Dinner was an event that had Shego once again checking her watch to see what century they were in. All of the women folk, save a few, were in the kitchen, preparing the evening meal. She, Trin, and Tatsu were the only ones not putting in on supper. Even Kim got put to work, cutting vegetables, and little Joss was peeling potatoes. Tatsu had gotten out of the chore by nearly cutting her thumb off with a huge knife doing the job that Kim was now assigned; they were not sure if the mechanic had done it on purpose to get out of the kitchen or by accident because she was far from a chef. Shego had merely scoffed when Liz assigned her a task in the kitchen while stating that she did not even cook at home, so why the hell would she cook at someone else’s home? Shego was not winning any friends at the house, needless to say.
Actually, the green-skinned female was not looking to make any friends at the house. They were all techno-geeks that she could care less than nothing about. She did not have anything to talk about them with and they did not seem to want to talk much to her. She was content in watching them snub Trin and her mother, which they had done until dinner time. Then suddenly, they were trying to get Anne and Trin to put in on the meal. She wished that Trin would join in on the dinner because she at least knew that Trin could cook. She was not interested in finding out if the other Possible women could make a meal; she already knew what Kim could do. Well, at least Anne could cook.
“Why don’t you go in there and show them how it’s done?” Shego suggested to Trin, just to get on the blonde’s nerves. She had told the people in the kitchen that she would try to get her personal chef to go in there and whip up a meal posthaste for everyone; she was referring to the blonde as her personal chef.
“Because this game of solitaire isn’t going to win itself,” Trin answered dryly. She was not even playing solitaire on her laptop, which she was on at the moment. She definitely would play that card game long before she helped out in the kitchen. She was sitting on the sofa with Tatsu right next to her; Tatsu was fighting with herself to not lean over and touch her lover in some way.
“If this is any indication of how the week is going to go, I’m getting out of here right now,” Shego said. Tatsu made a noise that the green-skinned female took as an agreement and she bet they were of like mind because they wanted to touch the Possible sisters in a more than friendly manner.
Yeah, Tatsu could feel Shego’s pain thoroughly. They were stuck in a place where half of the people did not like them and to make matters more unbearable, there was nothing to do. They could not even do the one thing guaranteed to relieve the boredom, namely touch their girlfriends in a scandalous way unless they wanted to start a whole lot of trouble. Tatsu was not even sure if she would be allowed to touch Trin behind closed doors considering how loud her blonde bombshell could be; Shego actually had a similar problem with Kim, but she damn sure was not going to let that stop her from getting her daily dose of action.
The trio sat around until dinner was ready. They joined everyone else at the very long table that had all of the food spread out on it. Tatsu stared at all of the food and wondered what was edible for her. All of the food looked alien to her and she had thought that she been getting better at broadening her horizons since she had been with Trin. She probably would have liked to know that Shego was not too in favor of the food either. Everything looked greasy, including the vegetables, which they both just thought was amazing. Why not just drink the cooking oil, Shego thought to amuse herself; it would cut out the middleman. Apparently, Anne did not put in on the meal as much as she would have liked, Shego noted; Tatsu and Trin would agree with that thought.
“What can I eat here that won’t cause me to gain twenty pounds almost immediately?” Shego wondered aloud.
“Shego,” Kim scolded her girlfriend because of her rudeness.
“What?” the former thief inquired. She could care less than nothing if she was being rude; it was not like she wanted to be there anyway. Besides, most of the family had been being rude to her earlier; she should be able to return the favor.
Kim sighed and just gave up right there. She then noticed her sister fixing a plate for Tatsu. She glanced around to see if anyone thought such doings were odd, but no one seemed to think on the matter. The slender hero then figured that she could fix Shego’s plate, if only to avoid another outburst, even though she was certain that more of those were to come. Shego did seem to be crankier than usual, which was probably due to the fact that most of the people in the house did not seem to like her and she was returning the favor.
