I literally finished this chapter after midnight last night, so I hope it's not too bad. I liked it, but I was also half asleep when I read it completed, so I apologize in advance if it's not good. Anyway, hope you like it, and please review!
Two days later, Mallory met Cameron at the fight club. Chris smiled when he saw her and handed her a soda. She nodded a thanks, sliding some money across the counter to him, but her focus was on her date as she settled in. He was staring at his own drink, it looked like some kind of juice.
"Hey," he said, raising the glass a little in greeting.
"Hey," she replied, but the greeting felt stiff on her lips. She wished he would look at her, but his gaze stayed stubbornly on the drink. The seconds took hours as they ticked by. She just kept staring at him, studying the side of his face. Finally, he cocked an eyebrow, and the corner of his mouth that she could see twitched up in a smile.
"What?" he asked, trying to act normal, but it felt strained, especially when he still didn't look at her.
She forced herself to relax in her seat and faced forward. "Nothing," she replied with a half shrug, staring down at her own drink now. "I guess I wasn't really expecting you to come after meeting my team."
He chuckled and shook his head. "Please, I'm not scared of them. I've fought them all before." The formality melted away a little, and an amused smile came to Mallory's face. She couldn't help but look at him, and he finally met her eyes. "Nope. Don't say it." She raised her eyebrows slightly, her face in between pleading and trying not to laugh. He sighed, but the smile stayed on his face. "Fine," he conceded. Her face lit up.
"You lost to all of them," she said readily.
They started laughing, and the last of the awkwardness floated away on the laughter filling the room. Chris smiled at them from the other end of the bar, and Livewire gave them an annoyed look from the side of the empty arena. They settled down, still smiling at each other.
"This place is a little slow today, isn't it?" Mallory asked. There wasn't a fight going on, and there were only a handful of villains milling around. Mallory noticed with some amusement that the hole in the roof was patched, but still there. It was nice to know that she had left her mark.
"We could go somewhere else," Cameron suggested.
Mallory tilted her head. "As long as it's not crowded," she said, her eyes dancing.
He grinned. "I might know a place…"
Half an hour later, Jr pushed open the door of an apartment a few blocks away from his dad's bunker. Mallory followed him in and glanced around, instinctively looking for two things: enemies and cameras. She found neither, though, and her companion didn't seem at all worried as he led her in and closed the door behind them.
"It's a safe-house for the gang," he explained, walking over to the living room. "It's not totally private, anyone could come in any second to get away from the coops or heroes, or just to have a place to crash. But it's better than the club or the park."
Mallory shrugged off her jacket and slipped her shoes off, looking around again. "It's not bad," she said. She smiled and walked over to Cameron. "It sure beats a park bench."
She pressed her lips to his, closing her eyes and letting her mind go blank. All she knew as she deepened the kiss, stretched it out, was that she wanted to keep going, wanted to let herself get lost in this moment, let it go on forever. Somehow, they ended up on the couch, her on top of him, their breaths coming heavy. Mallory could feel her temperature rising, her powers gaining a mind of their own as she let herself go. Cameron pulled away a fraction of an inch, panting slightly.
"Sorry," she murmured, her nose brushing his when she tilted her head to toss her hair back over her shoulder.
He shook his head. "No, just–let me–" he unzipped his jacket, and she helped him shrug it off, leaving him in his usual gray wife beater. She lowered herself back down, kissing his jawline and down to his neck. He shifted under her, and he started to breathe more normally.
"You know," he said, his lips against her ear, "we really shouldn't do this here."
She sighed, moving back to kiss him again. "Really?"
He put a hand on her shoulder, not hard, but insistent. "Really," he said, almost disappointed.
She sighed, backing up a few inches, then she smiled. "Well, I don't think anyone's home at the Fortress of Solitude."
Something changed in his look, something in his eyes, and she knew before he said it that the dynamic had shifted. "Sorry, I can't. I have to do something for my dad."
Mallory scoffed, rolling into the space between him and the back of the couch. Her legs were stretched out on top of his, and her shoulder was fitted into the space right under his arm, his hand resting a few inches above her back. He really looked at him for the first time since she sat down at the club. Her eyes caught on the bruises on his arms, the one peeking out from under his shirt, stretching over his stomach. She shook her head, angry now.
"Why?" she asked, her voice so quiet that she barely even heard it herself.
