Nicki smiled as she got off the bus. She started walking slowly towards Kaz's warehouse, her arms filled with bags of groceries. She hadn't seen Kaz in a while since everything at the Mansion had gone so wrong so quickly. She missed him a lot...

Walking over to the warehouse, she dug around for the key that Kaz had given her the last time she was there. Relief swept over her as she wrapped her fingers around the small piece of metal. She smiled and slid the key into the slot, pushing the door open.

"Anyone home?" she called out happily, walking in and closing the door behind her, locking it.

Kaz didn't hear Nicki call out, but the warehouse did. He was on the training area on the third/fourth floor. A screen came down from the ceiling in front of him. Stopping himself mid twist on the highest of the uneven bars, he saw and heard Nicki. "Audio." A half second later when Kaz spoke Nicki would hear it. "Nope. No one home. No one's on the third floor." She would be able to hear the small chuckle coming from him.

Nicki chuckled a little as she heard Kaz's voice over the system. She set the groceries down in the kitchen and started up the stairs. She rolled her eyes as she approached the fifth floor, walking in and finding Kaz working out.

"Do you ever do anything else with your time?" she asked, smiling brightly as she leaned against the door frame.

Kaz was doing a complicated routine when Nicki came in leaning against the door frame. "Do you ever do anything else with your time?" Kaz laughed as he let go of the bars, letting the momentum take him. He landed perfectly, with no bounce at all. "Think about you." Kaz walked over to her, leaned and kissed her. "What's up? Been a few days."

Nicki smiled as Kaz dismounted perfectly. She applauded as he walked over, kissing her. She smiled and leaned in again after he posed his question, indulging in the kiss a little longer, wrapping her arms around his neck. "I think about you too." she smiled.

"It's been...kinda crazy at the Mansion." Nicki leaned against the wall, looking up at Kaz. "Iris, um, one of the girl's that the Order took got dropped off at the Mansion and, I think she had been exposed to Haywire and she was just..." Nicki sighed, trailing off. "It was pretty bad...a lot of people got hurt."

"But, it's settled. And I just really wanted to see you" Nicki smiled. "So I got some stuff and I'm gonna make you dinner"

Kaz remembered what Nicki had told him awhile ago. Not to get all depressed and such, even in his mind, 'cuz she feels bad and gets all depressed too. "I'm sorry bout that babe." He didn't know what else to say. Instead of talking, he hugged her close, a little stronger than normal, glad that she was alright. "As long as you're alright, then all the worlds okay." He ran his hand through her hair as he stepped back.

"You said dinner? Ooh..bad words." Kaz's stomach growled. Looking down at it, he hit his stomach gently and playfully, "Shush you." Looking up at Nicki he smiled, "I'll help."

Nicki could feel something off about Kaz's hug but she was quiet and ignored it. She smiled and started to rub Kaz's stomach briefly before taking his hand and started going down the stairs to the first floor to grab the groceries before going up to the sixth floor to the kitchen.

"Damn right you're going to be helping." she chuckled as they started walking, Nicki's fingers interlaced with Kaz's. "So, what have you been up to?" she asked, looking over at the tall man.

Kaz wasn't sure what they headed down the stairs for until he saw the bags. "I'll get'em." After picking up the bags he followed Nicki up the stairs. He shifted the bags and held Nicki's hand on the way up. "I don't know what you're planning to make so you'll have to 'hold my hand' through it."

"Oh not much. I was offered a job, took it. Got full control over Atlas Munitions. Otherwise pretty much relaxing." Kaz laughed as a thought came into his head. "If you see any bottles around, I've been trying to get drunk. It doesn't work though. Kinda sucks."

Nicki smiled as she twisted into Kaz's embrace, smiling. She took a few of the bags as they started up the stairs.

"That's aweosme about the job. What are you doing? How did you get a hold of Atlas Munitions?" Nicki asked, chuckiling. Kaz always dropped bombshells as if they were nothing.

"Why have you been trying to get drunk honey?" she asked, concerned.

"I don't really do much." Shrugging. "More of a gofor. Gofor this, gofor that. From what I understand, he's sort of like a collector. Turns out he owned the other half of Atlas. I had bought half of it a year or so ago. Apparently he didn't want it anymore and gave it to me, free of charge. When you're as rich as he is, I guess you can do that." Kaz laughed.

