Samus was not someone who got embarrassed easily. Anyone that lived in the mansion, if asked, would tell that the bounty huntress was one of the most collected, level-headed and possibly emotionally dead Smashers to ever participate in the Super Smash Bros tournaments. And while the emotionally dead part was incredibly false, as she was not some robot that did not comprehend emotions, contrary to popular belief in early installments, thank you very much; Samus did consider herself very logical e stable.

So she had no idea what was happening to make her face feel so hot under her helmet when Palutena, her teammate for that particular brawl they were having at the moment, begun celebrating their taking down of Lucina's last live and winning the fight.

"Ha, ha, ha!" she let out a loud and playful laugh.

Actually, Samus knew what was wrong with her, and it had to do with her own teammate. The blonde was very grateful that her power suit covered her face, so then she wouldn't need to explain to Palutena why she couldn't stop staring so much at her.

But it wasn't her fault. If anything, the only one to blame was Palutena.

If it wasn't enough that the goddess decided to wear a strapless white dress, one that exposed her entire right tight, as her regular battle attire, Palutena had the brilliant idea of celebrating her successful killings by doing a little dance around her own staff. The staff that she used to hit people was now was serving as a mere pole for her to spin around it.

It wasn't Samus' fault that, by doing that, the goddess' strong tights became much more visible and provocative. It wasn't her fault that the way she bent gave the blonde a rather embarrassing angle of vision of her cleavage (Samus was on top of one of the floating platforms of Magicant stage, while Palutena stood below her). And it definitely wasn't Samus' fault that Palutena seemed to emit a bright aura while doing that stupid little victory dance.

Honestly, what kind of taunt was that? Was that supposed to annoy her enemies or her own teammates? Was she even taking the brawl seriously?

And it wasn't just that. Palutena was fighting in a way that made her look like she was in a goddamn beauty pageant contest. She couldn't stop smiling and jumping around as she countered Lucina's blade, or when she used her Auto-Reticle attack on Robin. All while swaying her hips and moving around in a very showoff manner.

In other words, Samus couldn't focus that well on the battle.

It made the blonde uncomfortable; there was no doubt about it. Especially now, because Samus was also pretty sure that Palutena took a little longer to stop spinning this time. Not that she knew how much time the green haired woman spent doing that taunt.

Her mind came back to reality as the fight announcer declared the game to be over.

GAME SET!

"You two are marvelous fighters," Lucina complimented the two women in front of her.

"Oh, thank you, you're very sweet," Palutena said. She then winked at her blonde teammate. "We sure form a good duo, right, Samus?"

"I guess we do," she answered while avoiding eye contact with her.

Robin, Lucina's battle partner, simply nodded. He was still feeling pretty down for losing his two lives so quickly and wanted to review the recording of their fight at the Recording Room so he could see what he was doing wrong. That room was a blessing for all Smashers who liked to analyze their fighting styles, as it had showed all the recordings of recent brawls for a limited period of time, enough for critiques to be made and such.

He needed to cut that conversation short so he could go on with his way. Lucina could be such a fangirl sometimes.

"Lucina, how about we leave them alone and go see the battle video?" the tactician asked, pulling her by the arm. "We still have one more fight together and we need to plan our strategy better."

Samus raised an eyebrow at what Robin had said. What did he mean with leaving the two alone?

"O-Oh, alright then. Goodbye you two."

Robin and Lucina left the Rest Area, the place where all Smashers who had just finished battling would appear after leaving their stages, and headed towards the Recording Room. Samus didn't feel like reviewing that particularly fight, for reasons that made her feel kind of stupid when she thought seriously about it.

She just didn't want to see Palutena acting like a huge flirt again. It annoyed her to no end when the goddess acted like that. She wanted her to take those fights more seriously, because dammit, it was really distracting having your partner dance around the battlefield and pretending that she was fighting.

She still couldn't understand how the other Smashers could praise Palutena for being a great fighter, when all she did was play and dance around.

Unless she only acted that way when in a brawl with Samus. That would explain why everyone was so blind.

