2019-10-10 - One Way To Get Ahead

Summary:

SHIELD goes to apprehend someone and Spider Woman helps out.

Log Info:

Storyteller: None
Date: Thu Oct 10 03:26:47 2019
Location: Midtown

Related Logs

None

Theme Song

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jeriah-londonjemma-simmonsgwen-stacyclint-barton

"I'm telling you, this is a bad idea."
They're not the first time Clint Barton had uttered those words, nor would it be the last. And for this particular effort it was perhaps the fourteenth time he's mentioned his dissatisfaction in one form or another. But, to be fair, they're all there in the back of the surveillance van that proudly proclaims a 'Hungry Howard's!' logo on the side.
And sure on the outside it looks like they might cater delicious pizza and Italian food, but on the inside it's mainly a group of three operatives… with Clint in the back of the van making his bad feelings known.
"But." He adds, "Since we got a big ole shit-flavored ice cream sundae, everyone gets a spoon." With that casual colloquialism uttered he offers up a repeat of briefing.
"Tanner Howell, age 35. Apparently not much on the guy. Wall Street fella. Bodyguards. Apparently has dirt on all sorts of people, we want him for questioning. Figure we get him in transition. Two bodyguards, one front one back. Ms. Darkholme said he's a bit fragile, likely to go all to pieces when we get our hands on him."
The archer slings the bow over his shoulder and under his coat, collapsed it fits there rather snugly. "We get the ID from the facial recognition, we move. Questions?"


"You've all got ICERs, we've been working on the Dendrotoxin mix, the latest is much effective. If we need them, I've the DWARVES prepped and ready to go." What Jemma Simmons isn't asking, is why they're doing this if Clint thinks this is a bad idea.

Honestly, Clint thinks a lot of things are a bad idea and he does them.

"Jeriah, how's your connection to me? No interference?" beat "We don't need someone trying to access me while this is going down."


"It's solid." Jeriah says giving a thumbs up. The door they need to go through when they get out of the van is also solid but that's not an issue. Because there is a robo dog and the robo dog is made of high yield steel and can accelerate to vehicular speeds.

"The police didn't want this one mmm?" Jeriah is aware that SHIELD does work with local law enforcement but he is equally aware that some apprehensions are particularly sensitive and they don't want local law to Starsky and Hutch it.

"Ready when you guys are."


Of the people in the totally nodescript food van, one of them is not Gwen Stacy. No, the young blonde is out and about in the city, clad in a mostly black and white spider-costume, swinging between buildings. She's got a red and blue backpack on (with a little rainbow flag pin on the back) and has a set of earbuds in. Mostly, right now, she's practicing the act of, well swinging between buildings.

What? It takes practice to really get around, and she's had her powers for less than two weeks. So she swings; thwip, swing, release and thwip again, from this building to the next, around the corner, a little low OOPS THAT'S A BUS and back up a little bit higher. She is, of course, keeping her eyes open; if there were bank robbers or muggers or kittens that need to be rescued or something, practice could easily turn into superheroing at a moment's notice! Even if she is still pretty new.


The display on one of the many monitors in the back of the van casually drifts over the front of the hotel, flickering a little as it washes over the ebb and flow of humanity inside that place. From their parking spot they have a good angle on it, steady profile attained of everyone in that lobby, easy enough to get a flow of data detailing who each person is and likely reasons for their presence.
Clint, for his part, is occasionally checking those feeds even though the two tech people are there and likely much better with the equipment than him. "He's just wanted for questioning in regards to a criminal matter, yadda-yadda."
Then the monitors flicker as a set of elevator doors open. The computer system focuses on the men emerging from it, two burly fellows checking out the lobby. Data is searched and their identities come up as the bodyguards. Only the third image of the man they're escorting gets a bright glare as if the man was glowing or somehow blocking out the camera with a highly-focused laser countermeasure. They've likely seen it before, hats, helmets, pairs of glasses that are meant to block facial recognition…
And this guy has it in spades.
"Ok that's our guy, Jeriah and I'll take the bodyguards, Jemma you down with securing the guy in the van? Figure we do it while they're on the sidewalk." That said he pushes the door open on the back of the van. And if he gets agreement from the others then he'll move to get into position.
Though for the two of them, they might feel a disruption in the wifi around the man. Likely he's carrying a jammer of some kind.
From above, Gwen might well not see anything too terribly out of the norm. The steady flow of traffic down in the street. The crowds. That big van in front of the Ritz-Carlton starting to disgorge some ne'er do wells.


