Ron's prospects for the week had started to look up, dinner with Betty was pleasant, she had come by that night for a meal and had wanted something simple. So he had settled on making enchiladas, because to him the Mexican dish was easy to make; and Ron didn't think of it as anything more than meat, cheese and tortillas even if he made everything by hand.
"This is amazing," Betty exclaimed as she bit into the steaming dish.
Ron smiled at the praise. "Thanks Betty," Ron said before he bit into his own. "So, have you seen any new movies lately?" He asked, hoping to make idle conversation.
Betty Director looked at Ron in confusion. "Not a question about work?"
"Pssh," Ron waved off the question. "You're probably sick of work and I want to get to know you, not your job. I could probably get Will Du into reciting the GJ Rulebook to me if I annoy him enough." Chuckling at the thought of the anal retentive agent's serious attitude.
Betty sighed as work was always what people wanted to talk about on dates. 'Wait, do I consider this a date? Have my standards dropped so much that just sharing a meal with a nice guy is romantic.' She worried as she didn't want to trick herself into thinking this was more than what it was. 'He's just a nice guy, a really nice guy, cooking me food, making me feel special and wanting to know more about the woman behind the eyepatch.'
Clearing her throat Betty looked around for a moment to collect her thoughts. "No, if I haven't had time for a meal, a two hour movie is out of the question," she admitted as the last dozen times she had tried to sit in a theater something always came up that made her half to leave at the worst time. To her it was just a waste of money and she could always just watch the movie piecemeal once it came out on rental.
"Oh," Ron said as he prodded his food. "Is there something you like to do then or, maybe wish you could?" Hoping to not bring work into the equation, like his talks with KP unless they were actively on a mission or it was critical, they never talked about their escapades. He understood the need to step away from all of this or else it would burn him out.
After thinking for a few minutes Betty decided on the one thing she always wished she had time for. "Dancing. I've always just wanted to dance."
"Cool so like at a club, ballroom or somewhere professional?" Ron perked up having gotten off the subject of work.
"Anywhere," Betty stated, at this point she really didn't care anymore if she was in a revealing outfit at a nightclub having had too much to drink with loud music blaring or if it was even just in the quiet of her own apartment, she just wanted to dance.
Ron nodded as he thought on the woman's desire. "But enough about me," Betty quickly said, wanting to get off the depressing topic of her loneliness. "How did you get Rufus?" Wondering where the naked mole rat had come into the picture.
"My little buddy," Ron chuckled as Rufus had taken his enchiladas upstairs saying something about being a third wheel. "I just always wanted a pet but my dad has fur allergies so Rufus was the perfect choice. He's come through for me so many times over the years that I can't imagine life without him."
"They are incredibly long lived for a rodent, so you don't have to worry about that for a while," Betty nodded as the Rufus Factor was mostly filled with information an agent had copied from online encyclopedias. "But Rufus is more than that isn't he?"
"I guess so, but even if he wasn't he's still my best friend," Ron smiled. "Uh don't tell KP that, I don't think she'd be too happy to have been replaced by someone who wears less clothes than her." He said quickly before the pair fell into laughter.
Betty was shocked that before she knew it a couple hours had passed, wiling away the time talking and just having a good time, never once had work come up and now she stood awkwardly, knowing that she had to leave but not wanting too. She could hear Ron in the kitchen washing dishes and as she looked over the home the idea of a home for herself came to her mind.
'A place where work wouldn't be the first and last thing of each and every day, where I could come home to a warm meal, a warm smile, a warm bed,' Betty's mind tormented her with thoughts of things she didn't believe she could have. She quickly turned to leave when she suddenly heard music playing from a stereo system, it was slow, something a couple danced to. She could hear Ron clear his throat behind her.
"I know I'm not exactly the ideal person for this, but I figured..." he shrugged at the woman in front of him who looked at him curiously. "I could maybe give you that dance you wanted." A hopeful smile on his face as he needed the time washing dishes to work up the courage to be bold enough to do this.
"I-," Betty said as she looked from the stereo playing a slow song to Ron's offered hand. Nervously, she took it and for the next few minutes she leaned her head on his shoulder as they swayed to the rhythm.
She collapsed into her bed once she had gotten back to her apartment and cried herself to sleep as she thought about the best night she'd had in years and how it was never something she could have for herself permanently. She knew that continuing to see Ron Stoppable like this was ill advised, but the way she felt when she was with him, how much he cared about her as a person, she didn't know if she could do that now. One night was all it took to make her want more, to want to feel like a person again and not just a secret agent, a worker who never stopped, who never took any time for herself.
