“You are such the tease! Drakken is gonna be in so much trouble!” she laughed.
Ron was waiting on the step as Drakken drove up in a green and black corvette. He threw his backpack in the backseat and climbed in the front.
“Wow. New suit?” he said, looking over at the rather flustered and almost-scowling scientist.
“Yes. And you're looking… good, too… Now see here, Ron… This isn't… I don't want… that is… What's in the backpack?”
“Stuff.”
Drakken sighed. “As an Evil Villain bringing my Arch-Nemesis to my personal Secret Lair, I think I deserve to know: what is in the backpack?”
“First of all, Drak, your Lair's are never all that secret. And Second:… well, this isn't an official thing, okay? This… I mean, we're both off-duty. Anything I see or hear will not make it back to Kim or the GJ, I promise. No cheating on that. Nothing goes further than just between us, okay?”
The blue man's scowl softened. “You'll swear to that?”
“I do. I swear it. Tonight isn't a part of all that stuff. I'm not even bringing my Kimmunicator. What's in the pack is… stuff I might need. Can we leave it at that?”
“Well… it still makes me nervous. Here, put on this blindfold.”
“Little early in the evening for that, ain't it Doc?”
The scowl returned.
“Okay okay, Doc. I'm just pulling your chain. Chill. I'll put on the blindfold. Here. Okay? So, I'm guessing this is NOT your car?”
“Shego's” the Doctor said simply.
“Duh. I hope you -”
“I have permission, yes. I seldom drive, you see… I usually take the hovercraft.”
Drakken pulled off – quite carefully – and drove away.
“So, Drak. Can I ask you a personal question?”
“I suppose…” he said with more than a little trepidation.
“Well, I was just wondering… hovercrafts and ‘arachnoids’ and Lairs an’ all… must cost a LOT of dough. How do you afford it? I mean, where does your money come from? Look, if it's personal, you don't have to answer. I'm just curious.”
Silence.
“Right. So I take it IS personal, then… never mind. I LOVE your suit! Like Dick Tracey! It's so -”
“Actually, Ron, I'd like to tell you where my money comes from. The fact is, I'm fairly dying to tell some one. But… that is… you're SURE nothing I tell you will end up with the GJ?”
“Cross my heart and hope to die” Ron said smiling.
“This is serious, Ron. If the GJ knew, they could take it away from me. Make it impossible for me to continue with my work. Which is what Team Possible is all about, isn't it?”
“Yeah. But I'm not ‘Team Possible’. Like I said, tonight, I'm just ‘Ron’. NOTHING goes any farther, and I expect the same from you, by the way.”
“Yes… but you have less to lose…”
“I'm sitting here in Shego's car, with you, wearing a blindfold. And frankly, I'm not worried about it. I trust you, Doc. Return the favor.”
Drakken thought about that. Given his past treatment of the Sidekick, he WAS taking a chance…
“Do you like doughnuts, Ron?”
“Love ‘em! Are we gonna -”
“Have you ever had any from a coffee-shop named after a certain famous Canadian hockey player?”
“Sure! They're the best dough - No. No no no… No. You? You own a franchise of -”
“Please, Ron. I AM the franchise. I own ALL of them. No pesky investors for me, no Board to please, no profits to split. Yes, Ron. It's me. Gah! I'm SO relieved to be able to TELL someone! You wouldn't believe… how hard it's been…”
Ron turned his head toward the Dr, even though he was blindfolded. He was impressed beyond words. Dr. Drakken owned… was…
Dr. Drakken, I think I LOVE you! He almost said it too, thinking better of it at the last second. Might be taken out of context, after all. “Well, I gotta tell ya, you just impressed the pants off – uh, I mean, the hell out of – me. I'd have NEVER guessed!” Geez, Ron, get a grip. He's a successful businessman. Calm down. But… doughnuts! “Aaaaah, THAT explains the Coco-Moo…”
“Yes. But I'm not sure I can base a whole retail facility on just Coco-Moo… so I suppose it will just end up going into the doughnut shops, instead. People are more interested in coffee than chocolate. I frankly would like to set them straight. Perhaps when I'm running the world…”
“Oh, like that'll ever happen” Ron teased.
