(Daphne)
Daphne Grimm was done with the Everafters. Well, that's not quite right. She was fed up with the all of the stupid things the Everafters seemed to have gotten in the habit of doing, and she was fed up with having to clean up after them.
Ever since Puck had taken over as King, Red, Pinocchio, Hamstead (once Bess and he returned from their Honeymoon), Boarman, Swinehart Mustardseed and a few of his faeries and herself had become the sort of makeshift Everafter police department/detective agency/semi-magical construction crew. They all kind of switched around with their duties and sometimes would take on extras. Keep the peace, that was basically their job, that and to figure out who was causing issues, and either appease them to avoid another war, or take it up with Puck and/or Sabrina and/or Mustardseed who were also kind of helping Puck figure out how to do what.
All of the Grimms were kind of helping with the rebuilding to some degree or another. Henry and Veronica were living in the magically rebuilt Dollhouse in Ferryport Landing, raising now twelve-year-old Basil and eight-year-old Sophia, Henry working as the principal and Veronica as a History teacher at the single Ferryport Landing Elementary-high School.
Red and Pinocchio were acknowledged as some of the most helpful in the whole rebuilding-the-kingdom process. they had basically started running the whole crudely formed Department of General Peacekeeping (or the DGP, the rebuilding was just part of the peacekeeping apparently) also doubling as the head architects and attorneys when they were needed. Uncle Jake was content for the moment to kind of act as a general consultant for everything, along with Henry, Veronica, Snow, and William Charming. They all had jobs in the human world and kids to raise, disregarding Uncle Jake (Billie and Rosie Charming were adorable by the way) and didn't really want to live in Manhattan full time.
Daphne, while not exactly overworked, was definitely over-stressed. And just done for the week. That's why she was at the little old gym around the corner from her favorite coffee shop, beating the everloving crap out of one of the punching bags next to the boxing ring.
Ever since she became one of the GPs (at eleven) she'd basically had to learn to defend against anything that could possibly pose a threat, but of every fighting style she'd learned, boxing was her favorite, as out of character as it might seem. She thought of it as an art, focussing on her opponent, using the observation skills that came from being raised as a detective to find all of their weaknesses and suddenly exploit them all at once...One couldn't really judge her for becoming as devious as she was, she lived with the Trickster King and worked with Baba Yaga and Bunny Lancaster (and occasionally Mordred or Sinbad), bad influences were in abundance.
Off track.
So, she was demolishing the punching bags.
Right.
Daphne was perfectly happy until some guy wandered in. It wasn't really the guy who bothered her, so much as the fact that she didn't notice him at first. Being a detective and an empath, she should've noticed immediately, especially with the nearly tangible waves of curiosity he emitted.
She didn't; he snuck up behind her. Eventually, she did sense him edging towards her and when he was about two meters away, she spun and sent a low kick for his legs, intending to surprise him. And she did, but he reacted, jumping and launching a counterattack.
This went on for a while, she wasn't sure how long, but somewhere during the fight, she realized that he was actually putting up a pretty good fight. Just for fun, she went a little harder on him. He, having picked up on the fact that this was more of a spar than anything else, ended up sloppily pinning her to the ground.
"Well," he managed, breathing a bit labored, "that was fun."
She grinned good naturedly, before flipping them both over, pinning him instead.
"Wasn't it?" He smirked up at her, tapping the ground.
"Ha-ha. You're really good." She stood and helped him up.
"So're you, a bit sloppy, though. Out of practice?"
He gave a wry smile as an answer.
"It happens to the best of us. I'm Daphne."
"Steve."
After they shook hands, they each took a moment to size each other up. Steve was tall, she guesstimated about six-foot-three, with blonde hair neatly parted and combed and blue eyes that swept the room every few seconds, as if he was waiting for something to jump out at him. He had a gym bag that he'd abandoned when she'd attacked, and he'd already been wrapping his knuckles as he walked. He didn't quite look dressed for a workout, in khakis and a light blue button-down. When asked about it, he sighed.
"I didn't have anything appropriate to wear, but I was getting jumpy and decided to come anyway. What's your excuse?" He asked. She looked down. She hadn't actually thought about what she was wearing, but it wasn't as bad as it could've been, though the trenchcoat probably raised some questions with the yellow Despicable Me Minion tee, black jeans, and purple converse.
"I came straight from work and this is all I had in my trunk. I promise I can usually dress like an adult, you just caught me after a particularly messy case."
"Case?"
"I'm a detective."
"Ah."
"So what are you, a soldier?"
"You could say that."
He didn't seem to feel like sharing much else, so after a moment Daphne asked, "Wanna spar?"
"Neither of us seem to be dressed for it…"
"There's a store around the corner, and you seem to have as much pent up energy as me, which is kind of insane."
He studied her for a minute, and then shrugged.
"Why not?"
Twenty minutes later found the pair wandering through some rinky-dink little sport supply shop with only a few other customers, sorting through to find something in their size. Daphne found something fairly quickly, but Steve seemed to be struggling. Wordlessly, she studied him, then found some plain black gym shorts that looked about long enough and a pair of plain sleeveless shirts. She held them up in front of him. He blinked a few times and nodded, looking grateful. They checked out and wandered back to the gym and changed in relative silence.
By the time she finished, Steve was already back in the main gym, standing barefoot in the ring, looking really jumpy. She felt him relax as she entered and wondered somewhat worriedly what made him so nervous.
"Ready?" she asked.
He nodded and they both took up defensive positions, both waiting for the other to move first. For the first time, Daphne let herself focus on the emotions of the man in front of her and holy crap was he out of whack. A huge mess of pent up anger and heartbreak and confusion like nothing she'd ever experienced-he moved first, rushed forward and went for a direct tackle. She used the larger man's weight and momentum against him, getting him up and over her shoulder. He rolled back to his feet and gave her a quick, calculating look before he went at it again, this time more carefully, going low and redirecting at the last second. This went on for a while, each evaluating each other's styles and adjusting constantly to account for it. Daphne found his little weaknesses quickly and started to come up with a game plan that would bring them to light without seeming like she was being patronizing.
Subtlety had never been her strong suit.
She got a few punches past his defenses, alerting him to the fact that he needed to step up his game, and having to wait a bit before a low kick to the back of his legs, quickly taking advantage of the stumble to take him down, pinning him. This time he was able to flip them over, but again, clumsily, resulting in more of a wrestling match, which was apparently neither of their strong suits. Eventually, what seemed like hours later, Steve tapped the ground and they both laid back, breathing heavily.
