Tandy Bowen (isthedagger) wrote in crownplazaic, @ 2020-08-12 13:30:00 |
|
|||
Being a superhero for the past few years meant that Peter should be cool under pressure. If he was interrupting a burglary in progress or chasing down a purse snatcher, he absolutely would be. Being trapped in a weirdo hotel, however, had him feeling pretty freaked out. At least this wasn’t remotely his fault, unlike getting trapped on a spaceship or the whole Beck disaster, though he was still pretty sure Aunt May and Happy would chew him out for this. And he didn’t even want to think about what Fury would say, especially if he tried to reach Peter for another mission and he was unavailable. Okay. He needed to think through this logically. What would Tony Stark do if he was stuck in some apparent alternate dimension? He’d hack into whatever databases he could access and figure out what was going on so he could make a plan. Too bad Peter hadn’t gotten Ned to teach him how to do that yet. He could sneak around though. There had to be information around here that would help him get home, right? It was as good a place to start as any, so he started in the lobby, feeling the walls, looking for any catches that might reveal a hidden compartment. *** “Okay, I say we go for Thai this time, but you’re going to say Chinese, so what if we just compromise on ta….cos?” Tandy had been in the middle of working out dinner with Ty to get both of their minds off of the kids in LA for a little while and had been on her way back in with the menus - only to find herself not in the motel room they’d been sharing. Frowning as she looked around warily, Tandy turned in a slow circle as she dropped the menus on an empty table, holding out her other hand as a dagger of light appeared in it. “Ty? Where are you?” Her eyes then fell on someone across the lobby who she didn’t recognize, and the teen frowned, her head tilting curiously. “Who are you?” *** Oh crap. Someone caught him already. So much for being stealthy. Peter whirled around and stared at the blonde girl who looked to be around his age. “I’m… Peter,” he said, hesitating for only a moment as he debated how to introduce himself. He was still wearing the Spiderman suit, though he didn’t have the mask on, but since J. Jonah Jameson just broadcast his identity to all of New York City and probably the entire world, he didn’t see any reason to keep up the secret identity. “Who are you?” he asked, his eyes falling to the bright dagger in her hand. It looked like a lightsaber almost. Just smaller. *** One eyebrow arched when he turned and she saw what he was wearing - it was weirdly familiar, but in general, also kind of weird. After a moment of staring, she met his eyes again. He was about her age, but she knew better than most that it didn’t mean he wasn’t a possible threat. Then again, he could be as confused as her. “I’m Tandy.” While she wasn’t nearly as charming as her counterpart, she knew how to flirt with guys, and gave him a smile as her hand lowered and the dagger disappeared. “Any idea where we are?” She asked, then blinked as a phone started to ring, reminding her eerily of the phone in the Roxxon plant she’d been distracted by for who knew how long. *** Peter blinked as the dagger seemed to just… disappear from her hand. That was weird and it set off his tingle. There had to be a better word for that. “You should answer that,” he said, nodding at the phone. “It did the same thing when I got here and I had to check in.” Not that it really explained much, but he figured the phone would ring until she answered it. *** “Sure. Because answering strange phones in weird places is definitely a good idea,” she muttered to herself as she glanced from the boy to the phone with a frown. After a minute of indecision, she slowly walked over and picked it up. “...Hello?” Tandy barely stopped herself from saying ‘Dad’ because there wasn’t a way it could be him. She wasn’t in Ivan Hess’s head, so she wasn’t going to hear that voice. As the voice on the other end spoke, Tandy listened closely, then looked back over at Peter as the line went dead when it finished, before looking at the laptop. “Is this for real?” *** “Far as I can tell,” Peter said. He was pretty sure that if it was another one of Beck’s illusions, he’d have figured it out by now, though he wasn’t sure how that would even be possible. “I was trying to find more information when you came in.” He glanced down again and shifted uncomfortably. Wherever they were, he really hoped there was a place he could get new clothes. Wearing the suit around constantly was not going to be comfortable. “Where are you from?” *** Frowning, Tandy tapped the mouse pad on the laptop and studied the screen for a moment. “So the possibility that filling out this form somehow means I’m selling my soul is pretty low, right?” She asked only partially jokingly, but it looked like nothing else was changing in that lobby at the moment. Finally, she reluctantly typed in her name and pressed the ‘check in’ button. “I really hope that old song doesn’t start playing through the speakers,” she murmured, then looked back over at Peter. “New Orleans. But I was just outside LA before this place. You?” *** He watched carefully as she filled out the form on the computer, tensed to fight if something crazy happened. When it didn’t, he relaxed a smidge and then gestured for her to move over so he could fill it out too. “Queens,” he said. “New York City.” Until recently, he hadn’t been outside of his home state, but in the past few years, he’d done quite a bit of traveling. “What were you doing in LA?” *** Tandy stepped aside, watching the room in case now was when someone decided to attack - or someone else showed up. Really, now would’ve been a perfect time for Ty to swoop in with his hoodie. “My friend and I were helping out some...friends of ours.” While it hadn’t all gone smoothly, she figured helping Karolina, Nico, and the others save Alex probably meant that they were friends now. Even if she didn’t trust Alex personally after what she’d seen. “What were you doing in New York?” She asked as she turned back to Peter curiously, raising an eyebrow again as she got a better look at the suit. “Wait - why does that look kind of familiar?” *** Crap. Of course she noticed the suit. Peter ducked his head, ostensibly to focus on the computer screen, but moreso because he didn’t want to meet her eyes. He typed with one hand, the other rubbing the back of his neck. “Uh, I went to school,” he said, his voice inflecting up as if indicating a question. “At Midtown Tech.” That probably wasn’t going to be enough to satisfy her questions and he knew it. Once he finished the form and got the