“It might, Ron” Drakken looked askance at the blindfolded blonde boy. Guy! Blonde GUY! Get a grip, Drew! “I have some good ideas in mind…”
“Okay, no shop-talk. I'll take your word for it. But tell me, Drak… let's say you do it, one of these days; you Take Over the World. What are you going to do with it?”
“I'm glad you asked. First, network television will be banned. Every channel – cable too – will be PBS. And Channel One will be Masterpiece Theatre, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”
Ron had to chuckle at that, “Whoa! You ARE evil!”
“Laugh all you want. It's at the top of my list. Next, all advertising executives will be shot-on-sight. That should improve the world beyond measure.”
“How about lawyers?”
“Lawyers? Well, people get what they ask for, with Lawyers. I doubt I could re-train human nature enough to do away with Lawyers.”
“Pretty deep, Doc…” Ron said, impressed again, in a different way.
“Surprised? Not just the goofy Doctor after all? I AM a genius, you know.” Drakken said, holding his nose slightly high in the air.
Ron began to giggle, but didn't speak.
“What?” Drakken asked, irked.
“ ‘Explode-oh-Ray’. That's what. Your ‘genius’ sorta comes and goes, doesn't it…”
Drakken frowned, but then smiled as he thought about it. “I suppose it does, at that.”
Ron rolled his eyes. The Doctor was rambling on, AGAIN, “… so you see, no one had ever thought that the e-field, when out of phase with the m-field by exactly pi-over-an irrational number, would cause -”
“Doc.”
“… the resulting composite force -”
“Doc!”
“… to… uh… I'm doing it again?”
“You're doing it again. High School, remember?”
“Oh. Yes… I do apologize, Ron. I'm afraid I'm getting quite caught in… in being able to TALK to someone about these things, that I forget…”
“Y'know, Doc, if you want recognition for your work, there ARE legit ways. Like, publishing? Ever hear of it?”
Drakken smirked, “Yes, I know… what YOU don't know is that I've been that route. It's part of why I became Evil in the first place. The journals are number four on my list.”
“Ah. Listen, I wanna see more, especially the robots and stuff, but… you got a bathroom around here?” Ron said, looking around.
“Right through there. It'll be the door marked “Danger: Explosives.”
Ron looked at him sideways. “Okaaaaay… back in a bit.”
The Doctor watched him leave. Intently. “Oh, Ron! Something to drink?”
“Soda'd be nice” he yelled over his shoulder.
“Orange, brown, clear, yellow -”
“Surprise me!” Ron entered the hallway. To his left, a heavy steel door displayed the appropriate emblem.
“Pssst.” He thought he heard something, but there were lots of strange noises in Drakken's Lair.
“Psssst!” He heard it again, and stopped, looking down the hall.
“Oh, fer – PSSSST!” Behind him, a door was cracked open, and he could see part of Shego's green face looking at him. Instinct made him prepare for a fight.
“Cut it out,” she said, “and get the hell in here! Hurry!”
Now, THAT was a Bad Idea, to da max. “I don't think so, Shego. You come out here.”
“Doy. Fine!” She opened the door and stood there in her Lara Croft outfit: mid-thigh but TIGHT black shorts, equally TIGHT green spandex top, and hiking boots. She walked right by him as his mouth hung open, grabbing the collar of his tee-shirt to drag him into the bathroom.
She let go of him and waited for him close his mouth.
Eventually, he did. “Well, like it?” She turned around to show him – so to speak – the whole thing.
“Uh… well… it's different…” he said uncertainly. Why was she… Shego… asking him if he liked her new outfit?
