Cait lost focus on the game for a moment, as a burst of surprise and pride washed over her from Kennedy.

  Was wondering when she was gonna notice this was a four way, she thought, smiling to herself. She willed her own small congratulations across the link.

  “Hey! Cait! On raft! Come on!” Kevin yelled, bouncing in frustration on the couch next to her. Cait refocused to her screen, wincing as her team got melted, 4 v 5 with no tank.

  “Sorry buddy, we got this though, next push!” she said, clapping him on the back as he respawned.

  Her jacked Aussie joined the team on their next assault, and Cait piloted her to a personal triple and team wipe.

  “How are you so good at Junk Empress?” Kevin asked, more legitimate awe in his voice than when we met new superheroes. “I mean, when do you have time?”

  “You know I’ve been a Guardian less than month right?”

  “Still!”

  “Can’t teach what I got, kid. Did you know I’m actually the body model for her?”

  “REALLY!?”

  “Heh, no, but thanks for believing it’s a possibility. That bitch is body goals.”

  Cait didn’t know if the unquestioning adoration of the teen was technically good for her, but she was loath to give it up. Admitting that she was god-tier at Overwatch4 because she hadn’t had any real life friends for 4 years seemed like a good way to make that tap go dry.

  “Speaking of body goals,” came a sing song voice, “I made coooookiiieeesss!”

  Kevin’s mother, Brittney, although she was unlikely to ever lose the moniker of Mama Peach, turned the corner. She held a steaming plate of chocolate chip cookies, and had a big ‘ol smile. The fact that she’d also changed out of the put-upon-mother sweats she’d been wearing when Cait arrived didn’t go unnoticed. Now, she wore a set of athleisure wear that clearly showed, kid or not, she had kept it tight.

  “Cait! Focus!” Kevin called, tearing her eyes off the woman and all her treats.

  “You heard the boss, Mama Peach!” Cait grinned mischievously at the woman’s frown. “Those look amazing though. Maybe you could help me out?”

  Cait took her gaze off the screen long enough to lock eyes with the woman. She let a pleading look enter her eyes as her mouth slowly opened wide, letting her tongue loll out in invitation.

  Mama Peach’s eyes went wide and Cait thought she might actually be able to feel the woman’s body temperature rise from 10 feet away.

  “Caaaiiiiit!”

  Quick enough to make you question if she’d ever actually gone ahegao begging for cookies, Cait gave Brittney her sexiest pout, then turned her attention back to the screen.

  “O-of course!” Mama Peach said, and sat down next to Cait. She held a cookie in one hand, and brought it to Cait’s lips like she was approaching a bear trap. Cait actually heard her make a cartoon-ass gulp.

  After another big play, Cait opened wide, taking the whole small cookie in one bite, and making sure her lips closed around Mama Peach’s fingertips. She flicked her eyes to the woman’s shocked face just long enough to wink.

  “Thanks! You’re a peach, Peach!”

  “You’re,” another cartoon gulp, “very welcome! Kevin! Make sure you stop playing long enough to eat something!”

  “Yes moooom,” he groaned as the flustered woman scurried out of the room. Cait elbowed him in the ribs. “And thanks for the cookies!”

  The game finished, an easy win.

  “Oh my god, Cait, stop hitting on my mom!” he said, glaring at the laughing Amazon.

  “Ah, c’mon, you don’t want a superhero step-mom?” she asked ruffling his hair with one hand and grabbing another cookie with the other. Honestly, with how hot Mama Peach was, she’d expected these to be kinda shitty, made with all health food replacements, but no, they kicked ass.

  Kevin slapped her hand out of his hair, blushing.

  Uh oh.

  “Hey, so, noticed she didn’t go blind when she walked in here!” Cait said, hurriedly changing the subject. “That’s good!”

  “Yeah!” Kevin replied, his face lighting up. He finally took a cookie. “I’ve got it under almost 100% passive control! Big shocks can still drop it though, and I can’t control it at all when I sleep.”

  Cait just shrugged, grinning at him.

  “Hey, that’s hella progress! Is Director Swan letting you out of the house yet?”

  “No,” he sighed, “but she thinks I’m where I need to be, just wants me to work on consistency. Your girlfriend has helped a ton!”

  Cait choked on a cookie, surprised enough she got a spike of concern from Kennedy.

  “She’s, uh, not-cough-, not my girlfriend,” she hacked out, feeling her face redden with more than oxygen deprivation. Especially since that wasn’t a thing for her.

