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Title: It’s a Puzzle, It’s a Maze
Author: marcicat
Fandom: Avengers, Spiderman, Bourne films, marcicatverse
Word Count: 1300
Rating: G
Summary: A 500-piece jigsaw puzzle wouldn’t be much of a challenge for this group — unless the pieces were hidden.
Author's Note: NaNoWriMo novel Christmas follow-up fic!
“Last year we lit a couch on fire.”
Darcy sounded nostalgic, and Nikki eyed her carefully. Flash just laughed. “Euphemistically, or actually?” he asked.
“Actually for real burning of furniture,” Darcy confirmed. “It was a Solstice, Festivus, Christmas sort of thing.” There was a brief pause, and then she added, “And now look at us.”
Flash said, “I hate to be the one to break it to you, but if you’re implying that what we’re doing now is a model of responsible celebration, I think you might be mistaken.”
“Come on, this is a totally sanctioned group activity,” Nikki said. (Because it was fun to watch Darcy and Flash quip back and forth — apparently an important skill for superhero assistants — and they were surprisingly open to outsiders joining in.)
“We’re in an air vent,” Flash said.
It was true. They were, in fact, in an air vent. But it was sanctioned.
The Maria Stark Foundation was hosting SHIELD’s “Annual Party” (holiday affiliation implied but not officially labeled). The invitation that went out had been roundly mocked for including the phrase ‘group games and puzzles,’ but it turned out someone really knew how to scale things up to an Avengers-type level. There was a puzzle. It had 500 pieces that were hidden — half in MSF headquarters, half on the helicarrier. Find a piece, bring it back, put them together.
It seemed to be working well so far. Most of the higher-profile hero-types were on the helicarrier, but the Foundation’s buildings were still full of revelers. The less socially inclined were scouring far corners and passing their pieces off to other teams, while those looking for company were in the ground-floor common room, connecting pieces and schmoozing as desired.
(Rumor had in Fury himself had hidden the 250 helicarrier pieces, but no one could confirm. She’d also heard he’d farmed the task out to interns and tied end of year bonuses to creativity and difficulty points. It was hard to say which was less believable.)
But each piece had a clue, of course, and that was how they’d wound up in an air vent. It was pretty spacious for an air vent, actually. (Which meant it was still a tight squeeze for actual people.)
“This air vent is going to get us directly to the fifth floor conference room, which is the official unofficial werewolf briefing room. That’s got to be what this clue is talking about, and the regular hallway to it is totally blocked off by the remodeling,” Darcy said. “Besides, Hawkeye does this kind of thing all the time; how hard can it be?”
“I can’t even believe you just said that,” Flash said. “Now we’re going to get lost and have to break a wall to get out, or something.”
Nikki frowned. “Doesn’t Hawkeye fight sleeveless in the middle of winter in New York? I’m not sure he’s the best role model for practical decision-making.”
Darcy said, “We’re not lost. Look, we’re here.”
They climbed out of the vent at floor level, and sure enough, there was a puzzle piece wrapped in a plastic bag taped to the underside of the table. “Ha!” Flash said. “Merry Christmas to us! There’s chocolate in here too.”
Nikki stretched her arms over her head and tried to ease the strain in her shoulders. The fifth floor wasn’t normally high enough to get much of a view, but the conference room looked out over the courtyard, where anything tall enough to be considered a tree (or a tree-like shrub) was bedecked with lights. *Hey,* she thought carefully. Calle was in the common area, and Nikki didn’t want to distract her if she was busy.
*How’s it going?* was the immediate response. *Someone just brought out more popcorn. Did you know you can put chocolate on popcorn?*
*Really? How does it taste?*
The mental ‘ick’ she got from Calle almost made her laugh. *Not so good.*
*Have you seen the courtyard lights?* Nikki asked. *It looks like the carolers are gone now.* Out loud, she said, “Are we going to have to go back through the vents too?”
Flash shook his head, and Darcy said, “No, now that we’re here, we can leave through the offices. Back door. They’re all locked from the outside, but they’ll open fine from this direction.”
She could feel Calle making her way through the crowd to the courtyard, and she looked away from the window at Darcy. “So — is this a holiday party combined with security testing?”
Darcy shrugged, and tossed her a piece of chocolate. “It makes sense. Anywhere we can get, someone else could get, right? And every building has weird security tricks people come up with — I taped over the motion sensor for my lights, but some people have gotten really creative, especially with the holiday decorations.”
“What about the helicarrier?” (Nikki had never actually seen it, though she’d heard plenty of stories.)
“Yeah, those teams are probably a little more hardcore when it comes to security testing. Bet you Fury’s going nuts about it, though. The helicarrier loves Stark. I heard he’s been redesigning it in his spare time.”
