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"Yes or no, is this invite because you need me to be tall as otherwise all you'll be able to get is the low hanging fruit?"
"I'd like to take the fifth, your honor."
-Jen wakes up three minutes before her alarm. Despite that fact, she still swats the clock off her nightstand because she finds the little cogs littered across her tasteful accent carpet to be an adequate stress reliever. Also, she has about a dozen identical ones in her closet.She hops into her jeans because it counts as her exercise for the day, and she slams two cups of coffee like they're shots while she stands in said jeans and a sports bra because that constitutes as a breakfast. It's a quarter to five when she finally unearths a clean, not torn or terribly worn down shirt, and ten til when she face plants on the couch while wearing it. Her phone rings five from, and when she answers it, there's only a groan on the other end.It doesn't send her into a panic, should but doesn't, and instead she finds herself demanding, "Why the hell did you have to make it this early, Pats?""I'm comin' in," she replies, her voice a low thrum on the other side of the door. There's some scratching, a key looking for it's lock, and then the bolts are turning. It swings open, revealing a haggard Patsy, her hair loud around her head, puffed with unfelt humidity and pillowcase fabric.Her face is still sleep-lined, her K-9s poking into the round of her bottom lip, and the bags under her eyes shoved full of luggage. Peeking one eye open, Jen finds the rest of Patsy is just about as restless and incohesive as the rest of her. Her t-shirt - a 90s Looney Toons fiasco - hangs down past her Hellcat capri pajama pants, which gives way to her usual stubbly legs, and her not so usual fuzzy purple slippers.Jen smiles a real, small smile, her tired mind following suit."Pats?""I don't think I'm actually alive right now," Patsy says, voice a wavering echo. "And I say that as someone who has spent some time in pocket dimensions, and also hell.""You're the one who wanted to get a jumpstart," Jen reminds her with a droll bite, her eyelid drooping back shut. "I regret that now. Five a.m. shouldn't exist as a non-linear concept! Like, if you stay up, sure! But if you sleep, you should not wake up at five a.m.""I'm gonna need you to just, tone everything down. Last time I had to get up this early was for a bet with Johnny, and I swore to myself I'd never repeat it, so this is already a lot for me just, life-wise.""Hey, what you and John-John do in your freetime, that's on you two, has no bearing on us, Jenny.""Are you high right now, Patsy?""No, I'm just tired.""Nap?""Caffeine; you're not ducking out of this one."---The truck is slightly off-kilter, tugging a little to the left. It needs a good alignment, probably an oil change, too, just for good measure. But the seat is big enough, and the cab has enough space so that Jen's kneecaps aren't in her eyesockets, so she doesn't complain. That much."Where did you get this thing?" Jen asks for the dozenth time, this time, at least, in new words. Her hand is wrapped carefully around the so-called 'oh shit' handle, doing its best not to snap it from the peeling ceiling of the truck."Jess- Jones, that is, I actually haven't talked to Jess Drew lately? Have you talked to Carol?""I think they're on vacation," Jen replies wistfully, her eyes glazing at the thought of not having to wear her super-suit underneath her clothes, no bunching, just relaxing. Carol and Jess had the right idea."I didn't know Carol knew how to take vacations," Patsy laughs, slapping the blinker on and off to take them around a slow-moving Hyundai. "Yeah, but Jess can talk her into anything, you know? Love and all that."Patsy pats the steering wheel softly, absently. "Oh, c'mon, Jen, are you telling me if you loved somebody you wouldn't go out of your comfort zone for them?"Jen blew a piece of hair out of her eye and bit back the comment on the tip of her tongue about setting three alarms to make sure she was up on time that morning.---"So remind me again, why limes?""Seemed kinda sketch," Patsy replies, grabbing a cloth tote out of the glovebox. "Like, nothing around here for miles, and even then it's just highway, but a guy that sounds suspiciously close to all known descriptions of this dude I fought a few years ago pops up with a lime farm?""It never really occurred to me they had lime farms, so I'll let you have this one."Flashing a bright, mischievous smile, she retorts much too quickly for how tired she supposedly is. "Says the girl with the law degree." "Who always saves your ass. I'm allowed to have lapses."Patsy grins over at her as she bobs along at her side, half her hair pulled back in a ponytail on top of her head that promptly smacks her in the face not two seconds later when it's ushered by an odd gust of wind. Jen, for her part, tries and fails not to snort a laugh at her."You can have lapses too, Pats," she tells her as the shorter woman pulls a thick chunk of hair from her mouth."Don't say a word," she hisses.Jen holds her hands up, palms out, and shrugs, but a second later she coughs, "Hairball," into a closed fist and Patsy sends her a murderous glare.