feelings were truly starting to grow...
Annnnnnnd, I'm back. :)
Whether I deserve it or not with the extremely long absence, I wanted to start by thanking everyone for the recent stream of love in the form of reviews and private messages on this story. I really, truly appreciate it. And I'm not done here by any stretch of the imagination!
Hopefully this update is enough to tide you all over for now. I'll admit it's a bit of a filler, buuuut we have some fun, steamy, totally original content coming up soon before we hit a couple of monumental points in season 4... *cough* Yono & Clean Slate *cough*
Would love to hear what you all thought! And I hope everyone is keeping healthy and safe x
Till next time guys,
Reneyyyyyyyy x