15

Chapter Text

Peter blinked. He blinked again. "I didn't get drugged did I?"

-"No I see it too."- Darcy's voice came through the comms. -"Unless drugs work on cameras now."-

He hopped up onto a car. "Hey uh..Mr Villain?"

"I am no mere Villain! I am a superior man!" The...villain proclaimed. His appearance was so bizarre the civilians weren't running. In fact everyone had phones up as they stared at the man like he was a train wreck. A bizarre, brightly colored, french accented, mustached, and just weird train wreck. The villain didn't seem to realize it was horrified confusion he was being looked at by the masses as he continued to speak. "I am Batroc The Leaper! Bow before my magnificence!"

Peter gaped...it was probably a good thing no one could see his face when he was dressed as Spiderman. "I mean no judgement but that is a lot of purple Mr Leaper."

-"You should say it with judgement. He is wearing purple latex with only a hole in it for his face to pop out of, yellow boots, yellow accents, purple bug eyes goggles and has a mustache that has so much wax in it to curl I'm not sure if it actually contains hair anymore!"- Darcy sounded mortally offended over the comms.

"I DEMAND! That Captain America surrender to me!" Leaper proclaimed.

He blinked yet again. "Hey, Mr Leaper. Have you considered community theatre?"

"FOOL! I, THE MIGHTY LEAPER! Shall defeat you!" Leaper...lept straight for him with surprising speed.

Peter slid under the flying kick thing and jumped away. "Hey uh… I'm not sure if you actually have committed a crime?"

Leaper came flying down in a downward kick that smashed the roof of the car Peter had just been on in.

He frowned. "I guess vandalism? Fashion? That outfit is a crime against fashion." Peter ducked under another kick crashing through the window of a bakery. "Mr Leaper could you stop breaking things?"

"HOLD STILL SO THAT I MAY KICK YOU!" Leaper cried out.

Peter shrugged, guess talking him down wasn't happening. The crazy was wafting off the man. "Sounds fake, but ok." He twisted, avoiding the incoming kick, and drove his elbow into the man's throat.

Leaper hit the ground, hands clutching his throat as he choked and wheezed.

"You ok there Mr Leaper?" Peter webbed the man's hands together and then webbed his legs...like a lot. Then some more. "Sorry about the leg cocoon but like you got quite the leap there."

Leaper wheezed, but glared….

-"Is he ok? Like I wasn't expecting him to go down that fast."- Darcy asked.

Peter poked the guy. "Hey Mr, are you ok? I didn't think that was going to work?"

"Merde." Leaper hissed out.

-"Oh he's fine."- Darcy was relieved. -"Just web him to a lamp post and grab some potstickers or eggrolls or something. Running backend like this is hungry work."-

Peter shot a web at Leaper's feet and then a lamppost. He gave a half salute to the people watching. "See ya!"

"Should I be worried I took down a superpowered bad guy in like one move?" Peter stuffed a forkful of chowmein into his mouth.

Darcy grabbed the dumpling with her cheap chopsticks. "His power was 'he jump good'."

"It was pretty ridiculous." Peter snickered.

Darcy hummed as she chewed. "Was his suit really latex, it looked latex through the goggle camera."

"I think it was." He flopped onto his back. "It's weird not having Daisy here."

She flicked his nose. "She's getting in some good fam time with the team. 'Sides we can marathon action movies without having to hear how terrible people's forms are and why that's not how real spies do it. I need me some Bond. James Bond."

Peter laughed. "She's really bad about that."

"Mission Impossible!" Darcy reached over him grabbing his laptop. "We're getting started right now."

He sat up, grabbing the orange chicken. "What about that old Star Wars movie?"

"I'm gonna pretend you didn't say that." Darcy ruffled his hair. "And Daisy likes those ones, so does Aunt May. What about Die Hard?"

Peter frowned as both their cells went off. "Oh that's not good."

////

Amira Ahmed hissed as she was shoved onto a chair. She blinked looking around the cement cell. Good news, nothing felt broken. Bad news, researching Inhuman abuse had gotten her kidnapped out of a fucking McDonalds in Michigan of all places. Not a war zone in the Middle East. Not the bullshit terror that was the South Sudan story. Not the three years she spent chasing down an international sex trafficing ring across Europe. No illegal US government approved human experimentation in fucking Michigan.