“Look, Stoppable. I need to ask you something” she said. Ron thought, No smirk. No smart-alec remarks. What's going on here?
“Yeah? Well… go ahead.”
Shego looked any where but at Ron. “You… you told Dr. D that… well, that you thought Kim… uhm… had noticed me?”
Ah. So THAT's it!
“Yeah…”
She sighed, finally looking into his eyes, “Don't make me beat this out of you, sidekick. ‘Cause I will, if I have to.”
He held his ground and said nothing. Shego walked up to him threateningly. But Ron still didn't budge.
She turned and walked over to the mirror instead. “Yeah. Okay. Sorry. Old habits, y'know? Uhm… didn't mean it.” Dropping her Dangerous Bitch act, she turned to face him honestly, “So, do you think she'd be interested? In me, I mean. Like that, I mean? Like you're interested in… uh…”
He let her off the hook, despite how tempting it was to play her anxiety out longer by pretending not to know what she meant. “It's hard to say, Shego. I'm not trying to be vague or anything here… it's not exactly something she talks to me about, y'know? I doubt she talks to any one about it.”
“Doy! You're all so… so Brady Bunch! Dammit! It's just disgusting!”
“Actually, I'M ‘Brady Bunch’. Kim is more… well, Mayberry RFD, in black-and-white. You getting my meaning?”
“She is? That bad?”
“I'm afraid so. I asked her if she'd thought about you today, and she turned redder than I'd ever seen her. So take that for what it's worth.”
“She did?”
“Stop asking me if I've said the thing I've just said” It was kind of fun, teasing HER for a change, “Yeah, she did. Red as… uh… well, really, really red.”
Shego looked off into space as she imagined it.
Ron brought her back to earth, “That why the new outfit?”
“Huh? Oh. Yeah. Think she'll like it?”
“I really don't know, Shego. Sorry.”
“Oh. Well… that's okay… But, I mean, besides being so deep in the closet she collects dust-bunnies, is she… I mean, do you think she…”
“Yes. Almost definitely. But I'd take it very slowly, if I were you. Right after I asked her about you, she asked ME for a date. I think it scared her back in, if you know what I mean. So… just be careful.”
“Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I owe ya one, Stoppable.”
“Then call me ‘Ron’.”
She looked at him wryly, “Okay, Ron, but now we're even.”
“Would you get out of here so I can pee?” he said in exasperation.
Her smirk came back, but she left without any remark.
After nearly two hours, at nine at night, Ron was getting hungry.
“No no… you can't turn it's whole body, you have to twist the torso if -”
“Doc. I'm starving here. What's for dinner?”
“Ack!”
“… You DID… didn't you?”
“…”
“Doc…”
“I apologize, Ron. I DEEPLY apologize. I… it never occurred to me… I didn't know how long…”
“Okay, Drak. I'll handle it. Now you get to find out what was in my backpack. Lead me to the kitchen, if you please.”
“You… the kitchen? Your backpack?”
He looked at the Doctor from the corners of his eyes. “Yeah. I can cook. But I don't dress hair. So the stereotype ends there, got it?”
Drakken actually blushed, “NO! No, I never thought, that is, I meant -”
Ron chuckled – he really was having SUCH fun! “Calm down… I'm just teasin’ ya. Now, where's the kitchen?”
The scientist sighed, “Yes. You seem to have a talent for that, Ron.” He didn't sound happy about it. Ron suddenly felt guilty. Maybe his teasing had been a little… too close to home, for the Doctor.
“Uh… yeah. Look… Drak. I shouldn't have said that. It's just that…” How to put it? Should he tell the Doctor that being with him made him feel like a schoolgirl? When, after all, he WAS a “schoolboy”? Would that be appropriate? Because that's how he was acting, he suddenly realized. Just like the girls acted with him, when he had one of his VERY rare dates. Except that this time, Dr. Drakken was taking the “awkward schoolboy” part of the deal. Oh my god. He is. I'm treating him just like they treat me. And he's reacting the same way I do. Sort of. Anyway, I bet he feels the same way I do, when they tease me… Gawd, Ron! You are SUCH the conceited BITCH!
