Disclaimer: I don't own anyone or anything from the Marvel Universe, be the source comic, movie or otherwise. I most especially do not own Quicksilver or Rogue, more's the pity.
A/N: Just a silly idea that came up in conversation with some friends about DOFP. ^^ Be warned that I'm only a light-weight X-Men fan, so if my ideas screw with canon, my apologies!
In the Blink of an Eye
by Dime
"See, right there? First he's holding the watch, then it's suddenly gone."
The three security men stared intently at the screen where the day's security footage was replaying. The teenager with the blueish hair and the girl with the white streak in hers standing in the aisle were certainly noteworthy, which is why the disappearance of the gold watch had immediately been accredited to them.
At first, the two teenagers seemed to just be talking, joking around, the boy picking up the watch along the way and just toying with it. Then both their faces grew serious and a questioning look entered the boy's eyes. The girl nodded decisively. Then the watch was suddenly gone from the boy's hand, he nodded back to the girl with a large grin and they both proceeded towards the exit.
Only, none of the men gathered around the video feed could pinpoint the exact moment the watch went from the boy's hand to his pocket.
"Must be a slight of hand," one of them guessed. "Suppose we slow it down? Maybe then we'll have evidence he actually pocketed it."
Things disappearing at random were nothing new to the security personnel of the huge department store. It was new that they could not identify the perpetrators with any certainty even when watching the video, though, so all of them were on alert. No identification meant no handle on future shop-lifting and could cost them their jobs if the same perp returned and was successful several times more.
The man behind the keyboard clicked the button to play the video in slow-motion.
"Wait..." one of the men said, disbelief heavily colouring his voice. "Is that chick naked?"
All of them were now staring at the screen with large eyes as the IT guy replayed the scene once more. There was no doubt: From one fraction of a second to the next, the girl with the white streak went from fully clothed to naked to fully clothed once more, though they noticed her scarf was sitting crooked on her throat at the end of the second.
"What in the name of..?!"
"Play it slower."
"Huh?"
"Reduce the time by a factor of ten, or maybe even more. There must be an error in the system. Maybe if we play it slower still, we'll see what's actually going on here."
All of their eyes were glued to the screen as the IT guy fixed the settings to go beyond regular slow-motion and play back at the slowest possible setting. Which still looked choppy as though the film couldn't quite keep up with the action.
"Is this really slow-motion or is the system fucked up and we just saw things in triple fast-forward earlier?" one of the men asked only seconds in.
The IT guy stared intensely at the figures on his screen, but then his eyes returned to where everyone else was looking. "There's not a second missing from the rest of the day, and the recording went from six a.m. to ten p.m. as usual, so what we first saw must be realtime."
It couldn't possibly be.
The boy in the slow-motion video was moving as though in fast-forward, undressing the girl who appeared to be frozen in time. When she was entirely naked, he laid a hand on her cheek with a sense of purpose. After that, his fast-forward motions stopped, but the girl herself seemed sped up. Now both of them moved at what appeared slightly beyond normal time, and oh, what motions they were!
"They aren't really...?" one of the men choked out.
"Yes, they very much are," another one weakly confirmed.
Fucking. Those god-forsaken teenagers were going at it hot and heavy in the jewellery department at a speed that made The Fast and The Furious look like geriatric escargot.
The men watched wide-eyed as the girl was pushed up against one of the showcases and the guy raised her up with both hands in order to get a better angle - dropping the watch in the process. In the following steamy action, the watch was accidentally kicked underneath the showcase.
"I suppose our thief is one of the clean-up crew," the IT guy remarked casually.
"Yeah," on of the others answered absent-mindedly, all of their attention still focused on the action on-screen. They did not care that they had eliminated the couple as possible thieves; all of them stayed to watch until the very end, past the speedy climax and through the couple retrieving their clothes.
It was only after the two teens appeared to stop moving that the first of them blinked.
"Um, I suppose it's back to normal speed from here, folks," the IT guy said and paused the video. then he adjusted it to normal speed again and they watched the couple lope out of the shop with energetic steps.
"No one will believe that without seeing it," one of them hesitantly remarked.
"The higher-ups don't care to see the video evidence, they just want the perps caught," another answered.
They looked at each other mutely.
"Let's just check below that showcase, and if we find nothing, shake down the cleaning crew tomorrow night, alright?"
With a round of murmured agreements, the security men exited the little room and went out to check the floor beneath that showcase. Despite themselves, they were stunned to find not only a watch, but also a used condom.
Meanwhile, the IT guy leant back to look at the footage once more... in slow motion.
"That was fun!"
"Something to do again some day soon, I think."
Peter grinned cheekily. "I've got the time, whenever you're game, Anna Marie."
"As long as you can promise me you will always finish before I harm you," she said seriously.
He laughed her concerns off. "If you notice yourself getting faster than me, you know you're about to take too much. In that case, just use that extra speed to bring us both off, and we should be fine."
The answering smile that lit up her face could easily compete with the evening sun hanging low among the New York skyline.
She grabbed his hand and they walked home at a very brisk pace.
- The End -