Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Slow Horses (TV), Slough House - Mick Herron
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Jackson Lamb/Catherine Standish, Jackson Lamb & Catherine Standish, Charles Partner & Catherine Standish
Characters: Jackson Lamb (Slow Horses), Catherine Standish
Additional Tags: Pre-Canon, Angst, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism
Series: Part 145 of 1000 Songs
Summary:
Lamb finds Catherine drunk at a bar and takes her some
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I work at home and I haven’t left my house in a while and you think I’m dead in my house beca's the one at home chloe finds her somehow
As requested, lovely anon.
“I need three more hours, Theo, and then it’s good to send, alright?” Beca says through speakerphone, fingers moving dials across her mixing board, one earphone off her ear just enough for her to make out what the guy’s saying.
“Beca, the deadline is in thirty minutes and you’re supposed to be here to present it to the artist!”
Beca pushes one of her equalizer bars half an inch too far, curses under her breath, and then fixes it. “Theo, just tell the client the truth – I’ve been sick and things are taking me a little longer than usual, but it’ll be there. Once they know I might be contagious, they won’t want to see me anyway,” she says confidently, adjusting a lever to correct the timbre.
“Beca,” he says, and she rolls her eyes at his exasperated tone.
“I’ve never let Timberlake down before, he’ll understand.”
“But–”
“Theo, do we have to go over this every time? Who. Is. Your. Boss?”
She can hear grumbles in the background as she hits pause on the song and slips her earphones down to her neck. “I couldn’t hear that?” she prompts.
“You are,” he finally says, begrudgingly.
“Right, so you’re going to do what?” she can’t help a small smirk from crossing her face envisioning his pained turtle expression.
He audibly sighs. “I’m going to tell Justin Timberlake that we need to postpone our meeting by two and a half hours and that you’re too sick to come in. I will also say that we are sorry, but you’ve been sick and haven’t been able to work quite as quickly as usual.”
“Good.” Beca’s finger moves to hover over the “end call” button on her phone. “Bye.” It slams onto the screen.
She puts the phone off to the side, gives herself a little shake, and then stops because it sounds weirdly like someone is knocking on her front door.
Why is this weird? Because she has a small red indicator light on her porch so her friends and family know when she’s busy and they can either leave her alone or enter the house using the passcode they’ve been assigned. She’s given a different one to each person and a message telling her who’s here flashes across the bottom righthand corner of her computer screen.
Everyone who could possibly visit her knows not to bug her. So who’s at the door?
She pulls her blanket tighter around her red panda onesie and walks over to the little CCTV display in the corner of her recording studio. It’s not someone super familiar to Beca; it takes almost ten seconds of staring for her to recognize the redheaded woman as one of her neighbours. Beca shrugs and goes back to her booth.
Two hours and fifty-two minutes later, she drops the song file onto the record label’s secure server and slips her earphones off.
“Riot,” she says, and her phone flickers to life. “Text Turtle.”
“Texting Turtle.”
“Boom! It’s uploaded.”
“Texting Turtle, ‘Boom! It’s uploaded.’ Do you wish to send?”
“Send.”
“Message sent.”
She smiles triumphantly and pulls off her headphones. She stretches her limbs out and gets up, fixing her blanket as she goes. At the door she flicks off the studio light and exits into her hallway.
Knock, knock, knock.
“Bloody hell,” Beca mutters as someone continues to tap on her door. She’d been hoping to boil some water, make some tea, and then crawl into bed for another week. She smiles wistfully at the thought of having Theo cancel her week’s appointments.
Instead of curling up in bed and texting him her plan, she veers toward her front door instead. The camera display in her entrance hall shows the same redheaded neighbour. Beca grumbles, unlocks the door, and pulls it open.
The woman stares at her in shock.
Self-consciously, Beca wraps the blanket more securely around herself.
“Oh my,” the woman says. “Are you alright?”
“No,” Beca says. “This crazy lady’s been banging on my door for the past, like, three hours.”
Blushing furiously, the woman says, “In my defense, after I knocked the first time I went home for a bit and only just now came back.”
“Okay, but no offence, why are you here?”
The blush only deepens.
“Okay, so I know this is going to sound, like, totes stalkery, but I haven’t seen you in like two weeks. Usually I see you every afternoon holding a takeout cup of coffee from Swan’s Beans because I teach piano lessons and my piano is in front of my living room window. And, well, I haven’t seen you for a long, long time so I thought maybe something had happened to you and I just wanted to make sure that you were okay.”
Beca blinks a couple of times in rapid succession at the spiel the woman before her has churned out. “Right, so I’m Beca… What’s your name again?”