Daphne lazily rolled over to her phone at the edge of the ring-as they'd rolled off of it at some point-and grabbed her phone to look at the time. She flopped back down to the floor, laughing.
"Steve...you may just be...my new favorite person...to spar with!"
"...what?" He looked over at the giggling woman.
It was several minutes before she was able to explain that they'd been going at it for close to an hour. He rolled his eyes, but found himself laughing along with her.
She wasn't surprised when he showed up at the same time the next week. And the next. After a while it became a sort of routine, eventually bleeding into the rest of the week. It was three months before Daphne just gave in and bought the place to stop its demolition, and another week before Steve figured it out.
"Is your last name Grimm?" He asked, seemingly out of the blue.
"Yeah, did I not tell you?"
"Well I didn't tell you mine either."
"Rogers."
He stared.
"I saw your ID in your wallet the day we met."
"Why were you looking?"
"I've been through too much to hang around anyone without at least knowing their name. That and I was curious. I thought you would've caught a glimpse of mine also."
He gave her a pensive look, not that easily derailed from the line of inquiry. "Did you or did you not buy the building?"
She looked up at him innocently. "What building?"
"The one we're in right now."
"Um...Did? It was being demolished! I couldn't let that happen to my favorite place! Speaking of which, I was actually going to ask your help with moving all of my junk upstairs. I'll feed you for a week!"
Now accustomed to her rapid subject changes he just rolled his eyes. "Today?"
"If you're free." She looked up at him with the expression as it had not long ago dubbed.
He smirked a little bitterly at the fact that she hadn't caught on to the fact that she could probably get him to do anything she wanted. "Sure, but until then…"
Two hours, several spars, an interruption from a pirate wannabe, a lesson on sword fighting, and a pair of showers later, Daphne and Captain America- or Steve as he preferred to be called, were on their way to Daphne's place. It took them almost an hour to get back to the apartment, but that was because she and Steve stopped at the store on the way to replenish her pantry. That was the other thing she did on Saturdays. Luckily, she'd taken a picture of said pantry in all of its near-empty glory so she knew what she had and what she needed. Steve was a very helpful pack-mule, and could also reach some of the things on higher shelves, so it actually went faster than she thought it would've, but they were joking and messing around for most of the trip which took up some time, but they got back before five-thirty, so they had some time to put stuff away.
She turned on the Classic Rock station while they worked, and Steve was, once again, very polite and very helpful. He didn't even comment on her incredibly mismatched furniture or the dagger wedged in the inside of the door, or the one in the wall, or the window sill, or the eight that were actually in a target, though he did watch her carefully as she chucked them all into the weapons trunk on the opposite end of the room, but when she offered him one, he'd reluctantly taken one and tossed it into the trunk. She rolled her eyes and showed him how to throw knives properly.
But when they started cooking, he was a bit more comfortable and seemed to like being occupied. She'd had an idea earlier when he showed up at the gym looking like a lost puppy. Thankfully, he already knew how to make pasta fairly well, so she left him to the normal stuff, while she made the Squiddy Stuff. While that was baking, she showed Steve a really involved diagram she'd had Red draw up on how to make the Crazy Cookies, and let him at it while she made cheese bread.
He seemed to find the whole process fascinating, especially when she used the electric mixer. She sort of understood that bit, some of the Everafters (cough Baba Yaga cough) who were kind of stuck in the middle ages had also been really interested in modern kitchen appliances. Other stuff sort of freaked them out, especially washers and dryers and let's just not even discuss power tools. She subtly showed him how to use all of the things that confused him, and he seemed to be getting the hang of the kitchen. It was fun to watch him look so pleased with himself.
"Wait! You always add the Peanut Butter before the bananas!" He froze, looked up at her, down at the bananas, sighed, and switched hands, dumping in the cup of Peanut Butter before continuing on his merry way.
It was right about then that the door burst open and Puck ran in, immediately slamming the door behind him before running through the dining room. "Marshmallow your sister's gonna eat me- what happened to my dagger?"
"I threw it at a wall and it exploded."
"You put it away?" He looked scandalized.
"Yeah. Why does Sabrina want to eat you?"
"I may or may not have passed a law that demands everyone who buys a house has to be dunked in a vat of goo and dodge a barrage of orangutan poo?" He grinned sheepishly, jumping on top of the refrigerator and opening the cupboard doors to hide himself from view.
"She bought her house today didn't she?"
"Yep! And it was magnificent!"
At that moment, Hurricane Sabrina entered the building. The door opened very loudly and chaotically and Sabrina, covered from head to toe in solidified florescent yellow goop. Thankfully it smelled like mint, so Daphne decided not to kick Puckabrina out of her apartment just yet.
(At this point, you could easily just refer to them by one name, and though technically that name was Goodfellow, as they'd been married almost a year now, nobody used it. They were generally referred to as the aforementioned couple name when they weren't around to hear.)
Meanwhile all this was happening, Steve had sort of looked up, taken it in, then continued with his job. Daphne was now running interference and pointing Sabrina towards the bathroom and a secret stash of clothes, telling her to touch as little furniture as possible and that she could kill Puck later. Sabrina snarled at the refrigerator, apparently knowing about Puck's hiding place, then smiled and waved at Steve, and walked down the hall.
Right as she left, Red and Pinocchio snuck in, looking around before fully entering.
"Good, the knives are gone. I was hoping you'd put them away before Brina showed up. Oh, hello stranger, I'm Red, nice to meet you!"
Steve, evidently familiar with greeting people politely, replied with, "Hello Miss, I'm Steve. I'd shake your hand but…" His hands were covered in cookie dough.
"I'm Pinocchio, it's a pleasure to meet any friend of Daphne's." Pinocchio said and smiled politely. He still hadn't shook those overly formal manners in the twelve years they'd known him. Thankfully Steve returned them very nicely, earning a nod of approval when Steve went back to putting the cookies on the pan. Red however was giving him a better look.
"Is he…" Daphne frantically made STOP motions with her hands where Steve couldn't see, "...Making Crazy Cookies?"
"CRAZY COOKIES?" Puck jumped off of the refrigerator and in a second was about to dip his finger in the dough.
"PUCK." Daphne said sharply, stopping him right above the bowl. "Wash your hands. I swear you're such a five-year-old."
Puck quickly did as he was told while Steve tapped Daphne on the shoulder. She tasted the dough. "Poifect!" She grinned and poked him in the cheek (face cheek).
He poked her back.