  “Oh, uh, you better tell her that then Cait. Because… huh, I guess she never said that, but she defintely thinks you’re together.”

  Cait grinned down at him.

  “And how the hell would you know that, world’s wisest 15 year old?” she teased.

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  “The way she talked about you dude! Although, uh, there might also be someone else. There were times I thought she was talking about you then mentioned ‘Lira’, so I guess, maybe bad news there,” Kevin shrugged, blushing, clearly worried he’d just revealed Cait was being cuckolded.

  She gasped, and held a shocked look for a second, making Kevin’s face fall. A shriek from another room told her that maybe she’d teased him too hard.

  “MY BAD BRITTNEY!” Cait yelled, returning her face to a smile, and grabbing hold of Kevin’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, bud. I’m with both of them, and they’re with each other. You’ll understand when you’re older.”

  “I’m not sure I will. Do you?”

  Damn. From the mouths of babes.

  Fact was, since she had Kennedy had gotten physical, things had been amazing on that end. Not even sexually speaking, there hadn’t really been any more of that, Kennedy just seemed so much more free, happy to be able to touch, and to kiss, the girl she liked. But, Cait wasn’t dense enough to not notice Lira pulling away. She’d stayed over the night before, but…. It was tough to describe. They’d had sex, good sex, but the yellow of Kennedy’s eyes had almost entirely overtaken the spring green of her own, and not just in bursts.

  Worse, it had been a bit of a ‘wham, bam, thank you ma’am’, which was definitely what Cait was used to, just not with Lira. Pillow talk, basking in afterglow in the wake of post-nut clarity with the bouncy gym girl had become something she very much looked forward to. Lira hadn’t left, but she’d just cuddled up and gone straight to sleep.

  Maybe she’s just exhausted. Swan does have her scanning basically everyone entering the compound.

  “Hello? Cait?”

  She shook herself out of it.

  “No, bud, I guess maybe I don’t understand it either,” she finally responded with a tight smile.

  “One more reason for you not to hit on my mom,” Kevin shot back.

  “If only, my dude. Just like the taste of Peaches too much,” Cait said with a shit-eating grin and a wink. Kevin just rolled his eyes.

  “Congrats, superhero, you stumbled upon the same joke all my friends did the second they hit puberty,” he said, with the sardonic vitriol only teens seem able to produce. “Also, Peach is my name too, so gross.”

  Cait reached over, roughly mussing up his hair.

  “Don’t worry, buddy. If I was actually hitting on your mom, you’d know it. And probably already have a step sister.”

  Kevin mock gagged, and hit play on another round.

  Mama Peach kept making excuses to check on the two through a few more games, but Cait backed off. Kevin had thrown her a bit, and she’d realized she was falling back into old habits. Regardless of if Kennedy or Lira would care, which, honestly , she had no idea, it wasn’t really fair to Brittney when Cait had no real intention of following through. At least no intentions she’d allow herself to acknowledge.

  When Cait finally got off the couch at noon, saying her goodbyes to Kevin and promising to carry his ass to Champion over the next few weeks, Mama Peach did insist on a hug goodbye, and boy did her hands ever wander. Cait decided turnabout was fair play, and headed towards the Bunker. She looked at the conversation she’d had with Gwyn an hour ago, wondering what B-man’s girl had in store.

  And what the man himself wants to talk to us about tonight.

  G: Hey! Swing by the Bunker before u go on patrol.

  C: need more cum?

  G: Gross!

  G: U make it really hard to want to help u.

  G: Got something 4 u tho, despite who u are as a person.

  Ouch, Cait winced again as she re-read the convo. Fair, though.

  C: omw

  She walked in 5 minutes later, finding Gwyn shaking a bottle of a familiar metallic gold substance.

  “Hey pervert, strip,” Gwyn commanded, sending Cait into a cognitive dissonance loop that damn near stunned her.

  She complied though, it had never been helpful to question this particular Meta-brain before.

  “Hop up on that bench,” Gwyn instructed, producing her little nano-tattoo roller. Cait did, and Gwyn gestured. Suddenly Cait’s leg was extended out, clamped in place. Gwyn began to roll lines onto Cait’s thigh and calf, mirroring those on her arms.

  “So, you’re a little more aggressive than normal,” Cait observed, trying to ignore the tickling sensation.

  Gwyn sighed.