“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry, it’s Chloe,” she says and it seems like maybe she’ll leave it there, but instead she continues, “and now that I know you’re alive, I will totally get out of your hair.”
Beca opens her mouth to say goodbye, but all that comes out is a violent series of coughs that she barely manages to direct into her elbow before doubling over to wheeze.
A hand rubs the middle of Beca’s back and Beca’s coughing subsides. She straightens up only to face an inquisitorial squad, population Chloe.
“Do you have enough tea? Have you been consuming enough liquids? What have you been eating? Have you been getting groceries if you haven’t been leaving your house?” the questions come rapid-fire, making Beca’s head spin.
“What?” Beca asks, dumbfounded.
“Okay, I can whip you up a soup in no time, my mom passed down a great recipe, let’s just get you some tea and then I’ll go home and fix it up and bring you some.” Chloe steps into the house, gently pushing Beca back into her home.
“Dude, I’m fine!” Beca protests, catching her blanket once again as it tries to fall off of her.
All Chloe says is, “Cute onesie,” but her step never falters. “Where’s your kitchen?”
On auto-pilot, Beca gestures to the right, and Chloe keeps shepherding them both there. She makes Beca sit at one of the island chairs and then looks around for a kettle. A box of lemon ginseng green tea is open on the counter beside a bowl of lemons, half a lemon on a juicer, a tub of honey with a spoon sticking out of it, and the kettle.
“Perfect, this stuff should really help your throat,” Chloe comments as she starts making Beca tea.
“Dude, what is happening right now? I’m fine, you can just go home.”
A brief flash of hurt crosses Chloe’s face, and Beca almost feels guilty, but almost as quickly as it appeared, it vanishes. “You’re sick, you’ve been sick for, what, two weeks? You need some help.”
“I do not.”
“Do too.”
“Do not!”
Chloe rolls her eyes. “Well, you’re getting some anyway, sweet cheeks, so deal with it.”
Beca mumbles under her breath.
“What was that?” Chloe asks as she opens various cabinets. Finally, she pulls a mug from the cabinet beside the fridge.
“I could get my security team here in ten minutes and you wouldn’t be able to escape the law.”
“That’s cute, sweetie, but I’m not going anywhere until I make you a nice pot of tea. And then I’m coming back with soup so that you actually eat something.”
“I’ve been eating!” Beca says defensively.
“Oh yeah?” Chloe challenges, raising an eyebrow. Like she has a sixth sense, she heads straight for the trash bin. “And you think eating a dozen packages of instant cheese ramen is going to cure you, do you?”
Beca blushes. “I – they’re easy to make and the freeze-dried vegetables inside don’t suck like most other instant ramens I’ve tried. So I won’t die of scurvy which is at the top of my to-do list, and it has a nice little spice kick at the end to help my sinuses.”
Before Beca’s even done trying to justify her major cheese ramen kick, Chloe’s shaking her head. “You need fresh veggies and vitamins, some protein wouldn’t hurt, and some people find dairy – if we can call this dairy – worsens cold and flu symptoms.”
Blinking widely, Beca says, “Okay…?”
“Don’t worry about it, I’ll take care of it. You should go up to bed and try to sleep or at least rest. I’ll bring your tea up, head home and make some soup, then bring you some dinner in a couple of hours.” Then she turns around, expecting Beca to just acquiesce. A rookie mistake.
“Dude, I don’t even know you!”
Chloe turns back around, “My name’s Chloe Beale, I live across the street, we’ve been neighbours for like two years, I went to Barden University and co-captained the all-female a cappella group The Barden Bellas, I had a 3.7 GPA in education, and then moved here and became a piano teacher. My favourite colour is orange, “Titanium” is my jam, and I love to give toasts at group events.” She smiles. “Now we’re friends and you know all about me, so please go upstairs!”
“Have I been living under a rock? It’s great. The song really builds.”
“Yeah, he’s really good at incorporating those rises and falls,” Beca comments, almost absently.
“Go!” Chloe demands again as the kettle clicks off. “I’ll bring this to you, just go rest; you look kind of awful.”
“Thanks, you forgot to mention you’re really nice in your elevator pitch,” Beca grumbles, but starts walking upstairs anyway.
“I’m making you soup and tea – it’s implied, Beca!”
When she gets upstairs, Beca pulls open her thick duvet and climbs in, still wrapped up in her onesie and extra blanket. She burritos under all her layers as best as she can. It takes a few minutes of turning and adjusting, but she eventually discovers that if she props herself up on a couple of pillows and rotates slightly so her head is on an angle to allow sinus drainage, she can almost breathe normally without triggering her cough too much.