"What?" Cameron asked.
She sat up, and he did the same, watching her face as it got more animated. "Why? I mean, would it really be that hard to switch sides?"
He tilted his head, his face staying expressionless. "Are you talking about me or you?" he asked, but his tone said he knew who she meant.
"You," she said anyway. "It should be easy for you to switch sides. You already know that what your dad does is wrong, and you aren't in it for money or power, or to play some sick game with other peoples' lives. This isn't you."
He shook his head. "I can't just switch sides, my dad wouldn't let me. Besides, I can't just leave him."
Mallory stared at him in disbelief. "Cameron, your dad doesn't love you. You said it yourself, he only wants you around when he needs you. You shouldn't have so much loyalty to him."
For the first time that she could remember, true anger flashed in his icy blue eyes, and his face hardened. "You don't know what you're talking about, so you shouldn't be talking like you do," he said.
She narrowed her eyes, holding his gaze for a second, then she stepped over him and grabbed his arm, pulling him to his feet and swinging him in front of a full-length mirror on the wall by the door. In one swift move, she burned a line down the front of his shirt and pulled it off like a vest, leaving all of the bruises and scars on his chest, stomach, and arms visible.
"Look at yourself, Cam. Look at what he did to you. What dad would do that to his own kid?"
His eyes flitted around the mirror, taking in the bruises. The anger drained from his face, leaving it just looking sad. He seemed to sag a little in his own skin, and the change chipped at Mallory's heart until she almost regretted making him face the truth. After a few seconds, he just shook his head slowly.
"You're lucky, T," he said quietly, glancing at her through the mirror. "You got it right on the first try, and then you got a second chance, got to choose your family. Not everyone gets that chance. You shouldn't judge people who are just trying to make do with what they have."
Her irritation came back and she shook her head. "How stupid can you be?" she asked. It came out harsher than she'd intended, and some of the anger came back to his face.
"Really? What is wrong with you! Why do you think it's ok to judge peoples' families just because they don't get the choice like you did?!" he asked, his voice raising.
"That's what I'm trying to offer you!" she yelled back, throwing her arms up in her frustration.
His eyebrows creased in confusion. "What?" he asked, quieter.
"A second chance," she said, her tone still irritated, but back at a normal level. "A chance to choose your family."
He stared at her for a second, then shook his head. "No," he said. "You're offering me a chance to choose your family."
She sighed. "Fine," she said, exasperated, "forget the family. I'm offering you a chance to choose me. Isn't that what you wanted?"
"Yeah, but I also wanted you to choose me," he said quietly, looking away.
"What does that mean?" Mallory asked, her tone gentle now. "That's what I'm doing."
He shook his head, not saying anything and not looking at her. They were quiet for a moment, the only sound in the empty apartment was their breathing and the screams of everything left unsaid. Finally, he half turned, then turned back to her. "I have to go, my dad is waiting," he said quickly.
She shook her head, the anger coming back. She stalked to the sofa and sat down. "Whatever," she muttered.
He went to the door, then remembered that he didn't have a shirt on and walked back to the living room. "I need my jacket," he said, nodding to the jacket that was sitting in a heap next to Mallory.
She just stared at him, wanting to say so much, but the only thing that managed to make it out of her mouth was, "you don't have to do this."
He held her gaze, not backing away from the anger in them. "Yes, I do."
They stared at each other for what felt like a long time before Mallory finally scoffed and looked away, balling the jacket up and throwing it at him. It hit him square in the chest, and his hands fumbled to catch it before it fell to the floor. "Fine," she said, shaking her head. He zipped it up on his way to the door, but he came back before he opened it.
"You said that it would be easy for me to leave behind everyone I love, the only way of life I've ever known, and join you and your friends in fighting against them. If the tables were turned, regardless of what's right and wrong, if I asked you to leave your family, your team, your way of life to join me and always be fighting against the people you love, would that be an easy decision for you to make?"
He didn't wait for her response, just turned and left as soon as the words were out of his mouth. Mallory stayed, frozen to the couch as she thought about what he'd said. She knew that her family couldn't be compared to his, but when that's all he knew, it wasn't fair for her to ask him to turn against it, no matter how good her reasons were. Because, if the tables were turned, she wouldn't be able to do the same. She wouldn't be able to leave her family and friends, and she wouldn't want to.