Tumblr Snippets: Miscellaneous Fandoms

When I strolled into the office at half past ten Pepper was filing her nails, and she didn’t stop to acknowledge me, just gave that little raise of an eyebrow and twitch of the chin that indicated there was someone in the inner sanctum waiting for me.

Pepper had this funny idea about clients overhearing us talking about them. I never suffered from that particular malady. “Got a fresh one for me?”

She rolled her eyes, but nodded. I stuck my hands in my pockets and grinned at her. “Pretty?”

She nodded emphatically. My grin widened. I’m not saying I worked harder for the pretty ones, but it sure didn’t hurt to have something to look forward to when you were setting up meetings with a client.

I headed for the inner office door, then paused and looked back at Pepper with my hand already on the knob. “Divorce?”

She shook her head.

“Great.”

When I came into the office, he was sitting in the rickety chair in front of my desk, his dark head bent over something in his lap. Definitely a he - no woman filled out a suit like that. I frowned a little, then rearranged my face into something more professional-looking before I sat down in front of him.

Pepper was right, he was pretty. Black hair just a little too long to be fashionable set off dramatic cheekbones and big, wet grey eyes. His suit was expensive, and he wore it well, even if it did look like he’d been wearing it for days. I wondered if he’d come straight off the train to my office. If he did, he must’ve thrown a dart at a phone book to find the place. Tony Stark is no one’s idea of a top detective, not since he cut with the agency and set out on his own.

Of course, if he had thrown a dart at a phone book, that was no reason to put him off. “What can I do you for, Mister - ”

“Odinson,” he supplied, and his voice was just as cultured and ragged around the edges as the rest of him. New York, maybe, or Boston. “My name is Loki Odinson, and I need your help in locating my brother.”

His fingers twitched around the photograph he held in his hand, and I had to give him a pointed look before he offered it to me.

The picture showed two guys. One of them was clearly Odinson. He was trying to look annoyed, but wasn’t quite successful at it, at the big blond guy with his arm around Loki’s shoulders. I glanced back up for comparison’s sake. In my office, he was trying not to look worried, and wasn’t quite successful at it. Either he had lousy control of his face or he was a great actor.

I looked back at the picture. Big and blond didn’t look much like Odinson’s brother. He might not have been taller, but he was broader, fair-haired where Odinson was dark, and built on altogether more muscular lines. More than that, though, there was an openness in his face that Odinson completely lacked. Blondie was the kind of guy you’d always know what he was thinking; Odinson was the type you’d have to pry his secrets out of him with a crowbar.

Well. If Odinson wanted to call this guy his brother, I wasn’t being paid to argue. I wasn’t being paid for anything yet, but that was just a matter of time. Desperate rich mugs like to spend money to solve their problems, and I liked to take it. And Odinson was certainly desperate.

“So what’s up?” I asked him.

Odinson squared his shoulders and looked me straight in the eye for the first time. “My brother disappeared from our home in Philadelphia six weeks ago. This in itself is not unusual – Thor is a grown man and he has his own interests, some of which he chooses not to share with the rest of our family – but we have not heard from him since he left.”

“And that is unusual?”

“Very much so.”

“So he left Philadelphia six weeks ago. Why do you think he’s in LA?”

Odinson’s eyes dropped from mine to a thin spot in the carpet. I made a note to buy a rug. “We believe there is a woman involved.”

“Got a picture of her? I generally prefer collecting pictures of women,” I explained.

He shook his head. “I’ve never met Dr. Foster, Mr. Stark. I know almost nothing about her. But I do know she lives in Los Angeles, and I know that my brother was –“ his lips twisted unpleasantly – “Infatuated with her in the months before his disappearance.”

I had to hand it to Pepper, she knew how to pick out the good ones. Not only was he pretty, he lied like a rug and he still had an interesting story. “Doctor?” I asked, to keep him going.

Odinson waved a long-fingered hand. “Not a medical doctor – something to do with chemistry or biology I think. I was never clear on the details. Does it matter?”

I nodded, trying to look thoughtful. I had better control of my face than Odinson did, so it probably worked. “It could matter a lot, if you can’t tell me anything else about where he might be staying or who he might see in town.” Odinson shrugged. “Then I guess I start with her. My fee is three hundred a day plus expenses. If I can’t find your brother within a week, you let me know when it’s gone on long enough.”

“That’s it?” Odinson asked.

“That’s it,” I confirmed. “Well, a retainer might be nice.”

“Of course.” He pulled out a leather wallet and extracted six C notes, which didn’t leave it empty. I raised an eyebrow at him. “Shall we meet on Thursday to discuss your progress?”

I grinned at him, the grin that Pepper said made me look like I was considering the client as a prey animal. Some people, it never hurt to establish who was in charge right away. They were, and I was their goon for hire. “We have a deal, Mr. Odinson,” I said, and we shook hands on it.