Kim had not expected Shego to take well to the rest of her family and she did not really expect them to take well to Shego. She still wished that Shego would try and get used to her family at least. After all, if they were going to be together for a long time, then Shego was going to be around her family for major holidays and maybe just random get-togethers, like the one they were at now. She wanted Shego to at least be able to relax around her family.
“So, Kim, how’s school?” Nana inquired.
“I haven’t started yet. It starts in a couple of weeks,” Kim answered.
“Are you looking forward to it?” Nana asked.
“Yes,” the teen hero replied with a nod to emphasize that she was looking forward to going to school. She was going to get to share a school with her big sister, after all. What was there to not look forward to?
“What are you going to major in? Physics more than likely, right?” Liz asked Kim, who shook her head against that idea.
“Math and probably chemistry,” Kim answered.
“Chemistry? Well, that’s not too bad. You’ll join your father at the space center after that,” Liz commented.
Shego wondered why the woman seemed to have planned out Kim’s life for her. Kim knew what she wanted to do, so she did not need other people trying to plot her course. So far, everything about the Possible family was getting on Shego’s nerves. Geez, was the week not over yet?
“I don’t know about that. I haven’t thought that far ahead. I’m hoping by then Trin will have a company going and I can just get work with her, so I can work on whatever projects I feel like,” the slender hero admitted with a small smile.
At the mention of Trin and the fact that she might do something with her life, attention shifted. There were a couple of scoffs; it seemed that some of the ladies were skeptical that Trin would be able to start anything to be able to employ Kim. Shego just hoped that they were about to start in on the blonde because it would more than likely be entertaining to watch her shred them with her rabid bite.
“Trin, do you even have a job yet? I bet you’re still leeching off of my brother,” Liz commented.
“What I do is hardly any of your concern,” the farsighted female replied in a dismissive tone.
Shego was tempted to throw something at Trin to at least piss her off, so there would be some real fireworks. Did the Possible family not know how to get to Trin after knowing her all of her life? The moss-hued woman would give them lessons just so she would be amused after she set them loose on the blonde. Sure, Trin would still destroy them, but at least it would be fun to watch.
“Still a sponge then,” Liz concluded and Nana agreed with that. They knew for a stone-cold fact that Trin would never amount to anything.
Shego then arched an eyebrow; did these people not know that Trin was freaking rich? Did they not know that Trin and Shin collected a small fortune already on their own from when they were still in their teens and were just continuing to build on that? Or, was it that they did not want to acknowledge Trin’s accomplishment since it was apparent that they disliked her, but it seemed that she was doing better off in life than they were? Shego would have continued thinking on that if only it was not her turn to get belittled; well, that was how she took it when a question came her way anyway.
“So, Shego was it? What do you do for a living?” Jen inquired.
Kim looked at Shego with a pleading gaze, begging her not to be cynical or sarcastic. Trin cut her eyes to the green-skinned woman and dared her with her eyes to tell Jen off like she knew she wanted to do. Shego frowned; if she went the polite route, it would please Kim, but it would give that blonde banshee ammunition to use against her. It was a tough decision, especially since she did not have any kind of love for the woman talking to her since Jen had been nothing but discourteous to anyone not born with the last name Possible, not counting Rocky anyway. Shego did not see what the woman’s problem was considering she had married into the damn family, so it was not even like she was a real Possible.
The Possible family was not even that great, Shego huffed in her mind. She did not see why they were all uptight about themselves. Sure, they were all smart, but that was it. And intelligence was not an accomplishment in her opinion, doing something pioneering with that intelligence would be the accomplishment.
“I’m in investing,” Shego answered. It was not a lie. She had invested some of the fortune that she acquired from her stint in crime.
“So, you’re a banker?” Slim asked curiously. He had not been being rude to any newcomers, but then again, he had not spent much time with them either. He had things to show his little brother, after all.