"Well, that was fun," Palutena said with a huge grin. Of course she would think it was fun.

"Why do you think it is fun?"

"I just do. I like the thrill and everything," she said, her voice still annoyingly cheerful. "And it's fun to be out there calling the shots, for a change. Pit always does the fighting for me back in our universe, you know? It's nice to be able go out in the battlefield and test out my strength."

"You sure don't look like it," Samus thought. Instead, she simply said: "If you say so."

She wanted to walk away as soon as possible. Today she was inexplicably bothered by Palutena, even more so than all the other days since the goddess has first arrived in the mansion. Samus couldn't really understand what her problem with Palutena was, but it was there. Every time she had to interact with her, something inside Samus' stomach stirred up and she could feel her face getting flushed. It was the way she talked, walked and laughed that made Samus uncomfortable.

She never had a problem like this with the other girls in the tournament. Hell, she never had any problem like that with any other Smasher, period. It was only Palutena.

Maybe it was because, when Pit couldn't stop babbling about how great his goddess was, Samus had imagined a different picture of her. And while his claiming on how Lady Palutena would be one of the most beautiful people she would ever see in her life was true, she had imagined Palutena to be a calm and serene deity, who always had a plan for everything and could resolve any problem with grace and dignity.

And, above all, she expected her to be modest and serious, not goofy and flirty. Especially flirty. Because, that is how deities should act like, and nothing would convince her otherwise.

Samus was pretty sure that was her problem with Palutena. Mild disappointment.

She just wanted to take off her suit, take a hot shower and call it a day. She also wanted to be alone for a while. Maybe organize her thoughts, polish her guns, kill Wario for stealing her lunch plate yesterday… anything, really, to distract her from today's battle. However, as soon as she prepared to leave, she felt Palutena putting her hand on one of her armor's huge shoulders. What could she want now?

"Hey, I was thinking. We still have time for one more brawl before dinner. You wanna spar with me?" Palutena suggested.

Samus bit her lower lip and tried to come up with an excuse. She really wasn't in the mood for spending more time with Palutena. She didn't feel like talking to her any longer. The last thing she wanted was to make a mistake, get beaten up and receive her stupid dance of victory.

"Sure, why not?" the words escaped from her mouth before she could even process what she was saying.

"Okay, great!" Palutena said in an excited tone. "I'll just check which stages are available now and we'll be good to go!"

For the second time that day, Samus was grateful for wearing a helmet. It was the only thing that stopped her from punching herself in the face. She watched her twirl around and exit the Rest Area in order to make a reservation for whatever stage was vacant for them.

Samus sighed. She really needed that hot shower.

But for some asinine reason she couldn't say no, so she might as well go with it. Besides, she was sure Palutena would make the fight set to only a few couple of minutes, as she was sure that the goddess, despite her perky ways and how she strutted around, was also getting tired. Not that Samus paid a lot of attention to the way Palutena walked, just so she could be clear.

She saw her returning after a few minutes with the slyest grin on her face. This could only spell trouble…

"Six lives… six lives… six lives…" Samus grumbled.

The brawl was going to be set on Yoshi's Island, with all items turned off, including Smash Balls. Both would have six lives and there was no limited amount of time. Has Palutena lost her damn mind? They would take forever to finish that battle. Of course, Samus could always jump off the stage six times and end that future long battle, but that wouldn't be honorable at all. Especially for a full-time veteran like her.

To top it all, Palutena made the match be between her and Samus in her Zero Suit outfit. If she was expecting to have an easy battle just because she was without her armor and heavy guns, Palutena was in for a big trouble.

Samus would finish that battle with flying colors. The goddess would regret setting up such a ridiculous amount of lives for that fight just so she could annoy the bounty huntress and try to get an easy victory.

3… 2…

She saw Palutena come out from a pair of golden door, walking confidently and turning her attention to Samus, who already stood at the other side of the stage. At least, Palutena's blue eyes seemed to show a little bit more seriousness now, which was good.

