#lomb

After some delicious jerk chicken from their favorite joint, Carol and Beau made their way to the police station to keep working on the Delmar’s case. Since Carol wasn’t actually a psychic, she needed to surreptitiously do some snooping around the evidence, witnesses and detectives working on the case. She usually disguised this activity by acting like an idiot who was just fooling around. Which wasn’t out of character, per se, but she was also working.

Just as they walked in, Coulson was dropping a teenage boy off at the reception desk to fill out his check-out paperwork. Coulson and/or Hill must have been questioning him, but the forms he was being presented weren’t bail forms, so it was purely investigative and he wasn’t a suspect.

Something was off about the kid, but Carol couldn’t put her finger on what it was. He was skittish and clearly anxious, a relatively short boy, and despite the lack of spectacles, he was clearly a huge nerd (he had a t-shirt on with Einstein’s face and some pun about gravity that went over Carol’s head). He was brunet with big, emotive brown eyes and a cute nervous smile; the word “puppy dog” came to Carol’s mind as an apt descriptor.

“Hey, hey, hey!” Carol greeted Hill at her desk. She was greeted back with a roll of the eyes.

“What do you want, Danvers?” Hill asked.

“You know I need to be close to the action to get the tinglies going.” Carol wiggled her fingers near her head.

“Never say that combination of words ever again,” Beau advised Carol with her own eye roll. “Who’s the kid?” she asked Hill.

“Why don’t you ask the psychic?” Hill asked sarcastically, but Carol was seemingly distracted ‘listening’ to the stapler.

Hill sighed and explained, thinking Carol wasn’t paying attention, but she was. “The kid was brought in as a witness on the Delmar deli fire-slash-21st Street bank robbery. Peter Parker. His DNA was all over the deli, but it’s just from his visit there that afternoon. He’s a regular and it must not have been the most sanitary of establishments.”

Beau pointed a finger in Hill’s face. “Hey, Delmar’s had the best damn sandwiches in Queens, and was the pinnacle of good business practice.”

Hill put up her hands in surrender. “I’m just relaying the facts.”

“Did he provide any information useful to the case?” Beau asked.

Hill shrugged. “Nah, he wasn’t there at the time, obviously. All he had was a lot of praise for Delmar,” she answered. “Just an antsy and annoying kid, honestly.”

The ‘antsy and annoying kid’ was finishing up his paperwork, and Carol had the distinct feeling he knew more than he had let on.

“He might have been more helpful if Hill hadn’t made him so nervous,” Coulson admonished, approaching the desk with an armful of paperwork for her superior to proofread. “I told you intimidation wasn’t the right play; he’s just a kid.”

“Bah.” Hill brushed her off and snatched the files out of her hand.

Parker’s bulging backpack was open slightly, and Carol could see the insane number of books inside. Huge, brick-like textbooks and also an antique computer with a battery the size of a small car. The satchel should have broken the back of any reasonable person without Captain America’s strength, but Peter picked it up and slung it over his shoulder like it was no heavier than an empty garbage bag.

Carol clutched Beau’s elbow and began to move them both towards the door without a word.  

While observing him exit the building, Carol thought she figured why he seemed so off: he was reacting to stimuli he shouldn’t be able to perceive. Carol was uncannily observant, more so than the average un-enhanced person, but she didn’t have superpowers; she simply noticed things. Small things, like the single ant scurrying inside as Peter opened the door, or the vibration of the phone of the officer manning the desk from deep inside her purse. Peter was noticing these things too, Carol could tell by his reactions, but he was also noticing things he shouldn’t have been able to sense at all. Carol could hear a uniformed officer’s music through his headphones very, very, very faintly behind her. Peter was far enough in front of her that there was no reason he should have been able to hear the melody whatsoever, and yet he was tapping his fingers against his thigh to the rhythm, and as they neared, Carol realized was humming along under his breath.

Once through the doors, Carol held Beau back and they lingered at the top of the precinct stairs while Peter loitered at the bottom, glancing occasionally at his phone. Waiting for his ride, Carol supposed.

Through the gap in the zipper of his backpack, Carol spotted something made of red stretchy fabric, and a flash of bright blue. The pieces clicked.

