~ Current time, present tense. ~

I walk into the shared cabin space and see my new team sitting around a table with their backs to me.

"And here is your new team." Donald introduces them and they turn around.

It's Oliver, Skylar and Kaz. I look over at Bree who has a shit-eating grin on her face. She had told Donald to hire them.

I awkwardly wave and take a seat at the table next to Kaz.

Oliver smiles at me. "Hey, man. Good to see you again. You seem to be doing really well. Any symptoms we should know about?" He asks.

Kaz puts his hand in front of his best friend's face. "Don't mind him. He hasn't learnt how to shut off his doctor stuff. But seriously are you good?" He says leaning over to me, his voice laced with genuine concern.

I nod and laugh. "Yeah, I'm fine. Good as new, thanks to you guys." I say rubbing my neck.

Bree sits down next to me. "Chase missed you guys." She says teasingly. I glare at her. "That's why I suggested you guys for the job."

"You missed us?" Skylar asks as she puts her hand over her heart.

I blush slightly. "Y-yeah, you guys were always there to keep me company and check on me and then suddenly I didn't see you. It was just a shock to my system, you know." I explain awkwardly.

"Well, now we get to spend every day together." Kaz smiles wrapping his arm around me. I try my best not to blush.

"Yeah, and you'll probably regret having him around almost 24/7." Oliver jokes pointing to Kaz. Kaz just sticks his tongue out at him.

Donald walks up to the table. "Okay, over the next few days, you guys are going to pair up and do trust exercises. Each day with a different person." He hands out itineraries with our names and schedules on them.

I read over mine. Day 1, paired with Kaz. We have rock climbing, canoeing and Cooking? Kaz doesn't seem like he'd be good at any of those. Also, do you mean we have to cook for everyone? This sucks.

"This is... Awesome!" Kaz exclaims. "Dude we're paired up today." He says turning to me.

I sigh and smile at him. "Yay." I say trying to sound enthusiastic.

"Wait, it says I'm paired with Marcus. Who's Marcus?" Oliver asks confused.

A sigh is heard from across the room by the door. "That would be me." A deep voice says not so enthusiastically. Everyone turns to look at him.

"Oh." Oliver says quietly.

"Wow!" Skylar whispers.

I sigh. "Guys that's Marcus, my... Um, technically he's our half-brother but he's more like a cousin. Look our family is confusing."

Marcus rolls his eyes, buff arms crossed while leaning against the wall. He might be my best friend but he still has a bit of an attitude surrounding new people.

"I want to be paired with him. He's the least likely to drop me if we have to do any sort of trust falls or whatever." Kaz says jokingly. Ouch, that stung.

Donald laughs. "Don't worry, everyone from team Davenport will pair up with everyone from team whatever you guys want to call yourself." He looks down at his watch. "You guys better start." He says ushering us out of the cabin.

I pat Marcus on the shoulder. "Be nice, please." I say before walking after the skipping Kaz.

"I've never been rock climbing before." Kaz says excitedly. He follows the map on our itineraries but starts to veer off. I grab his shoulder and lead him the right way.

While he's not the best at following a map he's surprisingly good at rock climbing. We met with the supervisors at the rock climbing station and geared up. We had gotten through the beginner and intermediate courses quickly and had moved on to the advanced level.

"Are you sure you've never rock climbed before?" I ask as we hang out near the top, literally hang.

He nods before thinking. "I mean, I've never done a course like this with a harness and stuff but I used to climb trees and fences and stuff as a kid. I had a habit of throwing/kicking my toys into trees and stuff, so I had to get them back somehow." He explains with a shrug.

"No offence but you don't look like you'd be fit enough to do something like this." I say genuinely trying not to sound mean.

"Nah, I get it. Comic book nerd, slightly tubby." He gestures to his body. I cringe slightly, I didn't think he was "tubby", sure, he's not lean but he's a healthy weight. He continues. "But I also have ADHD and very strong curiosity with weak willpower to fight it. I'm a leap before you look kinda person."

I nod. "Well, it will serve me right for judging you too quickly. Although leaping before you look can be really dangerous."

He just laughs and rolls his eyes before moving forward in the course. He had tried to show off but slipped, I watch as he falls a couple of inches before being caught by the harness. I just laugh at him.

Eventually, we have to change stations, we walk over to the canoeing section, put on life jackets and climb on. He's not as good at this. But then again this didn't have a clear outcome or destination like rock climbing.