Chloe appears in the doorway a few moments later, carrying a mug which she sets down on the coaster on Beca’s bedside table after picking up an old mug.
“Oh, thanks,” Beca says quietly.
“You look pretty snuggly,” Chloe comments, surveying the very large pile of blankets. “Are you warm in there?”
“Not really.”
“Alright, I can help with that,” Chloe says as she walks around to the other side of the bed.
“Wait, what?” Beca says as her eyes follow Chloe’s movements. It takes much longer than it should for Beca to put two and two together, and Chloe is already sliding under the covers towards Beca when Beca says, “Dude, what are you doing?”
Chloe just smiles in what Beca assumes Chloe thinks is a reassuring way. “You’re never going to get warm, even with all these blankets, if you’re cold. The blankets just insulate the temperature. Yes, they can help trap heat, but you need heat to get that started. I, as a healthy normal person, am quite warm in this pseudo-tropic you’ve designed for yourself, so if I can help warm you and your little cocoon, you might actually feel warm for once since nothing else is helping.”
An arm wraps around Beca’s waist, on top of the blanket she’s wrapped up in under her duvet. And, as much as it might pain Beca to admit, even to herself, it’s kind of nice. And that spot actually does feel a little warmer. Her eyelids start drooping a little.
“Okay, fine, but no copping any feels, ginger,” Beca says, her words already blurring at the edges with sleep.
“Scout’s honour!” Chloe promises.
It’s mumbled and very quiet, but Beca manages to get out, “I doubt you were ever a scout,” before drifting off. Chloe laughs softly and inches forward to cuddle Beca better.
“Good guess,” Chloe comments, and then despite her plans to go home and make Beca soup, she finds herself acquiescing to the soporific atmosphere, and falling asleep too.
Whatever Chloe had expected Beca to pick her up in, that lean silhouette on the back of a Honda Shadow motorcycle was not even on the list of possibilities. She watches as Beca parks the bike and whips off her helmet, giving one of those sexy hair tosses that only seem to happen in commercials.
“Hey Chloe,” Beca greets, tucking her helmet under one arm. “It’s no problem if you don’t want to ride on this thing, we can Uber or something instead.”
Chloe shakes her head and starts walking towards Beca, “No, it’s totes fine. As long as you have another helmet for me.”
Beca breaks out into a grin and goes for a saddlebag, pulling out another helmet, just like her own, only in a dark metallic grey. “Of course,” Beca says, holding it out to her. And then she winks, “After all, safety first.” Chloe fights a swoon as Beca helps do up the strap on her helmet, staring intently into Chloe’s eyes as her fingers work beneath Chloe’s chin. Then she pulls on her own helmet, slides a leg across the bike, and holds out her hand to help Chloe up behind her, pointing out the rests where Chloe can place her boots.
“Don’t worry,” Beca assures her, voice slightly muffled with the helmet on. “I’m not taking you too far. I don’t want your butt to get numb.”
A dozen different, filthy thoughts flicker through Chloe’s mind, but she doesn’t say a single one. She just feels her cheeks warm inside the helmet as she smiles into the padding under her lips.
True to her word, Beca doesn’t take them far. It’s maybe ten minutes before Beca pulls over to the side of the road, and parks in one of those small edge spots reserved for motorcycles. She helps Chloe off the back seat, and then gets off herself. Chloe tries to take off her helmet by herself, but however Beca had done it up eludes her nimble fingers until Beca’s laughing in front of her and reaching up to push Chloe’s fingers out of the way.
When Chloe pulls the helmet off, she notices that Beca swallows noticeably, and can’t help feeling pleased at the reaction she elicited. She waits impatiently for Beca to tuck the helmet away before looping her arm through Beca’s, “So where are you taking me this evening?”
Beca pulls Chloe a littler closer. “Now I hope you won’t be mad,” Beca begins, leading Chloe along the sidewalk. Chloe stops abruptly.
“Why would I be mad, Beca Mitchell?”
Beca winces comically at the falsely unhappy voice Chloe uses. “Well, you mentioned being a famous author, so, naturally, I Googled you.”
This doesn’t sound that bad, so Chloe resumes walking and lets Beca continue to lead. As far as she knows, there’s nothing particularly bad about her online.
After looking around, Beca darts down a sidewalk between buildings, pulling Chloe along. “And I couldn’t help but go down a bit of a rabbit hole when I saw that one of your early author bios spoke about your time in university...” Beca stops in the middle of the sidewalk and gestures to the building fairly hidden behind some fake palm trees. “As part of the a cappella sensational group, the Barden Bellas.” She sweeps some of the fronds out of the way to reveal a sign that makes Chloe burst out laughing so hard that tears almost make it to the corners of her eyes.