Though she couldn't tell exactly if it was seriousness. It wasn't her playful expression either, Samus could tell that very well.

1… GO!

The two got locked in a heated battle, with Samus using her rocket boots to kick and hit her opponent with its jet flames, while Palutena, in return, continued to counter her kicks and abusing of her Auto-Reticle power in order to make some damage on Samus before parting to the real full blow attacks.

Yet most kicks didn't hit, while most shots missed their target. Samus jumped into the air and dived in with her heels heading straight to Palutena's head. The green haired woman raised her staff, countered her attack and threw her on the floor. Without giving Samus any time to react, she dashed towards her and used her beam light causing her opponent to be sent flying off the stage.

"Okay, that's it!" the bounty huntress thought as she spawned from the floating platform that brought her back.

Samus took the opportunity that Palutena was distracted and quickly spun her les, delivering two strong kicks on her and sending the goddess flying away. She heard the other scream in satisfaction.

"Attacking me from behind, while I was distracted?" Palutena teased. She jumped off from the platform. "That's not very honorable of you."

"Revenge for setting up this ridiculous amount of lives," Samus answered, reading her paralyzer gun.

"Well, if you didn't like the way I've set up this battle, then maybe you should have come with me and told me what you wanted to do, don't you think?" she said. "Reflect!"

A wall of light appeared right in front of her and reflected the electric shot that escaped from the blonde's gun. Samus quickly dodged it before she was hit by her own attack. "Oh, don't give me that excuse! Nobody sets up six lives for a brawl that's not supposed to take very long," she frowned. "Especially not after coming back from another one a few minutes ago."

"I don't know why you are so angry about this," Palutena dashed with her shield positioned in front of her, ready to ram on Samus.

"You know exactly why I'm angry!" she spat while dodging the shield by rolling on the ground.

"No, not really…"

"You do this just so you can provoke me."

Palutena stopped whatever she was doing and looked at Samus with an amused, yet at the same time, baffled expression. Where on Skyworld had Samus ever come to that conclusion?

Samus got up and noticed the goddess trying to decide what she should be feeling with that statement. There, she had finally said. Wasn't she right, in the end? Palutena was doing that just so she could get on her nerves. Ever since she has arrived, Palutena had been doing nothing but doing those passive-aggressive gestures so she could test the other's patience.

She kept asking her to fight her, kept shooting her the weirdest glares when they crossed each other's ways when walking around the Smash Mansion (which Samus made the favor of returning them with them same intensity) and just all around treated her differently from the other Smashers when she talked to her.

And that staff dance. The staff dance was also important. She was pretty sure that Palutena never did that, except when she was standing on the same stage with the blonde. Samus' heart started to beat faster and her face started to blush as the image of Palutena dancing came to her mind again…

Out of second-hand embarrassment for her, of course.

"Well, I'm not doing this to irritate you," she answered honestly. "If anything, I just set up these six lives because I wanted to spend more time with you."

"Wait, what?" that had taken Samus aback more than necessary.

"I wanted to spend more time with you," Palutena repeated and then shrugged her shoulders. "We barely battled together, let alone against each other."

"We have fought together for about four times! Five, counting this one," Samus corrected her. She could feel her adrenaline slowly dimming out. "That is a lot more than the amount of times I have faced other people."

"Four times is nothing when most of them were just a 2 minute free-for-all battle."

"Makes sense, I suppose," the blonde muttered. "But why do you want to battle me that much?"

"Reasons."

"Reasons?"

"Reasons."

And there she was with that playful smile again. Now that both were calm, it seemed like forever until one of them even remembered that they were having a brawl to begin with. Samus shifted her weight from where she stood, a little awkward to ask if they should continue their fight, because she was feeling pretty tired and wanted to go to her room as soon as possible. Honestly, Palutena was acting so weird, even for her standards. If she was not out there to get on Samus' wrong side then what could she want?

"I didn't even want to be here," the blonde mumbled.

Palutena tilted her head to the side, still holding on to that smile. "Then why did you accept my invitation?" she asked.

