Chapter Text
“Mierda.”
Trini sighs, hopelessly scrubbing at the array of colors currently spread across her shirt.
“Here ya go, crazy girl.”
She cursed again, taking the paper towels Zack offered. Wiping at her shirt, she held her other hand up, pointing at the smirking boy.
“Not a word,” she growled, throwing the paper towel covered in paint into the trashcan.
Zack grinned, shrugging as he leaned against the locker next to hers.
“I didn’t even say anything,” he said, chuckling.
“And you don’t have to because it doesn’t have to be said out loud,” Trini replied tersely.
She threw her arms up hopelessly in the air, looking down at her once yellow and grey shirt that was now full of different colors.
“I’d just like to point out that you’re a literal superhero and you got so flustered that you walked into a whole cart of paint—”
Trini looked up, glaring at her friend. He just laughed in response, raising his arms in surrender.
“Wipe that stupid smirk off your face.”
He just shrugged, opening his mouth to say more when a familiar hand landed on Trini’s shoulder.
She turned her head, being met with Kimberly’s smiling face.
The gentleness of the other girl’s hand on her shoulder was a stark contrast to the damage Trini knew those hands could inflict.
(She’d seen it first hand, after all, a mere three weeks ago, when she had fallen off a cliff because some dude blew up some rocks and she found a weird glowing coin with four other kids and then all of a sudden she’s strong and can jump crazy distances and a robot and a talking wall is telling her she’s a Power Ranger and the town had been overrun by rock monsters that were inexplicably called putties and some lady who was supposed to be dead over 65 billion years ago came back to life and tried to kill them all and she’s got friends now who are the literal definition of ride or die which makes them more like family which is something she is continuously getting used to and this is just her life now.)
“Here you go, T,” Kimberly said, soft smile still on her face as she handed the shorter girl the article of clothing she was holding in her hand. “It’s clean, I swear. I put it in my locker yesterday morning in case I got cold and left it there.”
Trini just let out another sigh, giving the other girl a small smile in return.
“Thanks,” Trini answered shortly. “I’m just gonna…go change.”
She turned abruptly and pushed open the bathroom door, entering the closest stall and locking the door. She leaned against it, sighing again as she looked down at her ruined shirt before pulling it off.
Trini knew realistically that it wasn’t Kim’s fault she walked into a cart full of paint—there was paint and metal scaffolding and other construction materials all around the school, where repairs were being done all through campus.
(The school had been damaged during the fight with Rita and her evil rocks, but apparently not enough where the district could justify keeping the school closed down for more than a few weeks, so now here they all were, going back to school and trying to go about their day normally as if they hadn’t all almost died three weeks ago.)
But it sort of was Kim’s fault, Trini decided. Because Kim and Trini and Zack had just been walking down the hallway towards the cafeteria, Trini and Zack arguing about which Fast and Furious movie was the best one (and Trini was just about to punch Zack in the face for his vehement refusal to acknowledge that Fast Five was clearly the greatest of all time) when she had turned to ask Kim to chime in.
And Trini turned her head the exact time Kim had decided to take a sip of her water (see: a sip of water from Trini’s water bottle, because Kim had somehow managed to grab it from Trini’s backpack without the other girl noticing), tilting her head back just a bit as she drank from the bottle.
The sight made Trini falter in her steps.
Not that she hadn’t seen Kim drinking water before but—mierda, the girl was hot.
This is not the first time Trini had thought this—hey, she had eyes, and it wasn’t like it was hard to see that the other girl was freaking beautiful.
Kim’s short, dark brown hair was disheveled in a way that looked like she simply ran her fingers through her hair and it fell in perfect waves (and Trini knew that was exactly what the other girl did to get ready in the morning—ran her fingers through her hair as she sat in the driver’s seat of her car, bopping her head along to the song on the radio as she drove the two of them to school). Her black leather jacket fit on her shoulder’s as if it was custom made for her (and ok, Trini realizes she’s exaggerating but dios mío she has a crush on the other girl so give her a break, por favor) and the simple white shirt and dark skinny jeans Kim had on was possibly one of Trini’s favorite looks on the other girl.
(That was a lie—Kim didn’t have any looks that Trini didn’t love, as Zack gleefully loved to point out to the shorter girl.)
So distracted was Trini from watching Kim drink from her water bottle, eyes closed and head slightly tilted back, that not even her freaky weird Ranger senses (Billy had coined the phrase after Spidey senses because the boy really loved the web slinging superhero and none of them ever had the heart to tell Billy no) had saved her from the inevitable crash and fall that came from running into a whole cart full of paint cans.
Thus leading Trini to her current situation.
Leaving the bathroom wearing a pink and black flannel shirt, courtesy of one Kimberly Hart.
