The Magical and the Mechanical: Chapter Three

November 20, 2014

A week later, Meriam had finally gotten most of the finishing touches done on her project. She just needed an extra pair or four of hands to help with the finalizing of the trim and embroidering the runes on. And she needed Remus and Lily to help spell check the runes. At least now she knew she had difficulty spelling because of dyslexia.

When she tried to invite everyone into her room for an impromptu sleepover, JARVIS informed them that Sirius and Remus were inexplicably banned from Meriam's room, all three boys were banned from Lily's, and Lily was banned from the boys' room, but Meriam wasn't.

That was super uncool and they couldn't figure out why Tony had done that. It was like he didn't trust them when the five of them were together or something, but they couldn't figure out why he separated them that way, instead of just banning girls from the boys' room and boys from the girls' rooms.

So they had been forced into kicking Hawkeye out of his workshop, which was just a large closet he had commandeered. The only risk was Hawkeye getting impatient and barging in, but they'd managed to convince JARVIS not to let anyone else into the room while they worked.

"Tony's overbearing!" Meriam shouted.

"He's just trying to protect us," Remus insisted.

"You're still a doormat," James said. "He's super overbearing."

"You're just upset that now you've got learning disabilities," Lily said.

"What of it? Are you saying I'm dumb just because my brain is wired wrong?"

"No."

"I'm gonna have to cancel you, Evans."

"That's not how that works," Lily snapped back.

"No, I'm pretty sure it is. You're being ableist, that means I get to cancel you."

"Remus, get your idiot friend under control."

"Hate crime!" James shouted. "Who's the bully now, Evans?"

"Will you two stop fighting?" Sirius snapped. "We're trying to take a vote on whether or not we think, as a collective, if Tony is overbearing or just overprotective."

"Why can't he be both?" Lily said.

"Oh, that's a good point," Meriam said from where she was working.

"I mean, why am I banned from the boy's room?" Lily grumbled. "Not that I even want to go in there under normal circumstances. Remus, I don't know how you manage the smell."

"After a few years, you get used to it," Remus shrugged. "Can you double check this rune?"

"It's correct… no wait, there should be an additional wiggly thing."

"Isn't that just the font?"

"What's the difference between a miswritten rune and a font?" Sirius asked.

"If all the runes are the same font…" Remus started to answer.

"This is boring, let's keep complaining about Tony," James said.

"Do you want these suits to protect you from supervillains or blow you up if you sneeze wrong?" Meriam snapped.

"Uh, protect me from supervillains?"

"Then shut up, James."

"Alright, sorry."

"Here," Meriam handed him the golden, red, and black suit. "This one's yours. I've already penciled where you've got to embroider it, so you don't have to worry about misspelling anything."

They fell into silence after that. The only two suits left to be spell checked were for Remus and Lily, and they were close to finishing that. Sirius was happy with his. It had a black leather jacket with dark purple trim, dark purple pants, and boots with black trim. James was a bit upset that his was colored closer to Hufflepuff than Gryffindor, but Meriam claimed that her flowing red suit was fire themed and therefore she should be the one red themed. James, who's power was light based, would have to settle for yellow being his primary color.

Lily's was various shades of blue. She also complained that it would do no favors if she needed to be stealthy, but Meriam informed her that she was usually backdropped against the sky and therefore she was perfectly camouflaged. Remus didn't like the idea of suits at all, even if they were made of Kevlar and enhanced by runes. He could agree that the green looked good on him, but he still really didn't want to be doing this. He couldn't say no to his friends.

November 21, 2014

"Why are we doing this again?" Remus sighed trudging after his friends.

School just let out and they'd worn their suits all day so they wouldn't have to hide too many things in their bags. Also so they wouldn't have to waste any time between the bell ringing and the start of their first patrol. Spider-Man being stinky was starting to make more sense, but that didn't make it less gross.

"We've got powers," James said. "What else are we supposed to do with them?"

"We could get hurt or hurt someone else or…"

"Stop being such a Worry-wolf, Moony," Sirius said. "We're not going to take on anything big."

"The suit is uncomfortable and tight," Remus tugged at the Kevlar suit hidden under his giant turtleneck.

"You're just not used to wearing anything form fitting," Meriam said.

"Yours isn't very form fitting," Remus said.

"The coat is an accessory, the suit is form fitting," Meriam said, twirling a bit to show off how the coat swung around her and glistened like fire.