A sudden silent poke war started, both switching from faces to shoulders, both determined not to be the first to give up. Steve started stirring the regular pasta, stopping it from sticking to the sides, still poking.
Daphne heated up the sauce (she had leftovers from a few days ago) in the microwave, attracting Steve's attention as he committed all of her movements to memory. She was still poking.
Steve absentmindedly slapped Puck's hand away from getting more cookie dough. Still poking.
"You are impressively good at this game." Daphne commented, taking the sauce out of the microwave and stirring it, still poking.
"The same could be said about you." He replied, jokingly poking her side causing her to squeak before moving back to her shoulder.
"I invented this game."
"Of course."
"I did!"
"Yes, I'm sure you did."
"Stop it!"
"Agreeing with you?"
"No, agreeing with me like that!"
"Okay."
"You're still doing it."
"I agree."
"Argh."
"Argh."
"Child."
"Debatably older child."
"Ugh."
"Ugh."
It kind of continued like that for the rest of the time they were working on dinner, dessert, setting the table, greeting a very confused (but not necessarily surprised) Mustardseed, and cleaning up the kitchen. And then Sabrina came out and put a stop to it.
"Okay, stranger, Daphne, I poke you both. I win. Let's eat."
As soon as Sabrina turned her back, they both stuck their tongues out, then snickered, then stopped mid-laugh as Sabrina turned back around, causing the rest of the table to raise their eyebrows.
Pinocchio was the first person to comment. "So, Daphne seems to have finally found somebody with the same strange maturity level."
Daphne turned to him with a sassy look on her face. "I make your food. I can poison you at any time and nobody'll punish me because I also make everyone else's food."
Nobody really had a suitable response to that, so Red changed the subject to an art exhibit where Pinocchio and she were showing some of their paintings the next week. That got Steve interested in the conversation, and everyone was pretty curious about him, considering he was just kind of there. He kind of explained how they met a while ago and she had just invited him over today, absentmindedly taking a bite of the black pasta with pink sauce and stopping.
"What's the verdict?" Daphne asked, "Good, bad, horrific-" He poked her face and swallowed, looking her straight in the eye.
"That, was probably the best thing I've ever tasted."
Daphne stared, and grinned...and poked his face.
"Told you so, wait 'till you taste the cookies!"
Steve grinned right back at her and Daphne continued where he had left off, rambling a bit, but finishing as he ate. After dinner, Daphne had him start passing around some of the cookies while she got out the caramel sauce. His face when he first bit into it was a sight to behold. She actually took a picture with her phone. It was glorious.
"This is glorious." She smirked.
"Again, told you. You never should've doubted me!"
"Well, to be fair, I had no idea what you were talking about."
"Excuses…"
He rolled his eyes and poked her face.
Later, after he'd helped with the dishes, he looked at his watch before sighing. "I should probably leave you all to it, I've got to be up early tomorrow for the thing with the guy with the eyepatch."
Daphne discreetly grabbed the sketchbook out of Steve's back pocket and scribbling her number on the back of his drawing of her. She handed it back to him. 'So you have a contact in your phone.' She'd written. She walked him downstairs and watched him walk in the direction of the gym where they'd met that morning, hoping he actually called sometime soon.
"Goodnight Daphne," he said with another wide grin.
"'Night Steve."
She watched him walk away before sighing and heading upstairs. She knew the rest of her family would demand an explanation as soon as she walked in, and also that she was probably going to be subjected to ungodly amounts of teasing, but somehow, she couldn't really bring herself to care.
(Steve: the next day)
Steve wasn't entirely sure just how he'd managed it, but the next morning after his run, he figured out how to text Daphne.
He was really unreasonably proud of himself. He'd seen Daphne texting people, so he knew that it wasn't like writing a letter, but more like starting a conversation, but with varying degrees of formality, so for his first text he simply wrote, "Hello to my only current contact." In hopes that she'd written the right number and would get the reference.
Then, he waited, getting ready to go see Pirate Eyepatch McFurioso. He gone through the file the generally dark man had given him yesterday and was honestly kind of frustrated. He'd thought that the tesseract would be safe at the bottom of the ocean, but no Howard and his kid just had to go and fish him out, bringing the thing up with him.
Seriously, was he going to have to shoot the damned thing into space to get rid of it?
Take that back; he was very frustrated.
He had half a mind to just ignore Fury and try to adapt to the time, get a job, pay for his own things (He did have quite the pension built up over the years, he knew. He wasn't stupid), talk to Daphne, maybe go over to her apartment, or invite her to his and do things that would cause her to inadvertently teach him how to use some to the things in his Shield apartment.
Unfortunately, he knew he wouldn't do that, not while the tesseract was still glowing and being used to do stupid things. He sighed, about to start his motorcycle, when his phone made a funny little beeping noise.
He looked down to see that the texts showed up on the lock screen, mentally storing that information away for later.
'Howdy Steve:) I'll text ya after work.'
Faces? How'd she do the face? He almost asked her, but instead decided to just figure it out later.
It took about an hour to get to where Mr. Madness wanted to meet him; the roof an old apartment building, and another half hour for him to show up. Steve spent that time messing with his phone, taking pictures of the buildings around him, deleting them, looking at the settings (he found the "emoji's" and was drawing one of them when some of Blackbeard's men showed up in a plane. On the roof of a building. Technology really had advanced really quickly since Steve's time.
A shortish balding man in a suit fairly skipped out the plane to come meet him, but visibly tried to reign in his excitement.
"Captain Rogers, I'll be escorting you to our current Headquarters." The man sounded very calm and official, but Steve could see him internally freaking out. Instead of answering, he nodded and followed the man onto the jet.
After a very awkward plane ride, he met a few of the other people Shield was bringing in to help.
Doctor Banner seemed like a very cynical, pessimistic man, but if his file was anything to go by, he had good reason to be. Steve greeted him like he would any other man, which seemed to please him quite a bit, though he tried to hide it. He liked being referred to as a scientist rather than as a hazard, so Steve decided to make an effort to do so. After all, work was always easier when you were on decent terms with your coworkers. Natasha Romanoff...He was fairly certain was an alias, but didn't ask. Dealing with spies was not in his job description, so he decided not to touch the subject with even a forty-foot pole. He decided to just take things as they came and not to go looking for trouble.
In the past, Bucky had usually been the one to keep him outta trouble, but now that Buck was dead, he was kinda stuck in a weird place, asking himself constantly, "What would Bucky do?"
Unfortunately, he was pretty sure Bucky would've flirted with Romanoff and gotten their sorry asses tossed overboard, so that didn't really help him much.