"Do what?" Jemma looks at the other SHIELD agent like he's mad. She's a SCIENTIST come field agent, most times her job is to support the others, not get directly involved. This is what Jeriah complains about a lot, her getting involved in the field.

"I can. I guess. They're going to know something is up as soon as they see me though." She sighs as she steps out, drawing her ICER and moves towards the van and the associated driver.

She's really just going to dart him. It's easier and safer, right.

"Jeriah? I'm … are you there.?"


"I'm right here, yes." Jeriah mentally sends a ready signal to his metal hound. It's big and obvious so right now it's hiding and he's not going to bring it out until the last moment. Then he frowns.

"Hang on. Electromagnetic disruption. That's annoying. I'll switch to something lower frequency in a moment…"

Which will help him keep connection with Jemma at least. He really doesn't want to be knifed in the back.

"On your signal." Jeriah is moving now, headed toward the target. Playing it casual. Just headed into the lobby of the Ritz. Nothing to see here. Pay no attention to the little glimpse of a giant robotic dog in the back of that van…


As yet, Gwen has absolutely no idea that there's anything going on, she's just busy moving through the streets, and feeling much more confident about webslinging than she was a few days ago when a Peter and Anya first showed her how to do it — that being about five minutes before they had to stop terrorists from blowing up a bridge. Good times.

So it comes to pass that Gwen comes to a stop on the side of a certain hotel; not any particular hotel, as far as she's concerned, but it just happens to be the one that's being staked out by Clint, Jemma, and Jeriah. She sticks to the side of hte hotel about twenty stories off the ground; feet on the wall, and holding on with one hand.

Time for a snack. A banana gets fished out of her backpack and unzipped; her mask comes up just above the nose, and she has a bite! Mmmm. Banana. Potassium.

Hold up, something's happening; there's people getting out of a van. …Is that… it's hard to tell from here, but that looks like Clint Barton? And that lady has cybernetics, pretty obvious ones, even from up here. "…Cool!" she comments, talking with her mouth full of banana. Hey, nobody can see.


Once they get eyeballs on the man there doesn't seem to be anything untoward. He's wearing a hat almost like a 50s newsman, but it looks good on him and his handsome features. Also a large trench coat covers him as he's being escorted by the two large burly men. The one in front, William Froste, ex-marine and a well priced personal security expert. The other one in back is an Antonio Galvino, some Maggia ties but apparently has gone straight. Both well-recommended on Yelp!
Across the comms and sub-vocalized though now with static they'll hear Clint's voice. « I'll take the lead guy, flash my ID, Jeriah make sure the other guy doesn't do anything. Simmons secure our target and get him into the back of our van. » Repetition for the sake of clarity.
And then they're moving. It's just a few steps. Several strides. The bodyguards are already closing up ranks when they spot Clint. Antonio is reaching inside his jacket while Froste is extending an arm protectively in front of Tanner Howell.
From her perch high above, Gwen can likely see the movements. The SHIELD ID is produced and shoved into Froste's face, "Mr. Froste, Agent Barton of SHIELD, we're here to take Mr. Howell into custody."
Whatever jammer that Mr. Howell is wearing, however, gets stronger the closer one gets to him.


This is a bad thing actually. Because making it more difficult for Jeriah to stay connected to the dog-shaped weapon system in the back of the van means that it goes autonomous. And THAT means it comes bounding out of the van and running toward where Clint and Jeriah are at a full clip.

"Play nice, Galvino." Jeriah raises something from under his own coat that is NOT an ICER. Yes he has the one that Jemma gave him. But the weapon in his hand looks so much more… techy.

That was intended to keep things on a sort of subtle, even keel. But with a motorcycle sized warhound running at them… Jeriah finally hears the scrape of claws on pavement and briefly glances behind him.

Oh. Shit.


