Chapter 12 Res Ipsa Part 2
When I woke up, it was in a SHIELD interrogation room. I was in human form again, both of my arms handcuffed behind me, omnitrix still on. I took slow breaths, breathing calmly.
This place looked familiar. I hadn't been in it, but all of them looked the same after enough time. Metal walls in a honeycomb pattern, a plastic table, cuffs made to hold superhumans. Fun.
The door opened. A man in an old SHIELD uniform from the comics came in and sat down across from me, holding a manilla folder. He looked very serious. I decided to give him a second before I'd counter.
"Good afternoon. I'm Agent Todd Cleery of SHIELD. Do you know why you're here?"
Reaching. He wanted me to suggest why I was here.
"Yes, I do," I said seriously. "You want my recipe for jalapeno poppers. However, that is privileged information. I'll only give it with my lawyer present."
He smirked. "Have you done something that requires a lawyer?"
"I did share a chimichanga recipe with Deadpool once."
He winced, glancing around like Wade was going to pop out of a wall, which to be fair had good odds of happening. Then he glared at me.
"Son, you know the name of one of our newest headaches. That doesn't bode well for you."
"You realize being in handcuffs in a spy organization's interrogation room usually means things already aren't going well? What, I don't get read my rights? Do secret organizations not follow the law of the land anymore?"
He smirked once more. "Boy, you showed up in the middle of New York City and spiked every geiger counter in three miles while speaking with a Russian accent. Oh, or maybe you aren't connected to the Soviets. Your human form looks Middle-Eastern to me. Iranian, maybe?"
"Nah man, I'm a New Yorker. Fugedaboutit. How about you? Are you actually a SHIELD agent, or one of those asshole HYDRA infiltrators you always seem to have in abundance around here?"
His face went very, very still. He opened up his folder, looking annoyed. "All right. Clearly you have no idea what sort of trouble you're in."
"For helping a known superhero arrest five supervillains destroying a few city blocks?"
"Oh, is that how you'd put it?" Cleery smacked his folder. "Because first, Spider-Man is a vigilante, who you aided and abetted…"
"I like to think of it as very proactive citizen's arrests," I countered.
"Left enough radiation to cook a Christmas roast from a hundred paces…"
"I made sure none of it was more harmful than your average cell phone, thank you very much! And I cleaned it up afterwards, unlike some other radiation spewing people."
The agent paused.
"Son, do you have any idea how expensive a cellular telephone is?"
"Too expensive," which was true no matter what century you were in.
"Hmm. Then, to top it off, you have no identity we can find." He dropped the folder on the table. "We can't find any information on you. Your face doesn't match any one in any government database we've ever seen. Is that even your real face?"
He leaned in, looking closely at me. "Shapeshifter, right? How far does that go? You a mutie? An alien?"
"The second one. Sometimes. I usually stick to being human. Also, mutie is derogatory as fuck, what the hell dude?"
"It's accurate," he countered, leaning back. "Muties, aliens, those rampant tech idiots. Might be that big gauntlet we can't get off of you is part of it. Point is? Guys like me keep guys like you from killing others. And unless you give me something I'll have to consider you a threat to the American people."
I thought about that. Then I leaned back. "Lawyer."
He scowled, rising to his feet. "Fine. Have it your way. But this is SHIELD. We don't have to give you a lawyer. I'm going to leave you in this room. And until you agree to cooperate, I'm going to make sure nobody remembers you're in here."
Adorable. The agent left the room, probably smug about how I was going to be freaking out in there.
Hm… Now. What would Natasha do? Probably sneak out and show up back home with no one even knowing she'd gone on an adventure.
But me, I kind of wanted Cleery to pay for being a dick. A racist dick at that. Iranian, really? A SHIELD base, with old SHIELD protocols, security systems, and vending machines. I kept my eyes off where the camera was hidden. Okay. Let's have some fun.
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Agent Todd Cleery
Ten hours later, Todd Cleery was walking through the base, grumbling under his breath. He was a little annoyed. His lunch, labeled and everything, had disappeared from the break room fridge. Of course. Hopefully he'd get clearance to access the cameras and find who had stolen it.