We row around a bit before stopping in the middle of the lake. "This is kinda boring." He says sighing.

"Yes, but it's meant to be teamwork." I explain.

"We already know each other pretty well, why do we have to do these?" He asks with a huff.

"Because we've never worked together? Or just so we're busy and out of the way?" I suggest.

He thinks for a moment before his words spill from his mouth. "You know I saw the moment it was revealed "Donald Davenport has three secret kids" on the news, one of the only times I had even bothered to watch."

I laugh. "Yeah, I know. You told me when I woke up out of my coma, remember?"

"Yeah, well, the thing is..." He looks away. "I was, kinda, automatically enamoured with the small cute smart one." He says quietly. "I had never developed a crush so fast before, let alone on a celebrity. So when you showed up at the hospital, I couldn't help myself but be by your side."

"You had a crush on me?" I ask blushing.

He blushes. "Y-yeah. You were like a real-life superhero to me. Like how can you be so smart? And when that video of you defending that old lady came out, wow. It looked so effortless." He says looking down.

I blush at the recollection. "I worked hard for both my brains and martial arts skills." I say unsure of what to respond with.

"Sorry, I've probably made this weird." He apologises.

I lean my hand over to his knee. "No, it's okay. I... Actually, I suspect the reason Bree even suggested you guys work with us is because of me." He looks up at me confused. "Yeah, as my only sister who's able to talk, I believe she's trying to meddle in my love life. I may have told her, I kinda have a thing for you and so... Here we are." I say looking up at the sky and moving my hand back.

I realise after I finished talking that he had used past tense when talking about his crush on me. 'Shoot! Did I just mess this up?'

After a moment he speaks. "Oh!" He says simply, then starts to laugh softly. I look down at him confused. He smiles. "We confessed to each other on a boat ride. Isn't that kinda cheesy?" He laughs.

I look at him confused but amused. "I guess..."

He smirks. "How good at swimming are you?" He asks.

"What? Uh, pretty good I guess. Why?"

He chuckles. "Because of this!" He says before tipping us out of the canoe and into the water.

I sputter, spitting water out of my mouth and pushing my hair out of my eyes. "What the heck Kaz?!" I yell as he swims closer to me.

He shrugs and grabs my life vest pulling me closer to him. "I needed to get closer to you and we were going to end up in the water anyway." He explains.

It makes zero sense to me. "Why did you need-" He cuts me off by kissing me on the lips.

It's a soft warm kiss. I quickly react. 'So that's why.' It's kind of tricky staying in one spot so I wrap my arms around his waist so we don't float away from each other as I kiss back. It felt as if we were otters.

He pulls back and smiles widely at me. "There, now it's official." He laughs like he just made the best joke.

"Official?" I ask.

"Yep, that can't work well together. I mean how embarrassing, we ended up in the drink. Looks like we're going to have to do more trust activities." He says jokingly.

"Kaz, you are so weird." I say shaking my head.

"And you're so straight-laced, so it evens out." He smiles.

I sigh. "Can we make another thing official?" I ask.

He hums in thought. "Whatcha thinkin'?"

"That it's official that I want to kiss you again."

He laughs. "Cheese." He teases and gasps. "That should be a nickname for you!"

I groan. "Please don't."

He moves his lips closer to mine. "Too late, it's locked in." He whispers before kissing me again.

Suddenly a canoe stops beside us. We look up at the man bashfully. He just sighs. "They're just kissing." He says into his walkie-talkie. Kaz pulls away. The man turns to us. "Dudes, I don't really care what you do away from us but it's our job to make sure you don't drown." He sighs.

"Uh, right sorry." I say awkwardly.

He looks down at his watch. "Your time is almost up. You should come back in. Do you need help getting into the canoe?"

I shake my head. 'Surely it's not that hard.'

The man gestures for us to do so. Kaz helps me flip the canoe over and I climb on pretty easily. Kaz passes me the ores and I hold it steady as Kaz tries to climb on. The man reaches over lifting him slightly with his life vest before paddling away.

"Well, that was... Embarrassing." Kaz says blushing.

I laugh awkwardly. "Yeah, it's going to be a lot more embarrassing. I'm pretty sure he has to tell my dad, our boss."

He sighs as we start to paddle back inland. We touch the ground and try our best to avoid the eyesight of the supervisors as we take off the safety gear. We head off and walk slowly down the trail, soaking wet and arrive back at the cabin.

Donald looks us up and down. "I hope this brought you two closer." He says with a sigh.

