Dedicated to: TeeMitchelle

"Our real discoveries come from chaos, from going to the place that looks wrong and stupid and foolish."

-

Chuck Palahniuk,

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With one fluid motion he slid into position, grabbing both her hands and pulling her closer. Galaxy Girl took in a sharp, nervous breath. "Come now nemesis. You've survived much worse than this, a little swing should be a walk in the park this time." Toxic tried to reassure. "Besides, this is supposed to look like we are having fun."

A wide smile broke out on her lips.  They started to dance, and everything went fine until he tried to twirl her and couldn't grip her hand properly. They tried again, and again, but came to the same disheartening result.
"Music Off!" She groaned. "I can't do it, you need to take your gloves off." She complained after the music had stopped.
"My... my gloves?" He stuttered, looking down at the black leather pieces that seemed more like a part of him than his own bare hands.
"Yes, your gloves." she replied rather firmly. He gulped at the idea. Without them, his radioactivity would glow for all to see, their cover would be blown; not to mention what would happen if he were to accidentally touch someone. "You do understand what that would entail right? It means your hands would always have to remain somewhere on my body at all times, to contain my radiation... It means you can't let go." He warned, pulling the gloves off cautiously. Gingerly, she took his remarkably soft hand.

"Don't worry Jack, I'll never let go." She humored with a smirk. The cheesy pop culture reference making him laugh as that type of humor usually did.
"Music on." He spoke. They began to dance, chasing each other across the floor in the erratic, upbeat, and spontaneous way that only a jive could afford; moving fluidly across the floor.
They would have to be in constant contact, even if it just involved a hand being on an elbow, or trailing across the body as the other twirled. With both of them now on the same skill level  Toxic didn't have to hold back, in fact he found himself just trying to keep up. Gone was the awkwardness, he didn't flinch at her touch, nor her at his. It was pretty similar to the way they moved when they fought, it seemed to come naturally to them, like a battle, a fantastic battle. Strangely enough, dancing together gave them the same thrill as their fights usually did, only without the attendant pain.  

Toxic felt he would rather die a violent death than admit it, but the truth was that he was actually starting to like it. This was....fun. He could tell she was enjoying herself as well, because they practically laughed the entire way back to the suite.
Tired, without much ceremony, they took turns in the bathroom to change before going directly to sleep.

Hours later, Galaxy and Toxic painfully jolted awake to the sound of a loud wailing siren. It was a sound both were quite accustomed to, but even after the countless robberies and heists either of them had initiated or stopped, the siren was never a pleasant thing to wake up too.

The Hero jerked upright from her makeshift bed, her vision blurry.
"What in evil’s name is going on?!"  Toxic moaned, half asleep from the direction of the bed. The whole room was dark at first, but the radiation from his shirtless, super powered body cast an eerie green glow throughout the posh hotel room once he flung the blankets off of himself; lighting up the room like a 70s lava lamp.
But the darkness was a life saver, Galaxy Girl was glad for it, so that her nemisis couldn see her face’s reaction to the sight of his naked upper torso. Still, she was more than glad that in the darkness, he couldn’t see her blush. She felt like she'd never going to get used to seeing him out of costume.

He reached for his laptop and began to type furiously.  Looking out the window, she was greeted by the sight of the full moon kissing the sleepy Paris skyline. 
"What on earth could be going on?"
The Hero wondered out aloud.
Some type of routine fire drill perhaps? A terrifying thought then woke her lulled brain completely; faster than when Toxic had lowered her head first into a shark tank.
We must have been discovered!
She thought frantically to herself.
It will be all over the internet, pictures of me and Toxic posted everywhere... sharing a room, in PARIS of all places! Oh the tabloids will have a field day. Dad will just..." Her inner voice shrieked. "Galaxy I am fairly certain I can guess exactly what you are thinking right now. Just keep calm, and do not panic. You break things when you panic."
Her glowing nemesis carefully advised, not taking his eyes off the screen.