He spent the next half hour being shown around the "Helicarrier." He couldn't honestly say he didn't appreciate the tour, but he definitely didn't like how they just assumed he was alright with staying here for some undetermined length of time and not asking. The whole thing was a bit rude, really. Not the nice, friendly kind of rude like Daphne, but the bossy, patronizing kind of rude.
Steve sighed in annoyance and sat in one of the black spinning desk chairs at the clear glass conference table overlooking what appeared to be the main control center and started to draw some of the more interesting features. The man playing a game on the computer for example.
He was filling up his new sketchbook very quickly, mostly with scenes and people from his time. While a reminder of just how out of his depth he was, he found that drawing and writing about his life, past and present, was incredibly therapeutic.
Steve was a logical person, and very adaptable. During his years as a sickly little boy, he had thrown the majority of his time and energy into reading, writing, and drawing, and during that time, he'd learned quite a lot more than most of the people of his time, and given his general knowledge of technology combined with Bucky's experience as a mechanic, he had always had a general idea of where technology might go and to be honest, his predictions had been pretty spot on.
In his old sketchbook (God only knew where that might've ended up) he had actually put down some of his ideas. Bucky had looked over them and figured that they weren't entirely implausible, and had actually sent a few of them anonymously to Howard Stark to see if he could do anything with them. He could actually see quite a few of his designs showing through in the helicarrier, making him think that Howard had some sort of input in the design process.
He decided to ask Fury later, but act oblivious for the time being.
About twenty minutes later, Fury told him that they had located the man who had taken the tesseract. He also told him that they would be needing him to go in and grab the guy. Oh joy. Kidnapper duty. He sighed as he looked down at the suit in the mirror.
Even though it'd been seventy years since he'd last put on a suit, to him, it felt like only a few weeks. He almost laughed at the clear contrast of this new suit to the old one. Darker blues, darker reds, less white, and it was made of well armored material, stretchier, but tighter. It was very obviously well made, unlike his old one which hadn't really been much more than a costume. In the back of his mind he acknowledged that he liked this one better and that it would be a tiny bit less obvious (though not by much), but he was still a bit nostalgic for the old one.
He shoved that to the back of his mind and started loading up with weapons. There were four handguns, ten knives, and several extra cartridges to put in the belt around his waist. He decided to take them all to the shooting range and test them out before they took a smaller jet to Germany. He had about twenty minutes…
He wandered in the general direction and found the range easily. Ignoring the strange looks and whispers, he was always good at that, he grabbed a few extra cartridges and headed towards the empty part of the range.
The guns were automatic, so he didn't need to cock it (both a blessing and a curse) and fired of four shots using both hands in rapid succession, then another six with his left, then right, just getting a feel for the new and foreign weapon.
He decided he much preferred knives and hand to hand combat rather than firearms, kind of like Daphne. Daphne was a fun sparring partner, an actual challenge. She beat him just as often as he beat her, and actually helped him improve defensively. She was an incredible fighter, especially for someone her age. And she was a detective. He'd found out the night before from her sister that everyone in their family was raised to be a detective whether they liked it or not. Even the kids that they'd sort of adopted. He'd thought that that was incredibly interesting, and though it might have its perks, possibly a bit crazy.
But to each their own, he supposed.
It took him about a minute to realize that he had just thrown three of his knives the exacts same way that she had taught him the night before, and took him another to see that all of them had hit the small target and embedded themselves into the foam behind it. Evidently, she was an incredible teacher also. Dang.
Just then, he heard someone come up behind him. Short...female...Romanoff?
"Hey Handsome."
Not Romanoff.
He decided to put on an act, just for the heck of it. Exercise his improvisational skills a little. He turned around using his best drill sergeant face and a loud, booming voice.
"Agent! What in God's great name are you doin' sneaking up on me like that? Why, I oughta have you tossed overboard! You just did a thing that coulda gotten you killed! Drop and give me fifty for that ridiculous display of lack of self-preservation! One! Two! Speed it up girly! One! Two!"
And that is how he ended up at the jet on time. A girl showed up to flirt and he scared her into doing fifty push-ups as a diversion while he gathered his weapons and sprinted and arrived at the same time as Romanoff.
She looked him up and down, then asked, probably rhetorically, "Do I even want to know what just happened?"
He shook his head, and that is how he didn't get caught.
It took almost an hour and a half to get to Germany from the helicarrier, and five minutes before they arrived, Steve was told that the guy he was after was a pagan god. Of tricksters and lies. And that they thought sending him in without backup was a good idea.
Shield was stupid. This was stupid. Steve was just done with everyone there at this point. But he decided to go and do the mission anyway. It turned out to be easier than Steve anticipated. He'd actually had the situation more or less under control, at least until Stark showed up.
Tony Stark was decidedly hilarious. Infuriating as hell, but hilarious nonetheless. He looked a lot like his father, though his skin was a bit darker and his face was shaped a little differently, but you couldn't really tell straight off. It was a strange thing to see a friend's kid as an adult older than yourself.
Neither of them really said much to each other as they got Loki on the plane (which was really way too easy) or during the ride, but then Thor, another pagan god, decided to show up and steal Loki and he had to jump out of the plane to stop the pair from leveling the forest. He failed, and now his shoulder was sore.
Just great.
He was also hungry. Dealing with deities was difficult and exhausting. Thinking about food reminded him of Daphne. He wondered vaguely if she had texted him yet. Or if she was eating some of that incredible spaghetti, or if there were any more of those cookies left…
Nope.
Stop.
Mission.
Right.
He examined the other occupants of the plane. Romanoff seemed a little disappointed for some reason, Stark was rambling at Thor who seemed to be cluelessly listening, the copilot looked terrified, and Loki seemed to be trying to hide a smirk. Perfect, he was right. It was a trap. Great. But whatever, he wasn't taking the lead on this and he was 98% certain that nobody was going to listen to him even if he did voice his concerns. He was here as a soldier. They weren't giving him any information ahead of time, he'd let them figure this out for themselves.
It was about that point when Steve spotted the arc reactor in Tony's chest. He couldn't help it, he grinned. Stark really had made use of his designs, and Tony had apparently perfected it. He was getting way too proud of himself again.
"Whatcha smirking about Capsicle?" The Stark in question asked, quirking an eyebrow.
Steve pretended to be offended by the nickname. "I was thinking about the arc reactor. I'm sure you know it caused your father a lotta trouble."
This statement seemed to attract his full attention. "What would you know about my father?" He scoffed a bit.