She glared at the guy who was clearly going to be her interrogator...possibly executor. But positive thinking. Huh, that was one of the Watchdogs. "How big is the check you're getting from ATCU?"

"None of your business." The Watchdog pulled out a gun. "Now you're going to tell me what you know or things are going to go very badly for you."

The metal door swung open, Watchdog thug seized as he collapsed into a twitching pile, and Darcy fucking Stark stuck her head in. "Sup, and things that's going to go supes bad for you."

"Darcy?" Amira spluttered.

Darcy slammed the door shut behind her. She pulled out a pocket knife and stepped over and started cutting off her bindings. "We got the SOS. Good news we're getting you out. Bad news Quake's doing a thing for SHIELD so you're going to want to be ready to shoot your way out."

Amira winced, but accepted the gun shoved into her hands. "I'm not a good shot."

"Don't worry, it's dendrotoxin. Totes non lethal." Darcy held out her hand. "Ready to blow this shit stand?"

She brought the gun up and swallowed. "Right…"

"Don't worry, I brought my bodyguard. He's kinda badass. And very scruffy." Darcy swung the door open and darted out of the cell.

Amira typed on her laptop while crammed into the floor space of the sedan. "Get to the local news station. This is big and we should be safe there."

"I don't know if you noticed but we're kind of being chased sweetheart!" The Stark Bodyguard snapped from where he was driving. They went squealing around a corner.

Darcy reloaded her pistol with the glowing blue rounds of dendrotoxin. "I may have miscalculated." She aimed out the shattered back window and started shooting at the pick up truck following them.

"Just bailing out a friend, that's all." The Bodyguard snarked. "Just a fucking walk in the park. I am not being paid enough for this!"

Darcy fired off another burst of rounds. "Well I didn't know that the Watchdogs relocated to bumfuck Lansing Michigan! It's not like I was planning on dying for good PR!"

The hotwired car went screeching around another corner.

"You live in AVENGERS TOWER!" The Bodyguard snapped, his foot very much all the way down on the gas.

Amira finished off her article. It'd been mostly written, she'd just needed proof. And well being kidnapped had been good for something. "The WLNS news! Or News 6, whatever just get there! An illegal covert gang of nazis isn't going to risk having their faces plastered all over the airways!"

"FINE!" Bodyguard hit the brakes and then they were spinning. It was nauseating, and then with a jerk they were accelerating off.

The passenger windows shattered from gunfire. Darcy flattened herself down on the bench seat she'd been kneeling on. She let out a shriek as she covered her head. "I hate Lansing!"

"Preaching to the choir." The Bodyguard tossed a fucking grenade back to Darcy, who surprisingly caught it. "Let's give our tail something to regret."

Darcy grinned yanking the pin and chucking a live grenade out the back window. "Booyah Bitches!"

"WAIT!" Amira gaped in horror, too late. "You can't throw grenades in a city!"

The Bodyguard looked back at her and winked. "Nonlethal sweetheart!" He snapped back to where they were going. "Name's Hunter by the way. And being friends with the eggheads who invented dendrotoxin rounds has benefits. Like endless nonlethal weapons."

"I think that got most of them." Darcy peeked over the back of the seats. "Yup. Ok tail is gone."

Hunter grunted. "We might survive this."

"You know this is the first car chase I've been in." Amira found herself saying. She closed the laptop. Her story was done, the condemning files and video embedded in it and ready to be sent out.

Darcy looked at her in confusion. "But you're a war correspondent?"

"Usually I have a bulletproof vest, and I'm not the one they're specifically shooting at." Amira snorted. "You know I half expected the kidnapping and being shot at when I was covering the Ten Rings. Definitely was expecting it when I covered the sex trafficking. This seemed the safest story I've run in years."

Hunter laughed outright. "Government crimes are always the most dangerous."

Amira had to admit he had a point. An uncomfortable one. "Wait, where's the Spiderkid?"