“No, I’m more retired than anything else,” Shego replied while she could practically hear Trin mocking her in her head for not coming up with a better response to Jen’s question. She shot Trin a look that said “to hell with you.” Trin merely dismissed the look with a wave, which only angered the raven-haired ex-sidekick more.
“Retired? You don’t look old enough to be retired yet,” Nana noted, which caused Joss to smirk a bit.
Joss thought that it was funny that Shego was caught in a lie because she knew who Shego was. She thought that it would be funny if the former villainess got discovered. She would not mind seeing the cops called on Shego considering all of the trouble the former thief started in Montana and all of the grief the woman had put her cousin through when they were enemies.
Shego sighed; she had to think of a lie quick. Who the hell retired at young ages? Before she could think of anything, Trin stepped in to be some assistance.
“She was an athlete,” the blonde offered up when she thought that Shego’s pause had become inappropriately long. She figured that she might as well help out because Shego was Kim’s girlfriend. No need for the family to roast the irksome thief alive, especially when that was Trin’s hobby.
“An athlete?” Liz echoed with some distain in her voice.
“I was in track,” Shego lied for the simple fact that she doubted that anyone at the table knew a damn thing about runners.
The moss-hued woman actually could have picked any sport because no one at the table was a sports fan. She noticed the faces that most of them made when Trin said she was an athlete and she could guess that they did not count that as a respectable profession. Still, she went on with the lie and claimed that she had a bad knee injury, which forced her to go into retirement. No one seemed particularly interested in the tale; Jim and Tim would have wanted to know more about a nasty knee injury if they were not aware that Shego was lying through her teeth.
“So, did you pay people to take exams for you or did they volunteer back when you were in school?” Jen inquired, speaking to Shego.
“What?” the former criminal asked. She really wanted to say “what the hell are you even going on about?” but she assumed that Kimmie would not appreciate her speaking to her aunt in such a manner. Hey, she could have been exceptionally rude and just told the silly bitch to shut the hell up, but she supposed that would have been too much.
The problem with her lie was that the family did not review athletes as respectable people point blank. They looked at jocks as mindless brutes, who had no real commendable talent to speak of. They thought that only fools admired athletes too. They would eagerly point out that no athlete had ever done the world any noticeable good if asked about the reasons behind their hatred.
“Not every athlete on the planet is an idiot or lazy academically,” Trin argued because she knew that was what her aunt was trying to imply. She could not believe that she was sitting there and now defending Shego’s lie. Although she did disagree with the whole philosophy of claiming athletes were dumb considering technically, she and her little sister were athletes.
“Name one,” Liz dared her.
“The Knicks’ championship team in the late 70’s,” Trin answered without hesitating. She had heard from someone that there were scholars on that team, like one of the players went on to be a senator and things like that, and she was going to take that person’s word for it. It was not like her family could call her on it. She could be surprised if any of them even knew what sport the Knicks played.
“And how would you know?” Rocky challenged the blonde after a moment since his wife had been shut down.
“Even if she explained it, how would you know?” Shego countered. She could not believe that she was now defending Trin, who had been defending her. She officially hated the Possible family because they were making her aid the one person that she enjoyed bothering on the daily basis. She and Trin were supposed to be sort of enemies; not really enemies, but they would not call the other a friend under torture.
Shego did shut Rocky down with her question. Jim and Tim fought the urge to laugh; they were secretly enjoyed it when Trin started ripping into the family, even though they liked their family. It was just that they loved a good battle with some good carnage and they bet that things were only going to get better, or worse depending on the point of view, now that Shego was around. Shego and Trin would make things very interesting in the boys’ opinions.
While the twins did like their family, they did not particularly like how the family spoke to their eldest sister when they did speak with her. The boys did not like how the family had just tried ripping into Shego either. She was their second favorite “sister” after all.