"Do what?" Jemma repeats. Clint has to be joking. Jemma's like 140lbs soaking wet, maybe a bit more with the cybernetics. He wants her to … get Howell into their van? Even with her arm this is going to be a struggle.

Good eye twitching at the wi-fi interference Jeriah? This is giving me a headache., Jemma waits for the two other Agents to their do their "Mister Howell, please come with me. I'd hate to use force with you."

That should do it, shouldn't it? She won't need to shoot him, surely?


Well, this is pretty fascinating, all things considered. There's some sort of take-down going on, with Avengers. Actual Avengers! Gwen hasn't seen this before — at least, not without having to tune in to the TV and watch the evening news.

of course, the interference of a random Spider-Woman would probably not be appreciated, and she'd rather not get mistaken for a criminal and arrested or something, so for the time being, she remains right where she's at, and just watches, taking another bite of her banana. Well, maybe she scooches a few feet further down the building, to see if she can hear what's going on a little bit better. (She can't, really, it's too far away.)

Well, there is one thing that's very definite; this is a really good banana. Not too ripe, just right.


Robot dogs. Sony sells a few thousand every year but this one isn't quite like the Aibo.
Froste actually seems to be alright with the situation as he realizes the ID is real, that there are other agents moving in, and that his situation went from tenuous to poor rather abruptly. So he turns his head to the side and says, "I think you're going to have to go with them, Mr. Howell."
Though Galvino is giving Jeriah such a look, such a scowl, it's clear he might want to rip the man's head off. But he does slowly… slooooowly withdraw an empty hand from inside his jacket…
And then the dog comes bounding up and all of a sudden that has everyone's attention. Even Mr. Howell. Who hasn't said anything at all so far.
But what might set him off in that moment right before everything goes crazy… is when Jemma comes up and addresses him directly. She'll see Mr. Howell turn his head toward her, handsome features focused on her and him blinking absently as if not understanding what she's saying…
And then he bursts apart.
He splits asunder abruptly into no less than 14 different pieces, his body coming apart at the seams, detaching, exploding outward like a little over dozen small drones all looking entirely like human body parts suddenly able to fly and dart about rushing away in a swirling gyre of madcap movement…
From afar such a thing might seem staggeringly insane to witness. Though it might be less amusing when some of those body parts (the legs, the arms) start to produce weapon barrels as they try to take bead on the SHIELD agents. The torso and the head… seem to be trying to fly up and away. Bolts of energy start to fire then.


"You have GOT to be kidding me…" The machine pistol sized weapon reconfigures in Jeriah's hand as he swings it clear of his coat. By the time he's drawn a bead on the cloud of whatever the HELL that is, it looks a lot more like a shotgun. Which it sort of us.

SSSSNAP!

A spray of what really could be colored water viewed from the right angle emerges from the weapon. It's not colored water though. It's plasma and it'll go through most things like a hot knife through butter. But what it'll do against a cloud like that is COMPLETELY unclear.

Also, Jeriah has left himself open to the bodyguards by shifting his focus.

"Simmons! Down!"


"Ack!" Jemma dives on the head and the torso, without really thinking. They really shouldn't be allowed to get away. That leaves her open to any number of attacks, including strafing from the weapons turrets on the other body parts and Jeriah's own weapon fire as well.

The wifi interference is quite bad now, the closer she is to Howell, or the pieces of Howell. Jeriah, a em pulse or some electrical shock might short circuit them for a bit. Which will affect her implants but that can't be helped.

And hey. She's Down.


"Oh! What the…" Gwen is still eating her banana, when things take… a bit of a turn. What's this, then? The target of the Avenger's take-down has turned into a multi-robot of legs and arms and a flying head and things. Well, that's just… "Whatever happened to normal supervillains, like the ones who just put on a monocle, twirl a moustache, and monologue at the heroes?" she asks, of nobody nearby.

So, the Spider-Woman stuffs the last bite of her banana in her mouth, tugs her mask down, and jumps off the side of the building. "Hya!" she declares, flinging the banana peel down ahead of her (aimed at one of the disembodied arms) as she plummets.