Steve shrugged. "I spent a three months in a lab listening to your father ramble on about everything in his head. I probably know more than you'd think."
"Like?"
Steve thought for a moment. "Well, I know that he was torn between five or six different elements to stabilize the arc reactor but couldn't find any of them to test it, then later realized that he needed a different one that he gained access to but he kept building things in the city that could theoretically destroy the city, but before he could move his operations out to the country, some girlfriend of his ended up being a spy and stole the blueprints and even though they were unfinished, he couldn't remember most of the materials he needed and accidentally created a bunch of bombs which could, once again, destroy the city, so he tried to keep 'em locked up, but there were still people who knew their way through his security systems, so he just wrote 'em all down in one of the notebooks I gave him for his twenty-sixth birthday, then sent them to a buddy in a cabin in Canada where he planned to go get them after the war was over. Unfortunately, I died, so I haven't really got much more- well, I do, but not stuff that other people really should know."
Tony's mouth hung open. "Wha-?"
Steve chuckled. "Third best reaction I've gotten out of surprising a genius so far."
"I think I deserve better than third!"
"Well, one shot me six times and the other beat the living daylights out of me, so you're gonna have to do better than that."
"Somebody shot you six times? Please. Hospitals were mediocre during World War II and even with the serum you would've died."
He shrugged and started cleaning the dirt off his shield.
That got a much better reaction than his rising to Tony's Howard trivia challenge. Romanoff and the copilot had put the jet on autopilot a while ago and were watching the exchange, Thor was sitting across from him and Tony listening intently, Tony was leaning on the wall looking unimpressed but curious, and Loki was also observing, filing the information away for later. Steve made a mental note not to say anything too incriminating.
"Uh huh. I'm sure. You gonna tell us some exaggerated little bedtime stories of the people you ticked off?"
"Actually I'd probably under exaggerate the story if I did tell it, and I don't think they geniuses in question would appreciate it too much if I told stories about them to a pagan god trying to take over the world. Well, one of 'em would, but I'm not gonna."
"So I guess they're women then?"
"Of course. The most terrifying people I've ever met have been women. No offence Agent Romanoff."
She gave him a sly grin. "None taken."
"I don't suppose you could give me an ETA?"
She checked. "About thirty seconds from now." She and the pilot turned back to the controls and started flipping switches and pressing buttons. "I would suggest holding onto something."
It didn't take long to unload, considering the only cargo was able to walk itself out, but they'd gotten back so early in the morning that the sun was coming up. Nobody was overly exhausted, so Magic Mister Madness had them all congregate at his magic invisible table with the swirly chairs (don't judge his mental names for things).
Steve took a detour to his room to grab his sketchbook, then ran back down to the meeting. As he expected, he was the first one there, so he started drawing all of the people Nickybee had called in to help. First, Banner, then Thor (Steve figured he was helping regardless of what Shield would like), then Natasha, Coulson, and Stark, the Younger, and just because, Loki.
Loki's hair reminded him of Daphne, which in turn, reminded him that she was going to text him eventually. He flipped through the book to the portrait of her where he kept his phone in an envelope. On the screen there were three texts, but none from Daphne.
According to the longest one (from Mustardseed, who Steve had gotten along with the best), Red, Sabrina and he had gotten ahold of Daphne's phone and stolen his number. They still had Daphne's phone and she'd stolen Puck's and taken it to work with her. Steve, not knowing exactly how one might normally react in that situation, said thank you.
The second longest, from Sabrina, asked if he had really liked her sister's Squid pasta and whether he liked vanilla or chocolate ice cream better, to which he replied with an all capital YES and vanilla. When he asked why, she replied a moment later that he was invited to dinner again on Wednesday and they didn't really have a dessert yet, but Puck had insisted on ice cream.
The last one just said 'Hey, it's Red, I stole your number, don't freak out!' He just wrote back that he wasn't freaking out.
About a minute after he wrote that one while he was saving them all as contacts (under weirder names than theirs already were), Daphne texted him from Puck's phone about the dinner on Wednesday. He told her that Sabrina told him and she demanded to know what made Sabrina think she was cooking on Wednesday followed by a lot of rambling about how she was a grown up woman who could choose her own desserts!-though she did like ice cream...
This texting thing was very entertaining.
"Well, you catch on fast." Romanoff's voice came from somewhere behind him.
He shrugged, stopping mid-text to look at her. "I've had a while."
"A month."
"A while isn't really that specific of a time frame."
"True."
He finished and sent the text in silence.
"So, who's DaBadazzle, the one that shot you or the other one?"
"The other one."
"And she's a genius?"
"In my mind."
"Any particular reasons why?"
"Several." He didn't elaborate, but she got the message. He studied her for a moment, putting his phone away, then he flipped back to his sketch of her, fixing the nose. He always had a difficult time with noses.
She looked over his shoulder as he drew, frowning. "You're good."
"Thanks."
She watched him for a moment, then rounded the table and leaned against the far wall, watching the sun rise through the windows, and stayed that way until Banner, Coulson, Thor, and Agent Hill (Director Dastardly's first mate next to Coulson) entered and found seats or stood like Romanoff. Once everyone was situated, Hill tapped something on The Big Man's control screens and little ones popped up in front of every chair at the table. The scene playing out was of Fury and Loki, the latter being contained in a circular glass cell. The two threatened each other for a few minutes, then Loki gave a little speech. Naturally. It was very cliched really. None of it really caught his attention until Loki mentioned Steve.
"...And even if the Captain calls upon his little friends for help, the Faeries will all be so wrapped up in that murder of their Queen…" Yada, yada, etc. Dots started connecting in Steve's head. Something Puck had said. "I may or may not have made a law…" And his brother's name was Mustardseed, which should have set off alarm bells in his head. Steve remembered reading Midsummer Night's Dream when he was a kid...And Daphne could fight with swords and daggers and knives, that had to have something to do with the whole debacle.
Steve pulled his phone back out and texted Daphne (on Puck's phone) 'You said you were a detective… You aren't investigating the murder of a Faerie Queen, are you?"
She answered almost immediately.
'The attempt failed, Titania's alive...Why do you ask.'
'Long story short, the pagan god Loki is trying to take over the world and is assuming his plan is working. Watch out, I think he's got someone after someone important in whatever kingdom the queen rules. I'm not certain, I only just put the pieces of this whole mess together in my head. I'll call if I can when I get more information.'
'Y'all don't happen to be missing a possessed archer, are you?"
'As a matter of fact, we are.
