A/N: Hey guys! I am so excited to post this; it's an idea I've treasured for FOREVER and while it originally started out as a oneshot, it quickly became over 45,000 words (oops). I was trying to hold off on posting it until after I had finished Trapped but I honestly couldn't wait, I wanted to share this with you all so badly (it's so very full of *squee*). Never fear, I still plan on finishing Trapped. This one is a little unlike most things I've done before, and that's why there isn't a description (I'm not spoiling ANYTHING but I will put one up eventually), so feel free to let me know what you think. I am super excited about it and I hope you all like it! This first chapter takes place right after 'Spawn Hunters'.

When you're part of an elite defense force that prevents evil aliens from conquering the planet and has to work on the Multiverse's schedule, there aren't too many things you can count on. But besides grabbing pizza after just about any mission, the Battle Force 5 did have one tradition that they never allowed themselves to break.

Specifically, Meatball Monday. With Agura and Sherman working magic in the kitchen, their teammates always had an Italian feast for dinner that night. The only tough part was the waiting. Vert, Zoom, Spinner, Stanford, AJ and Tezz sat assembled at the table. The kitchen and dining room were separated by a long counter that came about four feet up from the floor, and cabinets that hung down filled with dishes, which left a two-foot window of communication in between the two. These stretched almost all the way across the room, but left a wide doorway in between the counter and wall. It was designed so conveniently that communication between the two rooms, of not only voices but smells, required little effort, but both sections could be made private if the need arose. The boys at the table were worn out from an unsuccessful attempt to destroy Kytren's respawn chamber, but nothing could deter them from savoring the mouthwatering aroma of Sherman's homemade meatballs. Even Tezz was lured out of hiding at the prospect of the one meal he actually chose to eat with his teammates. Any other night Vert would have to order the scientist out from his lab, but Meatball Monday, for a variety of reasons, was just special. However, the captain seemed especially distraught at the moment, and was rubbing his neck in agitation.

Zoom was the first to ask. "Vert, you okay?"

"I might be, if Spinner hadn't given me whiplash from his delightful driving of the Saber today…" Vert growled pointedly at his tech associate.

"Hey, in my defense, I don't drive," Spinner folded his arms. "That's little bro's thing, right little bro?" He turned his shoulder back towards the kitchen, and Sherman's thumbs-up appeared in the opening.

"It was practically a racing video game!" Vert scoffed. "Aren't you supposed to be good at those?"

Spinner's mouth snapped open, armed with a comeback, but it quickly withered under his leader's angry glare.

"And speaking of people being good at things, maybe we should make containment units last longer than, oh, I don't know, fifteen minutes!" The Crimson One turned his scowl onto Tezz.

"Don't tell me you're blaming the man who fixed that crude device," the Russian clenched his jaw.

"Fixed?" Sherman's voice challenged from the kitchen.

"It would not have so much as functioned without my modifications!" Tezz snapped in the direction of the cook.

"I don't care who's responsible for the design flaw." Vert halted the dispute with a severe glare. "I just don't want it happening again."

"Maybe if you had sent me in to the Zone instead of Tezz…" Stanford grumbled offhandedly.

"I'm sorry, weren't you busy vanquishing your dead uncle's imaginary ghost, or something?" Vert huffed.

"He is not imaginary!" Stanford defended. "And I still would have done a better job than Zoom and Agura! All they did was get stuck behind a rock pile, and the Tangler lost a bloody wheel!"

"Hey!" Zoom looked offended. In the kitchen, Agura rolled her eyes, but stayed out of the dispute.

"Look, nobody was on their game today, alright?" Vert pushed back his chair, stood straight up, and folded his arms. "We made some mistakes and a couple of bad calls, and maybe without them we would have destroyed Kytren's respawn chamber. And this isn't just a fluke; we've been slacking for a while now. I don't know what's going on with you guys, but our mission is still just as important as it was on day one. Everyone needs to pull it together, now. I had better see a-games tomorrow and nothing less, got it?"

"Get our shit together or risk the fate of Earth. Got it," Spinner muttered under his breath. Vert gave him a glare that could have frozen Kyburi's core before stalking angrily out.

