Not So Amazing, Murder

[x-otoxic.livejournal.com]

Miles sets out to find Jumbo Carnation's murderer and nearly becomes a second victim in the process. Good thing that the X-Men assumed that he'd do something this stupid so they were around to save him.


Ten o’clock meant lights out, so at 10:07, Miles silently slipped out of bed and changed into his costume for maybe the last time. His mutant ability to manipulate his bioelectricity allowed him to bend light and blend himself in with his surroundings, so no one saw him crawl out the window and down the exterior wall, and leap over the front gate so he could make his rooftop-to-rooftop trek to Jumbo Carnation’s apartment in Bedford-Stuyvesant.

The slain designer lived in a five-story brownstone in a pretty swanky district, and it was easy to tell which unit was his, even from the outside; it was the only one with bright green shutters on the windows and pink curtains. It was like Jumbo Carnation had taken the palette from Vegeta’s casual clothes. Miles was no fashion expert himself, but he was pretty sure that was a terrible combination. Maybe it was meant to be ironic? He could never understand these froo-froo artsy types.

Camo mode back on, Miles climbed down the exterior wall of the brownstone to the window and slid it open with ease. It must not have been locked, he reasoned. Odd but fortunate. The window led to a study of some sort, very ornately designed despite the small space. Large bookcases stood against the wall to his right, filled with books of all shapes and sizes. Nothing Miles could recognize in the dim light coming from the street lamps, but he did identify a whole row with old leather-bound first editions that according to the meager French he’d learned this semester were fashion histories.

Across from the window was the door, and next to that, another wall of cabinets. To Miles’s left was an antique wood desk that looked like it cost more than the apartment. Fancy paneling ran down the sides and the top was smooth and shiny. No wonder Jumbo C was in debt.

The most important thing in the room was the Macbook sitting on top of the desk. Jackpot. That was bound to have something in it that could identify who’d come after Jumbo C. Hopefully it wasn’t password protected. Miles vaulted over the desk and opened the laptop, when suddenly his spider sense screamed with an intensity he’d never felt before. His body seemed to leap to the side on its own, just narrowly avoiding and wide blast of energy that scorched the books on the other side of the room.

Standing in the shadows behind the desk was a tall black man with corn rows enveloped with a white halo, like a walking light bulb. He was dressed quite nicely in khakis, a white shirt, and a striped red and black sweater vest. Not your typical home invader. Strangest about him, besides the glowing, was his purely white eyes. Not glowing, just white. Creepy.

“So I guess it’s true,” the glowing man said. “Some little bitch really is pretending to be Spider-Man. I thought this was just a joke.”

“Oh, I’m a laugh riot, alright,” Miles replied as he got back to his feet and took a few steps back to get some space. “Did you hear the one about the rabbi and the priest?” Another blast sent Miles even further back. “Yeesh, rough audience.”

“Those were all warnings shots, son. Dunno what you’re looking for, but it don’t matter. You came to the wrong place and you ain’t leaving.”

“Can you at least do the whole ‘super-villain explanatory monologue’ before you off me? ‘Cuz I’d really appreciate that.” When terrified that your life is about to end and it’s really all your fault, crack some jokes, Miles thought, sighing internally. At least he’d die as he lived.

Surprisingly enough, the man obliged, although his fists glowed more brightly as he spoke, like he was about to Mega-Buster Miles. “Name’s Radian,” he said as he walked around the desk to get closer to Miles. “Jumbo owed the Scorpion more than 50 G’s. He don’t pay? He don’t live. Now I’m here for a little housekeeping. And bug extermination.”

“See? It’s easy to play smartass, too.” This was Miles’s chance. While Radian was distracted, Miles could quickly close the distance between them. He just had to lay one finger on him and zap! Venom blast would take him out. It was easy, couldn’t possibly fail.

Which was, of course, why he barely cleared a yard before another blast of solid light hit him square in the chest and launched him clear across the room to slam into the bookcase.

“Boy, you’re literally every cliche outta the book,” taunted Radian. Another blast pinned Miles where he was and singed his shirt. Good thing for his mask or else he’d have had a noseful of burned cheap synthetic fibers. “But I’ll spare you one. I’ll kill you quick instead of slow.”

“That’s so thoughtful,” Miles grunted. Wow, that hurt. Even breathing was painful. Were his ribs broken? No way he’d be able to explain that to his parents, assuming he got out of here alive, which was looking less likely as the minutes passed.

