Disclaimer: If I owned Power Rangers, I would not waste my time writing fanfiction; I'd be putting this stuff in the show every week. Clearly, I don't own it. So don't sue.
A/N: Some Conner/Kira fluff I was working on. Set prior to the White Thunder saga.
Wonderwall
It was so weird. A couple of months ago, Conner barely knew these people. Ethan James, the school geek, and Kira Ford, the school freak. Cassidy was right, the three of them hanging out was improbable at best.But these guys were his friends now. Not just his friends, but his best friends. They hung out all the time, even when they weren't pulling superhero duty. Sure, they had their alone time; Conner had soccer, Ethan had geek-duty (a.k.a. all video games, all the time), and Kira had her music. But it was really cool that they were all different. If Hayley and Dr. O. were ever incapacitated or whatever, Ethan could probably take over computer duty and keep things running. And Kira…well…okay, so Conner couldn't exactly think of her precise function on the team. But at the same time, he couldn't imagine the team without her. As a matter of fact, there were a lot of things he couldn't imagine without her. Like her snarky under-her-breath comments in class, or the way she always carried around a note pad to jot down song ideas and lyrics. Oh, and of course, her music…not exactly his style, but he had to admit, she was really good. And pretty, too, there were definite upsides to being on this team…
"Hey, Conner, dude, your wrist is, like, flashing."
Conner glanced over at his practice goalie; a little short kid named Matthew who had to wear tons of padding to even stomach the force of Conner's soccer balls. They had just finished up their early morning practice, and were on their way into the school. Conner glanced down at his communicator, the red jewel of which was indeed flashing.
"What's with that?" Matthew asked, leaning in a little too close to peer at it.
Conner jerked his arm away gently. "Just an alarm," he said. "I'm late for something."
"Yeah, you're gonna be late for school, dude," Matthew said, shaking his head slightly. Conner patted the guy on the shoulder and jogged off as Matthew went inside. Conner took up post, half-hidden behind a bush, and answered his beckoning. "Conner here."
"Conner, yo, it's Ethan. We're at Dr. O.'s…it's kind of an emergency."
"I'll be there as soon as I can," Conner said. He stuck his foot in the loop of his gym bag lying on the ground, and kicked it up into his hands before heading towards the parking lot. He had his fingers crossed that Principal Randall wouldn't catch him…he'd already missed a few homerooms because of his unofficial practices going a little overboard, and he was this close to getting suspended. He hopped into his car and sped off towards Valencia Drive.
When he arrived in the secret sub-basement of Dr. Oliver's modest home, he saw Ethan, Dr. O., and Hayley --but no Yellow Ranger. "Where's Kira?" he asked, found himself suddenly on the verge of panic. "Is she okay? Mesogog didn't get her, did he?"
Ethan and Dr. O. exchanged a look. "Getting a little antsy about the little punk princess, are we, Conner?" Ethan said, barely containing his laughter as he smirked. What annoyed Conner to no end was that even Dr. O. was hiding a smile.
"No, dude, I'm just saying that I mean, she…well, I mean, she's not as strong a Ranger, obviously, and she could have been kidnapped again."
Ethan made a little 'oops!' face before grinning even more widely. "Not as strong a Ranger?" Conner heard a very familiar voice demand, and his heart sunk as he turned around to see Kira glaring ferociously at him. "Why, because I'm a girl? I'll have you know, I could kick your butt back to the freaking Stone Age, any day of the week, McKnight, and don't you forget it." She jabbed his chest with her finger --and he managed not to wince-- before she joined the others. "I got the page, Dr. O., what's up?"
"We've got a possible egg," Dr. Oliver said.
"Possible?" Kira said. "As in, you're dragging us out of homeroom to look at something that could just be a pretty, painted rock?"
"Pretty much," Dr. Oliver answered. "But I write your passes, so let's get going."
"Right," the three teenagers said, while Hayley took her place at the console. They started for the Raptor Cycles, but Kira refused to even look at Conner.
"Conner, could you hold up a sec?" Hayley called.
"Sure thing," Conner said, heading back to their eye in the sky.
"Look," she said in a low voice, "it would be easier on everyone if you just admitted that you had a thing for Kira."
"What?" Conner erupted, then glanced over at his shoulder in the direction where his team had gone, and lowered his voice. "I do not have a 'thing' for Kira. Okay?"
"Whatever, big red," Hayley said, rolling her eyes. "But like her or not, you really shouldn't be ticking her off. She really could kick your butt."
"CONNER!" Dr. O. called.
"Man, are you coming?" Ethan added.
"I gotta go," Conner said, running off to join the others. "Sorry," he mumbled. "Hayley wanted me for something."
"Hey, I got a test on Romeo and Juliet this morning, take your time," Ethan said.
"In that case, we're definitely hurrying," Dr. Oliver said.
"Aw, c'mon, Dr. O. Like you never let your studies fall to the wayside when you were pulling double duty," Ethan said.
"We're not here to discuss my past, we're here to get some eggs," Dr. O. said, in his usual we're-not-talking-about-this tone. "Okay?" His students nodded their consent. "Okay then. Ready!" he yelled, getting into position.
"Ready!"
"Dino Thunder, power up! HA!"
Morphed, they hopped onto the cycles and took off. Dr. O. took the lead, and they were at the site in about fifteen minutes. Ethan was manning one of the sensors, while Conner and Kira took the periphery in case of an unexpected Tyrannodrone attack. "Look, Kira--" Conner started.
"Whatever you have to say, I can guarantee I'm not interested."