Steve’s Karaoke Bar.
“Oh my God, Beca, I can’t do karaoke here with a literal music genius,” Chloe says, gesturing at all of Beca.
“Hey, we can go somewhere else if you don’t like it, but I thought it might be fun for you to relive those sing-along glory days,” Beca smiles, tucking her hands into her pockets. Chloe can’t see a shred of malice in her face, and it kind of really warms her heart that Beca put in this much effort despite being a very big deal who probably could have had someone else organize this excursion for her.
“If it helps,” Beca offers, “I wasn’t going to sing. So no need to feel threatened.” With this, Beca smirks and pulls open the door, holding it for Chloe to walk through.
Of course, that only serves to ignite the competitive streak in Chloe, so she marches right up to Beca, leans in close to whisper into her ear, “Oh, I’ll get you to sing, Becs,” and then walks right into the place, heading straight for a table for two pointed out to her by the guy behind the bar.
“Jesus,” Beca whispers, her mind short-circuiting briefly at how attractive Chloe sounds, before following her date into the bar.
Things Chloe’s learned after three hours which included forcing Beca into two duets and two solo songs each:
1. Her eyes are more gorgeous in dim lighting than the light of day. The flames kind of dance along the edges of the irises.
2. Beca does a version of R. Kelly’s “Ignition” remix that could drop Chloe’s underwear, and probably every other woman’s in this bar.
3. She’s a responsible driver, only sharing one drink with Chloe at the beginning, and then indulging in a couple of Coke Zeros - not, apparently, because Beca counts calories (she doesn’t) but because she actually likes the flavour.
4. She’s witty, and not just with the mildly seductive one-liners. There are those, for sure, and boy are they great to be on the receiving end of, but she listens to Chloe’s stories and throws in a few clever comments, too.
5. Yeah, that’s right, she listens.
6. She’s adorably started calling Chloe “Chlo” and it makes Chloe’s insides all warm and fuzzy.
7. They sound really good when they turn “Titanium” by David Guetta and Sia into a duet.
8. Beca asks good questions. She asks about what Chloe likes and dislikes about her life, the whys, the details. She doesn’t let a conversation die with monosyllables.
9. It’s safe to say Chloe is more than a little in love at this point.
When they step back outside into the crisp night air, Chloe’s still laughing about a comment Beca made, as Beca digs into the saddlebags to draw out their helmets. Again, she helps tighten the strap beneath Chloe’s chin, and maybe it’s the three drinks Chloe indulged in over the course of the evening, or maybe it’s the way the buzzing neon reflects off Beca’s irises - but as Beca’s fingers brush against her neck, Chloe says, “Wait.”
Immediately, Beca’s fingers drop away from Chloe and she takes a half-step back, “I’m sorry, did I do something?” but Chloe’s fighting to loosen the straps and finally, finally takes off the helmet. She steps forward towards Beca who’s still looking confused, even a little worried, and she puts left hand on Beca’s cheek.
“You did everything,” Chloe says, and then she’s pressing forward, closing her eyes, and they’re kissing.
The street isn’t busy, if anything, it’s deserted, despite the occasional rowdy echoes from Steve’s. So they kiss, the helmet falls from Chloe’s fingertips as she brings her right hand up to cup Beca’s other cheek, and trail her fingers into Beca’s hair. Beca’s still holding onto her helmet, but her free hand has come around to press lightly against the small of Chloe’s back.
It’s not a fervent kiss, they’re not winding up for a home-run adventure - it’s soft, gentle, exploratory. Chloe learns that Beca likes to have her lip tugged carefully by Chloe’s teeth. When they finally pull away, they’re both wearing smiles, and even in the low lighting, they can tell that the other is flushed.
“What did I do to deserve that?” Beca asks. Chloe doesn’t think she’s flattering herself to think that her voice might even be a little breathless.
“Like I said,” Chloe wraps her arms around Beca’s neck. “Everything.”
Beca laughs. “That’s pretty cryptic, Chlo.”
Chloe shrugs, and bends down to bury her head in Beca’s neck.
“Luckily for you, I wouldn’t mind spending a lot more time to figure you out,” Beca adds.
“Good,” Chloe murmurs. “I won’t lie - I could pretty easily see myself falling for you.”
She feels Beca smile against her cheek. “Don’t worry - I’ll catch you.”
can you please continue the super hero bechloe AU? it's amazing
Unknown number: Did you get home okay?