---"Okay, so," Patsy starts, arms crossed over her chest, foot tapping slightly in the supple grass pathway. "Here's what I'm thinking." Her head won't quit moving, which is more suspicious than even the slight scowl she has on her lips, and Jen's dizzy just watching her.So, she doesn't. If she was going to wake up at four thirty in the morning to be to a lime farm in the middle of nowhere then by god she was going to have a fun time and get her limes.The cloth bag's strap hangs limply from the crook of her elbow, weight steadily building with each ripened citrus she deposits in it. She takes her time in choosing, not wanting to fill it up too quickly meaning she has to, anyway. Her fingers dance across the skin of each and every one, checking for imperfections whether it be mottled skin or bruising or punctures. In a way, it feels like coming home after a long day of battle, just without the blood."Oh, here's a good one," Patsy says, distracting herself from her plan as she plucks a rounded fruit from the tree (bottom-most branch, but the day is nice so Jen keeps the teasing to herself) and steadies herself on the arm holding the bag to drop it in.The wind picks at her hair again, rustling it this time instead of full on kicking it. It swings off toward the left, pulling Jen's eyes with it. Without thinking too hard about it, she reaches out with deft fingers and pushes it behind her ear, smiling slightly to herself when a piece of it rebels just to fall in her eyes once more.The action pulls a soft smile from Patsy, one that lights up her eyes in the most magnificent way, but somehow doesn't contort her face. She looks almost serene, actually. It reminds Jen of the easiness she used to carry before they both learned what it meant to have the vastness of your world begin and end at a hospital bed.She wants to keep that, wants to add something to it, make it more than what it already is if only to be able to give Patsy something better that what she has. Because they're friends, they're best friends, but they seem to deal in pain far too much.There's been something at the back of her heart for so long, though, and she thinks now might be a good way, a good time, to figure out how to say it."Oh, shit," Patsy mutters, eyes catching on something over Jen's shoulder. "Shitshitshit, I didn't finish making my plan. Quick, uh-" she grabs at Jen's t-shirt with those ever strong hands and does this twirl maneuver, pushing her back against the tree they'd just been inspecting and letting herself be shielded by her best friend's larger than average frame."How does this help-?" Jen hisses, doing her best to curl around Patsy in an immediately protective manner."Uh, well, he can't attack what he can't see?" she hedges."You don't think a seven foot tall hulk isn't gonna raise suspicions? I'm just standing here!" She braces her forearm against the bark just above Patsy's head, tries to let a little of her hair fall to shield their faces even more. "Oh my god, okay, here he comes, sh.""Pats-"Patsy lurches herself forward, grabbing either side of Jen's face and bringing her down until their lips are, at most, a centimeter apart. The traitorous part of Jen's brain signals for her heart to flutter, and the stupid part of it just tells her it's because this is the most intimate situation she's been in in at least six months, so it's not that it's Patsy, it's just a knee-jerk reaction.Patsy's breath is still cinnamon-laced where she'd pilfered some of her toothpaste that morning after getting to her apartment - something about never fighting crime on coffee-stale breath, which Jen is now thankful for - and it's coming out in these halting little puffs that are admittedly driving her a little wild."Just, hold-" Patsy starts, but Jen can't let her finish, not this time. It's not even a jerk forward, all she has to do is twitch and she and Patsy have their mouths pressed together. And pressed is really, really not the best descriptor for two mouths. Worst, actually, and Jen can feel thst word rising horrifically in her chest until Patsy tilts her head to the side ever-so-slightly and threads her hand into the grip she has on her t-shirt to steady herself. Which is, apparently, all she needs because the next thing she knows she's pressing against her, crowding even more so than she had been, and Patsy is chasing her mouth reverently and-There's a bone-crack laugh that jolts them before they can really get to much of anything - Jen pretends not to hear the disgusted noise that comes from Patsy as they're forced to retreat into themselves, just for her own sanity - and it's followed by a, "Really, Hellcat?"It's still weird, hearing Hellcat instead of Patsy. Jen doesn't think it'll ever be something she gets used to, and from the looks of it, Patsy isn't too fond of it either. She's also blushing like a kid caught, so the bristling could, of course, be from embarrassment. Today could go either way, it seemed."Two more minutes. You couldn't have like, done a Pink Panther walk up the path?" The man rolls his eyes, arms folding over his chest. "And you couldn't have, like,," he mocks. "Had some common decency as to not jump your girlfriend in my place of business?""Oh, come off it, Leonard. We both know this is just a really weirdly chosen front."A snarl ripens across his face as he sneers back, "Weird? Why, Hellcat, it was chosen for you! I always knew how much you loved green."Jen knows they'll have to talk later, prays it's prelude to more kissing because holy shit, but in that moment, she just wants to kick Leonard's creepy little ass.So when Patsy leaps, Jen does, too. But that has always been the way of things, and something tells her that colliding in tandem will be something new for them. Something good.