A photograph of a tall blond guy and the name of a lady scientist wasn’t a lot to start with, but I’d worked cases with less. I started with the city directory. There were five pages of Fosters, but no Jane. If Dr. Foster was also Mrs. Foster, of course, there wouldn’t be. Odinson had thought that his brother had run away with her, but it wouldn’t be the first time a married woman had run off with a hot young thing from Philadelphia.

Wouldn’t be the first time a woman lied to a man about her name, either, but if I threw that out then all I had was a photograph of a tall blond guy, and there are too many of those in L.A. as it is.

It was a long shot, but I picked up the phone and gave the operator the number without going through Pepper’s line. There’s only one scientist I’m willing to ask favors of, and he doesn’t have a secretary. He barely has a phone. I cross my fingers that it’s still plugged in and in one piece; he might have taken it apart for parts. Or just because it rang at the wrong time.

I was in luck. The telephone rang and was answered without incident, and also without manners. “You have three minutes before I have results to check.”

“Bruce,” I said cheerfully, as if I’d never answered the telephone in such a way myself, “How’s the science going?”

“It will be fine as long as this doesn’t blow up the lab,” he said companionably. “Two minutes forty-five.”

I decided to cut to the chase. “Listen, I’m looking for a lady scientist –“

“Of course you are.”

I made a face at him, never mind that he couldn’t see it. “On behalf of a client.”

“Of course you are.” At least that time he sounded like he believed me.

“Doctor Jane Foster, maybe does something in chemistry or biology. Ring any bells?”

“Jane?” He was using his thoughtful voice, the one that meant he’d already solved the problem put in front of him and was working on a problem three steps ahead. I could picture the frown that went with it. “I know her. She’s an astronomer, though.”

I wrote down “astronomer” on the pad on my desk and made a note to check any local observatories. “My information was pretty vague,” I said reassuringly.

“Well, I don’t really know what she’s working on lately,” Bruce said. “Dr. Foster was one of a dozen or so people signed on for some government project at the beginning of the year.”

Now that was interesting. “Know where the government project happens?” I asked casually.

Bruce was able to give me an address off the top of his head, and then my three minutes were up and that would be the last I’d hear from him for weeks, probably. I checked my watch. It wasn’t quitting time yet, but by the time I’d checked out Bruce’s address, it would be. I collected my hat and coat, told Pepper not to expect me back, and headed out.

***

I’d seen a lot of science labs before, and a lot of studio backlots, and I wouldn’t have said before this that you could easily confuse the two. The place at the address Bruce had given me looked like they were setting up to film a Flash Gordon picture, but no studio security ever packed that much heat. I parked around the corner and walked down the block like a tourist trying to catch an eyeful of the next big Hollywood starlet.

I was disappointed both as a detective and as a tourist; a couple of the lab-coated guys were skinny, but they couldn’t pass for starlets. I crossed the street and came back down the block on the near side. Security didn’t give me a second glance, which told me something about their actual skills as opposed to the ominous bulges under their suit jackets. The fact that I could see the wall inside the gate booth, and the row of photographs pinned to it, told me more.

There was only one woman on the wall that I could see. Young, dark hair, dark eyes, stubborn chin. Looked a little bit like my client, to be honest. I wanted to stop and study the picture more closely, do a better job of committing it to memory, but the security guard at the gate chose that moment to notice me and it’s always a bad idea to start off on the wrong foot with the security guards, so I headed back to my car. At the angle I had parked I could keep an eye on the comings and goings at the gate. Comings I couldn’t do much about, but goings were mostly headed in my direction, and I had a vague idea of following Dr. Foster home if she came my way.

I was just about to call it a day and pay a visit to the dive across the street that had been calling my name for the past three hours when a familiar maroon Chevrolet rolled out of the parking lot and in my general direction.

I didn’t need to see their faces to know who they were, but I watched them go by anyway: Coulson at the wheel, face impassive, Barton next to him, shuffling papers, running his mouth like always. Not bad guys, as cops go, but Barton didn’t like private dicks in general, and me in particular. Which was fine. I didn’t like him either.

I thought about following them, but there wasn’t much point - they were just leaving the most interesting place they’d visited today, and I had no desire to watch Barton stuffing his face at some diner. Anyway, there was still the dive bar across the street. I’d seen more than one figure emerge from the lab only to head straight to the shadowed doorway. If I couldn’t catch Dr. Foster, maybe I could find someone who could tell me something about her.

I don’t know what time it was when I made it home, several pleasant but professionally unproductive hours later. It was late. The streetlights cast just enough of a glow in through my windows to get me through the apartment and into bed without incident, but not enough to keep me awake. Asleep or unconscious, I was out before my head hit the pillow.

It couldn’t have been long before I was woken up by a pounding on my door. It was still the middle of the night, the streetlights still glowing pale in the darkness. I snapped on the bedside light and winced. Long enough for the pleasant drunk I’d had going on earlier to fade to a throbbing headache, though.

“This had better be good,” I said as I opened the door.

Barton stuck his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels, grinning at me. “How’s Murder One, that good enough for you?” he asked.