He needed a distraction if he were to get close enough for a venom blast. Not much in this room besides books and baubles . . . and a ginormous desk that probably weighed a couple hundred pounds. Miles activated camo mode and crawled to his feet. If he could quickly sneak around Radian, then smoosh! Victory.

He barely got two feet before his spider sense dropped him back to the ground to avoid another blast, this one strong enough to actually damage the wall. Miles rolled to dodge a second blast, but a third and fourth nailed him and had him seeing stars.

“Now, bitch, you think that a mutant who can shoot light can’t see through your little invisibility tricks?” Radian sneered. “Come the fuck on. I told you that I wanted to make this fast. It’s your fault if you want to hurt more.”

Turning the hellavator incident into a workout program in the Danger Room was totally not something Kyle had intended to ever pay off. So being able to free climb his way up the side of a building with Laurie on his back was absolutely a bonus. Five stories? Pfft, he could do that easy.

Dead hanging from the windowsill while strange lights flashed until Laurie gave him the signal that she'd made it up the stairs? That... was not quite so easy. The kid from the school was definitely in there, Spider-Man had the same voice, and they breathed the same, under Spider-Man's pained hitching. Kyle dangled by one hand long enough to tab his earpiece. "Wallflower, tell me your ass is up the stairs and pumping out sleepies?"

"My 'ass' as you so colourfully put it has indeed made it up the stairs. I've started putting out sleepy time vibes, give it a few moments and they'll be drowsy enough to not do you any harm."

Was this the end for Spider-Man? Miles lamented. Lame. He never even had a chance to melodramatically toss his costume into the trash to walk away from his responsibilities. His spider sense screamed at him, almost begging him to get out of the way of Radian's oncoming coup de grace. But his whole body felt heavy, his limbs leaden, and he couldn't move no matter how hard he tried. All he wanted was to close his eyes and take a nap.

By the look of things, Radian felt the same way. His personal glow flickered and dimmed, and he fell to his knees. "What the hell are you doing to me?" he asked, his words slurred by a yawn.

Laurie had thoughtfully provided Kyle a whole roll of grippy athletic tape when they arrived, and he'd wrapped his feet in it. Which was hella weird, but it saved him from having his bare feet cut up by the broken glass that preceded his entrance. The fist he'd used to break said window not so much, but the cuts were healing themselves up nicely. "Great now turn it off before it gets me."

"While I'm sure I could give you the highly boring technical version of what I'm actually doing, suffice to say 'flame off'"

Laurie had entered the room now and circled around the larger figure to head toward the smaller boy currently on the ground.

Kyle didn't stop once he'd landed, even with the bleeding hand, and even with rolling his eyes a little at Laurie, and charged in, elbows first at the cornrow'd dude trying to shake off Laurie's pheromones.

Radian tumbled and fired off a blast at Kyle. Or at Kyle's general vicinity. Sort of. The blast hit the ceiling but not with enough force or heat to do any more than slightly dent it.

"Haha, you missed," Miles chuckled groggily.

Kyle snorted and lazily ducked another blast. If you could call it ducked, he sort of ... casually leaned away from it. "Wallflower, you're my favorite." he drawled, before driving a knee into Radian's groin and then kicking him over as he groaned in pain. "You got zip ties? I didn't wear the jacket." He asked Laurie, after sitting on top of the other man and putting a clawed foot on Radian's throat. "You shut up, and stay shut up, and you.." He pointed at Miles. "You sit there and think about what you did."

"What would you ever do without me?"

Laurie handed Kyle some zip ties from a pocket and went to check on Miles, offering him a hand up from the ground.

"You, young man, are very lucky you weren't killed."

Moving at all, even just standing up, hurt like hell for Miles. He wasn't sure that he could stay on his feet under his own power, either, so he leaned against the wall for support. The sleepiness seemed to be escaping him, at least, so yay for that. Of course, that meant that the reality of this scenario was starting to hit him.

"Yay team?"

"Don't suck and stop being old." Kyle said, with a huff at Laurie, before crouching down to make eye contact with Miles. "Yo, I try not to like, say I told you so a whole lot, so ima relish this one. I told you so. Seriously, dude, first off, you are seriously too young for this, second you are seriously too young to die, and third, if you're hurt you should totally tell us because Wallflower there is seriously itching to tape up some ribs or something."

"OK, fine, you know who I am." Miles removed his goggles, pulled back his hood, and pulled off his ski mask, finally revealing his face. "And I'm fine. Chest hurts but I heal pretty quick. It'll be OK tomorrow. But for real, though, who the hell are you? You're not just some teacher."