Angling herself to face downwards, Gwen sticks her arms out in front of her and clicks her webshooters, aiming a stream at the head that's attempting to escape. Can't let that happen, can we?


Clint leaps back, going for the ICER in its holster and bringing it up and around. For a split second he takes a bead but doesn't fire… but then the weapons click into place and he busts a few shots at a calf and a thigh, sending them both skittering through the air to impact with each other and fall to the ground.
For their part, the bodyguards… they seem just as surprised and freaked out as the SHIELD agents as Froste back-pedals rapidly as his charge seems to just split into so many pieces. He stumbles over the hood of another parked car while snarling, "What the fuck?!"
And Galvino doesn't fare much better as he runs into the glass window of the hotel behind him, the impact making a low /whom/ from his heavy body hitting it.
That plasma shotgun blast, however, does spray and spatter upon a forearm and a bicep that both had been floating in the air, electronics visible in the places where they joined with the others. One had been firing a random spray of energy in Jeriah's direction only for that plasma to slice through it and send it to the ground in pieces, quickly followed by the upper arm as well.
As Jemma makes a grab for the head and torso, she quickly finds that they are no less than four separate pieces with the head the only part seeming to show some emotion as its eyes are wide with panic, trying to fly upward… as it nimbly avoids the grip from Simmons, though that does send it straight in Gwen's direction.
Which leaves the three other pieces of the torso trying to get around and out of Simmons' grip. The chest-piece clicks apart partially as a tiny surgical saw expands as if trying to cut her off of it.
Though one benefit of the head flying upwards and away… is the interference is no longer as strong with it getting some distance. For a brief instant it might even seem mildly exultant as it's making its getaway… only for it to be covered in webbing from a hurtling Spider-Woman.


The energy spray catches Jeriah on the shoulder and burns through both jacket and shirt to cut a groove in the muscle there. Not serious but it easily could have been and it hurts like hell. The hacker has to abandon his - admittedly very close - position as things heat up with all of the whirling parts and spraying nastiness. A purple haze comes up around him as he vaults over a planter and seeks shelter right about the time the dog-drone deploys it's back turret and starts charging.

"HEY!" The hacker has to shout at it. "Not yet!"

Possibly not ever. Letting off that grenade launcher here would be bad. Jeriah had only brought the thing to run someone down if they needed that.

"Copy Jemma. Hawkeye you got anything for that? I'm fresh out of ready sources for EMPs!" Sure he can do it with anything has a battery but McGuyvering stuff like that takes time and that's time he'd rather not spend if the archer happens to have an EMP device.

"Woah!" Now he's seen Gwen move in. "Okay. That's helpful."


"Oh come on …" Jemma's so very British accent can be heard as the head decides to act like a greased pig. Grabbing the pieces of torso, the biochem slams them into the ground, one at a time, with her cybernetic arm. That's a 30 ton lift capacity turned to that.

"Can have Shep to sit on one of these, please?" Shep. She's named one of Jeriah dog drones.

"Is that a civilian entering the frey?" Jemma can't see as Gwen makes her appearance. She's too busy wrestling body parts.


"Yes! Web on target!" Gwen breaks off the stream with one hand, while keeping the other one in a firm grasp; with her free hand she shoots some web at the wall, turning her downward plummet into a pendulum swing, with the escaping robot head-thing getting pulled along behind her. As she swings back up, she gives a hard yank on the silk strand attached to the head, pulling it sharply in towards her.

When she catches it, she just lets her fingers stick to it. Shouldn't be going anywhere.

As she pendulum swings back down, she drops off and plummets to a crouch on top of the surveillance van. "I got it!" she shouts to the Avengers, rising up out of her crouch.

With her free hand, she shoots one more webstrand, this time at the dropped banana peel; and this, she flings in the direction of a nearby garbage can. Littering isn't cool, kids.