The Possible family moved on to a new target since Shego seemed about as sinkable as Trin; they were like rubber-ducks with poisonous claws and fangs. There was a silent mark sitting next to the blonde, though. They moved on to Tatsu to see what she was about; they were willing to bet that she was a misfit of some kind just because she was Trin’s friend.
“So, Tatsu, that’s an interesting name. Where’s it from?” Liz inquired.
“Japan,” Tatsu answered in a mumble, which the impolite Possibles took as a sign of weakness. They did not know that Tatsu was just a mumbler from birth.
“Really? You don’t look Japanese,” Jen commented.
Tatsu did not look like any kind of Asian. Because of her complexion, they guessed that she could have been of Spanish decent. She was a tan color, somewhat like caramel mixed with milk, but her piercing ice blue eyes were odd. They had never seen anyone with such light blue eyes, so they were not sure what to make of her.
“I’m not,” the mechanic informed them that she was not Japanese.
“Then why the Japanese name?” Nana inquired.
“You’d have to ask my parents that one,” Tatsu stated. She had no idea why she had a Japanese name and really she did not want to know. The less that she knew about how her parents worked, the better off she was, she believed. Those two people were going to remain mysteries for her if she had her way. She did suspect that one parent was high and the other was drunk when they named her, but she would never be sure; she always assumed that about her parents when she did not understand why they did things.
“And what do you do for a living?” Nana continued her questioning. The other uninformed Possibles were with her in her inquiries.
Shego was starting to wonder why they walked into the Inquisition and why no one posted a sign as a signal. If she knew that dinner was not only going to greasy, but also play host to an interrogation, she would have skipped it; well, she would have attempted to skip it since she was willing to bet that Kim would have figured out some way to make her attend. From the look on Tatsu’s face, she was willing to bet that the mechanic would have skipped too if she knew what the meal would involve. The food was not even that great; apparently, too many cooks did spoil the broth, not to mention everything else.
“Mechanic,” Tatsu answered the question of what she did for a living.
“Oh,” Nana, Liz, Jen, and Rocky all muttered. From the looks on their face, one would have thought that Tatsu just confessed to being a sewage worker. They looked like she had just said that she spent the day in filth.
“So, you attended a trade school?” Jen guessed.
“No,” Tatsu answered. She did not even know what a trade school was.
The mechanic roughly had the equivalent of an eight grade formal education. Sure, she did not drop out of high school until she was sixteen, but she had never gotten into the idea of going to high school, so she only went when she had nothing better to do. It was not like she had been being forced to attend. Back then, no one cared where she was or what she did with her life; even teachers had encouraged her to just drop out, so she did what she wanted to.
“No trade school? Then how did you become a mechanic? What school did you attend?” Rocky asked curiously.
“Middleton High,” Tatsu answered honestly. She was far from ashamed that she was a dropout. She always figured that even if she had gotten a high school diploma, which she doubted she would have, she would still be exactly where she was in her life, so she was glad that she had not wasted her time or the teachers’ time. She enjoyed being a mechanic and she had Trin, so she did not need anything else in life.
“High school?” most of the table said incredulously.
Tatsu’s resolve had to be admired. She was a high school dropout, sitting at a table of kid geniuses and doctors, appearing as if she was on par with all of them. She did not even think about it. She was successful at what she did and that was what mattered. Trin always told her that school was not for everyone and she agreed with that.
Shego would have agreed too. Now, she did have more education under her belt than Tatsu did, but she could completely understand how Tatsu could sit there like she was just as good as the rest of the Possibles. If they were judging by success, in Shego’s opinion, they were either equal or better than the Possibles. After all, Shego had made a mint in the small time that she spent working and she could spend the rest of her life relaxing while they were all still working. How smart could they actually be if they were still putting in hours? She did not know if Tatsu had a lot of money under her belt, but she did know that the mechanic was doing what she loved and she was damned good at it.
“Yeah, a high school,” Tatsu confirmed while poking around in her food with her fork. She frowned a little bit; in her opinion, she was used to better things, even when Trin did not cook.