Ron's next day was hectic as he got himself ready for school and he looked over to the couch that Miss, he reminded himself, Dr. Director had slept on the previous day. He didn't have to be a master of psychology to know that just her being in his home was nice, the presence of another human being, when he was so used to only sharing with Rufus was comforting. "But it's not like I have any claim to her time, she's just decompressing from all the work she's doing." Ron said to himself as he walked by himself to school.
Ron had stopped by his locker as he always did, but unlike most mornings he suddenly ducked to avoid the baseball bat that would have smacked him in the back of the head. The clang of it rebounding from the now dented door indicated that it had not been an accident. Only the years of fights had given him enough sense of his surroundings to avoid the hit, turning to face his attackers to his lack of surprise it was the normal bullies, except instead of looks of smug superiority on their faces, it was anger and fury.
"You know," Ron smirked as he knew what was going on, they got dumped by their girlfriends and now wanted to take it out on him. "Any other day and I'd ask the normal questions, like, could we maybe not do this? Then you'd say no and we'd go through the same song and dance. But… something about the fact that you guys are armed is kind of telling me that negotiations are off the table," readying himself to fight, using his highly honed skill of banter to stall for time to size up the danger and formulate the best way to end the conflict.
"I'm going to beat your ass," Marcella's ex shouted as they lunged at him as a group, thinking that their numbers and size would be enough to allow them to exact their revenge on the person they blamed for losing their girlfriends.
Ron was grateful that he'd gotten the advice from the cheerleaders yesterday because otherwise he'd have just tried to run until they got tired, but he knew that would only delay the inevitable conflict. Kicking off the wall and rolling low Ron used his momentum to trip the entire line of bullies, which had the benefit of knocking them to the floor and getting him away from the wall so he wouldn't be so easily cornered.
Crystal's ex was faster to get on his feet and had started throwing punches trying to just pummel his anger into the blond. "She was this close to letting me do it," he shouted as Ron simply deflected the swings as he backed up giving him distance from the others. "You ruined it you fucking loser," he screamed before he pulled back his fist to do an overly telegraphed punch.
Ron realized just then how bad normal people were at fighting with how easy it was to avoid getting hit and the giant swing of this guy's punch cemented in his mind how pathetic these bullies were as they clearly just relied on their size and had no skill to back it up. Quickly stepping into the bully, he grabbed the arm as it passed harmlessly over his shoulder then stepped and used the guy's weight against him throwing him down onto the hard floor.
Rolling backwards, underneath the next bully who he could have heard coming a mile a way with how loudly his footsteps sounded in the hall, a quick kick outward to the back of his knees sent the other guy toppling over his friend, he could hear the sound of that kid's head hit the ground and knew he was out of the fight.
"So do you guys maybe want to reconsider," Ron offered as the other five guys stared him down. "I mean, it's only five on one, that'd be pretty unfair to you." He chuckled as he knew that would set them off and benefit him as an angry opponent was more likely to make mistakes that he could exploit.
The crowd of other morning students had been worried once the fight started that Ron Stoppable, the forever loser of Middleton High, was going to get severely hurt by the bullies but now they were cheering excitedly as he was not only surviving but clearly winning. In a matter of seconds he had gotten a third guy in a hold and with a quick pull dislocated a shoulder which was painful and would keep him out of the fight, but also be easy to fix and wouldn't cause any lasting damage.
"This isn't a movie you idiots," Liz's ex shouted. "Stop fighting him one on one," he roared as he and Hope's ex moved to take Ron on together.
"Please if this was a movie," Ron chuckled as just as easily evaded both the attackers as he had when it was one. Coordinated fighting only worked if you were actually coordinated otherwise it was just blinding attacking and hoping the other person didn't get in your way, which they typically did. "Do you really think I'd be the main character?"
"You're going to be the dead character when we get through with you!" Hope's ex loudly declared as he tried to high kick Ron. A devastating move if done correctly, by a master of a martial arts that actually employed that technique, but in a street fight it was just sad.
All Ron had to do was step out of the way and the foot planted itself into the ex-boyfriend of Liz's face who had tried to come up behind Ron and grab him, which took him out of the fight. But before the leg could be brought down, Ron gripped it and now had full control of the other guys positioning, he couldn't even stand up properly with Ron holding onto him. This left him nervously hopping around to not fall over when Ron pushed upward and made him flip over, allowing gravity to take care of the rest of the work . The sound of this next guy smacking his head on the floor put a smile on Ron's face.