"How goes the Arab Alien?" Todd said as he walked into the security room overlooking the prison block..
"Your new guy?" Another agent said, looking over at Todd before flickering the camera to the image of the newest prisoner of the SHIELD Staten Island black site. "Bored. He's been sat still for the last ten hours."
"That shows training at least," Todd mumbled, eyeing the camera. The bearded man with his hair pulled into a ponytail was staring forward unmoving. He didn't seem too bothered.
"What are you thinking, Russian?" the other agent asked.
"Maybe. They do real well training their operatives to do the accent. But this guy is too brown. And the Iranians don't have anything like him. He's one of the other dune coon's."
Todd chuckled at the rhyme, ignoring a look of disgust from the other agent. While he was chuckling, the screen bounced. Todd blinked. "What the hell?"
"You see something?" The other agent asked before Todd hushed him. He stared closer at the screen.
For a long moment, things were normal. Then the image bounced again. Todd flinched. "It's on a loop!"
"What!?" The other agent shouted, horrified. "How!? This closed circuit thing is brand fucking new, and the tapes are in the other room!"
"Quick, fix it now-"
"I'm doing it, just give me a-"
After a mere moment of pressing, almost too easy a set of button pressing, the live feed came up from one of the cameras.
"...No fucking way," Todd said, horrified. He'd been worried the Arab Alien had escaped. It was worse.
He was eating. Eating lasagna and sipping a coke. On the bag the food had been contained in, a single name rested. Todd Cleery.
That was Todd's leftover lasagna. He'd brought it from home and left it in the break room. He recognized the tupperware.
"THE RAGHEAD STOLE MY LUNCH!"
The prisoner was bobbing his head, a pair of orange earphones on his head and a matching CD player on the table.
"And my Walkman!?"
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Dial/Mahmoud Schahed
Todd had good taste in music. Kinda. There was a sad lack of Queen or 90s hip hop. Though maybe that was cause it didn't exist yet here. The hip hop, not Queen.
It hadn't been too hard to mess with the cameras. Upgrade let me do it with ease. Put it on loop to show the moments before I changed. From there, sneaking into the break room and stealing some food. It was going to just be something random, but I went for Cleery's food the second I got the chance.
I had a better handle on the date. The expiration dates on the soda and chips Cleery had let me find out it was 1991, before December. The same with the magazines I'd found. All of it was out of date though.
As I finished up the lasagna, the door burst open. Todd stared at me, rage in his eyes.
"Sup, Todd?" I raised his soda. "You want to finish this? Have the last sip?"
He stepped in, grinning at me savagely. Then he slammed the door behind him. "Okay. I was going to be nice. But now?" He reached for his belt, unhooking the taser that rested there. "…I'm going to enjoy this part."
Todd Cleery strode towards me, cruelty in his eyes.
"Hm… NRG." A flash.
Cleery stopped. Stared. I stared back, unmoving in a full suit of metal. He hesitantly stabbed the taser at me. I didn't move. Then he experimentally punched at me. Just a light nervous tap. Finally he turned and walked out.
"You want your walkman back?"
He flinched, but kept moving.
"Ah well. Next time I guess."
Now I was feeling like reading a bit more. There were some magazines in one of the rooms I'd passed.
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Cleery tried. He really really tried. But I just kept at it. I'd sneak out, find something to do, then return to the interrogation room. I defaulted to Ethereal a lot. Made it harder for them to read my body language. And made it fun to read their minds.
"Cleery, you've got to know. John, your friend? He's not a fan of your homophobia."
"Did you know that many agents in your organization spend stakeouts where nothing happens playing Galaga at the arcade?"
"Jane and Samantha are in love, and neither will admit it. For the love of god, please tell them to shut up and ask each other out already."
"The entire IT department is full of furries. I don't know if that's actually news to you, but I wanted it said."
Also, making up conspiracies. Or in some cases, not making them up.