Carol leaned into Beau and whispered in her ear, so softly no one even a foot away from them should be able to hear, let alone someone at the bottom of the stairs,”What was it you you were saying about Spider-Man earlier?”

“What?” Beau asked at an equal whisper, though not yet understanding why they were keeping their voices soft. “That he shoots webs out of his ass?” she asked, and Carol observed the tiniest twitch of a subconscious reaction out of the teenage boy who should have been entirely out of hearing range. “Or that he has super hearing?” Beau continued.

Carol smirked. “The second one,” she said. “Which I can now confirm. And I’m pretty sure I can categorically deny the first thing, which is honestly just disappointing. What’s the point of having spider-related powers you can’t even shoot webs out of your butt?

“Don’t you agree, kid?” she called down to Peter.

He winced, a large enough movement for even Beau to notice, then finally turned and looked up at the pair of private detectives.

“How did you know?” he asked dejectedly.

“I’m a psychic,” Carol declared. “I know a lot of things.”

“You’re saying that’s…?” Beau whispered furiously to Carol. She nodded, as did Peter, though he had no business hearing her hushed inquiry from the distance. “But he’s just a kid!”

Carol shrugged. “Is there any evidence from all we’ve seen of Spider-Man that he isn’t a kid?”

Beau considered this. “He does do an awful lot of backflips. No self-respecting adult does that many backflips.”

Carol jogged down the stairs and Beau followed after.

“Please don’t tell anyone,” Peter whined once they reached him.

“We won’t,” Beau promised. “If you tell us everything we need to know.”

Peter sighed in defeat. “Ok, what do you need to know?” he asked Beau.

Carol leaned against the railing, trying to look suave. It only sort of worked. “Tell us about the bank robbers.”

“They had fancy tech,” Peter began. “A really powerful weird blaster thing that they used on the ATM, and an anti-gravity gun.”

Carol and Beau exchanged a look. “And where did they get their hands on that kind of tech?”

“That’s what I want to know!” he exclaimed.

Peter hiked his backpack further up his shoulder, and fiddled with all the zippers, making sure they were shut. The panicked look in his eyes that flashed when he realized one of the zippers was open made Carol suspicious. That wasn’t just about the suit; they already knew he was Spider-Man. There was something in his bag he didn’t want them to see.

Carol closed her eyes and put her fingers on her temple. “I’m sensing some of this tech is closer than we think.”

Her eyes shot open and she glared at Peter. Beau picked up on her insinuation and leaned in, whispering, “You mean he has some on him?”

“Yes, my bonnie Beau, that is exactly what I mean,” said Carol, still not taking her eyes off of Peter, who had begun to squirm under her gaze. She crossed her arms.

With great reluctance, Peter put his bag on the ground and began to rifle through it. He had to pull out some books, a sweatshirt, his laptop, his laptop case (which his laptop was not in), and a Nalgene water bottle, but underneath all of that he finally found what he was looking for.

It was a strange looking device, clearly part of something larger, maybe a charger or base of some kind. It was glowing an eery red hue.

Peter scratched the back of his head. “I’ve just been calling it the glowing thingy,” he said. “I have no idea what it is.”

Without asking, Carol scooped it from his hands. “Thankfully, I know someone who may be able to help us out.”

“Hey!” the teenager pouted.

“You’d get in a lot of trouble if someone found out you had this, kid,” Carol said, passing it to Beau.

Beau carefully placed the device in her large purse. Then, she pulled out a small card. She handed it to the spider-kid.

“Call us if you think of anything else,” she said. “Or if anything else comes up.”

Peter frowned. “Um, this is a card for an interior design firm.”

“You still haven’t had the Psych cards made?” Carol admonished her partner.

“I can’t use the company printer for shit like that; I told you! Do it yourself at Staples!” Beau defended. “It’s still my number, kid. Just call us if anything happens.”

The pair walked away and towards the subway. After an overly cautious distance had stretched between them, to be certain she was not overheard even by enhanced ears, Beau asked, “So how did you know he was Spider-Man, anyway?”

Carol shrugged. “A number of things. His suit was hanging out of his backpack, for one. Also, every single thing he owned was second-hand, clothes, books, everything—except for a stupid expensive looking Stark Watch. His form said he had an internship there—“

Beau cut her off. “Why did his form say anything about it?”