  “Yeah, sorry,” slapping Cait’s leg when she twitched as the roller went over a sensitive spot on her inner thigh. “I feel like I’ve been edging for like, a week. And I don’t know why the fuck I just told you that. Other leg.”

  Cait’s extended leg became unrestrained, and her other was stuck out before she had time to move it herself.

  Alright, have a guess on what B-man might wanna talk about now. No idea why he wants Kennedy and Lira there. Maybe Lira, she pulls.

  “If that was a proposition, moving in on everyone’s favorite tentacle monster’s girl is a hard pass,” Cait teased, earning another slap.

  At least it is for who I’m trying to be now.

  “I can make these fail whenever I want, you know,” threatened Gwyn, glaring up at her.

  “On that note, ‘these’ are….?” Cait gestured down at her legs, designs looking nearly complete.

  “Can’t figure that one out, ‘Bulletproof Bimbo’?” Gwyn asked, mocking eyebrow raised. “Same tech you’ve got up top, but hyper-tuned so you don’t stomp a hole through the street with every step. Idk how useful it’ll actually be in a fight, but it should make you fast as fuck, boi.”

  “For real? I mean, I figured, but that’s awesome Gwyn, thank you!” Cait examined the designs down her legs. She only had the one actual tattoo on her shoulder, but had to admit her growing collection of super-nano-tats looked pretty dope. “What do we have to do for calibration? Bit of a slog last time.”

  “Should be less!” Gwyn replied. “The programming on these is less versatile, in order to avoid the aforementioned infrastructure damage. They’ll pretty much never auto-activate, it’ll all have to be conscious on your part. The experimentation will more be you figuring out what material can take your weight when you jump, and figuring out how to handle the recoil of what should be some pretty monstrous kicks.”

  “Nice! Thanks again, Gwyn, I have been feeling like the team needs to slow down to account for me, especially now that Kennedy’s always flying with Rose.”

  “No worries,” Gwyn waved her off, and gave her a tired smile. “Times are tough, we need you to be tougher.”

  Her face scrunched up in confusion. “No, that’s wrong. You literally can’t be tougher. Stronger. More dangerous.”

  “For real, you good?” Cait asked, growing actually concerned. Gwyn waved her off again.

  “Just stressed! All of us here at the Bunker have been working on a way to detect Bookkeeper’s Characters, but we’ve had zero luck. Even if we had, we’ve found like, 5 Characters total in hiding, and they almost seemed like they wanted to be found. Feels a bit like being the TSA after 9/11, checking soccer moms’ shoes for bombs.”

  Cait looked at her blankly.

  “You don’t know what 9/11 is?” Gwyn asked, tired eyes going wide in disbelief.

  Cait shook her head.

  “’Never forget’ my ass, Dad,” Gwyn muttered, shaking her head. “Anyway, get outta here, Kennedy’s probably already waiting for your weirdly muscular ass at the Ready Station. Make sure you’ve got a decent runway before you try out those sexy new leggings.”

  Cait gave her a jaunty salute, thanked her again, and headed out.

  Decent runway, lol.

  The second Cait left the Bunker, the ground shook as she shot herself towards the wall.

  “HOLYFUCKINSHIT!” she screamed as she skidded to a stop, a hundred feet from where she’d stood one step and less than a second ago. “WHOOOOOO! LETS FUCKIN GOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!”

  She shot herself around campus some more, making damn sure she was picking paths no unsuspecting bystander would get A-Trained.

  “GodDAMN IT, Cait! I told you to find a runway or something!” Gwyn’s voice crackled over comms. “You’re tearing the place up!”

  “You haven’t given many toys to kids before, have you Gwyn?” Cait asked, voice shaking with excitement. “T’weren’t no way I was waiting to try this out!”

  She stood in front of the wall near the guard shack now, and could see Pete and Lira looking at her curiously from inside.

  She grinned at them, waving.

  “Watch this Mommy!” she yelled, getting a chuckle from Pete and a cringe from Lira. Cait could see the redhead cover her blushing face, and mutter ‘oh my god’. Cait wound up, and jumped. An instant later, she found herself level with Director Swan’s penthouse in the Flatiron, and she imagined she could see the MILF elemental glaring at her. Then she was falling.

  She crashed to the ground right outside the guard shack. Pete looked down at her, nonplussed, speaking into his comm.

  “No, ignore the alarms. Just Amaranthine being an idiot. Looks like we’re gonna have to get her a Passrune.”