"I think they look awesome," Sirius said. "Meriam's done it again with her amazing fashion skills."

"Do we have to do this behind the Avenger's backs?" Remus worried.

"Prongs is still technically on academic probation, so he's not supposed to be doing anything extracurricular," Sirius said like Remus had forgotten.

"Moony, lighten up, will you?" James groaned.

"Yeah, even Lily's in on this," Sirius added.

"Oh, just let him complain, I think he enjoys it," Lily said.

"It does relieve some of the stress," Remus sighed. "Alright, but we're only taking on petty crime. Nothing more dangerous than Batroc the Leaper."

"Unless Spider-Man shows up and helps!" James grinned.

"Alright, maybe if Spider-Man is helping we'll go up to Twister or something. If anything like Juggernaut or the Rhino or something shows up, we're out of there, right?"

"Yes, Moony, and we'll wear our coats and scarves," James playfully shoved him.

"I draw the line at bubble wrap," Sirius added.

"So long as you don't panic, call the Avengers, and get all of us grounded, we'll be fine," Meriam said.

"My fingers are tingling," Lily said. "This is really exciting. We're superheroes."

"Hell yeah we are!" James grinned.

They were wandering at first, arguing about the fastest way to patrol the city. Only Remus was really comfortable jumping around the rooftops, but that was only because of his occasional sessions in the obstacle course last year. With only Lily able to keep up with Remus because of her Animagus form, that was out of the picture.

Walking around on street level felt odd. They'd never seen any other patrolling heroes do that. They all swung from webs, stuck to the roof tops, or flew around either in a machine or by their own power. Steve going on his morning jogs and occasionally stopping a mugging or two didn't count. Maybe when they were older and had their licenses, Widow would let them take the flying SHIELD car for patrols.

Then Lily had the brilliant idea of flying around as a magpie to ask the crows if they'd seen any human crime they could make a b-line towards.

She landed next to where the other four were loitering five minutes later, huffing in frustration, "They told me to go back to Eurasia."

"Damn, America's so bad even the birds are racist," Sirius snorted.

"It's not funny! I was just bullied by birds! That's so lame!"

"You'll have to earn their trust," Meriam said. "I suggest bribing them with food stuffs and shiny things."

"Does anyone have any loose change?" James asked, patting his pockets.

"I've got a few chocolate wrappers," Remus said.

"I'm not going to… to… bribe crows with… with garbage," Lily blustered. "Just so we can run across the city to make fools of ourselves!"

"Are you sure?" Remus said. "They're shiny!" He pulled out a wrapper, turning it inside out so that the silvery side caught the afternoon sun.

To Lily's great embarrassment, her eyes were immediately drawn to the sparkling. Her head even snapped in a birdlike fashion. She wasn't alone, Meriam was also drawn to the lights. James was about to make fun of them when a stray flash of light went across his eyes and he nearly panicked.

"Pfft," Sirius laughed. "James, did you just spook?"

"It was startling!" James pouted.

"Wow, truly, we are the greatest heroes the Big Apple has to offer. Look out, Avengers, we're coming for your title. Earth's Mightiest Heroes, more like Earth's Magical Heroes," Remus sighed. "Let's just go home while we're not too far behind."

"Naw, we've got to stop at least one crime before we head back," Sirius said. "There's five of us, at the very least we could scare off a mugger or help a little old lady cross the street. Maybe I could chase a cat burglar up a tree!"

They were on their way home, having stopped nary a single crime nor having managed to rescue any kittens from any trees, when Remus and James heard a bank alarm going off several streets over. Remus immediately tried to talk James out of it, but the other three were already running in the direction James had pointed.

Batroc the Leaper, despite being such a nonthreat that he didn't even have a dedicated SHIELD file, was way harder to apprehend than they anticipated. They arrived just as he was exiting the bank with a sack full of money. It was so unbelievably cliché that Remus audibly groaned from secondhand embarrassment. And a bit of firsthand embarrassment. They looked a bit ridiculous, even if superheroes normally dressed like this. He didn't understand how Spider-Man made it look so cool.

"Batroc, put down the bag and surrender!" James shouted, pointing his shield threateningly at them. It would have been more effective if James hadn't fumbled the gesture and dropped the shield on the ground. "Uh… I meant to do that."

"What are you supposed to be?" Batroc snorted.

"We haven't come up with a name yet, but that doesn't mean we can't kick your arse!" Sirius shouted. At least he didn't drop his sword.

Batroc snorted in amusement.