“Uh… I'm sorry. Really. Let me make it up to ya: let me fix you dinner. I really am pretty good at it.”
“It's getting pretty late, actually…” Drakken started.
“DRAK! I'M MAKING YOU DINNER! WHERE IS THE KITCHEN?” Ron shouted, louder than he'd intended. He was NOT going to end this NOW, like THAT. He knew EXACTLY what that was like!
Drakken suddenly looked very, very awake. Ron had surprised him. In truth, Ron had been surprising him all evening, in one way or another – almost all of them absolutely charming – but this was different. Apparently, the boy – the GUY – had some strong feelings, too. The Dr. didn't know, or really wonder, what those feelings WERE, he was just amazed that they seemed so powerful.
“Well, you take that hallway… Uhm, I mean to say, follow me.”
“My, that really does smell delicious! What is it?”
“Spinach brioche. French. I can't believe you had actual lard on hand. You… uh, cook, Doc?”
“Only pastries. Why do you think I became a doughnut baron? Doughnuts and Coco-Moo: my specialties.”
“Ah, the wonders of processed, bleached flour, refined animal fat, and cane sugar, eh? All a body needs.” Ron smirked.
“Indeed. Sometimes I really do feel like a ‘pusher', but then I think ‘I don't MAKE them eat it’.”
“You ever give away free samples?” Ron asked jokingly.
“Of course.”
“Yup, you're a pusher all right. You are really SO much more Evil than I'd ever thought, Drak. And in ways more subtle, too.”
“Why… why thank you, Ron! I appreciate that!”
Ron smiled at the seated Doctor watching him. “No prob, Doc.” Drakken's heart nearly stopped, seeing that smile. At least, that's what it felt like, but he didn't really care. He swallowed, hard. He needed a drink.
“I'm going to make us some drinks. Yours will -”
“Trying to get me drunk, are -”
“Stop, Ron. I was ABOUT to say, ‘yours will be non-alcoholic, of course’.” Drakken was back to scowling again.
Ron felt like shit. “Aw geez, I did it again! DAMMIT! I'm sorry, okay? I… it's just that…”
Perhaps because the Doctor had been so high only moments before, the crash now was all that much more painful. “Sit down, Ron. We need to talk” the Doctor said seriously.
“But… I have pastry in the oven…”
Being a fellow pastry-chef, of sorts, Drakken could sympathize. “Then turn it down, and sit.”
“But, it's fillo-dough, and -”
“SIT, RON!”
Ron stared at him a moment, then turned the oven down and took a seat opposite Drakken.
“Okay, I'm sitting.”
The Doctor only stared at the table in between them.
“Look, Doc… Drak. It's just that I'm really having a good time and I'm… getting carried away with it, is all. I said I was sorry. I really don't understand why you're so sensitive about -”
“Yes, that's the problem, don't you see? You DON'T understand! And for my part… I… I didn't really know what to expect from this… this…”
“Date” Ron interrupted.
Drakken looked up at him now, “This date. I'm not sure what I even want from it. No, that's not true. I'm lying” Dr. Drakken leaned back in his chair, slouching un-characteristically, “I DO know what I want. Perhaps I just don't think I should get it.”
Not wanting to say anything stupid in reply to what was obviously a Deep Thought of Drakken's, Ron stayed silent.
They were both quiet for several minutes: trying to figure out what one of them had just said.
Finally, Ron had to do SOMEthing to break the tension, “So… I know the problem isn't that I'm a guy… I suppose it's that I'm a high-school guy, then…”
Drakken looked into his eyes, “You know what I remember about being sixteen, Ron?”
“What?”