"And then there were two," Ron looked over to see that Tara's ex and Marcella's ex were sharing a nervous look, in the span of less than two minutes Ron had taken out five of them and he hadn't even thrown a punch.
"Screw this, I'm out," Tara's ex said as he dropped his bat and ran away down the hall, hoping to escape the area and any possible punishment for his part in the fight.
Ron tilted his head waiting to see if Marcella's ex would be smart enough to do the same but instead he just picked up the second bat and starting running towards Ron wildly swinging both bludgeons around figuring that Ron couldn't dodge them all and just one solid strike was all the baseball player needed to bring the blond down. "After this, I'm going to grab that dumb bimbo, I'm going to shove her in a closet and she's going to regret ever dumping me," the boy screamed at Ron who suddenly stopped dodging.
"I'm sorry, I must not have heard you correctly," Ron said mechanically as he caught both bats in his hands, ignoring the stinging sensation of doing so, he tightly gripped the metal to make sure they weren't going anywhere any time soon. "Because I could have sworn you said, "Please Ron break every bone in my body so I don't do something incredibly stupid"," Ron said as he twisted his wrists to force the bully to let go of the bats. He dropped them both on the floor with a clang and stepped forward threateningly.
"You're bluffing," Marcella's ex said nervously as he took a step away from Ron. "You haven't thrown a punch once," now very unsure as to his own safety as he was backed up against the row of lockers.
"No, I have not, because I haven't had a need to," Ron's tone lacked all emotion. "I figured this was just you and the other idiots venting your anger and after a humiliating defeat you'd lick your wounds, try to play this all off and salvage your reputations. I can see I was mistaken in that assessment." Ron's palm struck out suddenly and smacked the bully in the front of the throat, he could feel the larynx dislocate in the hit and watched with satisfaction that the bully was on his knees gasping for air.
"Doesn't feel good does it," Ron crouched down as the other guy was trying to use different muscle groups to facilitate breathing. "See, I never fought back before today for a few reasons, KP didn't want me to sink to your level," he could see the other boy's eyes filled with fear. Which was understandable, he must be feeling like he was suffocating, an instinctive fear that garnered a response that the mind couldn't rationalize as easily. "I wasn't too bothered by it. After all you were just some school yard bullies, while I've fought mutants, super villains, robots and who knows what else over the years, I couldn't really be bothered for something as simple as this."
Ron grabbed the bully's cheeks in one hand and lifted the head to make sure he looked him in the eyes as he said his final words. "But you know what mistake you made?" He asked the rhetorical question. "You threatened my friend. Marcella is a nice girl who never did anything beyond some mean words, but we've all done that. You wanted to escalate, you wanted to go further than that, you made me do this." Ron shouted in the boy's face as tears rolled down his cheeks in fear of the kid who used to just take the torment.
"Had you just kept your dumb mouth shut, this would have ended with you on the floor regretting your decision later in class as you waited for a detention with Mr. B.. But now though, you get to regret this in a hospital bed as you await a transfer to a prison cell." Ron explained. "I don't take kindly to people who threaten my friends, so I need to make sure you don't do that again," Ron's grip on the boy's face tightened as he forced him to stand and started to drag him towards Mr. Barkin who Ron could see standing in the crowd.
It looked to Ron as if the ex-army officer was coming to break up the fight until he saw how extreme it was getting and had his phone to the side of his head, likely calling for local authorities as this had gone beyond a typical fight between teenagers. Ron ignored the gasping sounds that the bully in his hand was making. "I think now would be a good time to talk," he said to the no-nonsense substitute who handled most of the school's disciplinary action.
"Stoppable," Mr. Barkin looked sadly at the carnage that had gone down in such a short amount of time. "What am I going to do with you?" He motioned for Ron to follow him as he grabbed the nearest phone from a student who he could see had been recording the fight, knowing that video evidence was going to be needed for this one.
Ron released the bully who fell back to the floor gasping for air as other students got out of the path faster than they'd ever moved before.
"Oh no, Ron," Bonnie quietly said as she and the other cheerleaders had come upon the scene about halfway through the fight as did most people once word got out of what was going on. She felt guilty that she had been the one to suggest he fight back like this, to her, all of this was her fault as she thought that all of this could have been avoided if she had just kept her mouth shut.