"I don't know. I actually wanted to stay away from you," she let out a nervous chuckle. "Dammit, Palutena, you really are messing up with my head."

"Heh, I know. It's part of my job, to mess up with people," she said in a humorous tone.

"So you do admit you were out there to annoy me?"

"I'm not that type of person, so no," Palutena then went silent for a few seconds, before continuing: "Hold on, you mean that this entire time you were mad at me because you thought I was annoying? Why?"

Samus bit her lower lip, now thinking about what Palutena asked. How should she say it without sounding like an immature child? She was so certain about how she felt about Palutena and why. Now that the green haired woman asked, she couldn't but feel that everything she thought about her was childish and irrational.

She had to try, tough. She was a level-headed and mature woman after all.

"It's just the way you acted around me, you know? Especially in today's battle…"

"What about today's battle?"

Samus was not very good at sorting out her feelings; the blonde just had that amazing realization now. If she decided to punch herself in the face, there was no helmet to protect her from her own fist.

"I-It's just… why do you have to do that?"

"That what?"

"…Dance?"

"What dance?" an amused smile formed on the corner Palutena's full lips.

"That dance. You know," she pointed at her staff. "Around that pole… I mean, weapon."

"You mean this one?"

That was it, Palutena was officially dead. There she went again with that horrible taunting. She raised her bare leg up in the air and spun around her staff, this time doing it as slowly as possible and bending as much as she could, while laughing at Samus' reddened face. If Samus wanted any reason to go back to their match, that moment was now.

Palutena stopped as soon as she saw the blonde tighten her grip on her gun. "Hey, come on now. I was just joking," she giggled. "I won't do it anymore if you don't want to, I promise."

"W-Why do you do this?!" Samus exclaimed, her face almost catching fire.

"Because it's fun to see you blush that hard," her tone of voice showed clearly that she was enjoying every single second of that moment.

"So you think it's funny, uh?"

"Nah, I think it's cute."

"Excuse me?"

Samus was surprised at how much Palutena was caught off guard by what she, herself, had said. It sounded like she didn't want that little bit of information to escape.

"I… think it's cute when you blush like this," Palutena looked away, still wearing that smile. Now it was her turn to have her cheeks turn pink. "And… that's the reason why I made you wear you Zero Suit for this battle. That armor of yours covered everything; I couldn't see your face."

Samus suddenly became aware of how the goddess looked at her face and at her entire body. With her heart beating as fast and as loud as a drummer, she instinctively hugged herself, not sure about what to make out of the situation.

"Is that so?" was all she could say.

She was sure that, if any other Smasher were to act the way Palutena was acting right now, Samus would probably scold him or her, at best. At worst, she would probably punch him or her in the face, depending on their age. One of the reasons why nobody ever wanted to get that close to her was because she almost always had that cold glare on her face.

Also because, when you wear an orange metal suit twice your size, it is pretty hard to not feel intimidated. Yet, Palutena seemed to not care about any of that. She managed to break Samus' cold stare so easily, it was ridiculous.

"Samus…" Palutena started, her voice suddenly serious.

The bounty huntress noticed that, despite the other's serious tone, her cheeks were still very red. Samus had to admit it was kind of nice to see that she wasn't the only one there blushing.

Not to mention she looked kind of cute that way…

"Wait, what?"

"I said I wanted to battle you because I wanted to spend more time with you, and that's very true," she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "But it was also an excuse for me to try out something."

Before Samus could react, Palutena closed the gap between the two of them. She gently put her hands on the blonde's cheeks and pulled the bounty huntress into a light kiss. It was sweet, yet cautious at first, as if Palutena was unsure if she should proceed or break apart. Samus' brain was screaming for her to end that moment right now.

Not that she would actually listen to it. That moment just felt too right for her to give any attention to reason. For once, she would rather give in to her emotions.

Samus, with closed eyes, wrapped her arms around the goddess' bare shoulders and let her slightly lean over her, returning the kiss. She could still feel her face burning up as Palutena wrapped her arms around her waist and deepened the kiss between the two, getting more and more excited as the seconds passed by.