"Fine, be like that," Conner said. He wasn't about to argue with such a hotheaded little--
"Kira, look out!" he yelled, having spotted a flash of movement over her shoulder. Instantly the Yellow Ranger ducked and whirled. Conner figured that if they were behind her, they were also behind him, and so he turned. He had predicted correctly, and landed a roundhouse kick in the gut of a Tyrannodrone. "You guys better hurry up with your Easter hunt, 'cause we've got company!"
"We're working on it!" Dr. O. yelled. "Hold them off!"
"Trying!" Kira grunted behind Conner.
Conner ducked to avoid a swinging drone, landed a back kick on one behind him, but as he righted himself, was body-slammed by a third and went down. "Whoa!" He struggled against his attacker, but now there were two. They were heavy, strong, and had an advantage. "Man down; man down!" he announced, wriggling.
"Oh, I'm sorry, were you looking for this?" said a familiar voice, and Conner felt the drones on top of him go a little slack. He recognized this as the opportunity it was. "Tyranno Staff!" he said, and it appeared in his hand. He whipped it against his attackers, and they fell back from him. He jumped to his feet, and as he'd suspected, Elsa was standing there, smirking, the egg in hand.
Conner pointed his staff at Elsa, furious that he was risking detention and getting his butt kicked at the risk that the bondage queen would steal what they'd come here for. "Give it up, Elsa."
"Or what, you'll poke me with your little stick?" she said. "Not threatened at all, I'm afraid. Thanks for the present, Rangers! Ciao!" Then another hole opened, and sucked in Elsa and the drones.
"So all of that…for nothing, basically," Conner said, putting away his staff. "Fantastic. I get detention, and the bad guys win."
"Not so much as you might think," Dr. Oliver said, and though they couldn't see his face, Conner could tell by his tone that he was smirking.
"What's up?" Kira asked.
"The egg was bogus," Ethan explained. "A fake."
"You psyched them out?" Conner said.
"Something to that effect. We didn't know if it was legit or not, we told you guys that."
"C'mon guys, we gotta get you to school," Dr. O. said.
"Don't you have to get to school, too?" Kira asked.
"Touché." As they headed back for the cycles, the Black Ranger put his hand on Conner's shoulder. "Five times."
"Five times?" Conner repeated, bemused.
"I've been kidnapped five times. It's not some girl thing," the science teacher said, leaving Conner to stare after him.
Conner slid into the seat next to Kira in science. Dr. O. was usually really lenient about seating arrangements, knowing that kids were usually going to sit in the same place every day anyway. "I got my butt kicked this morning," he said quietly. Kira looked up from her notebook, where she'd been frantically etching out a few lines of her handwriting.
"I noticed that. Your point is?"
"I'm sorry about saying that you weren't as strong a Ra--a you-know-what," he amended, glancing around. With his luck, Cassidy was probably filming their entire exchange, for an expose on intermixing high school stereotypes, and the disastrous consequences that inevitably ensued.
She stared at him. "You're apologizing to me?"
Wait…girls had this weird thing of making you think that you had to apologize, then getting really offended if you did. Was Kira just messing with him? "Yeah…should I…not be..?"
"No, it's good," she said. "It's just…well, I didn't think that was the sort of thing you did. Ever."
"Look…I'm not used to this whole 'leading' thing. And I think I'm doing a pretty crappy job. So I was freaking out this morning when there was an emergency meeting and you weren't there…I thought I'd lost you," he blurted, and then when he realized what he'd said, added, "a teammate. And I freaked."
"So why the whole gender attack?" she asked.
"Trying to save face in front of Ethan," Conner said, which was absolutely the truth.
"Typical male posturing," Kira huffed, the added burst of breath fluttering her bangs. Conner realized with a sharp stab that he was staring at her, and hurriedly flipped open his notebook, panic rising in his throat as a blush rose in his cheeks. Hayley can't be right…I can't have a thing for Kira.
"Okay, guys," Dr. Oliver began, laying his briefcase down on his desk, "I'm a little tired this morning--"
"Wonder why?" Kira hissed to Conner, and they shared a smirk.
"--and so I'm going to have you break off into groups of two and get a head start on tomorrow's lab while I sit here and grade some papers. Try to keep it to a dull roar, okay?"
Conner glanced at Kira. "Wanna…work together?" he asked, shrugging slightly.
"Yeah, sure. Where's Ethan?"
Conner looked over his shoulder and realized that Ethan was, in fact, not there. Raising his eyebrows at Kira, Conner got up and went up to the front desk. "Dr. O.? Where's Ethan?"
"Oh, I had to send him on a special extra-credit assignment."
"Anything Kira and I should know about?"
"No, this is for class," Dr. O. said.
Conner returned to his seat. "Ethan's got some extra credit assignment he's working on."
"Ethan? Extra credit? For this class? He has the highest grade in the class."
Conner shrugged. "Dr. O. says we're not needed," he said.
They stared at each other for a moment, then Kira opened her notebook. "Oh well. Maybe Ethan's been lying to us this whole time, and it turns out he's not a whiz kid, he's like, a robot clone or something." She cracked a half smile, and Conner laughed, a laugh that tapered off when he saw Kira's sloppy notes.
"We don't really have to start doing the lab, do we?" Conner asked.
Kira cocked an eyebrow at him. "You do want to pass this year, don't you?" she said.
"I always pass," he assured her. "I'm not stupid, Kira. School just bores me, is all. But I gotta keep my grades up if I wanna keep playing soccer."
"I never said you were stupid," Kira said, and embarrassed by his outburst, he looked away. He felt a hand on his arm, and glanced over to Kira, surprised. "C'mon, Conner, I never said you were stupid. I don't think that at all."
"I--" he began. "…Thanks." Her assurance meant a lot to him. In response, he cracked open his own notebook and started to read the directions for the lab. He was willing to make sacrifices.