At Midnight, All The Agents...
Things Of Intrest To Note:
(1) If I owned these guys I wouldn't have to say I didn't.
(2) This rather tame little peice takes place before Civil War.
(3) Nobody except his bestest freinds in the whole wide world knows Peter is Spider-Man. So half the Marvel Universe as opposed to the entire Marvel Universe.
(4) Matt Murdock is not so fortunate.
(5) I'm hungry.
Enjoy.
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The seven eleven store bell jangled.
Peter Parker looked up, because he wasn't aware seven eleven's did that, and froze.
Two. Male. Skin heads squeezed under ski caps, probably figured their features were too generic to ID or just too stupid to do otherwise. Both armed. The taller a Type 64, the smaller some kind of Richardsesque machine roughly the length of the average two by four. Conducting rods. Ultra violet scope. Slight retro slides and curves you found in most advanced tech…probably Latverian. Showed who owned the pants in that partnership. Or had the bigger insecurity complex.
Mental note; next time the wife says she's going down to get ice cream, let her.
Okay, not responsible per say but he had more than enough great power to make up for that.
A hand faster than his Spider Sense (what wasn't these days?) seized a handful of jacket, pulled, and brought him eye to lens with the second most familiar redhead in his life.
"Hey Matt."
"Keep your voice down."
"I am."
Murdock's ears flattened a little in that balloon deflating subtly way you had to pay attention to catch.
"In here."
"Behind the porn racks?"
Murdock's silence was solid as stone and twice as unamused, if not mortified. It was a tight fit, partly because 'here' turned out to be a miniature cul-de-sac of the space between one rack and the next and a shelf of canned goods, but mostly because there were already two other people huddled in there. A phone booth it was not.
"Johnny? Logan?"
"Hey bud!" Johnny hissed. Matt's ears did that thing again. Peter's almost did. Ninja would never be one of the Human Torch's carer opportunities. The X Man/Avenger/Lone RangerWith More Hair And A Million Dollar Skeleton went on smoking his cigar, but took a harder pull when Storm greeted them. Peter tried not to cough, that was all they needed. Matt must be in hell right now.
"What's going on?"
"Store's being robbed." Logan barely looked up from removing his cigar. Some of the ash missed Peter's sneakers like a throwing knife missing a head .
"Gee, thanks."
Johnny was anxious, not hopping from foot to foot simply because of the confines of the improvised head quarters of the New Defenders or whatever they were supposed to be. Like a flame waiting to be lit.
"So what are we doing here? Three seconds work for one of us, tops. Hell, Speedball could do this!"
"Because then we might be looking at a hostage situation and that thing short round's waving around like a swastika at a Founders Day parade can't be just for show."
Matt nodded slightly at Peter's words, head turned slightly to the left more to keep his senses fully on the drama unfolding like an explosive piece of origami. No explosions as yet, but they all knew that could change. Logan followed Matt's gaze, for lack of a better word, then went back to building an ant sized pyramid of ash on the wet plastic smelling floor. Johnny flexed unconsciously, cigar flame twisting with him.
"Oh hell…"
"Recognise it?"
Matt's cane was just a little bit longer than it had been.
"Yeah. Kinda. Vibranium handle, absorbs most of the impact so you can hold on without liquefying your hand. Not sure, but I think there're the same kind of rods Reed uses for his energy converter thingies."
He returned Peter's raised eye brow.
"What?"
"Thingy? What are you, six?"
"Takes one to know one."
Logan stubbed out the cigar on an already filthy wall, the light vanishing like a crushed mouse.
"Scintillating conversation, fellas."
Peter glared at him.
"What are you even doing here? What happened to this week at Stark Tower? Japan?"
"Was busy." The mutant grunted. The skin on his hand danced invisibly, bunching, streamlining around retracted claws, eager to spring.
"Oh. Well you missed out. There were ninjas."
Johnny frowned again.
"I thought there were always ninjas in Japan?"
"Me to. We met this cool one though. Ronnin or something. He was actually a chick."
Johnny almost flamed on right then and there.
"Dude!"
"Quiet." Matt hissed, then turned, brows knotting over dark glasses. "Mia? She's okay?"
Peter nodded, trying to avoid concussing the lawyer and almost shoved the mutant into the other meta human.
"Yeah, you know her? She had most of the Japan crime scene cleaned out by the time we'd ever heard of her. Well, I'd ever heard of her. No one really tells us new Avengers what's going on." One hazel eye tried to be subtle as it flew to the corner Logan's elbow was dancing on the edge of. "Like when they're busy."