Chloe: New phone who dis?
Beca: Come on, Zip, let’s not make this weird.
Chloe: Ok, y u gotta b rude w/ Zippo?
Beca: Oh my God, is that seriously how you text?
Chloe: mayb. Y? bother u?
Beca: Yes.
Chloe: Fine, I can text like it’s going to be included in an honours thesis. It’s more boring, but whatever. Your loss.
Beca: Thank you.
Beca: You never answered my question.
Chloe: Yes, Becs, I got home just fine. You?
Beca: Yeah, didn’t run into any midnight criminals, so that’s always nice.
Chloe: So when can I see you again?
Beca: Aren’t you supposed to wait like three days before asking that so you don’t seem desperate?
Chloe: I don’t like to wait. If I know what I want, I go after it. Waiting for some dumb societal unwritten code doesn’t fly with me.
Beca: Fair enough.
Beca: Saturday? I have an idea.
Chloe: Me too. Yours involve handcuffs too?
Beca: NO!
Chloe: Lame.
Beca: Just, meet me at the fifth avenue and fifty-third street station?
Chloe: Sure thing. When?
Beca: One?
Chloe: Do I get to know what we’re doing?
Beca: No, but dress casually.
Chloe: Already dictating my wardrobe eh?
Beca: What?!
Chloe: Ne fret pas. I like it.
Beca: You speak French?
Chloe: Maybe.
Beca: …
Beca: That’s hot.
Chloe: I know ;) See you Saturday.
Beca: See you, Chlo.
Beca: Chloe*.
Chloe: It’s cute when you call me Chlo, I don’t mind.
Beca: Okay, Chlo, go to bed.
Chlo: Night!
Beca: Night.
Saturday
Beca taps her foot as she leans against the outside station wall. She has her headphones on, listening to the last mix she finished two days ago. She’s thinking about trying to mash together “Swimming Pools” by Kendrick Lamar and “Radioactive” by Imagine Dragons. The juxtaposition should work well enough, and if she has to add a couple of samples it might work even better.
She writes down a note on her phone with her thoughts on the new mix and then someone taps her shoulder. Beca turns to see Chloe smiling widely at her. Chloe gives her a wave before Beca realizes she should pause her music and slip her headphones around her neck.
“Hey,” Beca says, adjusting her messenger bag.
“So where are we going?” Chloe asks, completely bypassing the pleasantries. She takes Beca’s arm and waits for her to lead them somewhere.
“You’ll find out soon. We’re not far,” Beca tries not to look around and see if anyone’s looking at them. She takes Chloe west along fifty-third street. It only takes a few steps before Chloe guesses their destination.
“We’re going to the MoMA?” Chloe asks, no longer letting Beca pull her. Instead she keeps pace now that she knows where to go.
“Yeah. You seem like you’d be into modern art. Plus I like it. It’s kind of quietly creative, nice and low-key.”
Chloe heads to the main entrance, but Beca gently pulls on her arm, redirecting them. Chloe shoots Beca a confused look, but Beca just smiles and shakes her head. They walk down the side of the building until they come to a fire exit and Beca knocks on the door. She raps five times, then seven, then five again before pulling back and waiting.
To Chloe’s unasked question, Beca answers, “He likes haikus. I don’t question it.” Chloe nods like she too wants someone to knock out a haiku on her door.
It takes almost a full minute, but eventually the door opens to reveal a rather stony-faced man in a security uniform. His eyes meet Chloe’s, widening a little in surprise, before settling on Beca. The two of them stare at each other unblinkingly for a moment before Chloe can see Beca’s lips start to break into a grin.
“Aha!” the man says, grinning widely. “I win!”
Beca rolls her eyes, but she’s clearly pleased. “Hi Hank,” she says, settling back on her heels.
“Well, hi, Becs. Long time, no see,” Hank says, leaning against the door and crossing his arms. Beca sighs.
“I know, Hank. I’m sorry it’s been so long. College is crazy,” Beca says. “But, I brought you this,” she adds, pulling out a three-pack of Kinder Surprise Eggs from her pocket.
Hank’s eyes practically glow. He tries to hold his disgruntled stare, but the happiness the Kinder eggs bring is too much. He grins from ear to ear.
“Alright, you little rascal, you and your friend can go on in,” Hank gestures them through the door with his head.
“Thanks, man,” Beca says as she lets Chloe go in first. “I’ll bring you something next time I see you.”
Hank chuckles as he follows them inside. “I’m counting on it.”
