Prom, Prison, and Pineapples

Summary: Fang tries to break up with Kitten. It doesn't go so well.

Pairings: Fang/Kitten.

Warnings: There is no Kitten-bashing in this one. In fact, she's even being treated as an actual human being, albeit spoiled one. You have been warned.

A/N: I tried to treat their relationship seriously – or, as seriously as it can be taken. So there is depth in this. Also, Happy Canada Day to all the other Canadians out there! Enjoy!

There were certain things that just should not be thought about, much less attempted.

For example, according to Jump City's underworld, placing that Starfire chick in danger around Robin was not the smartest thing to do. Fang could understand that. If someone ever tried to harm Kitten, they would find themselves on the receiving end of a paralyzing bite or three.

But it was Fang who had harmed Kitten this time. He had done the one thing that should not be done at any cost. He was so dead.

All these thoughts flashed through his mind in the second that it took for Kitten to process what he had just said.

"YOU'RE BREAKING UP WITH ME?"

Fang was an idiot.

He hadn't meant to tell her that. It had just…slipped out. He'd been contemplating it for some time, wrestling with himself, but he hadn't really planned for the aftermath. He knew that this would be her reaction, he knew that her junior prom was right around the corner; she'd been looking forward to it for months. Why couldn't he have waited until after prom?

He knew that answer to that too. There was no way that he'd be able to pay for all of the elaborate things that she would need: two different limos (one for arriving and one for leaving), hair, nails, shoes, the perfect dress (in pink, of course), and jewelry – as a start. Of course Kitten could pay for all these things by herself, but she shouldn't have to. It was the principle of the matter.

She stared at him, waiting for him to explain himself, he realized.

What was he supposed to say?

Sorry, babe, although you're the best thing that's ever happened to me, I don't have enough money to continue giving you the gifts that you deserve, and I'm just not a good enough criminal.

No, that didn't cut it, for him or her.

He just stared at her, not for the first time grateful that his face was expressionless by default.

Kitten's lower lip was quivering the slightest bit and there was a suspicious moisture in her eyes. So, naturally, she started screaming.

Fang stood there and bore the brunt of her wrath. Most of it was profanity, laced with verbal barbs designed to tear down his self-esteem, but he could feel her little hands pushing and slapping him. It didn't hurt him physically, but each punch seemed to jab into his heart.

"Nobody breaks up with me! Especially not you!"

This was her automatic defense mechanism. When things didn't go well, she threw a tantrum and acted like she was only upset because things weren't going her way. Even though Fang knew this, it still hurt.

"Get out of here! Go away!"

Fang obeyed. Kitten made an inarticulate noise of rage. Complacency wasn't what she was looking for. She wanted a fight, an excuse to justify her over the top anger.

"You're so – ugh! You'll regret this, Fang! You'll be sorry!"

I already do. I already am.

-x-

Kitten was trying to make him jealous.

It was working.

Fang couldn't help it; seeing Kitten all over that punk Robin was enough to make his mandibles drip venom. And what was worse was that the boy didn't even seem to appreciate her.

Although, Fang saw that Robin's alien girl was watching them with increasing amounts of jealousy. He was happy that he wasn't the only one feeling that way tonight. He briefly entertained the idea of approaching her to share in her frustration, but decided against it. After all, there was an outstanding warrant for his arrest, he thought, briefly touching the bag of jewelry that hung around his waist.

Not only that, but there was also the matter of what Kitten liked to call his 'spiderness.' Most girls screamed when they saw a spider. Then they tried to squish it. Fang didn't want to get close enough to the super strong alien girl to find out what she'd do.

That was one of the great things about Kitten. She wasn't scared of bugs. For all of her shortcomings – and there were many of them; she'd be the first to admit it – she wasn't the kind of girl to shrink away from getting her hands dirty. Oh, sure, she'd avoid those kinds of situations if she could, get her Daddy to do the work, but she was fearless around insects. She cared about them, looked past their hard exoskeletons and their many legs.

One of his many legs reached down again to brush against the bag, and Fang tried to ignore the sliver of fear that wormed its way into his heart. Kitten had to accept this gift. He didn't know what he'd do if she didn't.

Their relationship hadn't always been like this. It had started off – as so many things involving Kitten seemed to – with her father. Fang had been having problems with his 'spiderness,' and Killer Moth was the only person within a few states even remotely qualified to help him.

At first, Fang had only interacted with his daughter out of necessity. When Killer Moth was unavailable to treat him, which was often, considering he was constantly plotting to take over the city, then Kitten was the one who gave Fang his injections and made sure that his chemicals were balanced. Dating came later, when Fang realized that it would be advantageous to have a strong relationship with Kitten. After all, the way to Killer Moth's heart was through his daughter, and Fang intended to be at the center of her heart.

At first, they were like ticks, feeding off of each other: Kitten using him for all of the pretty things that her Daddy would have bought her anyway, and him using her influence on her father to get into his good graces.

