Wake-up Call – Chapter 37 – Armed and Mastered – Part 2

"So, what do you think?" I ask Dragon as I turn the latest iteration of the Armscycle's front fork in my gauntlets, appreciating the finish of the nanolathe—

"Jeans, white shirt, and your brown leather jacket. You want something that offsets your work-persona, and I know you're practical enough to have all of those things already. Wear nice shoes, though—if she dresses up, you don't want to come across as sloppy," she replies from the monitor swiveling in front of me.

"… You do realize I was talking about the changes to the Armscycle, don't you?"

"You do realize a girl likes to talk about something other than [work] from time to time, don't you? In case you didn't, that's also something you should remember tonight, just so Hannah doesn't end up shooting you."

Once again, I get the urge to pinch the bridge of my nose—wait, the predictive combat algorithm could easily be tuned to provide a massaging routine that—

"We also like it when the man doesn't suddenly stare vacantly at something only he can see. We girls are weird like that."

"You know perfectly well what that was," I grumble.

"And you know perfectly well I like [teasing you], Colin," she replies with an exaggerated eye-roll.

And… she does.

Which is part of the problem.

Because she's Dragon, the best Tinker in the world, the best partner I've ever had, the only person I trust my systems to—and my systems are both my lifework and my lifeline. She's the one woman I've always thought I had… something with.

And she's prodding me into turning this dinner with Hannah into an actual date.

It's… it doesn't feel… right.

"Colin?" she asks, concern once again easily carried by a voice I know far too intimately after all the times she's whispered in my ear during a shared project, during a fight to the death, a rescue mission, an emergency—

"Colin, talk to me?"

I sigh and, carefully, lay the fork on my workbench.

Then I allow my armor to take my weight as I rest while standing, lifting my visor so my HUD doesn't get in the way of staring at Dragon's brown eyes.

"You're weirdly enthusiastic about all this," I tell her, trying not to let the accusation show through.

She stares at me, something going over her face that I don't understand, and I, in a carelessly suicidal moment, almost wish Lisa was here to tell me what it means.

"You deserve to enjoy a nice evening out. Both of you do," she says with a warm smile.

"I like [our] evenings in," I answer.

And she scoffs.

"Of course you do, you nerd."

"… This coming from the better half of D&D."

"See? It takes one to know another."

I stop resisting the urge and pinch the bridge of my nose.

Ah, sweet relief. I [really] need to code that massaging routine—

"Dating is… complicated, isn't it?" she comments, her voice tentative and careful even as a spike of adrenalin shoots through my racing pulse.

Forget the massage: this needs drugs.

"I wouldn't know. My memory isn't that good," I answer with a carefully blank deadpan.

And she chuckles.

"Your memory's extraordinary, and so is your notetaking. I wouldn't be surprised if you told me you have a whole notebook devoted to your first kiss and ways to improve upon the experience. With diagrams."

"Ah, erotica for Tinkers. The internet has really corrupted you."

She shifts on the monitor, turning slightly to her profile as she smiles in that way that always let me hope I wasn't just seeing what I wanted to see, that we two really had... something.

"Oh? Are you saying I'm a [naughty girl], Colin?"

And now my throat goes dry.

First Hannah, now Dragon? Is this some kind of conspiracy? A competition to see who can get me more confused?

… If so, I know precisely who to blame.

Damn Thinkers.

"I mean… You like to cosplay as a mythical beast, so you're either a sca—"

"Don't even finish that sentence."

"To be fair, I don't even know how I was going to do that. The second half of the disjunction wasn't coming to mind."

"Only you would use [Boolean algebra] to plan your banter," she sighs as she lies through her teeth.

"Need I remind you of—"

"We [don't] talk about that."

"I'm just saying, I'm pretty sure Saint was more confused than vexed—"

"And I'm pretty sure someone needs to remember precisely why a realistic stillsuit wasn't that great of an idea—"

"Oh, potty humor. How droll."

She eyes me warily before she decides it's safe to continue. So, right as she opens her mouth, I—

"Especially coming from [someone] who may or not have discovered how watertight her mark three suit was after getting thrown into—"

"We [don't] talk about—!"