"So yeah, there's a hollow earth, with a king currently roaming around. He's gonna end up causing trouble soon with the Mole Man. You should keep a lookout."
"The aglet is the name of those tassels at the ends of shoelaces. Their true purpose is far more sinister."
"Tony Stark is actually a genetically created superbaby created to stop the end of the world using his genius. He does have a brother as well, who is far better looking."
"The Earth is flat. I know I said it was hollow like a day ago, but that was just a clever misdirection!"
"There is a 32nd flavor of Baskin Robbins ice cream. Don't let the elite find out you know of its horrific existence."
"Doctor Doom sometimes travels back in time to booty call King Arthur's sister and learn magic. He also sometimes is immortal, no clue how he pulls that shit off."
"Everything from ancient Egypt is inevitably evil. Except Moon Knight. He is ok, if a bit crazy."
Okay, look, I was three days in and Cleery looked so hopeless.
They kept trying to take things back when I stole them, which ruined the Feng Shui of my cell. I'd put up nice posters, photos of their family, I'd rest their wallets across my table in interesting ways and geometric patterns, and then they'd ruin them. Sad.
The security measures got more and more interesting, but I always had an alien on hand that could bypass them. They didn't try to hit me or anything. The fact I didn't try to hurt anyone or even attempt to leave the facility probably helped. But I kept escaping my cell. And they kept despairing.
On day four, someone entered the room while I was playing cards with myself in Ethereal form (And losing, somehow). I glanced up at her, then really looked at her.
"You aren't SHIELD."
"What was your first clue? That whichever asshole SHIELD had break into my apartment this time grabbed non-matching suit separates?" The woman dropped a briefcase on the table and pulled a folder out of it. "Here. Mostly standard boilerplate. You got the same nonstandard identity clauses I gave to Spider-Man."
"Spider-Man?" I asked, my four arms coming forward. "He's okay?"
In my Ethereal form, I could have tried to dip into her mind. But I decided against it. Better to be nice now that I might have help on my side. Still, I wondered what she was thinking... And why I felt almost pulled in by her.
The woman looked at me, and shuddered.
"... I am so sorry to ask this, but, um." She fidgeted slightly. "According to what little that ass out front said, you're a shapeshifter, and that form is just… I don't know, but I can't help but feel really unsettled. Would you terribly mind…?"
"Huh… yeah, I guess I look weird." I got the sense it wasn't that. But for the sake of being nice, I tapped the Omnitrix.
In my human form, I looked her over again.
Blonde. Short, very short. But she reminded me of some of the other badass ladies in my life. She had a toughness to her. Maybe not the same kind as Jen's more boisterous toughness or Nat's knife sharp kind, but I could still see it.
"I guess if I'm signing this, you'll need a name?" I picked up the folder and opened it. "I'm Mahmoud. Codename is Dial. You?"
She looked up at me and gestured at the folder.
"Shouldn't have said that until you signed," she told me. "Especially that latter half. Read, decide if you want to sign. If you do, then we can talk freely."
I decided to listen to the serious lady. I looked over the folder, doing it the way Jen taught me. Make sure not to skip over the legalese where it might confuse me. She couldn't make me a legal expert, but she could make sure I wouldn't get screwed over.
Which I wouldn't. I read it all the way through. Including the date. September 28th, 1991.
"Waking up, to ash and dust, dada, dada," Humming to myself, I reached under the table and grabbed one of the drinks I'd taken. Then I looked over at her. "Oh, you want anything? I stole soda, tea, and coffee."
"Eight hours of sleep and a bowl of chicken soup. But you don't have that, so just a bottle of water," she said. Then blinked. "Huh. That song. What is it?"
"Radioactive," I said. I grinned. "You might not be ready for it yet. Yer kids are gonna love it."
"Hmm…" She held a hand up to just beneath her lips. "Back to the Future. I imagine you think you're rather clever, don't you? Mr. Schahed."
"Not half as clever as I should be," I said with some small honesty. "Where'd that-"
Wait. What the fucking hell.
"How did you know my last name?"