"Well, bloody hell," Stanford remarked, once their leader's footsteps were out of hearing range.

"Geez, what a douche canoe!" Spinner added. "What's eating him?"

"We did our best," Zoom mumbled, feeling the full force of his leader's disappointment.

"Maybe he needs help pulling that stick out of his—"

"Boys! Please!" Agura stood in the doorway with her arms folded. "Can we not do this at the dinner table?"

"Well, maybe if Tezz hadn't felt the need to stick his little gauntlet into everything, our containment unit would have actually worked," Sherman grumbled, slipping in from behind her.

"Chush' sobach'ya," Tezz coughed. Agura raised an eyebrow at him. As Sherman set bowls of pasta on the table, the huntress put her hands on her hips, narrowed her eyes, and subsequently entered full-scale lecture mode. Her teammates wilted under the familiar stance before she had even opened her mouth.

"Alright, I don't even know what a douche canoe IS, but everyone had better get their language under control right now, bilingualists included! Vert may be our leader but he's still our friend, so if anybody has a problem with him they can either talk to him or through me." She arched her eyebrows, daring any brave soul to challenge her verdict. "I'm not dealing with this behind-the-back crap and I'm definitely not dealing with it over team dinner. Got it?"

"Got it," her teammates grumbled in accord.

"Great." Agura smiled in satisfaction and took her place at the table. "Let's eat."

Pasta and meatballs were dished out and Vert's lecture, along with Agura's addition, was quickly forgotten. The only reminder was his empty chair.

"You know what we should do tonight, guys?" Stanford started up conversation once most of the team had finished eating (Sherman and AJ were discreetly munching away at third helpings).

"What?" Spinner's eyes brightened in interest.

"We should go out. Hit the town! All we ever do is hang out at the Hub and go to Zeke's. We should see what the tiny, tiny, tiny little municipality of Handler Corners has to offer," Stanford said. There were a few murmurs of assent.

"It sure would be more fun than hanging out here with Sir Stick-in-the-mud…" Spinner grumbled.

"I, for one, would greatly benefit from a cultural study of such a quaint American town," Tezz said.

"Yeah, we've been cooped up practicing this containment unit mission for weeks!" Zoom added.

"A little exploring couldn't hurt," Sherman agreed through a mouthful.

"And Vert's already seen everything a hundred times, so no way will he want to come!" Spinner realized with a cheer. "Agura, whaddya say?" He looked eagerly to Agura, who, too distracted by thoughts of Vert, had only been half-listening.

"About going out?" She enquired. In Vert's absence, Agura remembered, she automatically became the boss, even over social affairs (although she usually was anyway. Her teammates often joked that while Vert was the leader, Agura was in charge). "Um, you guys can go if you want. I have a lot of stuff to catch up on."

"Aww, come on," AJ cajoled. "It'll be totally fun!"

Agura shook her head. "Thanks, guys, but I'm kind of worried about Vert."

"Well I'm worried about him too," Spinner cut in, and everyone looked to him in total disbelief. The gamer cracked a slow grin. "Worried that the stick he's got stuck up his butt is gonna come out his mouth one day!" He cracked the punchline, and received a few chuckles.

Agura just rolled her eyes. "I'm gonna hang back. You guys have fun. Don't stay out too late or do anything too dumb, okay?"

"Yes ma'am," Spinner saluted.

"Sherman?" Agura raised an eyebrow at likely the most responsible member of the group.

"I'll keep them out of trouble," he chuckled. At the cue to leave, the boys began standing up, pushing their chairs in and placing their dishes in the dishwasher. Agura smiled in no small amount of pride; they had been trained so well. As the cars roared out of the Hub, a plan formed in her mind. Agura paced the kitchen for a while in thought, and eventually summoned her courage and went to knock on Vert's door.

It slid open, and he looked none too happy standing on the other side. "What?"

His brusqueness admittedly squashed most of the audacity she had gathered. "There's some pasta left," she said carefully. "Are you hungry?"

He scowled. "Not particularly."