"There's five of use and one of you!" James insisted, continuing to butter-finger his way through picking up his shield.

"Oh-ho, petit Capitaine Amérique," Batroc laughed. "Je suis terrifié," he added with a snort.

"We're warning you!" Meriam cracked her whip towards Batroc and it swung around and cracked Lily in the ankle.

"Hey! Watch it!" She yelped.

"Sorry!"

"Well, this had been l' amusant, but I'll take mon leave now. Au revoir!"

With that, he sprung over them, leaping to an awning across the street. Before they could fumble their way after him, he was on the rooftops, making his escape, giggling to himself as he went.

"Wait! Stop!" Sirius ran after him.

"Padfoot! We're just making bigger fools of ourselves!" Remus ran after Sirius. "Let's just let Spider-Man deal with this!"

"No way! We were here first!" Lily sprung from the ground and in a flash of feathers, was hot on Batroc's trail.

"Yeah, do keep up, Moony," James said, finally getting his grip on his shield again.

James and Sirius clambered up the nearest fire escape and ran after the flash of white on Lily's wings. Meriam followed on the street, but was having difficulty weaving through the pedestrians on the sidewalk. Remus groaned. With his minimal SHIELD training and superstrength, he jumped up to the roof and caught up with James and Sirius quite easily.

"I'll see if I can catch him and tackle him," Remus said to them.

"Cheers, Moony!" They both said at the same time.

"I don't know why I humor you two so much," Remus grumbled, running after Batroc. "I don't like this, for the record."

"What would we do without you, dear Moony?" James grinned as they just barely cleared a gap over an alley way.

"Probably die," Remus sighed. "Don't fall off the roof," he commanded.

Once he wasn't worried about keeping pace with Sirius and James, he started gaining on Batroc. It was more exhausting than the obstacle course had been because he couldn't stop to rest or gather his bearings before the next wild jump or hurdle. By the time he caught up to Batroc, he was quite out of breath.

"Stop, Batroc!" Remus shouted.

"Oh, so one of you is decent?" Batroc spung around and launched himself feet first at Remus.

Remus yelped and stumbled backwards, falling on his ass.

"Decent at the chase, not so decent once you've caught?" Batroc laughed at him. "You are like a puppy who does not know what to do with the squirrel, no?"

Remus was grateful that Meriam went with full face covering for him instead of the domino masks the other four had. His scars would give him away otherwise. Unfortunately, his ears, now tomato red, were still exposed.

"Go home to mommy, le enfant."

"N-n-not until you dr-d-drop the b-bag!" Remus squeaked. Now was not the time for his stupid stutter to come back. He thought he saw the last of it years ago.

Lily landed behind Batroc and drew back a trick foam arrow, "We're only going to ask once!"

"Fancy trick, la volaille."

"What did he call me?"

"Um, he called you a chicken," Remus admitted.

Lily growled and loosed her arrow. It arced over Batroc's head and slammed right into Sirius, who had finally caught up with them. Sirius yelped as he was covered in foam. At least it wasn't one of the pointy ones. Remus didn't think she brought any of those, just in case she grabbed the wrong one. At least she was mostly smart.

"Sorry!" Lily winced, drawing another arrow.

Before she could even nock it, Batroc slammed into her both feet first.

"Oh, crap!" James shouted, chucking his shield. It too missed Batroc, bounced off a nearby water tower, and ricocheted right into Remus chest, knocking the wind out of him. "Sorry, Moony."

"We're a mess!" Remus lamented from where he'd been slammed back onto his butt.

"This is enough," Batroc giggled, launching himself now at a defenseless James.

He slammed into James, sending him careening over the edge of the building and into the alley below. Remus shouted in surprise and rushed after him, only to find James lying, winded, on a massive spider web strung up between two buildings.

"Hey, Batroc!" Spider-Man swung down from the rafters above. "Say escargot!"

It was now Batroc's turn to get slammed in the chest by a pair of feet. Batroc went sprawling through the air, only to end up webbed to a Bugle billboard across the street, the bag of money just out of his reach and covering the moustache of a massive and furious J. Jonah Jameson.

Spider-Man helped James back down to street level. Meriam pulled James into a very tight hug and refused to let go until the rest of them managed to get off the roof. It took Remus, Lily, and Spider-Man two minutes to free Sirius of the foam, He was beat red the entire time, but he refused to thank anyone for the help. At least he didn't shout at Lily for being incompetent. Remus wanted to, but he was still having difficulty with his returned stutter.