"The first thing you should have asked is, 'are the cameras off?'" The woman waved a hand up at the corner. "CCTV won't be widespread for another few years, and they're still trying to fix whatever you did to their system already. But you should absolutely have been more careful before giving your name."
Fair. Natasha would have smacked me for doing it. But in my defense, Mahmoud was one of the most popular names for guys who looked like me… Nah, Natasha would have smacked me again.
"Yeah, I should have. But even then, how do you know my last name?"
I didn't add to that. Figured I wouldn't have to. She seemed like the type to know when a guy was suddenly dangerous.
"Hmm," she hummed. "How indeed?" She raised her other hand and snapped her fingers.
The sound of shattering glass and static. Her form flickered, rainbow glass fluttering over her skin then drifting away. Like a magical girl transformation in fast forward.
Actually, it kind of felt like magic. Barely.
It was fast, and impressively beautiful. When it was over, a magical creature stood before me.
She had horns, curling back from the sides of her face, another bit of cartilaginous material on the bridge of her nose and on the sides of her cheeks, trailing down her neck. A tail swung behind her, long and spiked at the ends.
"Speaking as an expert on transforming, 7 out of 10," I said, feeling just a bit lost. "Points for subtlety, but needs more giant muscles."
The woman frowned. Okay, tone it down. "Seriously. What is going on? You look familiar? Are you a-"
Marvel character was what I wanted to ask. That seemed wrong somehow. Where had I seen someone like her from. Who-
"Mm. You know, I'm a little disappointed. I would have thought a shapeshifter could tell when somebody else wasn't." She sniffed. "It was an illusion. This is just how I normally look."
"You'd be a pretty bad shapeshifter if I could tell... That was pretty good honestly." Seriously, the illusion had been subtle. A slight shifting of her hips with the weight of her tail, the way her hair floated just a bit oddly in small sections. It would have taken me a long time to figure it out. She was either good or used to hiding it. Maybe both.
Agatha would have nodded in small approval.
"True. Regardless, we're losing the point." The dragon-woman pulled out a pen and set it on top of the contract. "Sign, and we can talk freely."
I took a hold of the pen and signed it. Hopefully Jen's lessons had helped. Didn't want to accidentally sign my soul over. Agatha would have been pissed if she had to make a portal to hell again.
Once signed, I handed her the contract. "So. We good?"
She flipped open the folder to inspect the contract, then nodded at something and put it away.
"Mm. So, Mahmoud. What's the last year you can remember before things got weird?"
"2014," I winced. "Kind of. Lady, you need to know, that is a loaded question."
What, was I supposed to tell her I was from 2018, then got sent to 2014, and now was in the days of the Fresh Prince?
"Mr. Schahed." Uh-oh, she was back to my last name. "If you want my help, I need honesty. If you lie to me again, I will walk out the door and leave you to face Mr. Fury's tender mercies in another twenty minutes, alone."
"Can't have that. I don't want to destroy a SHIELD facility again," I mumbled. "Okay, 2018. It was 2018 for me."
"Hmm." The woman smiled. "Interesting. 2021."
No. Fucking. Way. My eyes bugged out of my head. I'd seen some strange shit. But this… You didn't need to be Tony to connect the dots here.
"How long!" I half-asked, half-yelled. "Were you here, I mean? Wait, I have way more-"
I groaned, rubbing my head. "You know me? Don't you? The real me."
"I think I did once, a long time ago," she said. "It's been… God, it's been that long already?" The woman shook her head. "Count yourself lucky my memory is as good as it is, Mr. Schahed. I've forgotten more than you could imagine."
"You should write in a diary," I joked. Please let her know I was joking. I rubbed my head again. "Okay. You're a visitor-"
"No," she interrupted. "This is home for me."
"Well I'm not going to say the other thing. Dimensional immigrant? We're DIs, how about that?"
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
She shrugged. "Won't hold up in court. But good enough, for now."
Why is life so weird? "So uh…meet anyone cool-" I cut myself off. "Scratch that. How much do you need to know so that I can get back to my world and girlfriend? And how much cool shit can you share?"