She gave Zack her harshest glare in hopes that the boy would keep his comments to himself.
Zack simply smirked.
It was times like these when she realized just how different her life became ever since that night on the mountain and that glowing yellow coin.
Before the Power Rangers.
Before Kim and Zack and Jason and Billy.
Before, when she used to walk down the hallways alone, her head down and headphones on, drowning out the trivial noises of her fellow classmates.
Back when she was invisible, and people wouldn’t stop and stare when she walked to the cafeteria with Jason Scott, the corners of her mouth upturned in a small smile as he tried to make her laugh.
Or when Billy always managed to make her actually smile, never failing to give her exactly half of one of the chocolate chip cookies he always seemed to have in his lunch bag.
Or when Zack—who had somehow wormed his way into her heart between late night talks on top of a freaking mountain and merciless teasing—just inherently got her, actually knowing when he should push her to talk and when he should fill the silence with nonsense until she was actually ready to speak about what was on her mind.
Or when Kimberly—and Trini was at least self-aware enough to admit she was slightly whipped—would text her in the middle of the night asking if she wanted to come over for rerun’s of Bob’s Burgers because the other girl was having trouble sleeping.
(This last activity led to a lot of impromptu sleepovers in Kimberly’s queen sized bed, and despite the amount of space they each had, found Trini waking up with Kimberly having clung to her with her head on Trini’s chest and her arms wrapped around Trini’s body and their legs intertwined because of course Kimberly Hart was a cuddler.)
Trini wouldn’t say she missed the complete solitude, per say, but sometimes she felt the need to be alone with her thoughts so she could sort out what the fuck was going on and how she went from zero people to four new ones always completely there for her in the span of a month and a half.
Also, the superhero thing.
(Actually, the superhero thing she’s pretty sure she could deal with. It was the other thing—or, it was tied into it anyways, that she was having trouble with.)
The other thing was the massive rush of feelings she’s developed for the friendly neighborhood Pink Ranger.
It started with small, subtle things—like outings to the local Krispy Kreme (before Rita went and destroyed the only halfway decent thing about the town, and they have yet to finish rebuilding), and started growing with things like movie nights or dinner plans or study dates.
And the way Kimberly Hart was utterly and completely captivating.
Trini had seen multiple facets of the other girl in the short time she’d known her, and each one was as amazing as the last.
Kimberly was tough on the outside—Trini thought it was perhaps a different kind of protective armor Kim had developed outside of the literal armor the girl sometimes sported (see: the whole freaking superhero thing), the kind that Trini knew developed from Kim’s old friends talking about Kim loudly in the hallway, and calling her names under their breaths, and her fall from the top of the social ladder to the bottom.
(Well, not completely the bottom, Trini knew, because despite what Kim thought everyone else at school still completely worshipped the beautiful, charming, smart and—did she mention beautiful angel—that was Kimberly Hart.)
Kim wasn’t just tough on the outside though—the girl was just all around badass.
(Trini had sparred with her enough times to know that—also, she had seen the way Kimberly had taken down those putties, and dios mío the girl could fight.)
But despite the front she put up at school, Trini had seen the soft side of Kim as well—the one who always made sure everyone on the team went to the medbay after training, or calmed Trini down when she had woken up from that nightmare, or fought with her over the last bite of banana bread but ultimately letting Trini have it.
It had only taken Trini about a week after getting to know Kimberly—the real Kimberly, not the front she used to put up at school—to start crushing on the other girl, and another two for it to evolve from innocent crush to full-blown feelings.
And now she’s here, squirming slightly under Kimberly’s suddenly intense gaze.
“What?” Trini asked, a little self-consciously as she threw her ruined shirt into her bag, hoping she could somewhat salvage it when she got home.
(It seriously was one of her favorite shirts—her mom had actually gotten it for her, in an attempt to relate to her daughter and close the distance that seemed to continue to grow as more time went on.)
Kim tilted her head to the side, humming slightly before she smiled—not the soft smile she gives Trini when she manages to learn a new bit of personal information about the girl, or the full-blown, ear to ear grin she has when Trini makes a joke—but a wicked smile, one that Trini would almost classify as a smirk.
“Nothing,” Kim replied as she resumed her walk down the hallway.
Kim looked over her shoulder, keeping Trini rooted in her spot with that smirk as Zack looked between the two girls with his eyebrows raised.
“You just look really good in pink.”
Trini faltered in her movement, accidentally closing her locker too hard. She turned to see that her hand had left a slight indent of her palm in the middle of the locker, the metal frame bent so it was slightly askew.
“Don’t even,” Trini growled, holding her hand up to Zack, leaving him laughing behind her as she scrambled to catch up with Kim.
Mierda, Kimberly Hart was going to be the death of her.