Chloe and Beca wander down the hall a little ways leaving Hank when he turns off for the security room.
“Yeah, I don’t think he can actually hear the knocks from in there. I think he just watches on a monitor and assumes I’m doing it right,” Beca comments once he’s out of earshot. They come to a stop in front of a Jackson Pollock painting, and Beca can feel Chloe’s expectant eyes on her.
“What’s up, Zip?” Beca says, already sounding a little monotonous.
“There’s clearly a story there about you and Hank, and you’re just glossing over it!” Chloe seems to quietly explode with the hushed words.
“Okay, and?” Beca asks, drawing out the “a” in and.
“And, you can’t just let that hang in the air,” Chloe explains, as if that solves everything.
“Why not?”
“Because it’s rude.”
“Is that it?”
Chloe’s eyes seem to burn as they bear down into Beca’s. “If you don’t tell me whatever the story is, it’s going to hang over us like the figurative elephant in the room, Becs. It’s going to be our constant companion, this story, because you’ll know what it is, and I’ll know that you don’t want to share yourself with me.”
Chloe straightens suddenly, “And basically our relationship will be doomed from the start, and I don’t want that to happen.”
Beca heard every word, she swears she did, but she gets stuck, “Relationship, eh?”
“Have I not been obvious about my interest?” Chloe asks, somewhat rhetorically. At Beca’s noncommittal shrug, she waves her hands around them to gesture to the museum, “Is this not a date at a museum because you thought I’d like it?”
“Okay, yes, it’s a date!” Beca says defensively, only responding to Chloe’s increasingly agitated, maybe worried, voice. “Clearly I like you, dumbass, I did the whole meeting you for shitty coffee without my disguise thing, remember?”
Now grinning, Chloe says, “Sounds vaguely familiar.”
Beca rolls her eyes. “Do you want to have this date, or not?”
Chloe reaches forward to grab Beca’s hand. “Totes!”
Beca just raises an eyebrow at the odd slang.
“But I do want that story, too,” Chloe adds as they begin walking around the first hall.
“Maybe at a later date,” Beca hedges. It’s really not a very interesting story, and she doesn’t want to embarrass herself with her dumbass teenaged shenanigans this early in the game.
“When then?” Chloe asks, relentlessly.
Beca tries to find a good answer in the paint-splattered canvas before her eyes. “I dunno, dude, like if you make it to date seven?” She pulls on Chloe’s hand to shuffle three feet to the next painting, but Chloe doesn’t budge.
“You don’t think I’ll make it my mission to get to date seven just for this story?” Chloe asks.
Sighing deeply, Beca tries to placate Chloe. “I mean, of course you will, so I’ve just guaranteed myself six more dates with you, Zip.” She works hard not to let the tail end of her plan lilt upwards and make it obvious that she’s making this stuff up as she goes.
“I see how it is. You hook them with the intrigue of a secret story, then use it as leverage to secure yourself plenty of dates which just so happen to span longer than your target’s sex rule, thereby making you more desirable and ensuring you get laid all in one fell swoop!” Chloe declares, voice getting noticeably louder as she works up to her finale.
Beca blinks slowly, like she’s trying to take all of that in. “Dude, no. I can barely even follow that.”
Suddenly Chloe’s smiling. “It’s not a bad thing, Becs, you know what you want.”
“But that’s not my—”
“I might even need to steal such a genius plan,” she adds, finally stepping toward Beca so they can continue around the museum.
“Oh my God, why did I bring you here?” Beca whines.
Chloe winks at her and flips her hair dramatically. “Because you like me and I like you and you can’t deny; we’ll be super hot together.”
The way Chloe says it as a statement instead of a suggestion throws Beca off. “We’ll be super hot together?”
“Oh totes, Becs. You’re gorgeous.”
Despite herself, Beca feels herself flush at the compliment. “Oh, um, you too, Zip.”
Chloe squeezes Beca’s hand. “You know, Bec, Zip was a mildly creative nickname back when we were friends—”
“We’re not friends?”
“—But now that we are more than that, I don’t think Zip is really sexy enough to encompass what we’ve got going on here,” Chloe muses, pulling Beca to a stop in front of a collection of variously askew jars.
“What have we got going on here?”
“I’m so glad you asked!” Chloe says happily. “What we have here is your classic romantic half-doomed superhero love story.”
The matter of fact way Chloe says it is what gets Beca laughing. A wandering museum-goer gives her a look and Beca straightens up. “Can you not see the humour Santalta imbibed within these angles?” Beca asks, gesturing to the jars in front of her. Beca raises an eyebrow and then looks away, watching from the corner of her eye as the woman looks a bit harder at the piece of art and finally lets out a light chuckle.