"Yep, definitely closer." Kaz says with a smile.

He shakes his head in disbelief. "Go dry up and then start cooking. Cabin two." He says turning back to whatever he was doing beforehand. If he had been told what happened, he was obviously not mentioning it.

We head off to our cabin laughing. We take turns changing in the bathroom before heading to the kitchen area. We were to make pizzas. Not what I would consider camp food but hey. Everyone had their orders already in. 'When did this happen?'

Surprisingly enough, Kaz was good at this too. Sure, pizzas aren't exceptionally hard but he looked so effortless while following a pattern. Base, sauce, cheese, meat, other preferred toppings and then more cheese. Perfect ratio and even coverage.

He smiles at me as I'm still on my first one. He's done three already. 'How is that possible?'

"Dude, were you a pizza man in your past life?" I ask jokingly.

"My family have homemade pizza nights all the time. I have four younger siblings so I make theirs, and my mum's because she's always busy." He explains. "Lots of practice."

We're done before I know it and I only got to make three. We put them in the oven to cook and sit down.

"Are you excited to work with Skylar and Oliver?" Kaz asks leaning over the table.

I think for a moment. "Yeah, they seem fun. I didn't get much time with them at the hospital. So it will be nice to get to know them." I say before smirking. "Also they probably have embarrassing stories about you."

He leans his body over the table as if he's trying to hit me but I lean back. He pulls back and calms himself pulling his shirt down. "Well, then I'll just have to ask Bree and that scary guy for dirt on you." He says calmly.

I laugh. "That scary guy is named Marcus and he's my best friend."

"I thought he was your brother or cousin." He says confused.

"He is, both? Look it doesn't matter."

"Because he'd absolutely jump at the chance to embarrass you?" He asks hopeful.

I sigh. "Yeah."

Kaz laughs.

Everyone piles in just as the pizzas get done cooking. We serve everyone before taking our seats.

"So how was everyone's day?" I ask looking around the room. They all stare at me, most of them with pizza halfway out their mouths.

Bree quickly eats her bite. "Skylar and I get along so well. She's like the sister I've always wanted." She says smiling. Skylar nods along.

"Oli?" Kaz asks.

Oliver shrugs. "Marcus just wanted to get stuff done. It wasn't too awkward though."

Marcus scoffs. "Speak for yourself." He mumbles under his breath. I nudge him. He sighs. "He's competent at least. Seems like he'd be a good employee." He says, his opinion is neither good nor bad.

"Chase and I had fun. We actually have a lot in common." Kaz says smiling.

"We know!" Everyone in the group but Marcus says.

"Oh." Kaz looks down at his pizza. I laugh.

"Surprisingly he's pretty skilled. Like at rock climbing and he made most of our pizzas." I say shrugging.

He gasps. "You mean you didn't think I was capable?" He jokes and I push him lightly.

Our conversation turned to smaller ones before we headed off to bed. All of the boys were in one cabin while the girls were in another. It's not fair that one room has four people and another has two but I guess it makes up for the imbalance somewhat.

In the morning I was paired with Skylar. She's pretty well-skilled too. A lot more fit and agile than Kaz. We sailed through our tasks without needing to take breaks or check up on each other too much but we did chat during our breaks at the end waiting for the changing of activities.

She's cool, smart, and practises martial arts too. She's not my level of smarts but if I felt out of place in a conversation I could probably ask her to translate the dumbness. Definitely, a person I wouldn't mind having around.

The day ends and the group reconnect. Kaz practically runs up to me with a smile when he sees us.

"How did it go?" He asks excitedly.

"It went well. Can't wait to work with her." I say smiling at her as she walks over to the table. "And you?" I ask as I remember that Kaz was paired with Marcus.

Marcus looks up at me with a fake smile. "He's annoying." He says in his dull monotone voice.

I sigh and take a seat next to him, Kaz moving to my other side.

"He wouldn't tell me any embarrassing stories." Kaz pouts.

Marcus leans over to me. "He so has a thing for you." He whispers in a teasing tone. I blush as he pulls back with a laugh, a genuine one which strengthens as he sees my face. "Good to know." He musses.

"Shut up!" I sigh.

Kaz gasps. "What? How did you...? You didn't even say anything."

Skylar laughs. "Now he's going to make it his life's mission to make you laugh."

"Great." Marcus says with a straight face before softly smiling at the group.

"Oh look, food." I say trying to distract them as Bree and Oliver walk out with bowls of meat and rice.

