Chapter 12, Die Another Day

"No, absolutely not." It had hardly been days since all of Kim's little friends got together and had a… intervention of sorts about the company she had been keeping. Since then it'd been mostly radio silence. Now trapped between her and Monique, who was threateningly snapping a leather fabric ruler, Shego wondered how the hell she'd gotten into this mess.

Kim had her arms bent at the waist in front of her, clenching her two palms together in a mock beg. "It'll be amazing, just trust us."

"Hey," Shego snapped "I've had that catsuit for years and I've grown quite attached to it, almost literally." Her smirk was sickening.

"Look, if you want to keep prancing around in front of me naked I'm certainly not going to be the first one to complain."

Shego stuck her tongue out and lifted both her arms for Monique to measure. "Wouldn't want to give you any more material for your late nights, Kimmie."

"Can ya'll flirt later?" At this point Monique wasn't even sure if she meant to make a joke or not. Things had gotten so weird the past week it was enough to keep her skin perpetually crawling. That and her hand had an awful tremble to it while reaching the fabric ruler around Shego's waist.

"Thanks again for agreeing to do this, Mo." Kim smiled, not mentioning the obvious discomfort of her best friend.

"Girl, really you two are the ones helping me. Practice makes perfect, and my portfolio is gonna look hella bangin' with all this cool combat gear." She wrote some more measurements in her notebook. "Plus it'll be nice to see your folks again, I do miss those little rug rats."

This peaked Shego's interest. "You guys are headed back to Middleton?"

"Yeah," Kim smiled. "Mom's going crazy without me around, she says the dweebs are really giving her and dad a hard time since I can't be there to keep 'em out of trouble. Plus I have been feeling a bit homesick, and since you need a new outfit anyway we're knocking out like three birds with one stone."

"Oh."

Monique finished taking all Shego's measurements and left the room to put her stuff away and finish packing.

"You guys have a ride then?"

"Yeah, I uh, have a car. If that's you offering to drive us home thanks, but we got it covered."

"Yeah sure I figured."

The two stood awkwardly in front of each other.

"So you don't need me to be there when they make the suit? See if it fits or anything?"

Kim raised an eyebrow and grew a slow smile. "Shego, would you like to spend the weekend with us?"

"What? No. I'm just worried you losers are going to come up with some monstrosity. Plus your dad would kill me."

"I think eventually it'd be nice if you two got on the same page."

"Eventually being the key word… maybe. Look I'm not trying to play house or anything forget I asked." She stuck her hands in her pockets and made to get to the door, hobbling sideways past Kim and being careful not to brush against her. She got the door open a bit before Kim pushed a hand against it and shutting it once more.

"Really, think about it. You don't have to spend the weekend alone, I'm offering."

"It's not your business who I spend the weekend with, maybe I got shit to do, Princess. My life doesn't revolve around you. Now move your hand before I rip it off."

The door slammed shut and Kim rolled her eyes as she headed back to her room.

The weekend ended up being awesome. Kim really learned to appreciate spending time with her family a lot more and it was like they say – better in small quantities. She'd hardly fought with her brothers at all considered they'd been all too happy to see her and talk about what college was like. They almost seemed like mini frat boys already.

Monique spent almost as much time at Kim's house as her own, deep in the recesses of her brothers' madhouse. Kim stayed far away from there, although she did spend a lot of time imagining what the suit would look like on and off Shego. And maybe a little too long imagining it on the floor of her room, but bottling those thoughts right up quick, she did have a good talk with her parents about things. Not exactly catching up, since she made sure to regularly update them with news about classes and how things had been settling into her new place, but trying to get her relationship with her father back on track.

It seemed that their relationship had taken on a more distant feeling. Being independent was… well it had its pros and cons. Homemade regular meals were definitely a con, considering neither Monique nor she did regular cooking, especially not her. The immense freedom was a plus though, if a little lonely feeling. She couldn't help but wonder how Shego managed to live by herself so long, but then again maybe Kim really did know nothing. The woman could have all sorts of company.

Her gut tightened.

Kim was never even really alone, but she did feel really isolated. Growing up is hard.

The campus didn't miss either of them and once Monday rolled around they were both back into the thick of it. Kim had Shego's new suit carefully folded up in a box near her bed. She'd been sure not to take any peaks at the new suit wanting to be surprised when her nemesis tried it on and the wait was killing her.

Half the week had gone by and she hadn't heard a word from the woman. Then Thursday afternoon she got a text from Wade telling her to head out to some old train yard after class. Kim nearly shot out of her seat and spent the rest of the hour fidgeting thinking about that dumb box.

The redhead drummed her fingers on the top of the box as she made her way into the closed off yard. The task was made easier by a loose piece of fence she managed to squeeze past. Shego waited, her back up against a boxcar and watched as the younger woman approached.

"Have a good weekend?"

Kim smiled and held the package out. "Yeah, but I'm glad it was just a weekend."

