Ron's Big Date!

by Slipgate

Disclaimer: Disney owns Kim Possible. Please check the Author's Notes and Credits at the end of the story even if you've read this before.

"Hurry, mom! I have to get ready for the date!" Kim Possible cried out, dashing around the room, trying to figure out what to wear.

Her mother Anne tried to soothe her. "Relax, Kimmie!" she said. "You'll be ready in time and he won't judge you if you're not perfectly ready already!" she encouraged.

"But I want to be perfectly ready! I mean this is big!" Kim cried out, unmoved by her mother's attempt to regain order.

Her father James came to the door in all the noisy commotion. "Relax, Kimmie-cub, relax!" he also encouraged.

Anne went on, "I know it's big, honey. I know you've been looking forward to this. But if you don't calm down you're going to burn a hole in the rug!"

Anne pulled out some different dress possibilities and Kim finally came to a stop as she saw one. She immediately pointed to it and exclaimed, "The black one!"

"The black one? Really?" both parents said. Their eyes met and they could tell they were both thinking the same thing: Is that a good idea, considering?

James spoke up, "I would think that the black one for you guys…"

Kim came up to her father and replied in earnestness, "dad, I want it to be the black one!"

Another exchanged look between the parents followed, and then a shrug.

"Okay, okay. It'll be the black one." her father relented.

Anne took over. "Now that that's decided, get yourself in the bathroom and get cleaned up!"

"On it!" the red-headed wonder replied, dashing out of the room and to the bathroom.

James shook his head and chuckled. "Crazy kids. In my day we never…"

"Oh come on, you're not going to say you never did this, honey!" Anne interrupted.

"Well, you have to admit this is probably a bit unusual compared to when you and I did this."

"How so?"

"You know how so, honey." James replied, looking at his wife for a moment.

"You're right, but hey, this is them, right?"

"Yeah…" James mumbled.

Anne's eyes softened. "You know I knew this was going to happen when we brought her home from the first day of Pre-K. I guess I just didn't know that it would happen so soon."

"Oh Anne, she's still your little girl."

"And yours too, James."

The conversation came to an abrupt halt as their spirited daughter dashed back into the room.

"All done in there!" Kim announced. "Mom, can you help me with my hair? I'm running late!"

Anne couldn't help chuckling in her words as she replied, "Ha, okay, honey. Let's see what we can do with it."

Kim went to her vanity mirror and sat down. Anne leaned toward her hair but before she could get started Kim asked, "Can I wear those red earrings of yours, mom?"

Anne's eyes widened. The last time Kim had tried those earrings it had been without permission and had definitely been an awkward day.

"You want to wear my earrings?" she finally replied, also amused at the image in her head. "Do you want to borrow my perfume, too?"

"Could I?" Kim's eyes lit up.

Privately Anne knew that she was going to say no to both requests. She didn't indicate this yet, only replying, "Okay, okay, let's uh, let's get you ready, Kimmie. That means men out the door!" She punctuated this last thought with a smile to her husband.

"I got it honey," James said affably, "'ll keep an eye out for Ronald. And I'll stall him if you're not ready yet, don't worry!"

"Thanks daddy! You're the best!" She ran over and hugged him. James leaned into the hug with his daughter, a smile on his face.

RBD!

A similar scene of pandemonium was playing out in the Stoppable household.

"Son, what's the matter!" Dean Stoppable finally cried out.

His son was struggling with his unrepentant cowlick. "Dad, you know I'm trying to get ready here, and this is just… not… cooperating!"

The older man strode into the room and put a hand on Ron's shoulder. Once he got Ron's attention, he asked, "Son, what's the big deal? Your hair is done up the same way it's always been when you've been with Kim."

"That's not good enough now, dad! I mean, if I'm not willing to take that extra step to look better when I'm going over there… well, what will her parents think of that?"

There was silence as Dean considered his reply.

"Why won't this hair ever… do what I want?" Ron finally cried out, tossing down the comb in frustration.

"Son, son! You're getting yourself frustrated." Dean soothed. He retrieved the comb from the floor and strode over to Ron's bed, where he sat down. "You've got to calm down! Look at your old man. He's calm and relaxed about things. See?" Indeed, Dean was usually cool as a cucumber. A Kosher Dilly, even. He'd gotten Ron's frantic body language to slow at least slightly.

"Calm down, calm down. Kim's your best friend. You have been since the day you met. You'll be just fine." Dean grinned and continued, "And, you know it's good if you're trying to get your hair fixed, but if it's not cooperating, it's not the end of the world for it to look like what she's used to. I mean that's just a fact you know, son. But if you do want to look extra-special for this day, we can do some other things for that. Let's take a look at those new clothes that your aunt sent you for your birthday, huh?"

Ron noisily blew air out through his lips. "Okay, dad…" he said in a tone of voice that sounded a fair bit younger than Ron actually was.