“He seemed confused how to fill it out,” Carol answered. “He checked off that he was a student, then filled it in under ‘employment’ anyway.”

“So he has an internship at Stark Industries and they gave him a watch,” Beau accepted.

Carol stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk. “Are you serious? I worked as a sales rep for Hammer Tech—a real job, not an internship—and I didn’t get shit.”

“To be fair, you only lasted a week,” said Beau. “Maybe it was a bonus.”

“Interns don’t get bonuses, they get coffee and ‘experience,’” said Carol cynically, continuing to walk again. “Anyway, the point is, I was right.”

Back at the Psych office, Carol and Beau examined the gadget. Beau turned it this way and that on the desk, squinting.

“You know,” she said. “This bottom piece looks exactly like what I charge my toothbrush on.”

That comment caught Carol’s attention. She lifted the thing closer to her face. Sure enough, the metal was different in the bottom piece that Beau recognized as the charging plate versus the top piece that held what Peter had called the ‘glowing thing.’ It was subtle, and the welding that brought them together was masterful, but upon closer inspection they were indisputably different metals. The one at the base seemed normal; Carol couldn’t identify it, because she was a normal person with a normal range of knowledge on most things. But the top bit was too shiny, too smooth, too bright, too perfect to be of this world.

By the time they brought it to Carol’s weird friend Talos, who had a lab in his basement with some pretty weird stuff that made this thing look as normal as apple pie, they’d received an email from Peter thoroughly describing the circumstances under which the ‘glowy thing’ had come into his possession. Carol read the email aloud from her phone as Beau drove them back from the laboratory, where Talos had promised to call them as soon as he found anything out about the device.

“Ok so that was definitely some kind of weird advanced tech arms deal,” Beau asserted after hearing the explanation of the encounter.

“Yuperz,” Carol agreed.

Only a few minutes after that, Talos called to confirm that the device was definitely part alien. The glowy bit was explosive, a quality that would be activated if it were exposed to radioactivity.

“Isn’t the Spider-Kid, like, low-level radioactive himself?” Carol had asked. “Since he was bit by a radioactive spider?” But Talos said it wasn’t the right kind to activate the device.

Title: Gods Need Angels Too

Square Filled: Y1 - AU: Guardian Angel/Human

Rating: G

Pairing(s): Jane Foster & God, Jane Foster & Darcy Lewis, Jane Foster & Thor, Jane Foster & Loki

Warning(s)/Trigger(s): none

Summary: Jane gets a new Guardian Angel assignment.

Title: Five Shades of Purple (and One Shade of Green)

Squares filled: L2 - Enemies to Friends to Lovers; A3 - AU: Lab Partners (Chapter 4, Lilac)

Rating: G

Pairing(s): Jane Foster/Loki

Warning(s)/Trigger(s): none

Summary: When Loki insults Jane's purple gown, she decides it's the only colour she's going to wear ever again. Until she doesn't.

Title: Chained

Square filled: L3 - Lies

Rating: T (for mentions of nudity)

Pairing(s): Darcy Lewis/Brock Rumlow

Warning(s)/Trigger(s): slavery

Summary: Brockus Rumilius has been betrayed by those closest to him, ending up on the auction block of Rome’s slave trade

Graphic/Collage

Square filled: D3 - Genre: Adventure

Pairing(s): Darcy Lewis & Jane Foster

Rating: Gen

Warning(s)/Trigger(s): None

Summary: While trying to build an Einstein-Rosen Bridge, something goes wrong and Jane and Darcy are transported to a galaxy far, far away.

Title: The Rockstar Life

Squares filled: D4 - Snoring & Y4 - “Why is there a monkey on my bed?”

Rating: G

Pairing(s): Jane Foster/Loki/Bucky Barnes

Warning(s)/Trigger(s): 

Summary:  Jane, Loki, and Bucky are Cosmic Engine, the biggest pop group in the world. After a night of celebratory partying they return home to the aftermath and a surprise.

In progress but sadly not completed on time: a knitting project based on a pattern called Darcy Beanie; a Wintershock Notting Hill AU (first draft complete, 2nd draft on hold cos the world went to shit and I lost my Mojo); and another chapter of 'Five Shades...'

Also, next time I'm not going to save my Free Square, as I could have used it several times over during the last year.