"I'm warning you now, if it's not green I'm not putting it on. And if it's pink I swear you better start running or I'll decommission you worse than these cars." She took the package and hopped up into the open door beside her.

"I actually don't know what it looks like." Kim mentioned, sliding her shirt up over her head and tossing it in the bag she brought with her.

"That's going to be a fun gamble for you then isn't it." Shego disappeared into the train and Kim finished stripping down to her own catsuit, waiting patiently for the girl to reappear.

When she did, oh boy - it truly was a great weekend. If her old catsuit had been incredible, this one would have been ethereal. Green and black, but it seemed that parts of her would shimmer in some sort of reflecting light. Kim couldn't really tell if it was fabric or bare skin.

The outfit had no arms to it, wrapping neatly around her shoulders and continuing three fourths of the way down her long legs. Mostly black, with strips of green in large V shapes down the side. The knees and front stripe of the chest were long areas of that transparent fabric while the rest seemed to be made out of a rather shiny nylon. It was topped off with black sharp gloves and low boots.

It had been well worth the wait. And when Shego caught her eyes it came with a sly smirk. The woman definitely knew it looked amazing. "Alright, Pumpkin it passes the first test. It's not bad."

Almost immediately a flash of green light exploded from the open door of the boxcar and Kim shielded her eyes. Squinting from behind a hand with fingers spread slightly apart she had just enough notice to back handspring away from the crater where she once stood. Rock sprayed from the area, followed by a thin cloud of dust that glowed an eerie green and grew brighter the closer Shego got to her.

Then the flames died down completely and Kim was left looking at the villainess who was twisting her torso around inspecting the completely intact suit. "Not bad at all. Of course I didn't run it too hot, but color me impressed."

"I'm pretty sure green is the color of envy." The younger woman quipped.

"Oh ha, ha." Shego dropped her hands. "I'm not really sure how far to go in this thing. I don't want to wreck it since I just got it, and I do appreciate a good quality gift."

"I think they'd be disappointed if you didn't max out its potential. As long as you let 'em know when it breaks so they can spend another few nights making it bomb proof or something."

"Oh please, a bombs got nothing on this."

Kim dodged another lunge as more rock sprayed at her true to the woman's word. At least the flames were a dead giveaway, there would be no sneak attacks from Shego as the two traded blows between the train cars, weaving in and out of the compartments.

Narrowly avoiding a high kick by rolling under a bogie, Kim vaulted off the floor and ran up the side of a nearby truck, kicking off and flying in the direction of the flames only to get grabbed midair and thrown into the unbroken window of a buffet.

"Totally unfair."

Shego had killed her flames and planted a trap flame that Kim fell for. "I'm not all looks, Cupcake. Learn to roll with the punches."

The girl swung her legs in a windmill and pushed off of her back landing and taking a fighting stance. Her enemy shot a ball at her, and she dove to the side as a series of small orbs scorched the ground in an arc following her trail. One caught the calf of her suit and she hobbled through the open door of another car while patting the material out.

Shego put a fiery hand against the opening and lifted a leg to pursue but recoiled when some loose boards flew past her. "Are you seriously throwing wood at someone who's on fire?" She shouted.

"There's not much to work with here." The reply came down the yard. Shego leapt to the top of the train and ran across it in the direction of the voice. Some stray metal bolts hit the flame around her and suspended in the plasma armor. She turned quickly and jumped across to the other train hitting the gap between two compartments at full speed, but the momentum carrying her hard against the roof as Kim pulled one of her legs out of the air and down the space. Shego's claws tearing through the metal to stop the force as a sharp pole dented the area her body lay on.

Kim aggressively threw the pole down from within the coach and ran through the tight car full of passenger seats to reach the door at the end, panicking as it seemed to be rusted shut. The flame danced at the other end, its bright colors dancing in the reflection of the hard glass. She jumped and grabbed on to the luggage rack at the top and swung her legs forcefully against the glass. It gave very little, and she dropped back down as Shego's menacing smile slowly crept towards her.

The heroine ran back down the train, sliding at the last minute and toppling the older woman by the legs who fell onto Kim, but not before extinguishing her flames. They both took the moment as a truce and Shego rolled off, awkwardly laying aside the younger girl in the small path between chair sets.

"Satisfied?" Kim breathed out heavily.

"Yeah, I can work with this."

"Cool place, by the way."

"The trains? Yeah, I thought it'd be pretty sweet what with nothing flammable and my strong desire to imitate a Bond movie."

"Too bad the train wasn't moving though."

"The train not moving is the only thing that saved your ass."

"Didn't get the girl either."

Shego pulled her eyebrows together and rolled back over on top of Kim. Her hands at either side of the girls head, straddling her waist. "Didn't I?"

Kim swallowed.

Shego patted her on the side of the cheek and sat up. "Probably for the best. Bond girls tend to have a short life." She got off completely and headed back out of the train car.

Kim let out the breath she was holding and focused on the claw marks on the roof. A short life? Yeah probably.