The two retrieved the (sadly untouched) box from Ron's closet, opened it up, and began to look through it. Finally, Dean found something interesting and pointed it out to Ron. "Now see, doesn't that pair of pants look good? And wouldn't that shirt work well with it?"

Ron looked at the two items and had to agree that the clothes wouldn't be terrible. Besides, he liked the shirt's color a lot.

Ron went through his bathroom ablutions just as Kim had done, except of course what he did was totally unlike what Kim did. Once he'd gotten dressed in the selections from the box, his father beamed at him, "You're cleaned up, you're dressed nicely in fresh new clothes, and you're ready, son! Now you just need to go over there and knock on the door."

Ron shuddered. "Easy for you to say! I don't know if I'll ever feel comfortable going over there like this, as if it's no big deal." he lamented.

"Son, I think you'll find that you will, if you give it time. Now then, is there anything I can do for you? Are you ready, son?"

"Yeah, dad, I think I am!" Ron said, and he found he mostly meant it.

Suddenly another presence made itself known at the doorway of the room.

"Ohhhh, let me see my little boy! Oh, boy, I knew this day would be coming someday soon. Ever since you talked about her the entire trip home and for a while even after you got home from Pre-K that first day, I knew this day would come sooner or later!" Dana Stoppable enthused.

"Oh, mom…" Ron groaned – the special groan of parental embarrassment and/or exasperation.

"Gail will be happy to know that you decided to wear these clothes, though." Dana hummed with a smile, inspecting part of one sleeve in a thumb and a forefinger.

"Don't tell her! She'll send more!" Ron cried, suddenly panicked for a reason that never made sense to him later in life.

"Come on, Ron. So what if she sends more? You'll either wear them or you won't. And if you really don't, we'll figure out something else to do with them." Dean interjected into the exchange.

There seemed to be no worthwhile reply to that, so the conversation died into comfortable silence for a moment as Dana looked over her boy's attire. Finally, Dana nodded. "All right, so is my boy ready?"

"Yeah, I'm ready… as I'll ever be."

"Good! Shall we, then?" Dean replied, smiling, as he escorted his son to the front door.

RBD!

A few hours later, the Possible parents were watching Kim and Ron outside the large bay window in the living room and having a cup of tea. The Stoppables suddenly came in from the kitchen and joined them.

Dean offered, "Thanks for letting us tear into your leftovers like that, James, Anne."

"It's not a problem." James replied, waving his hand dismissively in the air. "It's nothing Ronald didn't do earlier."

They lapsed into silence as they all watched the image of their children outside the window, in front of the house.

At length, James and Dana remarked, "They've been at it a while."

Anne nodded. "Yeah, that they have. How do you feel about this, honey?" she questioned.

James watched them a minute more. "I think I can get used to this," he replied with a smile.

Eventually, the two of them seemed to tire of their activity. Kim's outfit looked bedraggled and had taken a beating, but that was to be expected. The two turned for the door, opened it and came in.

As they entered, the parents heard Kim say, "I had a great time, Ron!"

"Me too, KP!" Ron enthused.

"So, I'll see you in school tomorrow?" she asked, shyly.

"You bet!" Ron agreed.

Suddenly both became aware of the parental scrutiny. Ron asked in surprise, "mom, dad? I didn't know you were waiting here."

"It's not a big deal, honey! We had a good conversation with Kim's parents while you were out."

"Oh-kay?" Ron replied, weirded out.

"So shall we all go home?"

"Yeah…" Ron replied. Then he turned to the other set of parents and said, "Thanks for… you know, Mr. and Mrs. Possible."

"Oh, Ronald! You don't need to thank us for that! Did you and Kimmie-cub have fun?" James asked, a huge smile decorating his face.

"Yeah… yeah, Mr. Dr. P. We did. Again, thank you!"

"We'll see you again, Ronald. Have a good evening!" Anne cooed.

RBD!

As Kim was getting ready for bed and Ron was settling into the backseat of the car, feeling the balmy weather had warmed the seat uncomfortably, both of them said the same words to their parents: "That was the best playdate ever!"

The End

Author's Notes and Credits: Before you close this window, navigate away from this story, or (and this would be great) leave a review, I encourage you to read this story a second time now that you have "information" you didn't have on the first read-through of the story, even if you don't review. See if you catch the various doublespeak moments / fast ones I pulled. I'd love to engage reviewers in conversing about those things. For example, if the black article of clothing Kim's parents were hesitant about wasn't the dress from 'Emotion Sickness' then why were they hesitant? What was Ron wearing? What clues, if any, do I give you to help you catch these reinterpretable moments?

Thank you to GhostWriter and whitem of the Kim Possible Writer's Guild (KPWG) for running Guess the Author Contest #6 on the Kim Possible Discussion forum, for which this story was an entry. Thank you also to Katsumara for the subject prompt that inspired this story. I had a lot of fun with this contest and in writing this story, and I hope you all have had lots of fun reading it (and hopefully in doing the requested second read-through). I'm slowly improving as a writer, and you three have helped me take a big step in that direction, so thank you.