"The guys just took off for the night," Agura added. "They're gone for at least four hours."

He glanced at his watch, and reflexively, she checked her own. 7:48.

"I'll be there in a minute," Vert finally said. When he did arrive, a steaming bowl of pasta and three meatballs, the number he always took, sat at his place at the head of the table. Agura was in the kitchen adjacent, cleaning up and humming along to the radio. It was the only noise between them for multiple minutes.

"So," she finally cleared her throat. Agura stood in the threshold of the kitchen and dining room, wiping a pot dry. "Everything… okay?"

"Fine," he muttered.

"Vert…" Agura set the pot down and joined him at the table. "I know you too well to believe that."

He idly twirled his fork.

"Don't…" she took a deep breath. "Don't take this the wrong way, but you've been kinda stressed lately."

"Stressed?" The fork clattered down into his bowl, and his eyes flashed up to her.

Timidly, Agura gave a tiny nod.

"Of course I'm stressed!" Vert snapped, and she jumped a little at the sudden assertion. "We have to deal with Sage's evil side of the family now, all of whom are about ten times stronger and smarter than the Sark or Vandals, and I have to make sure that everybody who enters that BattleZone comes out of it! And not only that, but even when we DO defeat these guys, they just respawn and come back fighting even harder! And don't even get me started on having Tezz join because oh my God, dealing with him is like sticking a bratty kid in a candy store and telling him not to touch anything. So I have to not only do all of that but then still be the perfect role model for Zoom and not lose it every six minutes, I still have to be everybody's best friend and the cool guy while getting the job done, and then of course there's tax reports and chore charts and getting groceries and everything else that goes along with housing eight totally different people under one roof! It's insanity, especially when you take Stanford and Tezz's egos into account! I don't know how I'm supposed to get everything done!" He slammed his palms down on the table and exhaled heavily, trying to regain the cool he had so clearly just lost.

She waited.

Finally, "Sorry," Vert muttered halfheartedly. "That was kind of a lot."

"It's a lot to have on your shoulders, too," she said softly.

"Yeah, actually, it kind of is!" He snapped, but she knew the aggression wasn't directed at her.

Agura thought for a long time about what to say next.

"You know, maybe you just need to take a little break from it all," she started nervously, trying to figure out how in the world she was going to bring her proposition up.

"Ha!" His laugh was more a harsh exhalation of air than anything. "Now that's funny."

"I'm serious." She pressed on. "Just for, like, tonight. You need something to take your mind off of things."

"I doubt that's possible, but I'll hear you out nonetheless," he frowned, but there was the tiniest flicker of intrigue in his eyes.

"Well," Agura took a deep breath, trying to steady her nerves. "The guys are all out for the night and won't be back for hours. It's really just the two of us, and we've got the whole Hub to ourselves, except for Sage who's charging and never comes up to our bedrooms anyways."

Vert's eyebrows lifted, and he slowly set his fork down. "Are you… Are you actually suggesting what I think you are?"

Agura shrugged, trying her hardest to make it casual and to keep the flirty smirk on her face. "You know what they say about exercise and stress relief."

She had never seen him looked so shocked. Slack-jawed, actually, as he tried to process what she was telling him.

"Wait wait wait," Vert shook his head. "Let me get this straight: you want to…have sex, because I'm a little stressed?"

"Honey, you're way past 'a little stressed'," Agura frowned. "Seriously, Vert, we're all worried about you!"

"Oh, so now the whole team is in on this!" Vert threw his hands up in the air in exasperation. "Who was the first to throw you under the bus, Spinner?"

"Actually, this was just my idea," she rolled her eyes. "Like it or not, Vert, I care about your mental health, and if there's one thing I know about teenage boys, this is nothing but a nice little pick-me-up."

"So you're serious about this," he stated flatly. "This is something that you want to happen."

"It's not even a big deal if you think about it," she shrugged, forcing nonchalance. "We'd be just like friends with benefits. For not even a single night."

"Except we wouldn't be just friends with benefits," Vert argued. "We'd be two people, who fight, work and live together, every hour of the day, who hooked up once and never had their friendship recover from it. And I don't want that to be us, Agura!"