Flash folded his chocolate wrapper into a square. “All our families were invited,” he said. “I thought maybe they were hedging their bets, in case the apocalypse happened after all.”
“Or to make sure no one pulled a John McClane,” Darcy added.
Nikki laughed. “I was thinking of that in the vents too,” she said.
Flash looked back and forth between them. “I don’t get it.”
Darcy groaned, and said, “I feel so old. You weren’t even born in 1988, were you?” Flash shook his head. “We’ll do a movie night, this weekend. Die Hard marathon.”
She launched into an explanation of the vent reference, and Nikki felt a mental nudge from Calle. *I’m outside,* Calle said. *Where are you now?*
“Can we flick the lights in here? Calle’s looking,” Nikki said. Flash moved to stand next to her, and Darcy did something that made the lights dim to nothing, then brighten again.
*I see you,* Calle said.
Nikki checked the courtyard. *Calle, are you a reindeer right now?*
“I see a reindeer. Does anyone else see that?” (Flash sounded like ‘reindeer’ and ‘nope, just seeing things’ were about equal possibilities in his mind.)
*It’s the most Christmas-y animal,* Calle said. *Apparently. There was a poll.*
“Apparently reindeer are the most Christmas-y animals,” Nikki repeated for Darcy and Flash. *Having fun?*
*I thought we didn’t have to have fun; we were just supposed to do something memorable.* Calle stomped her front hoof. It had taken some convincing to get her to the party at all. (Nikki wished she’d thought of Flash’s ‘in case the apocalypse happens after all’ argument.)
*Fun is optional,* Nikki offered. *It’s more a bonus than a requirement.*
Calle tilted her head up so it looked like she was looking at the sky. Maybe she was, since Nikki caught a flash of stars and a waxing moon. Finally, she said, *I don’t want to be anywhere else,* and that was at least in the same neighborhood as fun, so Nikki was willing to consider it a win.
Darcy joined them at the window and said, “That’s awesome.” Nikki passed the sentiment along, adding her own contentment to the message. Calle posed majestically and sent back a burst of jumbled feelings, all edged with happiness.
*Hey,* Nikki nudged, smiling. *Merry Christmas. Festive Solstice. Happy New Year. You know — thanks for celebrating.*
Calle nudged back. *You too. The New Year especially — I’ve got a good feeling about this one.*
Author: marcicat
Fandom: Avengers, Spiderman, Bourne films, marcicatverse
Word Count: 1300
Rating: G
Summary: A 500-piece jigsaw puzzle wouldn’t be much of a challenge for this group — unless the pieces were hidden.
Author's Note: NaNoWriMo novel Christmas follow-up fic!
“Last year we lit a couch on fire.”
Darcy sounded nostalgic, and Nikki eyed her carefully. Flash just laughed. “Euphemistically, or actually?” he asked.
“Actually for real burning of furniture,” Darcy confirmed. “It was a Solstice, Festivus, Christmas sort of thing.” There was a brief pause, and then she added, “And now look at us.”
Flash said, “I hate to be the one to break it to you, but if you’re implying that what we’re doing now is a model of responsible celebration, I think you might be mistaken.”
“Come on, this is a totally sanctioned group activity,” Nikki said. (Because it was fun to watch Darcy and Flash quip back and forth — apparently an important skill for superhero assistants — and they were surprisingly open to outsiders joining in.)
“We’re in an air vent,” Flash said.
It was true. They were, in fact, in an air vent. But it was sanctioned.
The Maria Stark Foundation was hosting SHIELD’s “Annual Party” (holiday affiliation implied but not officially labeled). The invitation that went out had been roundly mocked for including the phrase ‘group games and puzzles,’ but it turned out someone really knew how to scale things up to an Avengers-type level. There was a puzzle. It had 500 pieces that were hidden — half in MSF headquarters, half on the helicarrier. Find a piece, bring it back, put them together.
It seemed to be working well so far. Most of the higher-profile hero-types were on the helicarrier, but the Foundation’s buildings were still full of revelers. The less socially inclined were scouring far corners and passing their pieces off to other teams, while those looking for company were in the ground-floor common room, connecting pieces and schmoozing as desired.
(Rumor had in Fury himself had hidden the 250 helicarrier pieces, but no one could confirm. She’d also heard he’d farmed the task out to interns and tied end of year bonuses to creativity and difficulty points. It was hard to say which was less believable.)
But each piece had a clue, of course, and that was how they’d wound up in an air vent. It was pretty spacious for an air vent, actually. (Which meant it was still a tight squeeze for actual people.)
“This air vent is going to get us directly to the fifth floor conference room, which is the official unofficial werewolf briefing room. That’s got to be what this clue is talking about, and the regular hallway to it is totally blocked off by the remodeling,” Darcy said. “Besides, Hawkeye does this kind of thing all the time; how hard can it be?”
