Author's Note: SPIDERMAN HOMECOMING IS THE BOMB! I LOVED IT EVERYONE NEEDS TO GO SEE IT NOW! So for obvious reasons of Tony Stark I'm skipping Flight Of The Iron Spider for now. Going straight into Why I Hate Gym. But before that we're gonna get a little bit more time at SHEILD, working with the team. Also there were finally some requests for pairings, I still don't know which one's end game in this story but we'll get some Parksborn and some Spideynova in this chapter. I own nothing.
22. Save The Citizen
Coulson had pulled Piper into detention early the next day. Part of the reason was to chastise her for being irresponsible in skipping class but she just rolled her eyes and sat at her desk waiting to be whisked off to the secret new Helicarier. Not many people knew it had been rebuilt after the disaster that had been the Battle of New York, but it and SHEILD had rebuilt quickly. Coulson finished his tirade and sighed. He set his hands down on the desk.
"Listen that's not the only reason I called you here. You have more experience than the others and you've seen them fight. What do you think?" Piper sighed.
"Honestly? They aren't very good, oh they can fight but they are dangerously negligent! They don't give two shits about civilian safety or the people around them. Several innocent people would have died if I hadn't pulled them aside and told them to take care of the people and leave the bad guys to me. The words dangerously inexperienced come to mind, undertrained also fits." Coulson nodded and sighed.
"As much as I hate to admit it you might be right. It's part of the reason I told Fury they weren't ready. He seems to think you're the key to getting them ready. So, what would you suggest?" Piper thought for a moment before she leaned forwards in her seat.
"Were gonna need some LMDs." Piper spent the rest of her detention time reprograming six Life Model Decoys. The SHEILD models were a bit different than the ones she was used to at home, these were programed almost only for combat but the team was already good at fighting, they needed to get good at saving people too. By the time she got home that nights he was exhausted but excited. She'd finally had time to plan her movie night. MJ, Harry and Eddie were already at the tower being regaled with one of her Uncle Clint's stories when Piper slipped in to the living room. He grinned and waved at her as she flopped down on the couch between MJ and Harry. Harry slung an arm around her.
"Detention ran late?" Piper nodded and fist bumped Eddie.
"I didn't see you in detention." Piper shook her head.
"You wouldn't have, they had me working on the computers." Harry nodded.
"Makes sense, you are brilliant with computers." A voice from the doorway made them jump.
"I have taught my young Padawan well." MJ barely held in a snicker as Harry carefully removed his arm from around Piper. Tony glared at him for a moment then shook his head. He turned to Clint.
"We may have a lead on Loki's scepter, we need you." Clint nodded. Pepper stepped up beside Tony.
"I've ordered pizzas for you guys. I'll bring them up to you in Piper's theater." Piper leapt off the couch and hugged her dad tight.
"Be safe out there ok?" He hugged her back and nodded.
"I promise." She let go and hugged Clint and he patted her on the head and headed off with Tony. Moments later they heard a quin jet taking off. Piper sighed, Harry took her hand. She smiled at him. Eddie leaned over to MJ and whispered.
"Ah so those two are together?" MJ shook her head a small grin sneaking onto her face.
"Not yet but we're trying." Eddie laughed slightly as he and MJ followed Piper and Harry towards the elevator.
"MJ this is gonna be the beginning of a beautiful friendship. I think they'd be adorable together." MJ threaded her arm through Eddies.
"I couldn't agree more. Seriously I've been trying to get them together for like a year but something always gets in the way. She's always so busy." MJ stopped talking as they went got into the elevator. They made it to Piper's floor of the building in moments. Eddie hadn't been allowed up here during his tour of the tower. It was spacious and the main hall was carpeted like the rest of the family floors. Piper and Harry led them to a set of double doors and Piper opened them with a flourish revealing a theater as large as a small independent theater with much plusher chairs. A popcorn machine and fully stocked candy bar sat near the back. Piper flipped on the popcorn machine and turned to the others a grin on her face.
"So, what movie do you guys want to watch?"
They were about halfway through the first Lord of The Rings when Piper's new watch beeped. She excused herself and answered her new SHEILD communicator.
"Hello?" Sam's face, mostly hidden behind his helmet, appeared. He was frowning.
"Where are you webhead?" Piper rolled her eyes.
"I'm at home. It's my day off dude." She couldn't see Sam's eyes but she was nearly certain that he was rolling them.
"What part of 'mandatory training' don't you get?" Piper rolled her eyes.