message about being checked in, he looked up and sighed. “I also might have been part of the Avengers,” he admitted. *** “Never heard of it.” She wasn’t exactly that familiar with schools in NYC, aside from Julliard, so the answer didn’t really interest her aside from the ‘tech’ part of the name. It probably meant he was really smart, or something like that. At his admission, Tandy looked at him with a dubious edge in her eyes, one eyebrow arched. “Aren’t you a little young to be an Avenger?” *** “I’m seventeen!” Peter said, his voice squeaking a little which did nothing to help his cause. He huffed out a breath. “I’m Spiderman.” Maybe she hadn’t seen the broadcast yet, which would explain why she didn’t recognize him without the mask. Yes, he was young, but Tony Stark believed in him and he was determined to live up to that. “See?” he asked, reaching back to pull the mask over his head so she would believe him. *** Tandy had spent years on being able to keep her face relatively blank, and that helped as he declared his age, which was the same as hers. “Wait - I saw something on the internet not long ago, but...sorry, not really ringing a bell.” She had no idea about the snap, or the Blip, or any of that - and only knew a little about the Avengers themselves from half-skimmed stories she’d seen online. “Never seen you as part of the action figure sets,” she added after a moment, and gave him a faint smile to show she was kind of teasing. “Big fight between Lego and Hasbro?” *** Peter realized that she was teasing him and he relaxed a little, smiling back. He’d never been good at talking to girls, especially pretty ones, and she definitely was. Even though he was smitten with MJ, he wasn’t blind. “Must be,” he said. “I’ve been too busy saving the world to pay attention to things like that.” Hopefully that sounded light and funny, not arrogant. “So I guess we should find our rooms?” he said, again phrasing it as more of a question than a suggestion. *** “I’m more interested in finding the exit,” she replied dryly, looking around the large, opulent lobby - that in her opinion, was actually a little gaudy. “Did you get a look around before I got here?” He’d definitely been checking out the walls, at least, and if he really did want to claim that he’d been saving the world - maybe he’d found something useful. “I’m assuming those stairs take us up to the rooms, but that can’t be all there is.” *** “No, I hadn’t been looking around long before you showed up,” Peter said. “But I don’t think there’s a way out.” At least not that he’d found yet. Maybe he was wrong though. “We could look together.” Something about the way she carried herself told Peter that Tandy could hold her own and would hardly be a liability if they were attacked. *** “Works for me,” Tandy said before moving behind the main desk to see if she could find signs of some kind of office manager door or something. Someone had to have set up the phone and laptop, and she wondered if maybe that person would appear if they broke either one. Still, she wasn’t ready to resort to actual property damage yet, but frowned as she lifted a hand to the wall and walked along it slowly. “See if there’s a door to the outside. I’ll try and find something in here,” she told him absently, wishing again that Ty was there. He could’ve just teleported himself out of here and let them know what else there was. *** Peter nodded. He was much better at following directions than taking the lead, a fact that was proven in spades by his epic screw up with Beck and the glasses. He may have just met Tandy, but he was perfectly willing to go along with what she suggested. If nothing else, he knew that May and Happy would sound the alarms when they couldn’t contact him. “Hey, do you have a cell phone?” he asked as he picked a hallway to explore. “I couldn’t get signal to make a call with mine.” *** “It’s dead,” she replied. “I was just about to plug it in to charge before I walked in here.” Glancing over her shoulder, she noticed that he wasn’t within sight, and bent to move towards what looked like it might be a wall hiding an office. A dagger appeared in her hands and she carefully cut a small hole, and frowned as it pretty much showed nothing but more wall underneath. She debated trying to cut deeper, but decided that an office wouldn’t work so much as an actual door to the outdoors. Straightening, Tandy shook her head, then headed for the hall Peter had gone down as her dagger again disappeared. “Anything?” *** Figured they had no way to call for help. Peter had even tried the phone on the desk, but it apparently wouldn’t make an outgoing call, so that was no use. He wished he had more gear on him as he explored one of the hallways, looking closely for any hidden compartments or doors that might lead outside. All he managed to find was a gym. He looked up when he heard Tandy speak. “No, there’s just a gym down here,” he said. And the solid walls of the room made it clear there was no escape from there either. *** “Super - so we can build muscle tone while trapped here?” She said before shaking her head and heading into another hall and peeking into a door, then pulling it open further. “Or we can play foosball for eternity, apparently.” Glancing back at Peter, she beckoned for him to join her in the doorway. “Or pool. This room kinda screams ‘teenagers gather here,’ doesn’t it?” It was a little unnerving, how welcoming it seemed - and also kind of creepy. *** “This keeps getting weirder,” Peter said with a frown. On the surface, it was a beautiful place with all the amenities a guest could want. Except they were forced guests and that was not okay. He gave her a helpless look. “What do we do now?” While nicer, this situation somehow felt more hopeless than being trapped in space. *** Tandy shook her head, frowning as she studied the game room, then looked at him. “You said you went to a tech school, right? Think you can do something with that laptop? Find out who did this or where we are?” If she thought it was ironic that he was asking her what to do when he was the one claiming to be an Avenger, she didn’t mention it. Not right now, at least. *** Peter shrugged. “I can try,” he said. “My friend Ned usually does the computer stuff though.” He was the friendly neighborhood Spiderman who stopped robberies and assaults, not a hacker or soldier. At the moment, they didn’t have any answers and so far, they only had each other, so he was willing to do whatever needed to be done. *** “Back to the lobby we go, then.” She let the door swing shut before stepping away and heading back down the hall with him. This place was creeping her out more and more the longer they stayed there. |