"How long ago the big names arrived on the scene, two or three major recent events, and if there's anything or anyone noteworthy that's missing," she said. Then she leaned forward, a scary grin on her face. "And ooh, a girlfriend, hmm? What's her naaaaame?~"
Oh god, this was going to sound like a lie. "Jennifer Walters."
She blinked and fell back into her seat. Her mouth fell open slightly, then closed with a click.
"... oh she is going to freak when I talk to her next."
"Don't tell her dad or cousin, I can't take getting chased by the Hulk again," I sighed. "Okay. So let me start with… the beginning, I guess? I was writing, late at night. Not something uncommon for me. I was working on a new story after a long day-"
"Not helpful," she said with a wave of her hand. "First major, world-shaking event, and who was involved. That's what I need."
"Tony Stark built a suit in a cave with a box of scraps?"
She raised an eyebrow. "You are singularly bad at this. Where and when?"
"2008, in the middle of… Afghanistan? He got kidnapped by the Ten Rings. Later fought a weird Russian dude named Whiplash. Then Thor came to Earth and boxed with the Destroyer- uh, do you know what is the-"
"No, and I don't need to know," she said. "Next?"
"Cap came out of the ice," I continued, getting into my groove. "Then the Avengers came together to fight an alien race called the Chitauri with Loki leading them. Uh, 2012."
I'd forgotten to mention the years of the other things.
"... I see," she said. "That's probably all the information the geniuses are going to need to work their magic, but…" She sighed. "It's going to take some time, I'm afraid. And that's all assuming you can even get Fury to not try and put a bullet through your forehead."
"Don't worry, I can survive it," I said helpfully. "Oh, uh, do you know about Ben 10?"
Maybe I was being too free with information? I don't know, I liked her. She was grumpy and fun.
The woman frowned, tilting her head to the side slightly.
"... what?"
I tapped the Omnitrix. In a flash of green, I transformed again, this time into arguably the most iconic Ben 10 alien. "FOUR ARMS!"
The woman flinched, hands coming up to the sides of her head.
"Ow! Holy shit, why did you have to yell?"
I looked at her, confused. I didn't think it was that bad. "S-Sorry? But uh… yeah. I'll be fine. If I get shot."
Thought only Matt acted like that when I did the yell…
She sighed, rubbing at her temples. "Fury had better just tell the government to smile and nod when I bill this… I was on vacation, damn it!" She slapped the table in frustration. "Vacation! In Hawaii! With two beautiful women!... neither of who were—anyway! Tropical! Vacation! And SHIELD ruined it!!"
"...You want to vacation in my universe? I can offer all the things." Look, I was trying man.
"I can't," she replied, voice glum. "Even on vacation, I have to stay by the phone. Welcome to being an attorney, I guess." She sighed. "I miss ebooks."
Oh right, Jen had the same thing going on.
Sitting my sculpted red butt down, I crossed my arms. "Well. You've told me the score. So. What's your name?"
She looked up at me. And then, she gave me a small smile, and offered her hand.
"Noa Schaefer, Esquire. At your service."
I shook her hand gently in one of mine. "Nice to meet you, despite the circumstances. Next, can we get me out of this prison and into my universe without me needing to destroy a SHIELD facility and possibly starting a war with the superheroes here?"
Noa looked at me. Her right eye was twitching.
"Please never put that particular string of words together in that order ever again," she said. "But yes, I think I can get you out of this cell. As for getting you back to your own universe… that's going to take some calls and scheduling. Depends how busy Reed Richards and the good doctor are this week."
"Cool," I said. Awesome. I wouldn't have to start a fight with people… maybe I could do it anyways. I kinda wanted to see what supervillains were around. Fighting the Six had been fun. "So. Wanna trade stories later?"
"I have a feeling mine will be substantially less interesting than yours," she said (Probably lied. I got the feeling her life was more interesting than she wanted, even without my boxing Infinity Stone users). "But sure." Then she frowned, bringing a hand to her lower lip again. "Hm… I'll need to make sure SHIELD gets you a hotel room. You don't exactly have a valid ID… eh," she shrugged. "I'll make it Fury's problem."