'Any ideas on how to de-possessify him?'
'Cognitive recalibration was suggested... so hit him real hard on the head?'
'It worked. I demand explanations when this is over.'
'Me too."
He put his phone down only to see that everyone clumped around the table was staring at him questioningly.
"Are you...texting, Captain Rogers?
He sighed. This would be fun to explain.
(Meanwhile; Daphne)
Daphne woke up as she usually did on Sunday mornings; to the sound of Red's snoring mixed with the intro to the song Hooked on a Feeling at 0444. She reached over and hit snooze on her alarm clock, groaning into her pillow before rolling out of bed and stumbling over to the dresser to find her running shorts. She did this every morning in order to get a good jog in before she made breakfast, but she never enjoyed it like she did going to that little gym a few blocks over. But she only did that on Saturdays, as a sort of treat for getting through the week. Other than that, she didn't really have any set schedule for the week, because frankly, she never had any clue what she'd be doing.
Not to say she didn't love her job, on the contrary, she couldn't possibly think of a job better suited to her talents, it was just very… Unpredictable, not to mention hardcore. She needed that Saturday off every week or two, even if it was interrupted occasionally.
Steve was definitely welcome to interrupt her gym time.
When she got back to the apartment after her run, she found that Steve had figured out how to text. (She'd had a hunch that he'd no idea how, which was confirmed when he'd been so concentrated on observing her texting her friends/sibling/coworker about what they were having for dinner.) She, also remembering that Mustardseed and Puckabrina had stayed over in the spare rooms, texted back that she would talk to him after work, using a happy face emoji to see if it would drive him bonkers not knowing how to use one himself.
She figured that the exchange would happen as soon as Mustardseed woke up (little gossip) so for the time being, she plugged her phone into the speakers in the bathroom and got in the shower.
An hour later, she wasn't even all that surprised to find that her hair was blue. All she could really think was to make the most of it and look like a punk for however long the dye lasted and, Well, looks like our mighty ruler will look a little different for the rest of the week, as she readied her collection of magic wands for battle.
The mission went without a hitch, and in five minutes, she was in the kitchen, having acquired a blackmail photo of the newly mustached Faerie King all wrapped around her sister, who had looked a little annoyed even in her sleep (the pair had had numerous arguments and several wrestling matches over who should be the big spoon, and though Sabrina was a 'worthy adversary' Puck usually ended up getting his way, though Daphne knew she secretly loved it) and the photo, taken with her handy Polaroid camera, was stashed in a hollowed out book on her shelf, actually labeled in Circular Gallifreyan The Key to the Inevitable Downfall of the King.
She was making regular bacon, scrambled ostrich eggs (she only needed three, despite the incredible appetites of the resident Fae, the Wolf, currently stowed away in her surrogate sister/bestest friend, and herself due to the sheer size) with a few regular for Sabrina, and some of her homemade granola she set out for the Puppet- sorry, Marionette. She decided to just leave the ensemble on the counter with a few plates (paper for Puckabrina, they knew why) and then went to attempt to finish her book on the History of the Goblin Rebellions.
She failed and Mustardseed, ever the early riser, found her chucking daggers haphazardly at the large target Red had spraypainted onto a large sheet of plywood and screwed into the wall for her birthday last year so the landlord (Bess) would quit complaining and demanding they fill in holes every month. There were still holes, but now they were usually Puckabrina's fault.
"Good morning Daffydoo, I'm loving the new look. Just assuming we have my brother to blame for this interesting change of hairstyle?" He didn't even comment on her reckless weapon wielding, something for which she internally gave him bonus brownie points.
"As always, my Beautiful Blondie, but alas, revenge is nigh, in one of the most simple but effective of ways!" She grinned, flipping a dagger between her fingers, which she had covered in her usual medical tape, more for her safety when playing with fire/acid/sharp objects/crime scenes/hot things/magic/etc.
"Mustache?" He asked knowingly.
"Mhm. I even made it match his hair this time, and I added a goatee."
"I'm sure it's a beauty, for nothing short of a work of art would be accepted from the artistic genius known widely as General Peacekeeper and Fairytale Detective Daphne Grimm
"Naturally."
"Although…"
"Speak carefully boy, for thy words shall affect the nations!"
"My brother's taste has gotten better. Blue hair suits you quite well."
"Doesn't everything?"
"I can't think of anything that would suggest otherwise as of right now, but I shall inform you if I think of anything.
"Gee, thanks."
"Anything for you Gorgeous. And speaking of beauty, you picked a good-looking fella to finally bring home. You like him?"
She shrugged. "He seems like a nice guy, but I've only seen him a few times. I don't know yet."
He sighed dreamily. "Shame. Well, If he ends up swinging in my direction, lemme know."
"You know I will. But I was under the impression you were going for the Not-So-Mini Piper? The whole musician thing?"
"I am, but in case that doesn't work out…"
"Gottcha. So, how're things in the land of Royals?"
The two talked for a while, moving to get food at some point (Daphne mentally reminded herself to thank Bunny for the self-warming/cooling dishes) and sitting at the long table.
(None of the furniture in Daphne's apartment matched, as she had gotten it all on her initial raid of thrift stores upon her move to the large city. Back then, even though Daphne was pretty much sharing the large apartment with all five of them, as Puck didn't want to leave Sabrina and Mustardseed were getting cabin fever from sticking to the palace, she and Red were the only ones who really cared about having furniture and would actually take the time to go get some. So, on a random Thursday, Daphne had borrowed the Cat She Accidentally Changed Into A Coachman/ChauFURR (he literally used that as his title and refused any other name. Vehemently. He'd even made a collar that said that) and run rampant through several furniture stores with the money Puck gave them. They didn't like how normal it all was, so decided to try some of the thrift stores around the city. They actually found one that was run by the Little Old Lady Who Lived In A Shoe and found several different bedframes, a super comfortable blue couch, the big, long, thick table, many armchairs, some regular chairs, durable lamps, cups, and silverware as well as a plethora of little knick knacks, including the bottomless weapons trunk, most of said weapons, the black trenchcoat Daphne used to store her own magical objects, Red's desk with magic drawers, a magnifying glass that worked better than a microscope, several mirrors that had later been enchanted, a coatrack with a carving of a rabbit and several other things that would take too long to describe. Daphne had since gone back many many times and actually worked there for a while as a side job, even after the DGP was founded, but long story a lot shorter than it could be...)