"He's calling in Tony from the jet." Darcy reloaded her pistol. "Officially because someone had to get those computer drives to the jet. Unofficially because we're not dragging the kid into a gun fight."

Amira set the laptop down. "Higher chance of death but cleaner conscious. I can live with it."

"Hold on, we're crashing through the front of the station!" Hunter barked at them.

The car crashed through the glass front of the building. Hunter slammed on the breaks sending them into a tailspin across the foyer. And then they finally, finally, jerked to a halt. There was the weirdest moment of silence. And then the gunshots started up again.

Darcy and Hunter both returned fire. Hunter ripped the passenger door open and hauled Amira out of the floor of the car. "Come on!"

Amira kept her head down and let the clearly military trained Hunter drag them behind the welcome counter. "Is that the cops shooting at us?!"

"Bang!" Darcy ducked back under the counter. "Yup, and the Watchdogs. Good to know they're working together."

Amira hissed, ignoring the screaming as various employees ducked and covered. "Are they insane!? There's security cameras! This is a news station!"

Hunter pulled out another one of the hand grenades and yanked out the pin. "Heads down!" And hucked it.

"You know I never knew, but bad guys be dumb." Darcy shot a guy trying to come around the corner. The blue veins of dendrotoxin spread across his face as he keeled over. "Like I had higher standards. But between this and the Leaper moron I'm reevaluating my standards!"

Amir hugged her laptop to her chest. She couldn't let it get hit, the evidence! "How many are there?"

"HEY BAD GUYS!" A far too chipper voice called out.

Darcy's head popped up and she started shooting fairly indiscriminately. "I TOLD YOU TO WAIT IN THE JET!"

Amira sighed in relief as she saw a spider web hit the wall and a blur of red and blue swing by. Their chances of survival just went up. And based off the screaming and blurs of people going flying Spiderman was doing great.

Amira marched into the newsroom and ignored the terrified camera crew and news anchors. Oh good they were still live. She marched straight in front of the cameras, laptop securely under one arm and started addressing the camera. "My name is Amira Ahmend and I'm a news correspondent with Global News. And I'm here to tell you that the United States government division ATCU is working with the Watchdogs to traffic Inhumans on US soil."

A police officer, a bribed one clearly, came running out, gun drawn. She felt her life flash slightly. And then Darcy had tased the man.

Darcy raised a thumbs up. "And apparently have bribed the fuck out of some of these cops."

"This is difficult to believe, but I have the evidence to back up my claims." Amir forced her voice to stay calm. This was her moment. Once this was out no one could stop it.

////

Tony was working some of his frustrations out on his newest car. But being under the hood settled him. Machines made sense. Science, puzzles to invent and solve were where everything just slotted into place. The heavy beat of his music, his hands physically fixing things. It was as close to meditation as he was ever going to get.

-"Sir, I believe you may wish to watch the news out of Michigan."- FRIDAY's voice chimed, the AI automatically turning off the music.

He rolled out from under the car. "What did I say about disturbing me FRIDAY?"

-"Miss Lewis and Mr Parker seem to be in some trouble. You asked to be notified if one of your children required your assistance."- FRIDAY replied.

Tony stilled. And then was jumping into his suit. Also, what the fuck were his spawn doing in Michigan?

Tony stared at his spawn. Peter was in his suit and shuffling like he was going to get grounded, Darcy had a stubborn upward tilt to her chin. The glass, dust, and general debri in her hair and jacket was enough to say she'd been in more of the action than her brother. Hunter was slouched against the side of the jet.

He crossed his arms. "You stole one of my jets, left without leaving so much as a note, broke into a Watchdog gang hideout, got into a cross city car chase, shot several dirty cops with tranq rounds, half destroyed a news station, and publicly announced the US government is working with a known terrorist group to abduct Inhumans. Anything else you want to add?"

"Technically I'm skipping school?" Peter added while pulling his mask off. "But Amira needed our help."

Tony could physically feel his blood pressure rising. "And you didn't think of asking for help? Quake's not here to bail you out right now."

"We had it handled." Darcy scoffed. "I mean other than some bruises we're good."

Peter nodded. "And you didn't pick up your phone!"

