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Shaw doesn’t get her kid’s fixation on purple, from painting her room a dark indigo to one day asking Root if she could get purple contacts, which was dumb because it’s not like Ris has ever had issues with her eyesight. Nevermind that Root later explained it as a fashion thing, but seriously, her kid’s like seven. She doesn’t need to worry about fashion yet. Or ever.
And Shaw will never admit to totally understanding a similar fascination with Power Rangers, because duh. Who doesn’t love campy beat-em-ups? The show needs more guns, of course, but when Root’s away and Ris isn’t completely keen on another Die Hard marathon, they might — might — spend the evening reenacting their favorite Power Rangers scenes.
So it doesn’t come as too much of a surprise when Ris corners both her and Root one morning, a couple days before her birthday, and demands they make her a Power Ranger costume. But it does throw her when Ris insisted she be a purple Ranger. “You want…there isn’t even a purple one!” Shaw says while mentally cataloging the colors she’s aware of, at least from the early seasons that she’s actually seen. Blue, red, pink, yellow, black…maybe green or white…
"Yes there is!" Ris yells, then sticks her hands on her hips and looksvery upset that how dare Shaw question her own Power Rangers expertise. “For I am the PURPLE POWER RANGER!” A fist shoots out and Shaw has to almost Matrix out of the way to dodge a punch to her midsection.
She can practically feel the amusement radiating from Root. So much for never telling anyone else. What use is having a kid if they won’t keep your secrets? “Okay, uh…” she mutters, glancing at Root and nearly throwing up a little bit at the sheer glee shining in her eyes. “I don’t think they sell a…purple…Ranger costume in stores, so…” She trails off, internally crossing her fingers that she can logic her way out of this.
"Nonsense!" Root exclaims before Ris can fully deploy a terrifying pout.
Shaw jerks her head to stare at Root and almost gawps in horror. She knows that look. That look is deadly.
Root leans over, hands on her knees, to look Ris in the eye. “If we can’t buy one, of course we’ll just have to make one,” she says with an evil smirk flung back over her shoulder.
Shaw just sighs and presses a hand to her forehead.
A pile of bright purple spandex rests on the coffee table before them, with smaller piles of white and black off to the side. Shaw groans for the hundredth time that day and rubs a hand across the back of her neck. “I can’t believe we’re gonna be doing this all night…” she says, then snatches up her coffee to gulp it down.
"I’d think we’d be used to all-nighters by now," Root replies with a raised eyebrow.
Shaw chokes and just barely manages to turn her head before coffee sprays everywhere. “S-Shut up,” she growls between coughs.
Root smirks and plucks a sheet of paper off the table. “So we have the pattern and the material…” she hums, seems like mostly to herself. Or to the Machine, maybe. She does that sometimes. “But I’m afraid I skipped home ec for the actual sewing part.”
"I got that," Shaw mumbles without really thinking about the words and definitely not paying any attention to the way Root’s eyebrows shoot up in her direction at how she rustles through their supplies and threads a needle in a mere handful of seconds. It’s been a while, at least with something that wasn’t for medical purposes, but Shaw’s more than a little proud of her muscle memory. Until she realizes that Root is staring, anyway. A slight heat rushing up her neck, she snatches up a couple pieces of purple spandex and starts knitting them together with a gruff, "What?"
Root’s voice is just dripping joy. “I didn’t know you could sew.”
Shaw gives a half-hearted shrug, focusing mostly on the material in-hand. “‘s not hard,” she mutters, deftly making another loop. “If you can stitch, you can sew.”
Several minutes pass in silence, allowing her to deftly patch the fabric together with some of the white and black accents. She almost forgets Root’s even there, with as quiet as she’s being, until she hears the telltale sign of a throat clearing, and her teeth clench instinctively.
"I shouldn’t have been so surprised," Root purrs, "at how nimble your fingers can be.”
Shaw nearly slams down the bolt she’s working onto the table, and shoots a glare at Root. “Can we seriously not do this when I’m making a costume for my kid?!”
The purple Power Ranger’s a huge hit. Ris wears it pretty much the entire day, and at one point even coaxes Shaw into a joint performance of their favorite faux-karate scene, much to her chagrin and everyone else’s delight. She calls it a win, anyway, when Root leans in afterward and whispers something entirely inappropriate for a kid’s birthday party, combined with a suggestion that they let Finch watch Ris tonight.
Later that night, Shaw has Root straddling her lap, both already sans shirts, when her phone starts beeping at her angrily. With a groan, she nudges Root back slightly so she can sneak a hand into her pocket and pull out the offending device, unlocking it with a flick and growling, “What?!” into the receiver.
There’s some distant yelling in the background, but then Finch’s voice comes on over it all. "This was a brand new laptop, Miss Shaw!" he chirps, his own version of fury extremely evident.
Before she can even ask what the hell happened, some scratching comes over the phone, and then her ear nearly gets blasted out by a cry of, "IT’S MORPHIN’ TIME, MOM!"
Another squawk from Finch starts to blare over the line, but then she hears the familiar click and dialtone instead.
It takes them both at least a full five minutes to stop heaving laughter and calm down long enough to resume any of their previous activities.