"Wow, you really hate Fury, don't you?"
She gave me the side-eye. "Oh, you have no idea."
"You should meet mine." The door opened as I was speaking. "He looks like Sam Jackson."
"Now that does sound interesting." That wasn't Noa. Not without that baritone voice.
I looked over at the speaker, a very white man with an eyepatch and hair shaved into a military cut. Who was also built like a brick shithouse, wearing a SHIELD command uniform. He smirked, eyeing me.
"Fuck off, Fury," Noa interrupted. "It hasn't been thirty minutes yet and you know it."
He didn't flinch, only smirking. "Yes, I know. Just seems our cameras might be broken. I wanted to make sure they're working."
I looked at Noa, who was shaking her head at me. Not gonna talk then. I watched Fury, Nick 'Howling Commando' Fury, walk in, making a show of looking up at the camera.
"Funny how someone we don't know understood SHIELD protocols well enough to slip around our security. Even seemed to anticipate our answers to those holes in our net. I'm not interrogating, by the way, simply making conversation."
Wow. I think he liked Noa. My Fury had the same weird smile on his face when he was messing with people he liked.
"The 'just being friendly' approach wasn't appreciated when you broke into my home, and it isn't appreciated now," Noa said with crossed arms. "Just slap a fitting label on his file and let me make some calls. Make it… I don't know." She took one hand and waved it airily. "Code Dorothy, or Code Oz."
"Code Lyoko available?"
"Oh for the love of - shut it," Noa snapped at me.
"Lyoko," Fury mumbled, but let it go. Well, pretended to let it go. "Sure thing, Schaefer. Let me get right on that. And you," he glanced at me. "You don't let her shut you up, you hear?"
In response, I tapped the Omnitrix and silently changed to Goop. No body language to read anymore.
Fury frowned, but walked out casually. "Let me know if you need me, Schaefer. You have the number."
The door slammed shut. Noa slunk down into a seat, fingers massaging her temples, and let out a deep sigh.
"I fucking hate that man."
"...You wanna see the stuff he hides in his office?" I asked her. "He's closer to the IT department than you'd think, if you know what I mean."
"Fury's real office is somewhere inside the Capitol Beltway around DC," Noa grumbled. "I think. If there's an office for him here, he deliberately left it just to mess with and test his agents."
Ah. She thought I was incompetent now. The Capitol Beltway wasn't that far from here. Well, I'd tell her later. Okay. I'd trust that the random lady who knew who I was and where I was from would have my back. Just needed to let the law do its thing.
I missed Jen. She'd have loved this shit.
"Okay." Noa stood up from the chair. "I'm going to go pester the ass out front to get accommodations arranged for you. Then I'm taking you somewhere that SHIELD doesn't have wired six ways to Sunday."
"Sure thing," I said. "Where would that be though?"
I mean, I had a mental list, but who know how viable those were. Did the Avengers Mansion exist? Or did Wanda break it?
"Oh, that's easy," Noa said. "My condo."
"Mrs. Schaefer, why I never!" I said with a grin.
"One, Ms.," she corrected. "Two, you're not my type."
"Ah. Gotcha. You want me to introduce you to people who are your type?" Because I got the sense she was Fantasma's.
"Thanks, but no," she said with a smirk. "I do have a girlfriend."
That bit of banter aside, the meeting seemed to go well. Now to let the law do its work.
… wait.
"Hey, how do you know SHIELD doesn't have your condo wired, anyway?"
"Hm?" Noa paused, one hand on the door handle. "Oh, I had my godfather check."
"Ah, I see we're into vague answers that mean nothing out of context. I like it, very ominous."
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Noa Schaefer's condo was in Greenwich Village. We were on Staten Island. Bout a 40 minute drive or so, depending on exact location and traffic conditions.
So plenty of time to get to know each other.
Once out of all the security surrounding the prison block, (I made a note to send Fury a list of improvements he could make) we entered into a private garage and approached a Lincoln Town Car with a driver waiting. There was a partition in the car, affording us some privacy. Some.
