A/N There are a lot of perspective shifts in this one, with evil spies listening to Chuck and Morgan being themselves. But first, let's make sure Harry is all right.
Harry Tang walked into the Buy More with a crushed bicycle slung over his shoulder. He'd been gone a while, what with having to get pulled out from under a parked car, making statements about why he was under it in the first place, and the walk back, carrying the bicycle, because otherwise he'd have to explain how he happened to be riding it when his name wasn't Grimes.
The store was full of bubbles, and everyone was talking. The more they talked, the more bubbles there were. He looked around, and saw Jeff and Lester at the Nerd Herd desk, watching him. He went over, carrying the bicycle as if he'd forgotten it was even there. "Poppy's in love with a florist."
Jeff hiccupped bubbles in his face.
"Excuse me?" said Lester. This isn't the way he'd expected the afternoon to go at all, and he almost sounded concerned from the strangeness of it.
"Poppy's in love with a florist," repeated Harry. "I heard them, rolling around in there with the flowers. She was saying things, awful things." Jeff hiccuped more bubbles. "Cut it out," said Harry, either annoyed or pleading.
"It's not like he can help it," said Lester. "Someone put shaving cream in his toothpaste and when he brushed his teeth this happened."
"I don't know which is more unlikely," said Harry, "That someone would put shaving cream in his toothpaste, or that Jeff would brush his teeth."
"He couldn't wait to try it once I told him."
Harry nodded. "Yeah." Jeff hiccupped bubbles in his face. "Go rinse your mouth."
Jeff reached under his desk and pulled out an open bottle of beer. He took a gulp, swished it in his mouth, and paused, looking thoughtful as he he swished a few more times. Finally he swallowed. Wouldn't want to waste beer.
Then he hiccupped, without bubbles, and belched beer breath in Harry's face.
"Thank you," said Harry, presumably about the lack of bubbles.
This strangely subdued Harry was getting on Lester's nerves, since it was because Lester couldn't get on his nerves. "And then he told Skip, who told Fernando..."
"I see." Harry batted at a bubble as it drifted past his nose. He didn't even frown.
Lester had to do something about this. He had to restore the status quo, where he poked and Harry jumped. This called for a mighty effort, at a task he'd never before attempted. He had to...help. "Have you called her?"
"Why would I want to listen more?" asked Harry.
Lester pulled out his phone and made the call. "Hi, Poppy? Yes, it's Lester, from the Buy More. Harry offered to buy us all lunch and I thought it would be a good idea to check your availability. Yeah, yeah. Here he is now." He handed the phone to Harry.
"Hello, who is this?" He looked at Lester in shock. "It's Poppy." He put the phone back to his ear. "Yeah, yeah. The whole store, sure, whatever. Not today? Tomorrow's fine. Yeah. Bye." He handed the phone back to Lester. "She's swamped right now, with a busload of nuns. They've been running her ragged the last hour."
"You don't think they'll tell the Pope, do you?" asked Jeff.
"I don't think the Vatican's in her delivery radius, Jeffery," said Lester.
"He could travel."
"That sort of thing takes weeks to plan. We'd hear about it. Don't block the desk, Harry, we might get a crowd. And we don't fix bikes."
"We don't fix anything," said Jeff.
"The dumpster's out back," called Lester as Harry shuffled away.
Decker had his men back in position once it became clear that their target's car was returning to their target's home. None of their vehicles were near there, of course, but the area around his compound held many cameras. Limited transmission range meant that they had to have separate vehicles to receive the signals. They were all watching as Bartowski got out of his car, followed by the blonde babe and the apprentice. The blonde was more obviously attentive to her surroundings but that was only to be expected, and her curiosity was an easy cover for Bartowski's own inspection. Almost like he wasn't looking around at all.
When they came around the corner into the courtyard the little apprentice was nowhere to be seen. "Where'd he go?" shouted Decker, and they all checked through their recordings of the short trip.
"Found him, sir," said Vincent. "He took advantage of the terrain to step off the path, entering the target apartment by that side window we used." Everyone checked their footage but none of their cameras captured that spot. "Professionally done."
"Probably for the same reason, too." No real possibility of surveillance, and a pincer movement just entering his own apartment, too. "He's clever. Where's the apprentice now?"