She could feel the other's tongue gently licking her lips, making her instinctively open her mouth and let the other woman in. Samus let out a soft moan as the sweet, numbing sensation took over her entire body as the goddess' tongue continued to play around with her mouth. It was as if the rest of the world had simply disappeared and only the two of them were still there.

It was only when Samus could feel Palutena's hand slowly moving downwards that she decided break them apart. Both were panting lightly, and Samus could see the look of hurt from Palutena's face because of that.

"Why did you do that? Now that things were getting interesting," Palutena pouted.

"That's exactly what worries me," Samus said between her breathing. "Don't forget that we still are in the middle of a brawl."

"Samus, you can be so boring sometimes," the green haired deity said sticking her tongue out. "You're lucky you're so cute."

Samus rolled her eyes at how childish Palutena was being. So this was how Pit's beloved Goddess of Light behaved when she was alone.

"You'll live," she said. "Do you always act like that around your loyal subjects?"

"Only around pretty girls that I just so happen to like a lot," Palutena teased playfully.

The two separated from each other, both looking at every possible direction, except towards their partner. What else could Samus say after something like that happened?

"So I guess brawl's over," said Palutena, breaking the silence between them.

"I don't think there was one to begin with," Samus commented. "You know, considering this was all part of an evil plan of yours to steal a kiss from me."

"Hey, I was being sincere about wanting to spend more time with you," she grinned. Surprisingly, all the annoyance Samus felt with that little gesture of hers seemed to have disappeared.

"Want to hang out after dinner?" she asked.

"I'm feeling a bit tired. I still need to take a shower and everything," Samus said. She saw the goddess' grin fade into a sad expression. "But… we could hang out tomorrow, after breakfast, if you want. I'm completely free."

"Or we could just hang out together in your shower," she said wrapping an arm around her waist.

"PALUTENA!" Samus quickly pushed her arm away.

"Got'cha," Palutena winked at her.

Honestly, the goddess could be such a tease sometimes. Despite all of that, a light smile formed on the corner of Samus' thin lips.

Robin and Lucina watched at the scene on the screen ahead of them with their mouths agape. Thanks to Robin's terrible habit of analyzing every single detail from their fighting videos, both he and Lucina ended up staying inside the Recording Room way longer than necessary.

And they were planning on checking up only their battle video. They really were. Especially Lucina, since she was getting tired of replaying their battle over and over again.

Yet, when they saw that another video has been uploaded to one of the room's various computer screens, one of Palutena and Samus (their last opponents) fighting nonetheless, Robin's curiosity spoke a little bit too louder. He just wanted to see how the two were doing, and even encouraged Lucina to do the same, because it was always good to know more about your future rivals.

The last thing they expected to do was to… invade their privacy.

Yeah.

"But they are both girls," Lucina commented.

"Wow, you know nothing, you innocent," said someone from behind them.

They two jumped at the sudden voice and turned their heads around, only to find Dark Pit standing behind them with crossed arms. He had a very smug smile on his face and Lucina was sure it was directed at neither her nor Robin.

"Where did you come from?" Robin asked, trying to find the button to close the video.

"Just came back from a brawl with Greninja and decided to see my victory again," he answered with shrug of his shoulders.

"We were doing the same."

"Doesn't look like it."

"It was an accident, we swear!" Lucina pleaded. "I didn't even know girls could do that!"

"Lucina, no, you're only making things worse!" Robin quickly reprimanded her.

Dark Pit snorted at that statement and decided to leave the two very embarrassed sword users alone. He waved his hand at them as he turned around and left the room, not even bothering in watching his battle video.

"Pit will flip his shit," the dark angel thought in delight.

Okay, so, in my defense, this is the first time I ever write fluff. I'm really not used to this. But, since there's absolutely nothing about Samus/Palutena out there, I needed to take matters in my own hands.

And to those thinking "wow, this is such a crack ship", just remember that this is a fic for a fighting crossover series. Anything goes.

At least, Metroid and Kid Icarus have the excuse of originally being sister series.