Pulling a page from classic super hero serials, Clint grimaces and /throws/ the pistol at the side of a floating foot and smacks into it, sending it keeling over to the side as it had been lining up a shot on Jemma.
"Not with me," Clint's voice is heard over comms as well as out loud even as he ducks down behind and to the side of the van. He draws the collapsible bow from under his coat and snaps it to full extension, the small twelve arrow quiver on the other side of the jacket gives him access to only a few set-tip arrows and he draws one back nocking it.
"Get em down as best you can, I guess we… just need the head?" And with that he spins around firing. One arrow impales the Ken Dollish pelvis against the brick wall even as Jemma is /smashing/ the other pieces of the man into the ground. Ouch.
Meanwhile Gwen is getting a mix of rather abusive comments from the webbed up head even as small bolts of energy seem to fire from its mouth, though its eyes are all webbed up, making its shots go rather wide. Only for her to get a firmer better grip on it.
With the torso and the head mostly contained, and some of the limbs suffering, it leaves just four left floating, firing off little barking bursts of energy trying to continue with some sort of automated suppressing fire algorithm.


Jeriah comes out of cover as his weapon reconfigures to something a little bit less scatter-gun-y and a little more precise. He opens up on one of the pieces even as the hound runs forward to try to snatch another out of the air. In, you know, the traditional dog way. Jumping. Traditional dogs don't have jump jets though so there's that.

"I think it is Jemma." Jeriah calls back. "Hey, Lady! Do you have the-" He hears the swearing. "Ah yes. Yes she does. I'm going to have a lot of fun watching you interrogate that, doc."


When Jemma gets up from this, she's going to be so very pleased she wasn't wrestling the pelvis. That … she'd blush horribly if she was.

Grasping another piece, the biochem crushes it in her hand. Honestly, she's a mess at the moment, her shirt rucking up and hair askew - nothing Jemma does like this is ever glamourous or graceful.

"You could stop laughing, Jeriah, and lend a hand …" she grunts, finally getting to her feet to see Gwen snack that head. "Have we got them all yet?"


Wait up, the head has lasers? "HEY!" shouts Gwen as her world tingles just before she has to move like greased lightning to avoid a couple of laser blasts almost giving her a couple of new piercings (right through the chest, very avant garde or… something). "Not cool! That's no way to get ahead in life!" She adjusts the head as she's speaking, aiming its eyeballs to the side of the van as she hops down onto the street.

Gwen webs the head up liberally, sticking it eyeballs-in to the van. "Time for a time-out," she pronounces, before turning around to see how things are going with the Avengers and the other… bits and pieces.

Thwip-thwip go her webshooters, as she aims for a couple of the robotic… appendage things that are still cloating about, causing havoc, in a hopefully well-aimed attempt to stick them to the hotel wall.

"Well, I can honestly say this is the weirdest thing I've been involed in this week," she declares, "And the second weirdest in the last month."


A forearm is grabbed out of the air by the leaping dog and crunched down on hard, its faux flesh tearing and the electronic components breaking apart with each snarfling nom nom nom and then pieces scattering about during the inevitable neck-break shake.
"Nobody do the 'let's give him a hand' joke thing." Clint says as he nocks, draws, aims and catches the floating foot that is then stuck to the metal frame of the Ritz Carlton's awning.
Between them plus dog, they're able to dispatch the remaining body parts. While Gwen… she still has the head that is rather nastily hurling invectives at all of them, and for those able to perceive its broadcasts over wifi well… it is creative in its insults in binary.
To Jemma, Clint murmurs, "Think that's it." He lifts his head up to shade his eyes as he looks atop their van. "Hey lil lady, I know you're probably thinking of more body part jokes, but I want to entreat you to not say them. Also, pleas give us the noggin."


"This is the part where I do not say, Clint needs help to get ahead right?" Jeriah says into Jemma's head. Out loud he's very good but he very much looks like he drank a gallon of laughter and is trying to keep it in.

The hacker does NOT look like an Avenger, really. His dog comes to stand over by Jemma and sits down. And looks up at her proudly. He did good, yes?

"Don't think we caught your name, Miss? Do appreciate the helping hand though."


Jemma chortles out loud when Jeriah speaks to her, casting the soldier hacker a *look*. I'm too sore to think of anything witty to say, but I'll go with that.

"You did good, Shep." Jemma pats the metal monstrosity on the head as she looks at Gwen. "I don't recognise the Spider you are…" beat "Agent Jemma Simmons, Jeriah London and Agent Clint Barton." She introduces each of them. "SHIELD."