Apparently, the Princes of Asgard were in the realm and wreaking havoc, but their contact in the human's organization didn't know where they were at the moment, so they couldn't really do anything about it, which was frustrating, the general school system that had been very recently reinstated was looking for more teachers, but as there were very few educated everafters that weren't already teachers in Faerie, and only about six of them weren't in the DGP, there weren't many options, and Titania was holding a secret meeting with the DGP at 0946.
The conversation had just shifted to the kingdom's lack of healers since Cobweb was killed (the need satisfied for the moment by Daphne's Uncle Jake, Nurse Sprat and their sort of apprentices Bella the daughter of the Princess and the Frog, and Merlin's grandson Darryl, though Merlin himself was the best healer currently in Faerie) when Puckabrina appeared, unusually quiet, with the "Brina" half smirking knowingly when she saw her sister's hair, while the beautifully mustached "Pucka" portion (clad only in his underpants) exclaimed loudly, "Marshmallow, your sister has officially lost it!" Before he piled food onto his (paper) plate.
Daphne snorted. "You say that like she ever had it," cue rude hand gesture from the 'she' in question. "But go on."
The king put down his plate and began the story very dramatically.
"Last night, after your boyfriend left-"
"Not my boyfriend-"
"-girly-friend left," she facepalmed. "We continued as usual, mild-to-severe ribbing, near-stabbings, then we all dropped dead of utter exhaustion. All perfectly normal. Then this morning when we had just woken, a bit before we came in here to see the slightly less glorious twin of mine, as well as yourself, for such blue-haired beauty is rare, though not unheard of in the larger spare room, (and also for sustenance, I suppose) when to my surprise, my radiant wife here began to laugh for some reason, and refused to tell me why! And she's been smiling this diabolical little smile ever since, cackling evilly and smirking in a very un-Grimmlike fashion for absolutely no reason!"
Daphne pretended to regard her sister carefully. "Well, maybe you should take her to the bathroom? She looks a little pale, and might be feeling a bit nauseous, she always gets delirious when she's getting sick."
Sabrina acted the part admirably, while Puck examined his wife.
"You know Marshmallow, you might be onto something. What say you, brother-mine?"
"I agree," Mustardseed valiantly attempted to hide a smirk of his own. "She looks like she's gonna throw up."
Sabrina fake retched and without further ado Puck was herding the blonde off to the bathroom. Daphne was up quickly and putting her plate in the sink, grabbing her jacket, shoes and phone, saying "We should probably go, gotta be at work by eight and all…"
Mustardseed managed to hold back his laugh as he grabbed his own shoes and coat and all the way down the hall to the elevator, ignoring the loud exclamation of his brother ("MARSHMALLOW!") and cracking up right alongside the woman.
"I take it you appreciated my revenge?"
"You didn't say you made his hair pink! You know how much he likes to pretend he hates pink!"
"Well, I did say it matched his mustache…"
At the meeting later, Puck did not look amused, though everyone else did, but nobody said a thing about the change of haircolor and the facial hair (Daphne had also taken and hidden all of the razors and he wasn't that good with a knife, so he hadn't been able or had time to shave) but Daphne had gotten several compliments throughout the morning and was looking chipper as usual. Puck glared at her as he entered the courtroom at 0945.
Due to the recent renovation of the conference room, all meetings were being held in the courtroom because it was the most durable room in the palace (they'd literally tried every single other one) and because there was a second one that they could use for actual trails, so every other room could still serve it's intended purpose.
While it still had problems, almost all of those problems were discussed daily and nobody could really see any reasonable way to fix them to everyone's satisfaction. For example, the acoustics of the room were terrible. Since Titania insisted on sitting in the judge's platform with Puck for some reason, and that was situated higher than every other seat in the room (oh wait, that might be the reason) they were the only two who could be clearly heard, and they couldn't hear anyone else clearly, even with their enhanced hearing. Titania still felt the need to be higher than everyone, quite literally, so she wouldn't move to a different seat. She also wouldn't let anyone move from where she'd put them, far away from her highchair, so they had to scream at the top of their lungs to be heard at all.
So really, she was causing the issues, but nobody had the guts to tell her straight out, which put them right back at square one.
Sabrina had come in a few moments after Puck, surveying the room for any damage he and his own damaged ego may have caused, only to see her glaring husband and beaming sister. She gave one long suffering sigh, and sat down in the third row next to Daphne.
"While the hair thing is hilarious, please make it some other color next time? He's been pouting and whining all morning."
As they grew up, the pair had sort of switched roles, Sabrina finally taking her place as the rational, mature older sister while Daphne went in the exact opposite direction. The switch had been obvious, looking back, she stopped carrying around the dictionary and wearing girly clothes, continuing her magical training, but starting with weapons also, using what little experience she'd had with street fighting and rough housing in the orphanage and several foster homes as a starting point.
While she was still empathetic, a trait that had only increased with her magical influence, she became more observant, and while her sister could win a fight through brute force, as both of them had gained and retained a lot more muscle as everafters, Daphne could find all of a person's strengths and weaknesses and use them against them in both physical and vocal confrontations. She was basically just better at putting her talents to practical use.
Sabrina used more of a roundabout way of winning verbal arguments (Puck being the general exception), simply asking you to or making you alter something about your opinion through logic and persuasive arguments of her own, slowly tearing yours apart before you fully understood what was happening.
But that was off topic.
Daphne rolled her eyes and pointed at the cranky King, mumbling a quick spell under her breath. Puck apparently felt the change and pulled some of his hair where he could see it. He brightened slightly at the purple rather than pink, but just for show, glowered down at the culprit exasperatedly. But he didn't complain.
There was a round of boos and hisses at the sudden change, but those were changed to laughter with a glare and a certain finger. After a moment however, he seemed to forget to be angry and calmed down, "Alright it was a LITTLE funny," smirking a bit to himself. The laughter was cut off by the sudden appearance of the Queen.
The Queen of Faerie was undeniably getting older. Nobody had really addressed this fact as of yet, but then, nobody really wanted to. Titania had been Queen for a long time, and while she was a bit traditional, she wasn't overly so. She was fair and more logical than her husband had ever been, and also more well liked despite her quirks.
When she wasn't doing something official, Daphne had found that she was almost fun, perfectly happy to go to lunch or go shopping in the human world provided that she wasn't away for too long or missing anything important. Every once in a while, she'd help Daphne with a particularly difficult spell or potion, in return for a pie or a cake, or even just a confidante of sorts. In fact, Daphne would probably be one of the most helpful once the Queen was dead because of her little gossip sessions and brainstorms she'd had with the faerie, because of her knowledge of the groups plotting revenge for something on someone and all of the ones throwing around threats, she was already keeping an eye on several questionable individuals.