“Tell them you build rockets,” Tim suggested.
Tim and his double would hate to see their family treat Tatsu, and even Shego, the way that they treated Trin and Shin; the twins had not really picked up on that their mother seemed to catch some flack too because their family tended to ignore their mother most of the time now. But, the boys knew that their grandmother, aunts, and Uncle Rocky treated Trin and Shin, back when he was allowed out, as if they were useless idiots. Sure, Trin had her moments where she was a shrew in their opinions, but their big sister was far from a useless idiot and they did not think that she should be treated that way. However, they found out early on that speaking up for their eldest sister was a surefire way to get scolded by every adult that was not their parents or Uncle Slim. So, now they just tried to input things that they thought would impress grownups.
“Someone like you can build a rocket?” Rocky scoffed to show his disbelief in Tatsu’s ability. He knew that he had asked her that earlier and she had denied it. He had thought that she was being modest then from the way that the twins continued to sing her praises, but he now doubted that she was intelligent enough to do what they claimed.
“You know, you don’t have to talk to her like that,” Anne of all people objected.
Anne really disliked how they were talking down to Tatsu and she knew that it would continue, even though she said something. She was aware that they felt that anyone in their twenties that was not at least in the process of getting a PhD was an idiot. She knew that they considered Tatsu somewhere well below mentally retarded because she had not even gone to college. She spoke up because she knew that Tatsu would not say anything, mostly because Tatsu could care less than nothing about what they thought and Anne actually agreed with that thought, but Trin would only get snippy instead of telling them straight out to not speak to the mechanic as if she completely lacked a brain.
“What? It was a simple question,” Rocky argued in a trivializing tone to be condescending toward the neurosurgeon.
“Yes, merely an innocent question,” Liz defended her husband.
“You probably just missed that because it was a direct question,” Jen added with a smug look that she hoped would shut Anne up. Anne only rolled her eyes.
“These are the insults?” Shego asked Trin. She had heard worse slams from the twins when they were arguing with Kim over trivial things.
“Cut them a break. Obviously, there are no college courses in learning how to properly insult a person and that would explain why they’re not particularly effective in doing such,” the blonde replied.
Anne decided to silently bow out since Shego and Trin were now starting up again. Anne preferred to ignore the Possible family for the most part anyway; she also preferred when they ignored her. She was typically uninterested in having a childish argument with her intellectually snobbish in-laws, especially since they said such petty things most of the time. She just left the family to their fates and allowed Trin and Shego to verbally tear them apart like rusty chainsaws, which the two ladies gladly did.
Despite the fact that Shego and Trin had razor-sharp and deadly wits, which they were using to the height of perfection, the Possible group continued to pick on them and Tatsu. Tatsu ignored them for the most part; she was not into verbal fighting. If she could not take a person outside and teach them to shut up, then there was no reason to pay the person any mind, in the mechanic’s opinion anyway.
The twins had to hide their faces for most of dinner because they were getting a kick out of their eldest sister and Shego ripping into everyone that was trying to get at them. Joss was not sure what to think; after all, it was like everyone was being rude and she was not sure whose fault it was after sitting there for so long. Larry tried his best to stay quiet because he had been reduced to tears by Trin a few times in the past, but he jumped in to defend his parents just once and Shego and Trin practically castrated him their words. Kim remained silent because she had seen it all coming and she doubted that she could stop it. She actually anticipated Shego hitting someone, so as long as she kept her hands to herself, Kim was fine with everything else.
Anne, James, and Slim ignored most of the nonsense going on. They knew that Trin and Shego could handle themselves, so they talked amongst themselves. Slim and James were a little embarrassed about their family’s behavior, which they almost always were when the whole clan got together. It seemed that their family just could not be civil and accepting toward people that were a little different than they were behind closed doors.
Next time: the couples go to hang out at a bar and run into someone Trin knows, which leads to trouble.