"You should have called me when you first realized something was wrong!" Tony wondered if this was how Pepper felt. He should get her a gift...so many gifts. "You're both kids!"

Darcy's chin tipped up slightly. "Not sorry. But I'm good not doing that again."

"Yeah it was uh...there were a lot of guns." Peter nodded in agreement.

Tony ran a hand through his hair. "You two are going straight home. And you're grounded! I'm not sure from what but you are."

"I'm a grown up Poptarts." Darcy looked far too smug. "But is this place fine with us all just leaving? I mean they've got corruption, Watchdogs, and apparently the ATCU."

He pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Rhodney I just need to know that something is happening to keep this city from turning to chaos or else my daughter is going to decide to conquer the damn place." Tony paced out in front of the jet.

Rhodney was not helpful. -"This whole thing is a nightmare Tony! It's the only thing on the news. The FBI is sending in people, the Governor was talking about sending in some National Guard till they know how deep the corruption in the local police force is. It's a mess."-

"Rhodney my Spawn has a taser and apparently thinks that means she can replace seal team six. I need better than that." Tony realized what he was going to have to do. "I'll stay and keep the peace. But if I have to stay in Michigan longer than necessary I will have my revenge."

Rhodney had the audacity to laugh. -"You deserve this man."-

"That is slander."

////

May glared at her wayward children. "So Tony called."

"We had to save Ms Ahmed's life." Peter protested.

She gave him the look all mothers learned. "You had other options and you know it young man. Tony Stark may not be able to ground you but I can. You go to school and you come straight back home. No screens either!" May turned on Darcy. "And you young lady. No screens, no alcohol, and you come straight home from work."

Both kids winced and curled slightly. "Yes Aunt May."

"Good, the next time something like this happens you tell me." May looked between them. "We're a family. Which means we decide on cross country rescue missions together."

Darcy winced slightly. "Sorry..we just kinda did it."

"I can tell." May had not been expecting the morning news to involve seeing her kids in Michigan. "You half scared me to death."

Peter scuffed at the floor with his foot. "I'm sorry Aunt May. We just..didn't think about it. The alert went and we just...we promised we'd help her."

"You should have come to me. I'm disappointed in both of you. But there's no point harping on about spilt milk." May stepped forward and hugged both of them to her as tightly as possible. "I'm so grateful you're both safe."

"Sorry." Peter mumbled against her shoulder.

May reluctantly let the two kids go. "Now go clean up, both of you." She ignored the guilty looks and turned into the kitchen. And honestly why was Daisy apparently the one with common sense? God help them.

May wordlessly handed the knife to Darcy as the girl edged into the kitchen.

Darcy started chopping the vegetables. "So...I should have said something to you."

"You should have." May pulled out the pot. "But you saved a woman's life. You did the wrong thing for the right reasons."

Darcy brushed a stray wet lock of her hair behind one ear. "I forgot we were a team, a family. I won't do it again."

"That's all I ask." May felt something unclench. They were going to be fine. "And I am proud that all three of you are the type of people whose first instinct is to help."

Darcy bumped their shoulders together gently. "To be fair we figured it was like an Inhuman who thought Amira was a nark or something."

"I assumed. I thought common sense was how you survived your last two alien invasions?" May chided with good humor in her voice.

Darcy's eyes brightened. "Well not driving into a tornado and running from the alien elves was just instinct. But I still helped evacuate and carted the magic science sticks around."

"You all are going to turn my hair grey. I hope you know that." May smiled at the kid.

Peter turned on the Billy Joel album. He gave her his best 'don't you love me?' look.

"Oh bribery, well if we're doing that, the gutters weren't cleaned out by the previous owners." May enjoyed the nose wrinkle of disgust on Peter's face. "And somebody's powers mean you'll be perfectly safe."

His shoulders slumped, but a lightness was returning to him. "Alright Aunt May."

"And the last few boxes still need to be unpacked." She gave a pointed look at Darcy.

Darcy half laughed, half giggled. "Well since the kid and I have some free time we can build those bookshelves for you. Ikea furniture can't be that hard to put together."

"Why don't you do that." May bit back her instinctive laughter at that. Oh those sweet summer children. They had no idea the hell that was swedish furniture instructions.