Kitten's extravagant lifestyle put a huge strain on his wallet though, and it wasn't long before Fang was resorting to a series of petty (or maybe not so petty) crimes to pay for all of Kitten's expensive gifts. Unfortunately, it seemed that he wasn't criminally gifted…and witnesses tended to remember what the half-spider mutant looked like.

Yet for some reason, they kept dating. No, he knew the reason. Somewhere along the way, rational thought had taken the backseat to his emotions. His heart was no longer his own, as cliché as it sounded.

Sounds from the deck drew his attention back to his surroundings. Robin had stopped pretending to be even mildly interested in Kitten, and was outright insulting her. Obviously, she didn't take that very well.

And now Robin was holding Kitten in a dip, as Fang should have been doing. Logically, he knew that they hadn't been dancing; they had been fighting over the detonator in her hands, but it wasn't that hard for Fang to imagine their frantic grappling as a kind of dance.

Oh, he couldn't take it anymore! He wasn't going to just stand there and watch that Robin punk treat his Kitten like that! Making sure that he still had the jewelry, he jumped down to Kitten.

-x-

"You're a complete idiot!"

Fang had to agree.

They were in Kitten's spacious living room, Fang sitting on the couch while Kitten stood in front of a full-length mirror and glared at him while furiously brushing her hair.

Prison had not been kind to her, even though she'd only been there for four days. It would have been best if she'd gotten out sooner, but even Killer Moth's influence hadn't helped that much. Eventually, though, they were released, thanks to a lawyer whose hourly wage was more than Fang had ever seen in his entire life.

He had just finished explaining to her why he had broken up with her, and she was understandably upset with him. His reasons sounded weak, even to his own ears.

She held her glare for a moment longer, before her face softened. "But you're my idiot."

They lapsed into a semi-comfortable silence; Fang slumped deeper into the couch, and Kitten arranged her hair into a loose braid. She fussed with her hair and clothes for a few more minutes until she deemed her appearance acceptable. Then, she whipped around and growled, "But if you ever, ever break up with me again, you'll be sorry."

Instead of responding to that very-true statement, he said, "I love you."

Kitten smiled at him blithely as she plopped down beside him, "I know you do; you got me all this stuff, didn't you?"

"No, I mean, I love you." And Fang tried hard to make her understand what he meant, because he didn't think that he was quite ready to say it yet.

I love you, and I'd still love you even if you weren't able to influence your father like you can. I like you for you. People can care about you, and show it, without buying you expensive things.

"Oh." Kitten said. "Oh. Well, um, thank you. And…I love you too."

Kitten didn't get it, not completely, but that wasn't her fault, because that was the way that she'd been raised.

"So…" Kitten broke the silence. "Do you wanna go out to eat?"

"Nah, let's just stay here," Fang said, as he pulled her closer to him.

Kitten pouted. "But I'm hungry!"

"There's a kitchen here, isn't there?"

"Who's going to cook though?"

"You are."

"Me?"

"Yes, you."

"But I don't know how to cook!"

"You're in luck then. I do."

"You can cook then!"

If Fang could smile, he would have. "There's a bit of a problem with that," he said, clicking his mandibles as a reminder. "I still can't fully control when these things decide to go into overdrive. I don't think that you'd want to eat scrambled eggs spiced up with paralyzing venom."

Kitten frowned in concern. "Those are still bothering you? I thought that Daddy balanced the paralyzing agents out during your last appointment."

"Well, he didn't take your advice about adding those extra chemical ingredients into my treatment."

"What?" A brief look of hurt flashed over her face before it was replaced with a familiar anger.

"Why don't you tell me all about the adjustments that you wanted to make to my dosage?" Fang hastily suggested, wanting to avoid another blow up tonight, if possible.

Kitten's face brightened, and she launched into an explanation involving long scientific names, with a lot of "Daddy thinks" and "new theories" thrown in for good measure.

When she finished, he said, "See? When you put your mind to it and work for a bit, you can come up with a lot of genius stuff."

Kitten made a face. "Work's boring."

"Of course," Fang said, amused. "Now, come on. I'm going to teach you how to cook."

He was able to coax Kitten into the kitchen with only a bit of protesting on her part. At first, she feigned boredom, but after ten minutes of exaggerated sulking, she relented and expressed a vague interest in what Fang was doing.

Half an hour later, the sounds of laughter and running water floated out of the kitchen.

"Hey, Fang? What does this thing do?"

"That's a can opener, Kitten. You use it to open cans like this one."

"Oh, like this?"

"What? No! Not like that! Kitten, don't touch those pineapples! Careful!"

And then the kitchen was filled with the sound of crashes, and the occasional curse as the smoke detector went off.

A/N: If you enjoyed this, please review and tell me why. If you didn't, please review and tell me why not. Thanks!