Just in case, I entered Fasttrack mode just before we entered. A quick run around. Three trackers, two of which were obvious, one of which Nat's lessons marked for me. A very weak bug in the glove compartment, one more in the backseats hidden in a seatbelt. And three cameras, one hidden on the grill to see where we were going, and two inside the passenger lights inside the car.
The driver was legit at least. Or as legit as my spy training could find after checking his wallet at super-speed then putting it back.
I tossed all of those aside, then went Upgrade and melded with the car, ignoring the look on the driver's face. This had to be done. Only one more tracker, this one hidden inside the rubber tire. I disabled that and separated from the vehicle after making some small repairs, reentering my human form.
"Had to make sure," I explained to Noa, who shrugged.
"I think they were a bit blatant with this one," she said. "When I got paid a visit, the man himself didn't actually leave any bugs. The paranoia was more than enough, I guess."
"I was thinking it was a test, honestly. Only one of them was really trying," I looked over at the driver. His mouth was open a bit too wide. "You okay, man?"
"Uh," the professional driver in him came back quickly. He swallowed, nodding. "Y-Yes. Ma'am, sir. If you will?"
He held the door open. We hopped in, the car starting up. As he rolled out, I looked Noa over while she slid shut the car's privacy screen.
I shouldn't trust her. She was, technically, a lawyer brought in by Fury. Who knew my last name. And could turn into a dragon…scale… person.
That last part was the least relevant, really.
At the least, she wasn't a mind reader. I'd have sensed that as Ethereal. Actually she felt like the… opposite of a mind reader? A mind book, of sorts? I'd almost felt pulled in. Point was, she was a mystery.
"If you have questions, ask away," she said. "You're not going to insult me."
"I have a bunch of questions. But I need to figure out which ones are best," Come on, Dial. You've got a lawyer girlfriend, a spy teacher, and a businessman best friend. You know what to ask now that Fury isn't listening in. Start small.
"How do you know me?"
Noa frowned. "We were friends… I think. It's been years, and I've forgotten a lot of specifics. But I didn't know very many Muslims by name, and I still don't, so… well, you're lucky you have a memorable name."
"It's one of the most common names in the world," I said, though I chuckled to let her know I got it. "In that case, I wish I knew who you were, in turn. I miss my old friends and family. I mean, I love my new life. But sometimes…"
My mom would have hated Jen. She always wanted me to marry a good Muslim girl. But I'd still have wanted them to meet.
"Don't worry about it," Noa thankfully cut off that sad line of thought with a smile. "Not like you'd be able to recognize me anyways."
"How about you? Miss anything?" I asked while thinking out the next more serious question.
"The internet. Having to go through law school again, and without it this time? And don't get me started on knowing precedent that isn't precedent yet." She laughed. "Oh. Seafood. I'm allergic to it now. That, and most thai food uses shrimp stock or paste, so… can't have that."
"Oh damn, that sucks," I said, shaking my head. "I kinda lucked out by comparison. Granted, I get punched in the face more, but at least I've got internet. Fair trade. How involved are you with the comic shit in this universe?"
No subtlety. She was a lawyer, my lawyer. I wanted answers, not to win some weird spy conversation. I'm sure Nat would have had her bent over in a few conversations, but I was making friends.
"In truth, I've tried to stay as far away from it as possible," she said with a frown. I held in a laugh. "Unfortunately, it's had a way of, well, finding me."
"Well yeah! That's the best way to run into that stuff," I said with genuine humor.
"Well, normally it doesn't drop adoption papers at your doorstep," she countered.
"Okay, see, now that you've said that, it's going to happen to me," I joked. "Some young shapeshifter in need of guidance will show up at the door looking cute as a button."
Noa laughed and shook her head, but she didn't say anything more.
"How long have you been practicing law?"
"Oh, a decade now, I think?" she replied. "Time kind of blurs together when you're working fifteen hour days… glad I'm not anymore, now that I think about it."
That was a comfortable amount of time.