"Come on, guys," Spider-Man flipped down next to where they'd regrouped. "I know you're obviously rookies, but you can't even keep up with Batroc?"

"It's our first day, cut us some slack Pe… Spider-Man."

"James?"

"No," James lied.

"Does Tony know you five are out here?"

"He… uh… thinks we're getting some last minute work in on a school project," Sirius admitted.

"We weren't going to do anything more dangerous than petty crimes like muggings and… well… Batroc," Remus admitted.

"Muggings are really dangerous," Spider-Man scolded them. "Trust me, people can get seriously hurt or killed. I know you kids have powers and stuff, but you're still really young."

"You're sixteen!" Sirius said. "And you've been doing this for two years, so how can you talk?"

"With my mouth," Spider-Man snarked back. "Look, just…" He sighed, putting a hand to the bridge of his nose. "Maybe stick to training for a few more months and then I will personally take you on a chaperoned patrol. You're obviously not great at working separately, let alone as a team."

"Tony won't let us train," Meriam said.

"I thought you were getting training from the Avengers?"

"Ja… Prongs is banned right now," Sirius said. "And also…"

"We're not supposed to have suits. I think the training is more… recreational for them than we want it to be," Lily added.

"Just go home. I won't rat on you but it's getting late. Also… well…" Spider-Man pointed at the nearest Daily Bugle Billboard that didn't have Batroc stuck to it.

"Rookies! And they're working for Spider-Man!" There was a picture of them chasing Batroc down with Spider-Man swooping down to clean up their botched job. Their entire ass kicking had been filmed from a helicopter overhead. "First we've got that web headed menace, and now there's more of them? This only the beginning! Mark my words, Spider-Man has poisoned the minds of these children and now they think they can do anything! He's after our children now! Who's kid is next! He's a wall crawling menace to society!"

They winced collectively. Sirius' sword was clearly visible, as was James' shield. There was no way the Avengers wouldn't recognize them from that alone. Their only saving grace was that the Avengers didn't watch the DBC because they liked Spider-Man and the only thing JJJ ever talked about was how much he hated Spider-Man.

"This isn't as easy as it looks, kids."

"I tried to talk them out of it," Remus insisted.

"Don't tell me that," he pointed at Sirius.

"Padfoot," Sirius said.

"Padfoot here's right. I did start when I was around your age, so I can't really tell you off. Plus, I'm still a kid, so I also can't lecture you. What I can say is that this gig is really hard and very dangerous. I can't count how many times I've nearly died or gotten in way over my head. It's a miracle I'm not bug paste."

"Yeah, but you're not!" James insisted.

"Tony would be devastated if anything happened to you kids," Spider-Man ignored him. "So just… stay safe and be smart. Don't ever let your guard down when you're out in costume, they're like wearing targets for crazy and dangerous. And do your best, please, to avoid making a nemesis before you're sixteen, at least."

"Thanks, Spider-Man," Remus said.

"Anytime… Moony, is it?"

"Yeah."

"And don't use your nicknames unless you're in costume. Really, I like your masks, it would be a shame if you blew it by being careless with your secret identities." With that, he grabbed the money bag so he could return it to the bank and swung off down the street.

They arrived back at the Tower just as the sun was setting. They planned on sneaking back to their rooms to get changed before they got caught suited up. They didn't want to run into an Avenger until they weren't dressed like they had just run around the city in spandex bodysuits getting their asses handed to them by New York's lamest themed bank robber.

Black Widow stopped them as soon as they got off the elevator. She frowned at them and crossed her arms. Their suits were barely covered, James hadn't taken his mask off yet, and Sirius still had foam in his hair, there was no way she didn't know what they had just done. There was no way she wasn't about to yell at them for James falling off a roof or Lily getting kicked in the chest or…

"That color looks good on you, Sirius," was all she said before disappearing down the corridor.

Sirius nearly screamed. He wasn't sure if it was relief or fear. Probably both. They nearly forgot that they were technically using most of the Avengers pallet because that was the dye Tony had available. The red on James and Meriam and some of the blue on Lily was from Captain America's suit. The only one not wearing an Avenger color was Remus, who was mostly in greens, which Meriam insisted brought out his eyes, despite the fact that his hood hid his eyes.

"Well, I guess that's that," James shrugged. "Come on, before Tony finds us."

"Oh, I think it's a bit too late for that," Tony sounded furious.

"Ah, shite."

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