"What are you doing?" Her words came out in a rush, ignoring his plea to stay calm.
"Breaking into the security system to see what's going on."
He replied, appearing seemingly relaxed. It was never in his nature to panic.

The Hero got out of her highly uncomfortable sleeping area and walked quickly to the bedside.
"Wait I thought you said it was impossible to hack."  
She remembered, leaning onto the bed post beside him.
"Oh, it is." he answered with a small smirk.
"Well, then how?" She asked.
"At the check-in point, I released a microbot, and as programmed, my awesome bot found a feed wire and latched onto it, now as long as I don't hack into anything major, it will remain undetected."
He typed so fast the screen was a blur, flying past encrypted files and data. When he finally reached a stop, her heart sank.
ALERTE D'INTRUSION
The top of the screen read in bright red lettering. The American hero didn't need a translator to know what that meant.
"Intruder Alert." She translated sadly, both sharing a look of defeat.

"Intrusion detected, level 7..." He read further. "That's this floor..."
"We are done. Our dads are so going to kill us." she panicked                           
"Yours figuratively, and mine.... possibly literally."  replied Toxic.
"This is not the time for sarcasm!" Galaxy glared sternly.
"There is always time for sarcasm."
His joke came out in a strange mixture of sarcasm and panic.

The thundering sound of many heavy footfalls sounded out from outside their room.
"IL EST PARTI PAR LA!" A man's voice called out.
Toxic's face muddled in confusion.
"He said 'it went that way'."
"What? Why would they say it?" She scratched her head.
"Ok, maybe they are not after us after all. Maybe it's the Speeders!"
A glimmer of hope came up from behind his big, dark brown eyes as he spoke.

A soft pitter patter of light footsteps could be heard just outside the room door. Somebody was trying to sneak around. The Villain slid out of bed and pulled one of his smaller ray guns from the drawer of the dresser beside him, and without word, they crept quietly in the dark towards the door.  He slid on a brown radiation-proof long coat as the Hero cracked her knuckles, just itching to punch someone through a wall. The footsteps were getting closer and closer.
Galaxy Girl put her hand on the knob, ready to open it at any point.

"Hold on." he grabbed her wrist and pulled it back.
Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out something that looked like an automatic car key.
"E.M.P. It's too disable the cameras in this hallway."  
He explained before clicking it.
Cameras. It didn't ever occur to her to even think about that. On a regular ‘heroic’ day, Galaxy Girl loved her work to be captured on camera.
"Good thinking." She whispered back.
If they hadn’t already been discovered, punching someone through the roof caught on camera would definitely give them away.

A shadow of a large set of boots could now be seen through the crack at the base of the door.
He reached for the handle and yanked it open.  Standing in front of the doorway was not what either expected at all. It was one of the hotel security guards. A tall man, dressed in an official dark blue uniform. Toxic hid the gun behind his back.
"Terribly sorry sir, we thought you were someone else." The man just looked right past the blond, directly at the supervillain standing by her side.
His eyes narrowed, as looking through a haze.

"Toxiiiicccc?!" He asked with wide eyes.
"Wait..." Toxic Paused leaning further out the door.
"The voice is different, but the guilt... Pierre?!?"
Toxic exclaimed.
Galaxy Girl watched in wonder as the tall security guard morphed into a short, dark- haired Frenchman, dressed in all black, save for several silver utility belts wrapped around his waist.

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A/N: Happy Sunday!
Sorry this is a day late, my seasonal job just started back up this weekend, and its like an 18 hour day.
(Actually posting this on my break, lol)
Hope you guys enjoyed it. What do you think will happen now that Informal is in the picture?
Funny note, I wrote this book so long ago, before social media and the internet became the was most people got their news, so as I've been posting it, I've had to change a lot of the dialect. Like in the original, Galaxy freaks out about ending up on the front page of every newspaper. Just imagine a teen saying something like that today.   Its actually been pretty funny to go back through. :)
Please dont forget to vote.
Love you all.
-QueenOfGeeks

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