"So then, here's a question you probably already predicted, but I gotta be somewhat suspicious or Natasha will be disappointed. Why did Fury go out of his way to get you? Instead of some other lawyer on his payroll? I mean, you're either a great actor or you hate his guts."
"I… don't really know," she said with a sigh. "Part of me thinks it's purely Fury trying to rile me up, get something out of me. But then again, remember that godfather I mentioned?"
"Yeah?"
"Mossad," she replied. "Also, who's this Natasha? I thought you were dating your world's Jen."
"I am. Natasha is one of my teachers. Black Widow… is she still a baddie in this world? Cause she's an Avenger in mine."
Granted, Natasha had never been a 'baddie' in my world. Just, you know, raised into an evil spy organization. Very different.
"I…" Noa trailed off. "Who is that supposed to be?"
"Superspy, Russian. I got trained by her, though Ares does most of the physical stuff now."
"Sorry," she said, shaking her head. "Our Avengers were Iron Man, Thor, Ant-Man, Wasp, and Hulk to start. Then Rogers thawed out, and most recently we got Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, and this Captain Marvel is a woman?" She paused. "Or was it Miss Marvel, but she happened to be a captain? I don't remember, I'll have to ask."
"Ant-Man is retired in my world, he's an older guy. Wasp disappeared. We still had Tony, Thor, Bruce, and Steve, but Nat and Clin-Er, Hawkeye, rounded out the team. Nowadays things got crazy. The six months I've been there have been a damn ROLLER COASTER."
Noa turned and looked at me. Her eyes were haunted.
"Be glad that things still weren't too terrible," she said. "You probably didn't lose a full percent of the world's population in twelve hours."
"...Which one?" I leaned forward, pressing my fingers together. "Who was responsible for that?"
"G…" She cut herself off, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath before trying again. "It was G… g… god damn it!" She smacked a fist on her thigh. "Why can't I say it! It was G-G… Ga…"
"Stop." I put a hand on her shoulder. "I know." I remembered him. High above me. A presence that cut into my thoughts. Clouds appearing like birds against the backdrop of an impossible palm. The Ethereal form, in some ways, had protected me. In some, it made things worse. The memory would never leave.
I wished I could have promised to help with that, somehow, to arrest Galactus or kill him. But you can't get revenge on a supernova.
"I almost died," she whispered. "All I did was look in h-His general direction. Pietro saved my life."
I thought about that speedy kid, quick to smile and always showing up at the tower to say hi to his sister. He and Le Vent came over to have tea at super-speed sometimes with X, Jarvis, and me. Just to help Le Vent feel normal again.
"Pietro is good folk."
"Mhmm." She blinked. "Wait. Are we talking about the same Pietro? I-I mean, our respective worlds'?"
Oh good, I got her out of her funk!
"Speedy? Talkative? Sweet guy when he stops acting like a high school jock?"
"Hm. Not the jock part, but yeah. He's… uh. Wait, how does this one work?" Noa murmured, one hand coming up to draw lines on an imaginary board in front of her. "His father is… but his little sister is… hm."
"Noa-Uh, hopefully we're on a first name basis now?" She waved a hand at me, so I'd take that as a yes! "Noa, we're dealing with some straight up timey-wimey bullshit. Who knows where things are supposed to be. People who should be related-"
"Oh, no, that's not what I was getting at, not at all!" She laughed, light and airy, her precious funk all but forgotten, thank goodness. "It's that his father is my godfather, but his youngest sister is my goddaughter, and it's not like there's a convenient in-between generation to just add a word in there, is it?"
"I, er-" Godfather was Mossad. Quicksilver's father. Youngest sister. "..."
"Eh," Noa waved it off. "Don't worry about it. It's not a big deal."
Like hell! "Okay, we've got what, 40 minutes? I have got to hear your story, because that sounds interesting as fuck!"
I'd trust her, for now. She was fun. Serious, business-minded, a bit brisk, but in a good way. Reminded me of a younger more humorous Agatha in some ways.
I wondered what she got out of all this. I'd have to offer her something in return for keeping me from having to break out of prison. We'd see.