Broken

Chapter 13

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"Whoa, whoa whoa! What are you doing, Ford?!" Ada dashed in front of Iris, splaying her arms out in a defensive manner.

"Ada, get out of the way," Ford ordered sternly. "This will not be a pretty altercation."

"Uh, there will be no altercating of any sort! Put that thing down!"

Ford didn't flinch. "Ada, I am seriously warning you, get out of the way, I will shoot!"

Iris ducked away from the both of them, and stood helpless. She didn't know what to do. Ford followed her movements with his eyes, before finally putting his crossbow down. Ada rushed to Iris' side and asked if she was okay.

"Who is this," Ford demanded, "and why is she on the front porch?!"

"Don't get so crabby. This is Iris." Iris waved, but knew that this man would definitely not be friendly with her.

"Alright, get inside," he urged. "It's cold. Ada, I need to speak with you privately," Ford called from inside the house. She wanted to roll her eyes but for Iris' sake she decided against it.

"So this is the Mystery Shack...," Iris mumbled. "Seems rather, uh, homey."

She wandered into the living room, and stood there, awkwardly. Meanwhile Ada had her private conversation with Ford. It was held just at the foot of the stairs, concealed poorly by a flimsy wall. Iris could hear every word exchanged between them, and Ada knew it.

"Ada, you cannot bring unauthorized people home!"

She exhaled. "Ford, I'm not up for arguing tonight. All we plan to do is go through the Mystery Shack tour."

"She's a potential threat! Do you know anything about her?"

"I just met this girl. Of course I don't know much about her. But that's why we’re going to do this thing, so we can bond."

Ford pursed his lips and peeked around the corner, to find Iris at the fish tank, tapping at the glass. She was tapping at the Pines family honorary lobster. Ada peeked around the corner with Ford and found the scene in front of her to be quite endearing. She smiled dreamily, losing touch with reality for a brief moment before Ford spoke.

"She's still a threat."

Ada groaned for a brief moment, frustrated, before finally conceding the argument. "This- ugh- it's not worth my time." She turned the corner and invited Iris on her tour through the Mystery Shack.

Ford knew that Iris was not to be trusted, and the fact that Ada was so enamored made her even more suspicious. Though he regretted his initially aggressive behavior after seeing the outrage it caused- perhaps he could have handled that a little better-, he didn't want to eliminate right away that she could have been a reason behind that inevitable return of Bill that he kept babbling about to Ada. He never did get a good look at her pupils. With that final thought, Ford descended to his lab.

Ada and Iris' tour of the Mystery Shack was short, to say the least. While Iris saw a sort of novelty in the strange shack of knickknacks and manufactured weirdness, it still lacked a certain magic that perhaps other tourists could see, but Iris couldn't​. She was not a fan of the tour. It made Ada upset to disappoint her in such a way.

“Who’s the guy that lives in this house,” Iris asked when the two women found themselves on the porch’s couch. “The one who answered the door?”

Ada paused. “He’s...troubled.”

“That doesn’t answer my question,” Iris retorted automatically. “What is his name?”

“It’s Ford,” Ada admitted after another pause, surprised by Iris’ impatience. “Everyone calls him Ford.”

“And he’s troubled? What’s his deal?”

“He keeps babbling about some...thing that apparently is going to make some big return any day now.”

Iris hummed. “Sounds paranoid. What's your relationship to him?"

"Well, it's definitely not a boyfriend," a gleeful voice shouted from seemingly nowhere. It sounded like Mabel. Ada stood up and took a glance around before noticing Mabel- along with Stan and Dipper all sitting in an idling El Diablo with the headlights off.

"You two are so cute together," Mabel exclaimed as she hopped out of the car, Candy and Grenda in tow.

"Yes, you two can date!" It was Candy who echoed Mabel's statement.

Iris and Ada blinked at each other. Of course Ada wanted to date this girl. But Iris- Iris probably wouldn't even be interested. She probably had some male suitor waiting in the wings for her. What if she was engaged to be married or something? Ada had do admit, that would be a mighty disappointment.

"Dating? Pffft," Iris scoffed. "Nah, Ada and I are just buddies, pals, chums, you know?" Iris locked her arm around Ada's neck, and it nearly broke her heart to hear that. But still, she smiled.

"Well, I'm gonna have a sleepover with my friends, and we'll leave you and your 'buddy'," she said, putting that last word into air quotes, "To have the night to yourselves. Good luck."

With that, Mabel shut the door.

"You two are totally soulmates," Grenda said through the window.

With the girls gone, Ada began to tense up even more. "I-I bet they're just joking. They...really like boys, so..."

Iris raised her eyebrows. "I don't know. They seemed pretty intent on making us date."

"Are you really gonna listen to a bunch of thirteen year olds?"

"Why wouldn't you listen to a bunch of thirteen year olds?"

"You're not seriously suggesting that we-"

"Date? Sure, why not? Don't tell me that it hasn't crossed your little mind at least once."

"I-I mean, we- we're acquainted, but not like, lovers. Well, we could be, but I think that that might take some time and we'd need to, you know, get to know each other first and have some coffee and-"

"Here comes that nervousness again," Iris interrupted. She stood up. "Listen. Let's try it, and if it doesn't work out, no harm, no foul. Deal?"

Ada stood up and stuck out her hand, as if to shake Iris'. Yet Iris just shook her head and pulled Ada into a brief kiss on the lips.

"See you soon," Iris whispered in her ear before walking off to go home. As she watched Iris walk off, Ada could only think of one thing.

It was going to be very hard to focus on work tomorrow.

A/N: Hello, everyone! Thank you for your patience. I wanted to discuss a few things about the story you're continuing to read. Okay, so I was worried that some people may have seen this relationship between Ada and Iris a little forced or that they dated a little too quickly. If you think these things, then yes! You're absolutely right. I have a point in doing all this. Ada and Iris are going to be a big part of the story to come, and this portion of their relationship is supposed to be fast-paced. I've been planning this relationship for a long time, so I have a reason for making it so forced. I wanted to make this clear so the story wouldn't seem that it was going off the rails somehow. The next chapter will focus more on Ford and Ada's job. Again, thank you all for the reads, votes and comments!