He wasn't sure but maybe, just maybe, Logan gave him the finger.
"Hold on a second…"
Peter ignored Matt's annoyed grunt as he turned more to look at Johnny.
"Yeah?"
"He knows? Daredevil and Wolverine know who was under the mask, but I had to wait, like, a hundred years?"
Peter shrugged, Logan narrowly avoiding a slap to the chin.
"You never asked."
"Oh yeah."
"What," Matt forced out with surprising calm ",do you know about this weapon? The hand gun isn't a problem, but if I'm dealing with lasers I damn well want to know it."
"We're here to y'know." Peter mumbled. He knew the lawyer would hear it. He looked down at his hastily selected ESU sweater. "Although I…don't…think I brought my costume…"
Johnny clutched his stylish jacket almost guiltily. Almost. He could have been getting ready to shake it on a cat walk.
"Uh, I didn't either but I'm wearing about a million dollars worth of unstable molecules."
Logan snorted.
"Stinks like linoleum."
"No one who wears yellow and smells like you do gets to tell me anything, fuzzy."
"You guys and your spandex…"
"Watch it." Peter shot back. "Matt wears spandex too, right horn head?"
"Biker leather with kevlar reinforcement. And not at the moment."
"Oh." Peter blinked. "So are you telling me that there are four meta humans in the same room, in the middle of a mugging, and no one brought anything suitable to wear?"
"Welcome to New York." Matt turned his head slightly towards Johnny. "What else do you know about that weapon? I can't get a bead on it, something's bouncing around in there."
The celebrity heart throb of the Fantastic Four crushed the outlaw mutant and vigilante stand up comic against cold wall, eyes narrowed intently. They went wide.
"Oh hell yeah, that's Doom tech."
"Figures." Matt sounded resolved to whatever else decided to go wrong tonight.
"Latverian Doom?" Peter sounded a might panicked.
"No, the video game. Didn't you check it out at Geeks Dot Com?"
"Come on man, Doom stuff in the same room as your everyday purse snatcher is scary stuff."
"It ain't just Latverian." Almost lupine eyes were magnetised to the shape of the weapon pointed at the desperate clerk's back as he hurriedly emptied the till. Matt looked even more pissed.
"Sure?"
"Always." Logan looked like he could have used another cigar. "Reeks of Department H. Weapon X tech."
Johnny snickered.
"Weapon what?"
"Bite me blonde."
Peter shrugged, shoulders shaking slightly.
"He's got a point, man. X Men, X Factor, X Force…"
"Piss off."
"All of you piss off or shut up." Matt had a billyclub in each hand now. "That thing is giving me a headache. Something's bouncing around in there. Radar's pulsing inside. I'm getting crazy signals back. Like a razor through your neural pathways."
Johnny got serious again surprisingly fast.
"It's Wakandian as well."
"Vibranium handle, I know."
"Yeah, but there's more than that. Doom smuggled it into his lab or something, and built this, like, sound weapon."
"So we're dealing with sonics?"
Peter focused on the waving barrel, wrists tense. The benefit of creepy new built in web shooters he supposed. It would still be nice to have the costume. Or maybe not. Red cars got pulled over the most out of any other vehicle on the road. It made one hell of a target no matter how much blue you tempered it with.
"Kinda. It's sort of a sound wave black hole. It adds momentum to a slug by dragging them in, turning them into kinetic energy, and fires it out faster than even the average laser gun. If a target's close enough it'll even drag it directly into close enough range to make the shot easier. Hell of a kick back though, but again the handle helps. I think the UV scopes just to pick up the laser sight better, it's set to pick up background waves in the area it can use. T'Challa was furious he let that much stuff get past him."
Peter was staring at him.
"Did you just give a scientific explanation?"
"Kinda."
"So wait, this thing fires bullets? Plain old bullets?"
"Yeah…"
"Just bullets?"
"Uranium slugs, yeah."
"Little tame for Doom isn't it?"
"Maybe it was a government cut back."
"He is the government."
"And he can't cut back if he wants to?"
"Shut up." Matt said, standing a little straighter.
"Whoa, you're not going out there now, right?"
"You weren't thinking of webbing those things out of their hands a second ago?"
"Touché."
"Hey," Johnny asked, heat haze blurring his figure slightly. ",why don't you just crawl across the ceiling and deck them before they turn around or something?"
"Because some of us don't like having our faces plastered all over Time magazine."
He folded his arms defensively.
"Besides, the ceiling's too low for that. They'd see me."
He looked up.
"I think there's gum up there to."
Johnny's head shot up.
"Seriously?"