"What part of 'I designed the new training' did Fury not tell you? I've been through that ringer already. Good luck though." Piper hung up and went back to her movie.
Sam stuck his tongue out at the now dark communicator on his wrist and turned back to the doors to the training hall. He shook his head at the others. White Tiger huffed, Power Man rolled his eyes and Iron Fist spoke.
"So, I take it the Spider will not be joining us?" Nova shook his head as the doors on the other side of the room slid open and Agent Coulson walked through them, a tablet in his hand.
"Spidergirl will not be joining us tonight. She has other training she's been doing. Today's exercise is new and based on your less than satisfactory performance against the Frightful Four. It's called Save the Citizen." The holo-projectors came to life and the room transformed into a street in Queens. It was completely empty for the moment. Coulson continued.
"The goal is simple. Save the citizens. Each of you will take turns on the course and attempt to save your citizens while defeating your foe. Get hit three times by your opponent and you're out. Lose a single citizen and you're out." They nodded. White Tiger went first, she did alright for the first five minutes of the fight but a piece of falling debris crushed one of the citizens and she was out. Power Man went next, he saved his citizens but got hit three times by the simulation of Klaw. He only lasted a few minutes longer than White Tiger. Iron Fist went next and was all of two seconds too late to save one of his citizens. Nova took a deep breath. If the webhead had designed this he could get through this. He took off blasting a piece of debris thrown at him by the simulations Thundra. He swooped down and snatched a citizen out of the way of one of Klaws blasts, everything was going great until one of the citizens pushed another out of the way of one of Wizards blasts. The citizen who'd saved the other one took the blast straight to the chest and in that moment Nova saw her face illuminated by the blast. Chestnut hair cut short flying around a pale face, big blue eyes wide with pain. He didn't even notice the LMD of Klaw leveling his blaster at him. He took the shot to his back and went spinning into the wall as the simulation began to break down. He pulled himself up to his knees and looked to his left where the LMD that had been Piper lay smoking, the holo-imaging that gave the LMD's the appearance of human beings seemed to be malfunctioning on this particular model because it was flickering in and out. One moment it was the plain SHIELD LMD that Nova was used to fighting, the next it was the empty face of his new teammate. Coulson stepped into the room as Nova pulled himself the rest of the way to his feet.
"The hell was that Coulson?" Coulson gave the smoking LMD a cursory glance.
"A twist in the programing. Real life doesn't follow rules. Training shouldn't either." Nova shook himself, eyes avoiding the LMD on the ground as the others entered. Power Man frowned.
"But why did the simulation end when he got hit instead of her?" He gestured at the still smoking robot. Coulson fiddled with the tablet in his hand.
"That would be part of the programing. Several of the Citizen LMD's are programed as the civilian identities of heroes. Make it past seven minutes the training gets harder, the out of costume heroes intervene and get themselves hurt or killed. I didn't expect you to make it past seven minutes on the first run." Nova nodded staring at his shoes. Normally he'd be ecstatic, gloating that he'd made it longer than the others had but something about the sight of Piper, not Spidergirl, but Piper getting blasted made him feel nauseous.
"Once you hit the seven-minute mark the goal shifts, save the citizens, get the out of costume heroes away so they can safely change into their hero identities and defeat your foe. If you last ten minutes and get the out of costume hero out of the way then you get a bonus, the hero you rescued joins you in the fight but the fight then gets twice as hard. The programing is in all honesty brilliant." Doctor Conners entered the room with a tool kit as Coulson finished.
"He's right, its insanely sophisticated and the coding can adapt to the difficulty level in seconds and even improvise. I may take the rest of the LMD's into the lab and see if I can get Spidergirl to retrofit the rest of them in a similar fashion." Power Man's eyebrow shot up.
"Spidey did this?" Coulson nodded.
"She did. She has more experience in the field than any of you. She knows how to fight on the fly, she might do way too much collateral damage to buildings and property but she has yet to lose a civilian during one of her fights." Nova and the other members of the team were silent.
"I believe I was right when I said we shouldn't judge this particular book by her cover." Iron Fist said calmly as Doc Conners got to work repairing the LMD's for another round. Nova nodded but couldn't resist adding his own opinion to Danny's statement.
"No matter how dorky the cover might be." White Tiger snorted in amusement and soon they were back on the rotation each trying to last longer than the other at this new challenge. Nova beat his own time the second time around but got hit a third time trying to fly Piper's LMD out of the way, this time of Klaw. He couldn't help but think that he'd rather he got hit than have to see her face looking dead on the LMD again even as he rubbed his side where a massive bruise was growing.