"Hunh? The noggin? All yours, I just stuck it to the side of the van." Gwen shrugs her shoulders, "It has lasers in its eyes, so don't let it shoot you." A pause. "It might be trying to laser through the van right now, actually, but I don't think that'll help." She meanders over to the three SHIELD agents and Avengers. "Very cool to meet you all," she adds.

As she gets close she comes to a halt, and grins, not that anyone can see it since she's wearing a mask of course. "I'm a… new spider. I go by Spider-Woman. I know, probably seems obvious. …I'm pretty new on the job, which is why you haven't seen me before."


For a time as he stands there Gwen can just see Clint close his eyes a little. Just closes them and holds them there as if he were the most put upon man in the world. But then he opens his eyes again and looks up at the young spider-person and says, "Don't mind them. They're just happy to be out of the lab for a bit."
But as she answers them he'll look to the head and it seems, for now, to be more interested in just cursing the out in various ways. Though Clint does wander over and casually pokes at the webbing. "Yeaah. Do you have any solvent?" He tilts his head over his shoulder toward Gwen, then looks over at Jeriah and Jemma in case they might have some ideas.
But then he steps away, holding up a finger. "One sec," He brings a hand to the earpiece in his ear and then sub-vocalizes on the comms. « We're going to need a clean up crew, got some robot body parts to secure. And… maybe some damage control. » That said he ends the transmission.


Jeriah chuckles to himself and nods to the young lady, seeing has how she's introducing herself. "Just a contractor. Not an agent like her or an Avenger like him. Nice to meet you Spider Woman." He's not fully up on heroes so he's not sure exactly how many there are. He'll wait until later to google it. He COULD do it now, in his head, but then his control of the dog might wander and THAT could be bad.

Shep just preens at Jemma.

As for ideas… Jeriah pulls a kerambit from his from his belt and holds it up questioningly. He suspects the webbing won't be easy to cut but he could try if Clint wants him to?


*Just* a contractor The amusement is clear in Jemma's voice. "Nice to meet you, Spider Woman. I didn't see everything but you seem to have a handle on those skills."

The biochem looks at the webs and picks at them a bit. "I want a sample… " She hurries to their truck after telling Shep to stay, and hurries back with her bag.

Gwen might be having apoplexy about Jemma taking samples, but the biochem does.

"What type of material is this, Spider Woman?" she'll find out. "Jeriah, a solvent of some sort. See what's in my bag."


Gwen just *might* be having apoplexy, but she keeps it under control. …Afterall, if she doesn't want people to ever take a sample of her webbing, the only way to make that happen would be to never web anything, and that just wouldn't be proper spider behavior. That said, she has her own method of getting the head out of the web.

"Here, let me get that for you," she offers, walking back up to the side of the van. She plants one hand on the side, the other on the back of the head, and with the steady ripping of web-strands, just pulls it free (which takes a few moments of effort and flexing muscle, but the job gets done.) She points the head downwards, enduring a few invectives no doubt, as she offers it back to the agents. "This guy sure is rude," she comments. "Nice to meet all of you, too! And… it's just web. Seriously. Just… super-strength webbing." She stands a little straighter, and squares up her shoulders. "Glad I could help an Avenger, a SHIELD agent, and a cool contractor with an awesome robot dog."


Clint gives Jeriah a small shrug with raised eyebrows to go with it, as if to say 'couldn't hurt?' and to indicate that the man can try with the knife as he likes. Back to Gwen, however, he says. "In any case, thanks for the assist Spider." He moves over toward the SHIELD van in disguise and yanks open the back door, starting to push a few pieces of equipment around inside of it as if looking for a suitable… head tote.
He doesn't find one.
Returning back into view he leans against the side of the van and eyeballs the captive head. He snorts for a moment and mururs, "Likely to go all to pieces. Funny."
Only then does the head get pulled free and Clint gives a small nod to his comrades before looking back to Ms. Stacy. "Nice, good work, kiddo." He'll step forward to take custody of Mr. Howell's remains and then shoots a glance at the others. "We'll get him back and questioned…" He hesitates, making sure that's ok with the others.


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