"And that's totally up to you!" She said right back. "It'll only be awkward if WE make it that way. So stop making it awkward!"

"I can't help it! What if the sex is bad, or, something weird happens—"

"You and I are amongst the hottest people in the Hub. The sex won't be bad."

"You don't know that! What if I'm secretly terrible in bed?"

"Are you?" She challenged.

"Well, no," he snorted.

"Well, great!"

"Okay, Agura, slow down. This is crazy! I don't even know how we would go about this," Vert said. "Like, do we go to my room, or—"

"Yeah," Agura surprised herself with her confidence. "Let's go to your room. I bet you're not even that hard to turn on," she added with a wink, stepping in front of him to lead and making sure to strut her stuff along the way.

"Oh, you'd be surprised," he replied, trying to keep his cool. "And would you quit it with that ridiculous walk? You look like you dislocated your hip bones."

"Alright, that's not a thing, and I think you like it," Agura flounced, swaying from side to side even more.

"Well that's where you're wrong, sorry to say," he chuckled as they approached his bedroom door.

"You don't have to lie to me, Vert. It's okay to be an ass guy," Agura gave him her trademark smirk, and he pretended to roll his eyes. Secretly he was terrified by her new, femme fatale attitude.

Well, terrified and yet captivated beyond measure. He scanned his palm and opened his bedroom door, suddenly worried about the cleanliness of said quarters. The floor was clear enough, just a few piles of laundry here and there. His sheets were rumpled; Vert couldn't recall the last time he had actually made his bed.

"Well, here we are," he stated. Agura, standing next to him, surveyed his room.

"Yeah," she echoed softly. Neither of them spoke for a minute.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" He turned to her tentatively. "Because really, it's very generous, but whether I'm stressed out or not shouldn't be your concern, and I really would hate for things to be awkward—"

"Then let's not make them awkward," Agura said firmly. "Let's just be two friends, bored and on their own for the night who wanted to have a little fun. We can use fake names," she added with a playful grin. "I'll be Angel and you can be Babycakes."

"Damn, I wanted to be Angel," Vert pouted, and she laughed. He tried a different suggestion. "What about real names? I don't want to feel like I'm in a porno."

"What about…." Agura snapped her fingers in thought. "In that friends with benefits movie with Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake, their names are Dylan and Jamie," she suggested.

"Those are terrible names," Vert pointed out. "And both kind of unisex, too," he made a face.

"They are, aren't they?" Agura frowned. "What about…Noah? From The Notebook," Agura offered. "I can be Allie. Y—y'know, if you want."

"I didn't know that you were into romantic movies," he cocked his head curiously.

"There's a lot you don't know about me, Noah," Agura said huskily, trying not to laugh. However, Vert did it for her.

"This is ridiculous," he shook his head in amusement. "Why are we doing this again?"

"Because I'd bet fifty dollars that those tax reports of yours haven't even crossed your mind since we started talking about this," Agura raised her eyebrows in challenge, and he nodded, defeated.

"Okay, you got me. But we're never going to get to the sex part unless one of us gets over ourselves and makes a move," he pointed out.

"Well I mean, you're the boy…" Agura bit her lip and gave him her best puppy-dog eyes.

"Oh, you're choosing now to follow traditional gender roles?" He rolled his eyes.

"Touché," Agura acquiesced. "But one of us is going to have to do it eventually," she pursed her lips in thought.

"Let's play rock paper scissors for it," Vert shrugged. "That way it's at least fair."

"Best two out of three?" Agura asked, and he nodded. "Okay, deal. Loser has to…kiss the winner?"

"How about a long kiss?" Vert pondered. "Really get things going?" He waggled his eyebrows, and she laughed.

"Alright, but it has to be a good one. Like, really good," Agura agreed.

"Ready?" He held out his hand, and she matched him. "Rock, paper, scissors!"

Agura lost. She took a deep breath.

"Okay, rock, paper, scissors!"

This time, Vert threw the wrong hand.

"Tiebreaker," he chuckled anxiously. "Ready?"

Agura nodded.

