Kim hissed as she took a deep breath. Yeah, that rib was probably broken. No big….Just take slow shallow breaths….just like that…
Nothing had gone right. It was a simple job, break in, steal the blueprints for some project called “X”1 and get out.
The problem is the project was some sort of prototype android with Artificial Intelligence, and while hacking into its blueprints Kim had accidentally activated it.
The infant AI, still in its infant stages only understood one thing, she was an intruder, and she didn’t belong.
Its blue armor almost seemed to glow in the darkened room before some kind of cannon on its right arm fired. It hadn’t made a noise, but she was hit with some kind of ball on energy before she could dodge. The blast knocked her through the lavatory wall, and set off proximity alarms all over the building.
Kim ran as fast as she could, scrambling past security guards and men in white coats just trying to escape, not knowing if it had learned to walk or run, or if it was still chasing her.
She stopped limping and leaned against a nearby tree. The park she’d fled to was fairly deserted, save for a couple of teenagers making out on a bench near the lake, so it was safe.
She hissed at the pain in her chest again. She needed medical help, but she couldn’t go to a hospital. Being on the internationally most wanted list tend to do that to you after all.
Her mother was out, because it’d mean she’d have to explain things to her, mostly because she was a horrible liar.
God it hurt to walk….
Something inside nudged her along and told her where to go.
Shego sighed as she flopped over in her bed. Somewhere she swore the Fates2 were mocking her as she lay there. She used to sleep like a corpse, but now she was lucky to get a couple of hours. It’d been bad before…before….
She rolled over and buried her face in her pillow and yelled in frustration. Kissing a woman should feel so…so….so right. Gah! She growled as she rolled over and stared at the ceiling. How could she like girls? She used to idolize of punk rock stars, not women.
God…when did life get so complicated? What happened to being able to go out, kick some bad guy ass, come home, watch some classic movies, and then crash out until the next day?
That life seemed like a dream now, and the feelings she was feeling seemed only to amplify things. Nothing felt right anymore. She couldn’t stop thinking about a woman, a wanted woman, and it was keeping her from sleeping.
God…things used to be simple.
Somewhere she could almost swear she heard the sound of someone knocking on the apartment door, and then Betty’s grumbling as she put down whatever it was from work she was still up fussing over before she answered it.
She’d ask in the morning when she had the energy to get out of bed.
Sometime later she managed to drift off into a restless sleep.
Betty swore a couple of times as she got up to answer the door. She swore to God if it was just one more door to door evangelist visiting at four in the morning she’d kill him. With his own little thin black tie to boot.
She swung the door open without even bothering to look through the peephole, ready to tear into whoever stood behind the door.
“Does….Shego live….here?” One of Kim’s eyes had swollen shut, and she was squinting through the other one. She was covered in scratches, some of which still trickled slowly. Her hair was a knotted mess with leaves, sticks, and some bits of plaster in it. She was a frightful mess, and that was putting it nicely.
Betty was at a loss. From what she knew of the woman this was unprecedented. Not only had Kim been severely injured, most likely trying to steal something, but she had come to the apartment of a heroine who could easily throw her in prison and throw away the key. “She’s sleeping….can I help you?”
“Oh.” That’s all Kim said, her light skin starting to look even paler now. She slowly stood up straight and started to turn to walk away, but fatigue finally won out against her. Her body collapsed, and nearly hit the floor, but Betty grabbed her, and pulled the limp woman inside. She’d clean the woman up, then figure out what to do.
Stripping the clothes off of the unconscious woman proved to be difficult, not because of any modesty that Betty had, but because there were several cuts that had dried to the clothes. Slowly she managed to peel the shirt and cargo pants loose. She’d had to cut the boots and socks off though. The bra and panties came off easily, the fabric slipping loose freeing the intimate parts of the redhead. Betty couldn’t but notice that Kim was indeed a natural redhead as she slipped the unconscious woman into the bathtub and slowly filled it with hot water.
Betty rolled up the sleeves on her sweater, pale scars now visible on her arm, reminders of times she was willing to quit, and give it all up.
Children can be so cruel to those who are different.
Taking a washcloth Betty slowly and carefully cleaned the redhead, scrubbing the dirt free of the cuts and scrapes. The woman stirs in the water a little, muttering something.
Shego?