(She actually kept a list of important things that would magically be sent to every member of the DGP in case of her death and/or the uttering of a keyword. She'd set up a system like that with the Queen so that her mental list of any suspects of any crime would be automatically broadcasted to them all also. She thought it was one of her more clever ideas, herself.)
"Attention!" The room was already silent. "This meeting has now coming to order!" The Queen glanced around before she continued.
"Firstly, the Asgardians are back and causing issues again. We can't really do anything about that as of right now, so moving on...Let's see;" She went down a list, either ignoring or not hearing the crowd's reaction. "We need to plan the Dish's trial, build the arena, find a date for Sabrina's coronation...Oh! My assassination! I almost forgot about that. Well then, looks like Sabrina's coronation will be tomorrow. Any objections?" She paused for about a picosecond, then continued. "Alright, so that takes care of that, and then Daphne can find dates for the trial on the off chance that she doesn't succeed in finding out who will be attempting to kill me. Meeting dismissed!"
Daphne rolled her eyes, then stood to follow the Queen, or the almost Ex-Queen, she supposed, to get more details. Nobody else seemed to have quite comprehended what had just happened just yet. Unfortunately for her, Titania just went to her room and locked the door, apparently not open to conversation despite her impending doom.
Daphne sighed frustratedly and headed out to the bar to go help Momma while the Queen sulked or whatever it was that she was doing.
Momma's bar, The Golden Egg, was just about the only thing in Faerie that hadn't really changed since the war. It was still where most people went for meals or drinks if they didn't want to be found by humans or have to hide their true selves, there was still music, though now it was a constant open-mic for anyone who wanted to sing or play something. Since after the war, the majority of the troublemakers were trapped at the castle, which somehow ended up leaving all of the artists and musicians and tailors and things with nowhere to go but Faerie, bringing it into a sort Renaissance period where art sort of ruled the magical nation.
Not to say there weren't warriors around; in fact, now everyone, regardless of age or status carried some weapon or other, some with only one, a sword or an axe or a dagger, and others, mainly Daphne and the rest of what was widely considered the Royal Family. Sabrina and herself were generally armed to the teeth and beyond with concealed weapons and, in Daphne's case, magical items. Even though the war had been years ago, they were now two of the most highly respected Everafters in the country- the world even. Even a decade later, they were widely recognized and were eventually decorated as the General's Grimm and were almost held in higher regard than the Queen. Even Puck was now considered more of a Commanding Officer than a King, especially with his army of apes and other animals that had followed their original entourage to the Big Apple. Their titles as detectives however still trumped their "Military Status," so they basically became the Ones You Go To In The Event Of Well Anything Really.
It was annoying at first, but they'd eventually started the DGP to sort of intercept the things that didn't really require their attention so they could actually get things under control.
"Daphne Grimm! You're here earlier than I expected!"
"Hey Momma, Riley, the meeting was fast today." Daphne grabbed an apron and pulled out the pen and notebook she carried like a good detective, sort of like Steve carried his sketchbook. She wondered what Steve was doing, and whether he'd spent as much time as she'd thought he might trying to figure out emojis.
"Your hair looks awesome, you do that recently?" Riley a longtime friend and Aladdin and Jasmine's linguist granddaughter asked, wiping down the bar with one of the blue rags Daphne had bought Momma to replace its older, more disgusting counterpart.
"Our idiotic King put dye in my shampoo this morning. I kind of like it though, I might keep it."
"It suits you. The makeup also. If I didn't know your dad, I might suggest a tattoo to go with it as well."
Daphne smirked. "I was actually thinking the same when I did the makeup. A dragon maybe? Holding a daffodil and wearing a collar that says General Peacekeeping and Overall Awesomesauce?"
"Well now I'm totally on board. Maybe you should have Red draw it in pen on your arm and send your dear sweet daddy a picture of it to scare him?"
"With dreadlocks?"
"And a bunch of fake piercings."
"That's a given. That might actually look pretty cool. I'll think about it."
"It'd go well with the trench coat."
"I'm not sure whether to take that as a compliment or not."
"Definitely a compliment."
Throughout the conversation, Daphne had been collecting dishes from the Muffin Man (who lived on Drury Lane) and started distributing them throughout the restaurant. Then she saw the man looking at the menu.
Now, this was unusual for a number of reasons, the first being that nobody ever looked at the menu, and the second being that he wasn't looking at the menu so much as staring wide eyed around the room very subtly. Daphne exchanged glances with Riley, then pulled her notepad out and went to see if he was somehow under the impression that this was a normal establishment.
"Good morning sir, may I take your JEsus chrIST MAN!"
Her greeting was disrupted by an attack from venti purple and intense. SHe was immediately on guard and Riley, who'd been waiting to help out, pulled the shotgun from behind the counter and took aim as a diversion while everyone else in the restaurant (the six dwarves, ugly duckling, and Bella and Darryl) blocked the exits and drew various weapons of their own.
The fight lasted longer than anticipated, but soon Daphne had pulled out her chloroform rag (magic can only be used so quickly) and he was out.
(JeremiahHamstead, today's pianist, quit playing the Scooby-Doo chase music and switched ominously to Beethoven's 5th Symphony. How he managed so many parts with hooves was a mystery to all involved.)
Several hours later, Daphne and Puck arrived in the DGP's office with maniac grins plastered across their faces.
"What's the word Fart-smellers?" Sabrina asked from where she was playing Ninja with Red and Mustardeseed.
"Dude's an archer and for some reason calls himself Hotguy and works for a shibe, but he was possessed by one of the Norweenies. Lowkey something or other." Puck stated.
Everyone looked to Daphne for translation.
"Hawkeye's his assassin codename for SHIELD, you know that place where Phil works?" People nodded. "Well, Loki, one of the Norse gods back to cause trouble stole the tesseract (a magic glowing cube) from SHIELD and he's trying to take over the world. He sent Hawkeye to kill Titania so he could take over."
"Idiot." Pinocchio grumbled. "Doesn't he know she's gonna be killed two days from now?"
"Apparently not-" Puck's text tone rang from Daphne's pocket. She read the text. "Huh."
"Huh what?"
"Steve just asked if there's been an assassination attempt."
Everyone blinked.
"Steve Who?" asked Boarmen.
"Daphne's boyfriend." Puck smirked.
Thus began the stream of questions that would increase Daphne's growing headache exponentially and basically just ruin her day.