"No real reason, love. Nothin to get worry bout. Just trying to see if it can happen, and how much it would take." There was more to that last statement but Kaz didn't continue verbally or mentally.

As they finally got upstairs and intot he kitchen area, Nicki came a live. She took all the bags and started emptying them, pulling out packs of chicken breast, parsley, potatoes, and other things. "I figured you had wine. They frown on selling wine to high school students" Nicki laughed, moving around the kitchen.

"Wow. That sounds really great though. I know you love Atlas and it's great that he just decided to give it to you" Nicki smiled.

"Okay honey..." she trailed off about the alcohol consumption. "I can still get worried though" Nicki smiled, walking over to him and grabbing a quick kiss.

Nicki quickly moved over towards the counter again and took out a knife, taking a moment to find the cutting board and then grabbed the parsely. "Do me a favor? Get me a skillet and some butter?" she asked.

Kaz watched as Nicki unpacked a bunch of, what seemed to him, random food. Kaz doesn't really cook. Can't really cook, except normal, easy good stuff like steak. Kaz joined Nicki in her laugh. "Yeah, they're not too keen on that. But you're right, I do have some wine. Not sure what kinds, but I'm sure we can find something that works."

Kaz shrugged when she spoke about being worried, but he did happily accept the kiss. "Skillet and butter...ahh, yeah sure." Rummaging through the fridge, Kaz found the butter. The skillet wasn't cooperating. He opened nearly every door before he found it. <Looks like it hasn't been used in a bit. Still clean but...kinda dusty.> Kaz got a paper towel lightly damp and wiped the skillet down before drying it off and handing both to Nicki. "Here ya go." He watched to mess with the ingredients, "What are you doing exactly?"

"Great...some red wine will probably do us well" Nicki smiled, starting to chop up some of the parsely. She took the skillet and put it on the burner, turning it on and putting a pad of butter on it.

"Well, I'm going to let the butter melt, than put in some parsely and the chicken and let that brown slightly. Then I'm gonna take that steak that's still in the bag and put it in this nice little butter parsely sauce too. Then I'm gonna make some mash potatoes, with also will have the butter parsely stuff in it, and green beans and a maybe some corn put right against the flame" Nicki smiled and took the melted butter and parsely and poured it onto a plate, dipping the uncooked chicken into it and turning it, before setting it aside. "Trust me, it's gonna be awesome" Nicki beamed.

"Red wine'eh. Alrighty. I'll assume it doesn't matter what kind." Kaz moved to the wall between the kitchen and the living room, it was blank except for a fairly small wooden framed picture of Kaz and the other three of his 'friends'. Swinging the frame up, pivoting on small hinges at the top, Kaz pressed a few buttons and the wall beside the frame slid open. Anyone could tell this was Kaz's equivalent to a wine cellar. There were literally hundreds of bottles in this room, top to bottom in their oak racks. Not being much of a wine expert, Kaz just got the stuff and stocked it in it's proper place. Kaz looked at a few of the years, 1762, 1438, 1825, 1906, 1521, 1690; Grabbing the last one he shrugged, <Looks fine to me.> Heading out he pressed another code into the pad beneath the picture closing the room off again. "Hope this works." Kaz set the bottle near Nicki, but out of her way.

Kaz ran his hands over her shoulders, down her back, then around her waist, leaning down he kissed her neck gently as she explained what she was doing. Kaz held her in a light hug that let her do the work without hindrance. "Well, to be honest, I'm completely lost, but," Kissing her neck again, "I won't just trust you, I'll just believe you."

Nicki looked at the wine, turning towards Kaz. "Honey, that's worth a lot of money, maybe we should drink something from the more recent centuries" she laughed. She was amazed that she wasn't surprised. Kaz had things that were worth a lot of money and, where once her mouth would have dropped, she was used to it.

Dipping the next piece of chicken into the butter concoction, Nicki moved to the sink, turning on the water. "So um...can I tell you something and have you not freak out?" Nicki asked, keeping her eyes off of Kaz. She eventually stopped the water and turned to face him. She sighed, looking up to Kaz's crimson gaze. "I love you" she said, before looking down to her shoes. "It's totally okay if you don't feel the same way or don't feel that way yet or whatever, but I just wanted you to know that I do..." Nicki mumbled.