Woman forgotten, Beca turns to Chloe again, “That’s not a thing.”
Chloe scoffs. “Aca-scuse me, it most definitely is a thing and it’s happening right here and now between us.”
“What the—what the fuck,” Beca drops her voice to a hush for the last word, “is that?”
“What?” Chloe asks, oblivious.
“What the hell is an ‘aca-scuse me’?”
Surprisingly, where only something very suggestive had gotten the job done before, Chloe blushes.
“Story time!” Beca declares, but her expression turns serious as her body stiffens. Abruptly the tone of their date shifts. “Sirens. Three fire trucks, two ambulances, and at least two police cars.”
“Which way?” Chloe shifts gears as instantaneously as Beca does, already leading them towards the fire exit they came in.
“North, not too far,” Beca surges ahead and opens the door, holding it for Chloe to slip out too. She lets is close behind her and turns briefly to wave goodbye at the surveillance camera. “Bye Hank!”
Then they set off at a run. Two blocks away, Beca dashes down an alley, “Keep going, I’ll meet up with you!” And then she throws a web toward the sky and swings up onto a roof.
Chloe listens, running straight for the sirens that get louder as she gains. A minute later, she hears “Go with it!” and Beca crashes into her, holding on, and swinging Chloe with her up onto another rooftop.
“Should be just on the other side of the building,” Beca says, the two of the moving closer to the opposite edge of the roof. And Chloe isn’t trying to notice things about Beca right now, but she can’t help but admire (and find incredibly sexy) the calm and calculated decisions Beca seems to be making.
Way back in the day, when Spider-Man was basically just a whisper of a nuisance to Chloe and her pals, their whole group questioned Spider-Man’s ability to be a contributing superhero in the city. She could make questionable, even bad calls, and made them fairly often. Regular people would suffer from the consequences of her actions, like when she fought inside convenience stores, destroying thousands of dollars worth of products instead of moving the fight outside. Or ignoring the laws of New York traffic and helping cause accidents and injuries.
Spider-Man disappeared for a while after that, but then she came back and it was like she had undergone some kind of transformation. She almost always made the right call, and that’s about when Chloe and the rest of the team starting dropping in on her calls to try and make friends, or at least an ally.
In Chloe’s case, she’s been more than successful, because right now, yeah, they’re going to try and stop some bad people, but the sexual tension is palpable, sliding across her skin as she leans over the edge to get a better view of the situation, still listening to Beca.
“Looks like armed robbery, multiple injuries and/or casualties,” Beca rattles off, listening intently down below. At least five suspects, all still inside the bank. Estimates are 15 hostages. No location on a getaway vehicle, if there is one.”
Chloe’s awed, “You can hear all that from up here?”
“Not exactly, Red, I don’t have like super hearing or whatever, but I’ve got those spidey senses and it’s more like vibrations in the air that I can feel - words have certain patterns to them, and I can feel the patterns.”
Chloe scoffs, “Sounds like super hearing to me.”
She knows that underneath her mask, Beca’s rolling her eyes.
“We should find a way to sneak in, rescue any hostages we can find, and once we’re in there we can form a better plan as to how we’re going to save the rest and take down the baddies. Any thoughts?”
“Can you sense anything about the layout of the bank?”
“I’m not an X-ray machine,” Beca sighs. “I can hear them talking about it though, seems like they’re also just starting to make a plan, although theirs involves talking to them over the phone and negotiating.
“Seems like there’s a basement. If we can find a way in, we can work from there. They’re talking about the sewer system and trying to get a copy of the blueprints to see if they’re close enough.”
“It’s kinda hot to hear you eavesdrop with the vibrations in the air,” Chloe says offhandedly.
Beca turns to her, and Chloe swears that if the mask weren’t in the way she’d be able to see Beca flush.
“Remember Zip, the kissing comes after the bad guys.”
Chloe raises an eyebrow suggestively and then Beca’s wrapping an arm strongly around Chloe’s waist and once again, Chloe feels like she’s flying. Beca drops them on the roof of the bank’s building and without verbally confirming, Chloe flames up and drops them into the top floor of the accounting firm beside the bank through a vent.
They work their way down through the floors and into the basement. Chloe burns them a tunnel into the bank’s basement, and Beca slips ahead to do her sneaky thing.
She looks around as she goes, noting a lack of bad guys as she scales up the wall and makes her way toward the main atrium of the bank along the ceiling. At the doorway, she can see about a dozen people in the middle of the room with three armed thieves circling them. Two more are behind the tills, one is stuffing money and anything else they can find into a duffel bag. The other is working on the computer.