"We're in a blind spot." Matt said, ignoring the obvious but unsubtle pun.
"Cameras stuck on the left. Frozen up. But one of us is going to have to go out there."
"Oh that'll do wonders for the whole 'I'm Not Really Daredevil' thing." Peter peered over the tensing lawyers shoulder. "What's taking the Dukes of Hazard so long anyway?"
"They're trying to raid all the candy in the shelves behind the counter."
The nervious clerk was sagging under the weight of multiple bars, trying to spill them into the rather unimaginative canvas bag full of money instead of the floor. The high tech weapon wielder was getting jumpy, almost blowing up the entire room when a Twix bounced off his foot. He bellowed at his partner to pick it up. Matt waved the club in Johnny's general direction.
"No way you can make our job easier? Melt the thing, or something?"
"Nu uh, no way. I've seen implosions before. I don't want to be in the middle of one, or in the next couple of city blocks if it happens."
"Okay then, we take them both at once. Take them off guard, keep them from getting a clear shot and firing."
Logan cracked his neck. The sound bounced around the small room, carrying over the hum of fridges and the vague wilting of the store made music over the PA system. The taller thug turned around, missing their hiding place.
"I'll go first. Draw their fire."
Peter looked at the gun, then the solid but small frame of the mutant. He tried not to imagine that frame imploding, but it was all too easy.
"Sure your healing factor can take it?"
"Never said I wanted to live forever, bub."
"Okay." Matt raised the billyclub, a red starter's pistol. "On three…"
The store bell jangled.
"Well dress me in drag, paint me green and call me She Hulk, is this a hold up I see before me?"
Logan sniffed. And groaned. Matt's frown deepened, which one would have thought was a physical impossibility. Peter's Spider Sense began to pitter patter on the back of his neck lightly. Johnny was practically on tippy toes trying to get a better view. He frowned.
"Zack Braff?"
The shorter thug clearly wasn't a Scrubs fan.
"Hey you! The hell are you doing!?"
An eye brow raised impressively, Braff's hands flew to his hips. He seemed taller than on TV.
"I? I seek the grail! That and there's this fabulous review of Bea Arthur's greatest cinematic moments in this month's Empire, so…"
The gun went off, a soundless wave blurring the air in front of the target and shattering the floor and ceiling tiles around it as the slug smashed through cartilage and bone like a baseball through God's window. The store front glass shattered, dragging sound back into the shock frozen room as the body slammed bonelessly into the floor.Peter almost shot out into the open, the suddenness of Matt and Logan's hands on his shoulders shocking him into stopping. The thug seemed more freaked by the effects of the weapon than the clerk.
"You see that!? Huh!? See what you get!?"
The clerk was trembling. He froze as the corpse stood up.
"You don't know vewy well, do you?"
The only thing remaining after the static of a flickering image inducer was the melon sized hole in a now red and black chest.
"It's not nice to put holes in Mr Deadpool's clothing. Can you say 'OH GOD MY KNEE CAP! YOU MADE A COFFE CUP OUT OF MY KNEE CAP!'?"
The thug made an airless noise, and then a heavy one as he collapsed on the tiles, weapon clattering uselessly out of his hands.
"Or you could say '' and pass out, 's all good."
The other thug backed up, letting his weapon bounce under the counter.
"Look man, Mr Super Hero man, I'm not…"
Deadpool strode forward briskly, his still inflating lungs visible behind his still knitting flesh.
"Not insured? Oh fine, I'll make it quick."
Twin throwing knives shot the thug into the far wall, porn magazines cascading between his legs as the shelf jolted under his sudden and unconscious weight. Deadpool swivelled to face the counter on one deceptively graceful foot.
"One Empire please and, uh…ah the hell with it, a pack of Reese's Pieces. Thanks."
And with the whine of a charging teleporter and a off key whistling of the Brady Bunch theme, Deadpool vanished.
The four stepped out of their hiding place, staring at the unconscious thugs and the ruined floor, cracked and smeared with the remains of one of Deadpool's kidneys, as the clerk bleated out a hysterical interpretation of events to the NYPD over the phone. They stood like that for a while, until Peter snapped out of it, grabbed some Vanilla Caramel out of the freezer and dumped whatever he had in his wallet onto the counter. The clerk didn't seem to notice.
They each wandered into the street after that, Logan and Matt heading wherever they'd been going. Johnny admitted to having stopped over before going to grab some take out, but decided to just fly over, grab it and go. He hovered in mid air for a moment, flames dancing uncertainly in the cold midnight air.
"What was that exactly?"
Peter shrugged.
"Welcome to New York."