AN: This story is an entry in the "Heroic Actions" category of the Quarantine Writing Challenge. To vote for this story and find out more about the contest, please go to u/13340821/Quarantine-Writing-Challenge during the voting period from May 4-11. Thank you!

"What?" Kensi demanded from her partner, looking absolutely baffled.

"You heard me," Deeks replied, lacing his fingers together and wearing an expectant look on his face.

"Yes, I did. But there is absolutely no way I could have heard that right. It was ridiculous sounding."

"Going deaf in your old age, partner?" Deeks teased.

Kensi shot him an unamused look tempered with a dangerous glint. That was never a good thing.

"You're older than me."

"Only by three years," Deeks replied quickly.

The dangerous glint turned into a fully-fledged dangerous look. One that implied that pain was imminent. Change the subject. Change the subject.

"Artillery fire then," he hastily corrected.

"Artillery fire?"

"You know? Bullets and machine guns and bombs and stuff," Deeks made the shape of a gun with his fingers. "Have they finally deafened you?"

"Finally defeaned me?" Kensi repeated, eyebrow raised.

"Had to happen sometime with your love of guns and stuff."

"Guns and stuff?" Kensi shook her head. "What are you, five? Actually, don't answer that. Let's get back to you repeating your question."

Deeks smiled and shook his head but did as instructed. Taking a deep breath for dramatic effect he repeated, "On a scale from one to my mother, how good are you at martial arts?"

Kensi stared blankly at him again as he reached across to grab a nacho from the pretty full plate between them. Not that it would remain like that for long. They were delicious, if he could say so himself (he did make them after all). He resisted the urge to wave a hand in front of her face to get her to blink. That would definitely be the quickest way to lose his hand and he quite liked this one. Kensi liked holding that one.

"Is that a negative scale or something? Does it start or end at one?" she asked, frowning slightly and grabbing a generous handful of nachos for herself.

Deeks gave her an offended look, "I'll have you know that my mother can kick ass. Did you even see her with that boot last week? Deadly, that was."

Kensi thankfully swallowed her mouthful of nachos before replying in a deadpan tone, "That poor salesman never even saw it coming."

"Laugh it up, Princess," taunted Deeks. "You're just jealous of my momma's mad skills."

"Yes. I'm trained in at least four different martial arts but I really want to have skills in the art of boot throwing."

"Only four?" Deeks mused, nibbling across the edge of another nacho absent-mindedly. "I would have thought Hetty would have had you trained in at least a dozen."

"That's more Sam's style and no distractions," she chided him. "Back to your mother's apparent 'mad boot skills'."

"You could at least do the inverted comma thing with your fingers if you're going to say it like that," Deeks sulked.

"Deeks."

"I think it's more like proactive defensive strategies," Deeks finally replied after a further three nachos. Just long enough to drag out Kensi's frustrations. "And I don't hear you answering your question."

"You can't call it a defensive strategy if no one was attacking her," Kensi deflected. "The salesman was just trying to return the wrong size for her."

Deeks sighed and rolled his eyes. "It's the thought that counts, obviously. She could have taken that man down if her was attacking her."

"True," Kensi agreed, snorting slightly at the memory. "I'm just glad that we could persuade the security guard to let her go."

"I hope he realised what I rescued him from," Deeks told her quite seriously.

This was his mother after all, never mind her getting arrested or something – she could have seriously traumatised that poor man. The woman just had a talent for it. He should know. He was her son.

"The guard did look kind of terrified," Kensi reminisced, looking far too amused by the memory.

It hadn't been funny at all! His mom had some seriously deadly aim and those shoes she wanted had a spiked heel for crying out loud. Why his mother needs a shoe with a terrifyingly spiked heel was another matter that he was not going to think too much about.

Thank God he had quick reflexes (Sam would seriously be proud) and he managed to get between the security guard and the dangerous projectile. He even managed to grab said shoe without it piercing his hand or something (that would have made an interesting trip to the ER).

The security guard, Barney his name was, had gone through the entire interaction with wide, frightened eyes right from the start and the shoe throwing definitely hadn't helped matters. Deeks hadn't known people to go quite that shade of green before, nor had he seen eyes bulge that much. It couldn't be healthy.

Either way, Deeks thankfully had managed to save the poor man from have his eye pierced by a shoe. At least Barney had been suitably grateful for it, which Deeks had appreciated. Until the guy went and called for backup. In a shoe store. When there was no gun or knife in sight. On his mother.

Okay, maybe it had been a little funny. The poor man obviously didn't think he could face Momma Deeks again and Deeks didn't exactly blame him though asking for more people to be involved in the whole scenario wasn't the smartest idea in Deeks' books. Which is why his badge had had to come out.

"He looked like he was about to wet himself. Or throw up," Deeks said. "I kind of had to step in then."

Kensi patted him on the arm, "You did your good deed for the day."

Hm, that wasn't exactly a sincere tone but he'd take it.

"Damn right I did," he grumbled.

Two good deeds in fact. He prevented a bloody mess from happening and stopped his mom from getting in trouble. Just about in both cases.

"Yeah, I didn't really want my mom to have some sort of record at the mall. She needs something to keep her occupied during the day that doesn't involve her sending me increasingly weird GIFs."

"The one about the America's Next Top Model judge flipping out was pretty good."

"Then why didn't she send it to you?" Deeks asked in exasperation. "I don't want that sort of stuff on my phone again."

Kensi shrugged. "Doesn't matter," she said soothingly. "You managed to satisfy Mall Security."

"Pretending you're an off-duty LAPD Officer who would willingly take a 'problem customer' off his hands worked a treat," Deeks agreed.

"There you go, it all ended fine."

"Mom didn't have to play up the 'deranged customer' quite so much," he said with a sigh.

"She apologised and bought you a new ice pop for the one she made you drop."

"I guess," Deeks said, unconvinced and then narrowed his eyes at her. "Enough distractions. Answer the question."

Kensi huffed at him, her bottom lip poking out briefly in a pout. He wasn't going to let it affect him this time.

"Why are we even playing 'Twenty Questions' again?" she demanded, reaching for more nachos only to frown when he pulled them out of her reach. "Hey!"

Deeks ignored her little outburst and told her, "Because we're partners and we should know this sort of stuff about each other. It's very important."

"For more than five years, Deeks. We've been partners for more than five years. And we're dating. And you already know what you need to know about me."

Hmm, that implied that there was stuff about her that she deemed that he didn't need to know. Which was ridiculous. He already knew everything. Even the stuff she thought she hadn't told him.

"Not answering the question, " Deeks sang at her.

"It's a silly question."

That made him decide to completely lift the plate away and over his head.

"No more food until you answer the question."

Rolling her eyes at her goofy boyfriend, she replied, "Is your mom at the top or at the bottom of this scale?"

"The top, of course," Deeks replied in a scathing tone. "For her chutzpah and sheer intimidation factor. Today should have shown that adequately."

"Of course," Kensi agreed with mock solemnity. "That's a good point."

"Told you."

"Then I'm nowhere near your mom. Even I don't have it in me to scare salespeople like that." Kensi couldn't help but grin as she responded.

Deeks nodded and grinned triumphantly.

"See!" he crowed. "Weirdly phrased, normal-ish phrases for 'Twenty Questions' is fun!"

"I am far too sober for this."

"You're loving it."

"No."

"You're loving me, then."

"Debatable."

Deeks pulled a mock sad face before grinning at her.

"Your turn, Kensalina."