Kaz had snuck in a kiss before I went off to brush my teeth while Oliver and Marcus were getting ready for bed. It was brief but enough to let me know that he wanted to continue whatever we had going on.

The next day was kinda boring. While Oliver and I had the most in common we also didn't see eye to eye. I have nothing against him. He's school smart, and just as if not more sarcastic than me but he seemed to have been baby-ed his whole life and definitely needed to work on his everything strength.

After a while, we just worked in silence. We had to do a scavenger hunt and decided to split up. Thankfully he's better than Kaz at reading a map. We met back up at the collection point and checked everything off before heading to our next task.

By the time dinner came around, we were friendlier but I wouldn't say I connected with him as well as I did Skylar. Marcus was right though, he's probably the best out of the three of them for the job. If I could only objectively pick one of them it would be him.

Our catch-up with the rest of the group was mainly the others relaying their days. Skylar and Marcus had made pasta and it was delicious.

They seemed to get along. Skylar had said he reminded her of the people of her community.

Kaz and Bree didn't have much in common but she had taken a liking to him, probably for my sake. She was teasing him as we walked in and he hid behind me jokingly. I smiled at them getting along.

That night we had a bonfire. It was, after all, our last night here. We sat down making S'mores or staring up at the stars chatting absentmindedly.

Kaz gently lays his head on my shoulder. "Will I actually have to do work?" He asks.

I laugh confused. "Yes? Obviously."

"But you're the boss' son, can't you just like make it so I don't have to?" He pouts.

"You can't adorable your way out of working Kaz." I say quietly. "Plus, if I have to work, what makes you think I could make it so you don't have to?"

He shrugs. "I thought maybe you wanted to do the work like a lameo." He jokes, pulling his marshmallow out of the fire. He sandwiches it before putting it into his mouth, burning his mouth.

I just chuckle as he sits up fanning his mouth. "Come on, let's go deal with that burn." I say standing up and pulling him into the kitchen.

We walk in not bothering to turn on the lights. There's plenty from the fire outside. He takes a small drink of water before turning to me with a smile, wiggling his eyebrows. "We're all alone!"

I laugh at him and look around dramatically. "Huh, so we are!"

"Come here!" He grabs my waist pulling me closer.

"Kaz! We're going to be caught." I say softly.

He shrugs. "We're teens, it's what we're meant to do. I bet you've never done anything this risky before." He teases.

"Oh no, making out in the dark. So risky!" I say sarcastically.

"I was just going to hug you but if you want to make out..."

"Shut up." I whisper pulling his face into a kiss.

And we did make out, maybe a little. The next day was our last. We spent the day all together doing whatever we wanted before leaving after lunch. We all climb into the limo. 'Bit extreme Donald!' I think as we drive off to our new home and business.

Yes, they are in the same building. A building owned by my dad. The Davenport Tower. Bree, Marcus and I moved into the penthouse with Donald and Douglas interchanging who stays with us, each with our own room.

Oliver and Kaz move to one apartment on the floor below us and Skylar in the one across from them.

The level below them has a conference room, offices and a "lab" to work on the ideas. With special key card access.

Working here was going to be tough but I had my family. And new friends. And maybe a boyfriend? I should double-check that.

I walk into Kaz's office, of course, he's not working. Busy playing a video game on his phone. He doesn't even notice that I walked in.

I close the door a little louder than I would normally, gaining his attention. "Ah, Chase!" He says happily in surprise.

"Hi, Kaz!" I smile and walk over to him.

He stands up and wraps his arms around my neck. 'It's a good thing these offices have frosted glass.' I chuckle.

"What's up?" He says softly.

I hum. "Not much, just wanted to check something." I explain.

"What's that?"

"We're like dating right?" I ask confidently but still slightly scared.

He nods. "Of course, why?"

"Good, Just checking. I don't want any miscommunication. Nice clear facts." I say smiling.

"You can't get rid of me that easily." He jokes.

"I don't think I want to." I say back.

New Job, a new place to live, with my own room, new friends, new boyfriend. Can life get any better?

---------------

Did you know canonically Chase without his bionics is a silly dumb dumb? It's got nothing to do with this story but I saw a clip of the episode where they swapped chips and OMG he's so silly but adorable. If he didn't have his bionics he probably would have grown up to be a comic nerd. I just needed to write that down.

Anyway, I hope you like this. I don't know if I'll continue this. Maybe, it's an interesting AU.

Love you

Bye

Drew X