Betty pauses when she gets to the woman’s chest, not sure how to wash another woman without picturing a bad porn scene, but she manages to do it, not sure how she managed either.
Avoiding a similar problem down below she moved onto the redhead’s legs, slowly working down the nearest one, paying special attention to the feet, gently working in an almost massaging motion as she made sure to get between her toes before moving to the other leg.
All that was left was her hair. The vibrant red mess was a disaster to say the least, and about as hard to untangle too. It took some time to do it, but Betty managed and didn’t pull any hair from the woman’s head either. Little bits of stick and leaves came free, followed by particles of plaster, all of which floated in the water, which was starting to cool now. Pulling the plug she let the water drain as she went to get a towel.
She raised an eyebrow when she came back, the redhead now curled up in the bathtub, shivering. “That will not do at all….” With a frown at her own carelessness she gently wrapped the shivering form in the towel and carried her into her room.
Shego couldn’t know about this. Not yet. Not until she knew what she was going to do.
God her very career could be at stake for not calling Global Justice for a team to get the redhead.
Sighing she pushed away her selfish thoughts and went to get the first aid kit. A thief or not, Kim wasn’t a brute or a murderer, just a nuisance to the super hero community by supplying their enemies with weapons.
Betty sighed and rubbed the antibiotic ointment over the woman’s forearm. She could see what Shego saw in her, the girl was cute, but not in an overt fashion.
Betty sighed, almost regretting her asexual nature. She didn’t like the idea of sex though, and even simple romance bothered her.
It was natural that Shego would find someone for her. But Betty wished it’d been someone a little more….law abiding. Granted though Shego barely met that requirement considering the amount of force she used in every day fights.
Betty shook her head, trying to get her thoughts to focus. She needed to get some sleep, but first she needed to cover her tracks. She neatly tied off the last bit of gauze over a particularly nasty gash on the redhead’s calf and dressed her in a large t-shirt before tucking her into bed. Working diligently she picked up the ruined clothes, and rinsed the bathtub and finished with up with a note on her door before clicking it shut and locking it.
Shego padded out of her room, and noticed the lack of a coffee smell in the air. Grumbling she went over to Betty’s room to wake her up, but stopped when she noticed the note.
Sorry, not feeling well. I’ll make up for it by making breakfast next Sunday instead of you.
Betty
Shego was puzzled, Betty had seemed fine the night before, but then again when Betty got sick, which was rare, she was often suddenly, and violently ill.
Shego sighed and shuffled off to the kitchen for a morning of corn flakes. She just didn’t feel like making pancakes for herself.
Kim groaned and tried to sit up. Parts of her that she wasn’t even sure she was supposed to have hurt. Hell her hair felt like it hurt. She lay back, too sore to sit up and looked at her hands. Her hands were covered in gauze bandages which wound down her arms and under the sleeves of a t-shirt she didn’t remember ever owning.
Come to think of it the ceiling didn’t look familiar either.
Where was she?
“Morning Ms. Possible,” the voice was a tired groan from next to her, and a pale scarred arm reach to the night stand for an eye patch.
Something really was not right. What in the hell happened last night?
“Relax Ms. Possible; I am quite without a sex drive. I did not ravage your unconscious form when I cleaned and bandaged you up.” The voice sat up and brushed brown hair away from her face. “I am-“
Kim hissed as she forced herself to sit up, feeling very confused. “-Betty Director, figure head leader of the so called organization named Global Justice.”
Betty smiled as she slid out of bed, dressed in just a black bra and matching panties, “It seems we both do our research. Alright, so you’re in my bedroom, and too injured to stand much less walk. I suggest we start talking.”
Kim shook her head, “I have nothing to talk about with you.”
“Nothing including what that kiss with Shego meant?”
“It meant nothing.” Kim looked over at the blinds over the window, wondering what right the woman had to pry into her personal life.
“It meant something to Shego.”
Kim looked back at the woman, eyes narrowed, like she was looking for a hint that the woman was lying to her.
“Are you willing to talk to me now Ms. Possible?”
Notes: 1 X is a reference to Megaman X from the series by the same name. In such a game he glows and flashes when his weapon (called the X Buster) is charged. It didn’t kill Kim because X is still under development when Kim accidentally activated him. 2 The Fates is a reference to Greek Mythology. Just something different for once.