Gruber had the interior sensors. "Grabbed a comic book and went into the bathroom."
The van echoed with the sound of urination, and a man's relieved sigh. The urination continued. The sigh became a hum. Then the sound of urination stopped. Suddenly the whole van echoed with a roaring cascade, the sound of a flushing toilet the size of one of the smaller Great Lakes.
"Too loud!" said Decker.
"It's the mike," said Vincent. "I can drop the volume, but then all the others are dropped too."
The sound of flushing came again. "What the hell is he doing?"
"Hey, Chuck?"
"What is it, Morgan?"
Gruber put the name on the file as the sound of flushing came again.
In the apartment...
"Your toilet's broken." Morgan flushed it again, just in case Chuck had missed the first couple.
Out in the van...
"I can't hear anything," said Decker. Vincent turned the volume down.
In the apartment...
"It's been like that for a while," said Chuck, "But I'm not here most of the time. I could try to fix it myself, but that's why we pay rent, and anyway it's not my skill set."
Out in the van...
They heard a mumble from a different speaker. "I still can't hear anything," said Decker.
The volume went up just in time to hear "-skill set-" and another flush. "Goddammit," said Decker, "They could be on the phone to Graham right now and we can't hear a goddamn thing."
"So you think we should call it in?" asked the target designated 'Morgan'.
"Call what in?" asked Decker.
Out in the street, a car pulled up to a red light, not far from where a florist van sat parked on the side of the road. Suddenly the van echoed with loud sound of a flushing toilet. The driver looked over.
The van pulled away from the curb at high speed and swung around a corner. The driver at the light just sat there and watched it go.
"Delgado! What the hell are you doing?" yelled Decker as prop flowers fell all around him. "We just lost their signal."
"Couldn't be helped, sir," said Tommy. "We attracted attention."
Decker got on the phone. "Laszlo, Sasha, we had to break off. Tighten your surveillance."
"On it, boss."
In the apartment...
"Leave that thing alone, Morgan," said Chuck. "I'll call the super about it, but I don't want to give him any reason to say that we broke it."
Morgan let go of the handle. "You got it, Chuck."
"And give me that back, I haven't even read it myself yet." Morgan handed him the comic book, and Chuck went into his room to put it away.
Morgan looked at Sarah. "He's finicky."
She smiled. "I know."
Chuck called from the bedroom. "Hey, Morgan?"
"Yeah?"
"You didn't mix-master my graphic novels, did you?"
"Nope," said Morgan, heading into the room with Sarah in tow. "That one was right on top. God forbid I mess up your filing system."
"What's to mess up?" asked Chuck. "JLA is Earth-1, JSA is Earth-2, but I'm seeing Justice Society filed right after Justice League, which makes no sense."
"It's called the alphabet, Chuck."
"Earth-2 should be on a totally different shelf."
"In your world," said Morgan. "Ha, you see what I did there?"
"Hilarious, Morgan. Now I have to re-organize the entire thing."
Morgan looked up and over Chuck's head, not an easy thing to do most times but Chuck was kneeling down by the Earth-2 shelf. "Hold on, Chuck, are you seeing what I'm seeing?"
Chuck turned to look at the wall behind him. "That's not right."
"What's not right?" asked Sarah.
"Chewbacca stands to Han's right, not on his left." Chuck moved the figures into their proper positions. While doing so he also straightened Chewbacca's bandolier. Something popped off but when he went to find it on the floor he stepped on something that went crunch. He picked it up but it didn't look like a part from the figure, so he dropped it in the trash.
Over the speaker the two spies heard a very loud brushing sound, followed by a squeal. "He's found the mike on the doll!" said Laszlo into his phone.
"We're screwed," said Decker. "Kill all the primaries, so he can't reverse-trace the signal. Bring up the secondaries."
"Taking primaries offline now."
"This is incredible, Chuck. It's like a swarm of culturally-illiterate savages just swept through here, messing with your stuff." He turned to look at Sarah, the latest addition to the Inner Circle.
"I would never touch another man's tool," she said defensively.
"I gave her the tour, Morgan," said Chuck. "She knows better."
"Okay, then," said Morgan, with a sharp nod. If Chuck said it, it was true. "We need to be on the lookout."