"You think?" Kyle said, with a thumb jab towards his earpiece. "Dude, the pieces are like all there, I bet you a hot dog you can guess who some mutants in black leather coming in to save you are."

Miles gawked at the two of them. "No. You're not . . . That's . . . Naw," he guffawed. "Naw, man. You can't be X-Men. That's . . . nah, c'mon, man."

"Well, there could be a case made that we're simply leather fetishists who happened to be passing close enough to hear your distress. Possibly, you could also imply that we're some kind of high technology gurus on the top of that, but I doubt such an argument would hold up in court."

Laurie smiled at that last, and then spoiled her overall adult behaviour by poking her tongue out at Kyle.

"You're old."

"We are totally X-Men." Kyle said, after rolling his eyes at Laurie. "Wildchild. Wallflower." He said, pointing to himself and Laurie, in turn. "Not everyone else has a W-name though." he appended. "What you think like just any old English teacher has the resources to figure out who Spider-Man is just from his Vine account? Dude. Resources, yo."

"You should have said that in the first place. Like, damn." Miles rubbed his eyes with his palms and sighed frustratedly. "Man, we could've teamed up in the first place and done this together. Hey, wait. I should join you! Be an X-Man. I can learn how to not almost die next time. You've gotta let me in. I'm strong, I'm fast, I'm flexible, and I can do this." With renewed energy and a new sense of purpose, Miles got up off the wall and poked Radian in the back of the neck with two fingers. "Wait for it."

A couple of seconds passed in silence, and then Radian cried out as the electricity of the venom blast surged through his body and knocked him out again.

He certainly had enthusiasm, Laurie could give him that. That didn't mean they were in the business of encouraging random mutant teenagers to join a paramilitary organization.

Especially not ones who apparently liked posting their exploits online for the world to see.

"It doesn't work that way, Miles."

"You're fifteen. You don't have a driver's license yet." Kyle said, frowning. "Right now you need to be doing homework and building science fair projects and asking some cute lady or dude out to prom." He shook his head at Miles, but gave the young man an almost-smile. "I get it, you want to do right, and especially for your own people. Man do I ever get that. And I'm saying if you were eighteen, I'd be right there saying yeah, go for it. But dude, you're fifteen. You're too young, and even if we were letting fifteen year old kids going up, which we aren't, I'd tell you to wait."

"That's not fair," Miles complained in a manner that totally wasn't at all childish. He frowned and crossed his arms over his chest. "Well what am I supposed to do, then? Earlier today I thought this might be it, after everything you told me. But now we're here and look! We caught a murderer. I can't just retire on that."

"There's a school for people like us in Westchester. We might be able to put you in touch with the headmaster. He's good at helping people find their best potential"

Laurie added a little kick of adrenalin to the air, now they had the guy tied up, and Miles had shocked him into unconsciousness they'd need a little help getting him to street level.

"Wildchild, I dibs you carrying the unconscious guy."

"The school where you teach? You'll take me and teach me?" On the one hand, that meant leaving Brooklyn Visions and Ganke, and also telling his parents that he's a mutant (but maybe leave out the Spider-Man part). On the other hand, this could be his only in with the X-Men. He'd be of age in just three years and then he could be Spider-X-Man. That was a fair trade.

"Well, I'd be teaching you English, not X-men stuff. I am like, legit with the teaching." Kyle huffed a laugh. "At least not for a while and then it'd be probably some flippy stuff and hand to hand but not yet." Maybe be then a miracle would've occurred there'd be world peace and mutant-human peace and nobody'd need the X-Men. Haha. Hell no like that was going to happen. "We're actually pretty academically strong. That whole tiny class size bug your teacher face to face for tutoring over burgers by the pool thing. We got people who got into Ivies."

"The downside of course is that the teachers know where you live, and why you aren't doing your homework."

Laurie toed the bad guy in the side, giving him a good looking over to make sure there was no immediate danger he would asphyxiate on his own vomit or other decidedly unhappy circumstances.

"Still, you'll be surrounded by other mutants and people who know what it's like to find themselves suddenly floating a foot off the floor when they wake up each morning for no apparent reason."

Miles's toothy smile didn't falter, though. "But like I could still be an X-Man eventually. Like after college. Or during college." Just like Peter Parker in that terrible third movie that no one ever wanted to talk about. "All right, then. Deal."