"A lot of things," I finish.

Her mouth shuts with an audible clack that my speakers render beautifully, as if she was right by my side.

Like she never is.

"Colin…"

"I don't even know your name."

"My name [is] Dragon."

I look at her, wishing I was wearing my visor, my lie detector, but I know how useless it is when all her coms are filtered through whatever algorithm she uses to render her face.

"And you expect me to believe that," I say, not even trying to disguise the bitterness.

"I… Not legally. Not really. But… [That] name is the façade. This?" she gestures at herself, at the avatar crafted through the average of enough women it took me far too much time to find the source pictures of all of them. "This is the real me, Colin. As real as I can be."

"Dragon, I… That's not healthy. It can't be. I've never wanted to push—"

"And I've always appreciated it," she hurriedly interrupts, trying to cut me off.

So I look at her, feeling my eyes harden as her shoulders rise up and her head tilts down, the thin frame of the monitor much more of a barrier than it usually seems.

"I've never wanted to push you, I always wanted to give you your space, but I… I don't know what more I can give you. What else I can offer to let you know you can trust—"

"I [do]. I trust you, Colin; you don't know how much!"

"But?"

The syllable hangs between us.

"I…" she looks at me, lost in a way I've never seen her, and I almost tell her to stop, to not say another word. "You're my best friend. You're the man I've been closest to. You're the man I want to be [closer] to. I just need… time. Just a bit more time. I promise."

And my breath stops.

Because… she's [Dragon].

And she doesn't lie. Not really. Not like this.

I don't need my detector to tell me that.

"Then, if that's…" I feel the shape of the thing we're dancing around, the thing I've always hoped was there, but I still don't dare name, as if the weight of those four letters would crush it. "If you really want that… Why are you pushing me to—"

"You deserve it. Both of you do," she cuts me off.

I stare at her, uncomprehending, and she sighs.

"Colin… Contrary to racial stereotypes, I'm not a jealous woman."

And now I can only blink.

"What?" All right, I can blink and blurt out a monosyllabic question. Progress.

"I mean… Dating's complicated? And I don't have any experience? But neither Hannah nor you are that good at it, and you just… Well, you're friends. Good friends. [We're good friends]. Friendship all around! Oh dear God, I'm turning this into a Saturday morning cartoon—"

"Rainbow Dash—"

"If you don't finish that sentence, I won't be legally obligated to send a clip of it to Lisa."

I pause. Ponder pros and cons.

She eyes me warily.

"That would not be cool. Not even twenty percent."

And she groans.

Score.

"I should never have confessed I watched the damn thing…" she mutters, raking her fingers through her hair.

"To be fair, you watch [everything]."

And now she stares at me. Again. In that way she does in these weird little moments I never understand.

"I do, don't I?" she asks, and I can only frown before she changes her tone and decides to continue. "Anyway, what I was trying to say before you decided to defuse the tension with the worst-timed joke ever—"

"My timing was excellent; it was your ranting that provided the—"

"I am serious."

"And don't call me Shirley."

"… I so want to smack you right now."

I half-grin at that. It's usually not this easy to get a victory on her.

I mean, if an emotional conversation rife with accumulated maybes, promises, and insinuations I can't keep up with can be said to be easy. Which I guess it can, as I just did.

I would also blow up my own lie detector if I said it aloud, though.

"Dragon… Are you trying to say you want me to date Hannah and still be… [available?"] I decide to finally ask. Because, well, she at least deserves I take some part of the embarrassment.

… A great part of it.

Mostly, because if I just read the whole situation wrong, I won't ever live down the constant ribbing at my ego. Dragon doesn't forget.

[Ever].

… She also usually doesn't fidget in what looks like embarrassment—is she [blushing?!]

"I mean… would you be open to that?"

I blink.

At the woman whose mind I've been in lo—whose mind I've appreciated for years, asking me if I would like to date both her and my other best friend, who's a heroine whose skills dwarf my own and whose body is as toned and—

"You pervert…" she mutters.

I blink. Again.