"Rock, paper, scissors!"

She squeezed a single eye open.

His open hand hovered over her closed fist.

"Paper wraps rock," Vert offered apologetically, the perfect mixture of adorable and awkward.

"Damn," Agura sighed. "Okay." She took a deep breath as they relaxed their hands. "You know what? Let's do this." The huntress wrapped her arms around Vert's neck and pulled him closer to her. She hooked one of her legs around the back of his and tucked the other's knee against him. She met his eyes for a split second, then took one final breath and leaned forward, tilted her head, and pressed her lips softly against his own.

His response was stiff shock, for what felt like ages. A vast crevice of burning regret cracked open in her chest, and Agura pulled away, cheeks flaming with mortification. Vert was staring at her intensely, his eyes clouded with something she couldn't identify, countenance inscrutably frozen. She opened her mouth to apologize and in that same instant he suddenly grabbed her and kissed her desperately. He brought his hands to her waist and pulled her against him, and her leg hooked tighter. Without even realizing it had happened Agura found herself with her legs wrapped around her captain's waist, kissing him fiercely. He held her tightly, strong legs supporting both of them and wonderfully muscular biceps keeping her steady. She kissed him harder, felt that new and exciting warmth flooding through her body, and separated from him only to catch her breath before their lips crashed again, this time frantically, as if each was the other's air.

He had forgotten that something could feel so good.

He didn't have to think, or worry that he was doing something wrong. Everything about her just made him feel comfortable and euphoric and grateful, all at once. He couldn't put his finger on it, but being with Agura just felt right. It came so naturally. Ever since the team's commencement he had felt nothing but the constant pressure to succeed, to be the best leader he could. He couldn't remember the last time he had acted only for himself. The captain could finally relax; know that he was doing something he was guaranteed to succeed at. There were no calls to agonize over, no decisions to be made. There was only her, and everything about her just felt so good. The intimacy between them was indescribable; the strange bond of being both friends and partners. He wouldn't have traded it for anything.

The sex was beautiful, messy, exhilarating imperfection, in the way that they fit together and in the great explosion that surged through them both. Their voices rose and fell with moans, teasing and laughter. Even the verbal exchange was so familiar to him; their own special mix of friendly and flirtatious. She made him feel safe, comfortable, right, worthy. Adept. He hadn't realized how badly he had needed that reinforcement as of late.

For the moment, Agura forgot that he was her leader. She forgot that he had watched her track Vandals and that he had clashed swords with a Red Sentient. She even forgot that her room was just across the illuminated blue hallway, right outside his door. The thing that had brought them together, the giant underground base that surrounded them, gone.

He was Vert. He wasn't the Crimson One, the captain, the one with fire in his spirit that the prophecy had foretold of. They didn't fight mutant animals or killer robots together. Their teammates, their roles, all vanished from her mind.

He was just Vert. Vert Wheeler, with his cocky, devil-may-care attitude and the always-present playful twinkle in those captivating blue eyes. Vert with the strong arms that held her like the most precious thing in the world and pulled her down onto his bed, with the amazingly chiseled abs that rose to meet her own stomach. Vert with his wonderfully powerful legs that could make her body feel things previously unknown to her and the hands that so gently caressed her back and breast. Vert, the gentleman shaker of universes and producer of orgasms and Vert with a look like none other in his eyes when he was brought to the height of pleasure. Vert, who had a deep and husky sensuousness to his voice, previously unheard of and discovered only when, somewhere between a groan and a gasp, he cried out her name.

In that indefinable time they spent connected in the way only two people can, he was just Vert. Perfect, wonderful, reality-defying Vert. And when they separated, and fell back onto his sheets with that beautiful warmth slowly rippling through them, and his hand found hers underneath the sheets and squeezed tightly, he was still just Vert.

They lay there together, catching their breath. Agura laid her arm and head across his bare chest and rested there, tucking her leg up across his.

His arms held her close and his lips were at her ear as he whispered to her, "Stay the night?"

She mumbled a sound of vague affirmation into his chest, which rose and fell with his breathing and eventually lulled her to sleep.