“I can’t even believe you just said that,” Flash said. “Now we’re going to get lost and have to break a wall to get out, or something.”
Nikki frowned. “Doesn’t Hawkeye fight sleeveless in the middle of winter in New York? I’m not sure he’s the best role model for practical decision-making.”
Darcy said, “We’re not lost. Look, we’re here.”
They climbed out of the vent at floor level, and sure enough, there was a puzzle piece wrapped in a plastic bag taped to the underside of the table. “Ha!” Flash said. “Merry Christmas to us! There’s chocolate in here too.”
Nikki stretched her arms over her head and tried to ease the strain in her shoulders. The fifth floor wasn’t normally high enough to get much of a view, but the conference room looked out over the courtyard, where anything tall enough to be considered a tree (or a tree-like shrub) was bedecked with lights. *Hey,* she thought carefully. Calle was in the common area, and Nikki didn’t want to distract her if she was busy.
*How’s it going?* was the immediate response. *Someone just brought out more popcorn. Did you know you can put chocolate on popcorn?*
*Really? How does it taste?*
The mental ‘ick’ she got from Calle almost made her laugh. *Not so good.*
*Have you seen the courtyard lights?* Nikki asked. *It looks like the carolers are gone now.* Out loud, she said, “Are we going to have to go back through the vents too?”
Flash shook his head, and Darcy said, “No, now that we’re here, we can leave through the offices. Back door. They’re all locked from the outside, but they’ll open fine from this direction.”
She could feel Calle making her way through the crowd to the courtyard, and she looked away from the window at Darcy. “So — is this a holiday party combined with security testing?”
Darcy shrugged, and tossed her a piece of chocolate. “It makes sense. Anywhere we can get, someone else could get, right? And every building has weird security tricks people come up with — I taped over the motion sensor for my lights, but some people have gotten really creative, especially with the holiday decorations.”
“What about the helicarrier?” (Nikki had never actually seen it, though she’d heard plenty of stories.)
“Yeah, those teams are probably a little more hardcore when it comes to security testing. Bet you Fury’s going nuts about it, though. The helicarrier loves Stark. I heard he’s been redesigning it in his spare time.”
Flash folded his chocolate wrapper into a square. “All our families were invited,” he said. “I thought maybe they were hedging their bets, in case the apocalypse happened after all.”
“Or to make sure no one pulled a John McClane,” Darcy added.
Nikki laughed. “I was thinking of that in the vents too,” she said.
Flash looked back and forth between them. “I don’t get it.”
Darcy groaned, and said, “I feel so old. You weren’t even born in 1988, were you?” Flash shook his head. “We’ll do a movie night, this weekend. Die Hard marathon.”
She launched into an explanation of the vent reference, and Nikki felt a mental nudge from Calle. *I’m outside,* Calle said. *Where are you now?*
“Can we flick the lights in here? Calle’s looking,” Nikki said. Flash moved to stand next to her, and Darcy did something that made the lights dim to nothing, then brighten again.
*I see you,* Calle said.
Nikki checked the courtyard. *Calle, are you a reindeer right now?*
“I see a reindeer. Does anyone else see that?” (Flash sounded like ‘reindeer’ and ‘nope, just seeing things’ were about equal possibilities in his mind.)
*It’s the most Christmas-y animal,* Calle said. *Apparently. There was a poll.*
“Apparently reindeer are the most Christmas-y animals,” Nikki repeated for Darcy and Flash. *Having fun?*
*I thought we didn’t have to have fun; we were just supposed to do something memorable.* Calle stomped her front hoof. It had taken some convincing to get her to the party at all. (Nikki wished she’d thought of Flash’s ‘in case the apocalypse happens after all’ argument.)
*Fun is optional,* Nikki offered. *It’s more a bonus than a requirement.*
Calle tilted her head up so it looked like she was looking at the sky. Maybe she was, since Nikki caught a flash of stars and a waxing moon. Finally, she said, *I don’t want to be anywhere else,* and that was at least in the same neighborhood as fun, so Nikki was willing to consider it a win.
Darcy joined them at the window and said, “That’s awesome.” Nikki passed the sentiment along, adding her own contentment to the message. Calle posed majestically and sent back a burst of jumbled feelings, all edged with happiness.
*Hey,* Nikki nudged, smiling. *Merry Christmas. Festive Solstice. Happy New Year. You know — thanks for celebrating.*
Calle nudged back. *You too. The New Year especially — I’ve got a good feeling about this one.*
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You are the most awesome, and I love this story ♥♥♥
("They're probably a little more hardcore about the security testing"! Hee! "How hard can it be?" "Why did you have to say that?" And also, "not really a role model for practical decision-making." TRUE)
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