“Nothing. Not one thing. I KNOW certain things happened. I KNOW I was sixteen when I got my first driver's license… I remember the test. But nothing else. I don't remember how I felt about things, I don't even remember any of my friends from that time particularly well. It's hard to say, really… trying to pin down memories to what age I was when they happened. The point is… the point is, I guess, it wasn't recently. It was a LONG time ago for me.”
“So?”
Drakken looked back down. “So, Ron, I think… I think I should just take you home now. Your parents are probably worried about you. Afraid you've been picked up by some dirty old man, perhaps. I think we should just end this… fiasco.” He started to get up from his chair.
But Ron wasn't moving.
“Come on, Ron. Let's go. We'll get some hamburgers on the way, if you're hungry.”
“You think I'm a child?” Ron said flatly.
“No. Well… in a way… in any case, you're not an adult. I am. So I'm supposed to know better. Now -”
“So… you want to call this off, because you're older and wiser, is that it? You know better. Doesn't matter what I think. Sound right?” Ron was beginning to get angry. What Drakken was telling him – however obtusely – was insulting.
“Basically. Yes.”
The teenager let it simmer in his brain awhile, as he sat stone-faced, with his arms crossed.
“Y'know, Doc. There WAS a time when 16 would have been considered ‘middle-age’.”
“Yes, well… that was rather long ago. A lot of things were different, then. Especially ‘childhood', I'd think.”
“Half-point to you” Ron admitted, “But there are STILL cultures where 14 is ‘marry and start having kids’ age.”
“Not OUR culture, Ron. But I am seeing…”
“… and biologically, which seems like it -”
“Ron! Don't. Look, the thing is, five years from now, you'll -”
Ron jumped out of his chair, “Whoa! Whoa-Whoa-Whoa there, Doc! FIVE YEARS? You're gonna try to guess what things are going to be like in FIVE YEARS? Uh… no offense, Drak, but could we… restrict ourselves to, like, TONIGHT, and MAYBE tomorrow? I wasn't thinking ‘five years down the road', Doc! Geez!”
The boy – the GUY – RON! - is right about that. Why did I even say that? Was I hoping this would last five years? And if so, is that justified? Certainly not. But he doesn't realize how short five years really is. To him, it's like a quarter of his life.
“Five years is a lot longer to you than it is to me, Ron. That's what you don't understand.”
“Yeah, okay. I can see how that could be… but… that's important, why?”
“Well… you see… uhm…”
Ron had him. Dr. Drakken was resting his argument – or his fear, whatever – on a point that, while certainly valid, wasn't really relevant to the matter at hand. Like many such statements, it was a good sound-byte - the kind that just SOUNDS so simple, logical, and clever, that no one really thinks about it. The most dangerous kind.
“Let's get back to NOW, okay?” Ron said, “I like you, Doc. Like like. You like me?”
Drakken took his time. Ron really was an extraordinary… person… “Yes. I do.”
“Like like?”
He had to smile at that, touchy as it was, “Yes, like like, Ron. You knew that.”
“Well, I wanted to hear you say it. Get it out in the open. There's been a lot of… camouflage… going on here. Okay. Well, I think I'm old enough to make up my own mind about this, what do you think?” Ron asked.
“I'm beginning to believe you may be right” Drakken answered.
Ron sat back in his chair, his anger subsiding. He could understand, kind of, why the older man had qualms. But maybe it was over now. If not, he could always kick the Doctor's ass. Maybe that would prove something. “Still gonna take me home?”
“Perhaps not just yet.”
“Well, then maybe you'd like a spinach brioche. If they're not too destroyed by now.”
“I'll make those drinks” Drakken said, so relieved he actually felt giddy. “But after dinner, as it were, I'm taking you home.”
Ron thought of asking “how come?” or telling him “you really don't HAVE to, you know”, but perhaps they'd had enough Drama for one date. A first date. He smiled to himself. Don't wanna go getting a reputation as ‘easy', do we… Do we? Bad Ron! Bad Bad Ron! “Okay, Doc. After dinner.”