Outside, bringing the secondary mikes online...
"We need to be on the lookout."
"On the lookout for what?" said Laszlo. On the speaker he heard several sharp knocks. "Now what?"
"Now what?" said Chuck. He led them all back into the main room. "Morgan, I'll energize the sensor web, while you employ passive data-collection methods."
"Aye-aye, sir." Morgan saluted, and went to the front door, putting his eye to the peephole. "It's a friendly, mon capitaine. Shall I secure from action stations?"
"Dude, it's me," said a man's voice through the door.
Chuck checked his monitors and nodded. "Make it so, Number One. Grant access."
"You should at least make him give today's code."
"Do you know today's code?"
"You know, daily codes are so passé. Every evil cabal is doing it."
"Are you getting this?" asked Laszlo.
"Shhh," said Sasha.
Morgan opened the door, and a tall, fit, extremely blond and handsome man came in. "About time, guys. Paranoid much?"
"It's not paranoia if there really is someone out to get you," said Chuck.
"Someone's out to get you?" asked the blond man. "Who?"
"If I knew that I wouldn't have to be paranoid," said Chuck.
"Yeah, Captain, try to keep up," added Morgan.
"Captain?"
Laszlo opened a new file.
"Captain?" asked Sarah.
"Ah," said Chuck. "Sarah, allow me to introduce to you the world-famous Captain Awesome-"
"Better not be," said the blond man.
"World-famous, or Burbank-famous?" asked Sarah.
"Well...Echo Park-famous." Chuck flipped a thumb back and forth between himself and Morgan. "Currently before you in his humble secret identity of Devon Woodcombe, cardiovascular surgeon at Westside Medical."
"You look like a Captain Awesome," said Sarah, and he struck a pose. "How'd you get the callsign?"
"By doing awesome things," said Morgan. "So awesome you'd have to say they never even happened. Most government agencies would deny them."
"Check the classified files," said Sasha.
"Things like...?" asked Sarah, making a circular gesture with her hand.
"Uh, rescuing POWs-" said Chuck.
"Sounds pretty awesome, but nope," said Devon, dropping the pose.
"-abseiling into minefields-" added Morgan.
"Oddly specific, but also no, not today."
Chuck snapped his fingers. "He took out an entire terrorist ship full of WMDs single-handedly."
"Dude, for the record, I didn't do any of those things," said Devon to Sarah, mainly, since she was the only one who seemed to be listening to him.
"And he flosses," said Chuck. "Daily."
"Okay, I do that," said Devon.
"Daily flossing is pretty awesome," said Sarah, flashing a smile that showed she did it too.
"It's a struggle."
Then Chuck added, "And he's my sister's boyfriend."
"The handler?" said Laszlo. "How the hell big is this guy's team?"
"I've met Ellie," said Sarah. "She is truly impressive."
Devon smiled the smile of a man in love. "She's awesome, isn't she?"
Morgan pointed at her. "You were wondering how he got the nickname earlier-?"
"Yeah, I figured that part out, thanks, Morgan."
Chuck stood by her, not quite putting his arm around her. "And Devon, this is Sarah Walker, winner of unicorns."
Blond eyebrows jerked up in surprise. "She beat the shooting gallery?"
"Yup."
"Awesome! But, uh, I really hope you got more out of your day than that. Ellie sent me over here to let you know that dinner's in the oven-"
"Pot," said Morgan, who was an expert.
"What?"
"Pot. As in, 'pot' roast."
"Right," said Devon, "So you should come over right now. She wants to get to know her. You."
Chuck sighed dramatically, and offered Sarah a wry smile. "I warned you."
"Yes, you did, Chuck," said Sarah, taking his hand. "It'll be okay."
A/N2 Up until now, Chuck and Sarah have been doing a lot of first date-type stuff, complicated by the fact that she at least knew that an evil cabal of spies were or could be listening in. That ends now. She may end up wishing the spies had gotten her first, who knows? Certainly not me.
The movie had a lot of silly stuff, like the bubbles and the exploding toilet, that was just sort of there. The Buy More is a good place for some of it. I can actually use the rest.
LOLs are good, comments are better, since they help me come up with more stuff to write about.