Eye moisturizers? Maybe an aerosol constantly keeping the conjunctiva—no, it would interfere with vision far more than any amount of regular blinking, but maybe keeping goggles filled with a constantly renewed saline solution that enhanced—

"You cannot convince me you can trigger a Tinker fugue at will just to run away from an uncomfortable situation," a distant, not at all important voice grumbles in exasperation as my hand moves to the workbench, and I grab a couple of lenses that—oh, I guess I could make them an integral part of my HUD. If the screen on the visor could be supplemented by—

"Colin!"

"I just had an idea I urgently need to work on; I'm sure I can—"

"It's the damn thing to avoid blinking again! It never works! You know it never works; it's just redundant as Hell!"

"But if I tweak—"

"I just offered you a damn threesome with Hannah! Pay attention to me!"

… Huh. I think this is the first time I've broken any equipment since I got my own lab. Weird.

"… That was aluminum oxynitride. You just crushed transparent aluminum."

"It was only a bit of—"

"That's used to make military-grade [armor]."

"I [know] what transparent aluminum is used for—"

"[And] it's used in Star Trek for—"

"You just said you wanted a threesome! I could crush anything on the Mohs scale with—"

"If that's a crack about how hard you are, I don't want to—"

"Get your mind out of the gutter!"

"You first!"

And now, it isn't just Dragon who's blushing.

"Look…" I try to reason with… her. Futilely, most likely. "I'm going out to get dinner with Hannah, but it possibly isn't even a date, much less the start of a relationship. I [definitely] am not going to try and get her in bed with a… third party. Heck, I'm not trying to get her in bed with [me—"]

"It's cute you think you have a say in the matter—"

"Damn it, Dragon!" I finally yell out of sheer frustration.

And her avatar… glitches.

Which I've never seen it do before.

She's smiling, and blushing, and frustrated, and frowning, and her hair sways in a breeze that's never there, and I—

"My... apologies," she says as her face settles into a single thing that doesn't overlap. "I… I think my systems are stressed."

"Your… systems?"

And, again, there's that stare from her, that thing I [know] means something, but I don't know [what].

"Colin… I'm sorry. I meant it when I said you deserved to go out and have fun. You need to relax, and I… I don't think this is relaxing you. At all. So, maybe we can shelve this for later? A discussion for another time?"

"Dragon, I don't want you to—"

"Oh! I'm sorry, something just—huh, that's weird…"

"Dragon?"

"I need to leave. Just enjoy your dinner, OK? I'd feel awful if you didn't," she says with a frail smile.

And hangs up, my monitor instantly shifting to a CAD display of the pieces of the Armscycle I've yet to tune.

And I'm left to stand in the middle of my workshop, held up by my own armor, blinking in sheer confusion and emotional turmoil at a very detailed diagram of an electromagnetic brake.

…

And why do I keep thinking this may have been the worst day for Miss Hebert to forbid me to speak with Lisa?

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This work is a repost of my most popular fic on QQ (https://forum.questionablequesting.com/threads/wake-up-call-worm.15638/), where it can be found up to date except for the latest two chapters that are currently only available on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/Agrippa?fan_landing=true)—as an added perk, both those sites have italicized and bolded text. I'll be posting the chapters here twice weekly, on Wednesday and Friday, until we're caught up. Unless something drastic happens, it will be updated at a daily rate until it catches up to the currently written 85 chapters (or my brain is consumed by the overwhelming amounts of snark, whichever happens first).

Speaking of Italics, this story's original format relied on conveying Power's intrusions into Lisa's inner monologue through the use of italics. I'm using square brackets ([]) to portray that same effect, but the work is more than 300k words at the moment, so I have to resort to the use of macros to make that light edit and the process may not be perfect. My apologies in advance

Also, I'd like to thank my credited supporters on Patreon: Niklarus, Tinkerware, Varosch, Xalgeon, and aj0413. If you feel like maybe giving me a hand and helping me keep writing snarky, useless lesbians, consider joining them or buying one of my books on https://www.amazon.com/stores/Terry-Lavere/author/B0BL7LSX2S. Thank you for reading!