Beca sinks back away and rejoins Chloe in the basement to fill her in. “The way I see it, we gotta take the gunmen out quietly one by one. The location of the hostages is too visible for us to steal them away in chunks. We gotta eliminate the threats entirely so they can just leave out the front door.”
Chloe nods, “Any suggestions?”
Beca rubs her nose and chin through her mask. “I’ve got one, but it’s pretty dumb.”
“It’s more than I’ve got.”
“If you can cause a distraction, like pretend to be a patron who got lost, that might cause enough of a disturbance for me to sneak into there without being seen. Once I’m in, I can start removing them from the equation one by one, but I’m useless in here and I can’t see another way to get behind the tills.”
“It’s not the worst idea I’ve ever head,” Chloe says, trailing off.
“I don’t want to put you in danger, Zip.”
“We’re all in danger, Spidey, we just can do something about it,” Chloe responds, and walks past Beca.
Chloe gives herself a pep talk as she approaches the atrium door and then steps through, tears streaming down her face, “I’m sorry! I got lost!”
Immediately, the armed men point their weapons at her, the two closest charge towards her and incapacitate her by grabbing onto her arms. Another approaches and puts her wrists into plastic manacles. The two behind the counter look up from their work, but they only briefly look at the commotion before returning their attentions to their tasks.
Beca manages to sneak in along the ceiling as the robbers start interrogating Chloe about where she came from and they start arguing amongst themselves about where she came from. Beca drops behind the man at the computer once the hostage-wrangling men look away from that direction. She gets right behind him and strikes at the point two inches adjacent to the spine at the back of his neck. There are hollow places there that some martial artists call Gall Bladder 20.
He drops almost immediately, the jolt to his brain knocking him out. She catches him and lowers him gently to the floor, and then retreats behind a desk to wait for the opportune time to strike the guy shoving valuables into his bag.
Her moment comes about twenty seconds later as he moves farther to the back of the room. She crawls around another desk and gets behind him, too, as he’s shoving papers off of one desk into his bag. She does the same thing, and with the element of complete stealth, he too falls into her arms before being lowered to the floor.
One of the men circling the hostages and Chloe glances over at the counter just as Beca flattens herself back against the ceiling.
“You alright back there?” he calls out, drawing the attention of the two other men. They all turn to investigate. “Bloody hell,” he says, then he spits on the ground and walks toward the counter.
As Beca watches this all unfold, she tries to think really loudly toward Chloe. They need to eliminate one more before they can take on the last two together, otherwise there are wildcards at play and that’s when hostages get injured. For better or worse, Chloe is stalwartly not looking up towards Beca on the ceiling, refusing to give away her partner’s position.
What she does do however, is melt the plastic around her wrists to free herself, and then she coughs hard enough to draw the attention of the two men around them back to her.
Beca seizes the opportunity to take down the man who’s come to find her, sending him to the floor to join his comrades. And then she traverses the ceiling until she’s right above the man farthest from Chloe.
Without looking at each other, Beca and Chloe both fly into motion. Chloe flames her hand as it comes up to lock around her guy’s wrist, using her other to take the gun from his hands and throw it aside. Beca drops from the ceiling, kicking the gun out of her man’s fingers and jabbing him right in the neck, pinpointing the vagus nerve.
Chloe lands a solid punch on her robber’s neck, leaving an angry burn in his skin to boot.
“Alright everyone, please head outside slowly with your hands up. The cops are out there and they’re going to help you out,” Chloe says as she lets go of the fire and her hands return to normal.
They’re awash in a sea of thank yous for a moment before Beca’s yanking at Chloe’s arm back the way they came in. They head back up to the roof and Beca once more swings them across the alley.
“Not a bad first date, Spidey,” Chloe says as Beca releases her and she finds her feet. Beca peels off her mask and smiles at Chloe.
“You’re the one who said we had to plan for things like this,” Beca reminds her. And then she marches right up to Chloe, takes her face into both hands, and presses her lips solidly against Chloe’s.
Their lips meet each other’s over and over again, growing more lazy and content as the number of kisses increases. When Chloe finally pulls away, her cheeks are red and her eyes are warm as she says, “I think I’m getting hungry.”
Beca nods, “Yeah, sorry, we didn’t get a chance to eat, I swear it was on the list.”
Chloe just smiles lasciviously and with a wink, she says, “Different kind of hungry, Becs, but I’m sure we’ll have time for that later.”
“Christ,” Beca says, and then Chloe’s pulling her along to take the date to a new destination.