“There, you can see it from here.” Steven Strange pointed to a brownish shape across the hall.
“Alright, I'll take a look. And you're sure you didn't see who left it?” Luke Cage pointed behind himself towards mystery shape in question.
“No, I was with a customer.”
“Me, I was the customer, Hi Luke.” A very familiar mall patron appeared from behind Strange.
“Hey Pete. How's it going? No Ned today?”
“Nah he's at a dentists appointment, I'm okay though. Are we gonna go see what's on the floor?”
“Did any of your coworkers see who left it on the floor?” Luke ignored Peter's question. Strange thumbed beind him at a white haired man deep in one-sided conversation with some poor soul.
“Ah ha. So that's a no.”
“Are we gonna go see what is on the floor now?”
“We?” Luke asked.
“Yeah!” Pete nodded. Strange gave Luke a 'he's yours now' sort of shrug and retreated back into Boardgame Barrister. So Luke Cage and Peter Parker made their way over to the mysterious shape on the floor.
“No Shuri today?” Luke asked as soon as he was close enough to see what it actually was.
“Nope, she's doing something with her mom-are those WORMS?”
“Yeah, looks like it.” Luke got on his radio, “hey Ross, wanna send one of you guys to the Barnes 'n' Noble end of the mall, there's a, uh, a pile of worms in the middle of the hallway that needs cleaning?” Everett Ross himself arrived before his staff. He was a short sort of nervous man who looked shorter and more nervous standing between Luke and a mysterious pile of worms.
“I believed you, I just wish I didn't believe you. Does anybody know how they wound up here?” Ross waved over the stout sullen faced woman with the cart. “Topaz if you woudn't mind taking care of that please. Do your best?” He asked, she just looked at him.
“Nope, the tip came from Boardgame, and I didn't want to involve Hank if he wasn't already. I can check in with Odinson's but I don't know how far we're going to get there.” Luke crossed his arms and tried not to laugh at what was going on behind Ross. Peter was having a harder time keeping a straight face.
“Wouldn't hurt to try...might hurt to try. Depending on who's on the clock it could go better. Good luck. WHAT are you doing?” He had turned around to find Topaz just spraying the pile with cleaner.
“Okay Odinsons's lets go.” Peter was openly laughing. The family matriarch Freya was there to greet them when they came in. She had run the store for years with her husband until he had passed away and then their children had stepped in to help their mother. In reality it was a lot more complicated than that, but it's too much story to inject into this one.
“Hello m'am, how are you today?” Luke greeted the woman behind the counter.
“Wonderful thank you for asking Luke. What brings you into the store? Hello Peter.”
“Hi ma'm” He waved.
“Well we were wondering if you had seen anything weird out near the doors today.”
“I didn't see anything, but I spent most of my time in back doing inventory, let me check with Hela.” Luke and Peter exchanged a look as Freya headed towards the back.
“Hela, Hel did you see anything unusual out in the mall today? - - There is a security officer here wondering. - - No I don't know why but you could be polite and come talk to him. She'll be right out.” She smiled at them. Hela stalked out of the back looking every bit Edgar Allen Poe's nightmare.
“I saw nothing more than the usual demographic.” She was an imposing woman, fierce and gaunt, and just about tall enough to look Luke in the eyes. She drew herself up a little taller. Peter might have slid just a little behind the officer.
“Thank you for your help.” Luke would not be intimidated.
“Mother, there is a pile of worms in the hallway! Hello Luke! Hello Peter!” Thor was there for the shift change. He kissed his mother on the cheek and headed into the back room.
“You must be here about the worms.” Loki was close behind him, he too kissed his mother and headed into the back.
The Odinson offspring were a sliding scale. On the one side was Thor, the big affable doofus who could easily hurt a fly but he'd rather befriend it. His polar opposite was his exquisitely terrifying older sister Hela. If looks could kill she'd have quite a body count. Right in the middle in pretty much every sense but birth order, was the youngest, Loki. More clever than Thor and less threatenting than Hela they were sometimes too charming for their own good. It was universally agreed however they were a very good looking family, even Hela had her fans.
“Well, thanks for letting us know. C'mon Pete, we'll let them change shift.”
“Cage, you're overdue for your break, go take lunch.” Fury himself roamed the halls of the mall with the rest of his staff, he caught them on their way out. “Hey kid.”
“Hi Officer Fury.” Peter wasn't going to press the mystery worms issue in front of Fury but he figured he could gather some information while Luke was on break.
Since they had already checked with the Odinsons, Pym's was out of the question, and Barnes & Noble was a little too big to canvas on his own, he'd try asking a few of the stores upstairs. He didn't know anybody in the weird B12 store clinic thing so he skipped them and went right to Spencer's.
“Hi Gamora I have a question.”
“Hi Peter, what can I talk you out of buying today?”
“Nothing I'm doing some investigating.”
“Oh, investigating, investigating what?” She leaned on the countertop.
“Well that leads me to believe you don't know anything about what I was going to ask you about.” He leaned on the counter across from her.
“I swear all you Peters are the same, just ask me your question.” She rolled her eyes but still gave him a smile.
“So there was a big old pile of live worms on the floor by the doors. Did you see who left them?”
“A pile of worms?”
“Yep, me and Luke were looking into it, but he's on lunch.” He traced a pattern on the counter top with his finger.
“A pile of live worms, on the floor by the doors?”
“Okay a little further into the hallway by Barnes & Noble, but yeah. I thought since you guys overlook that area a little you might have seen something.”
“Nope, sorry. You can try Drax just on the other side of the escalator.” She shook her head.
“I don't think I've met him.”
“Just tell him I sent you. He's probably bored and could use something to break it up.”
“Okay cool, thanks, I'll go check with him.” He waved goodbye and made his way just a little further down the mall. Peter hesitantly entered the nutritional store he had never really had much need to visit before.
“Hello? I'm looking for Drax I guess?”
“I am Drax, can I help you?” There was a very large man behind the desk in back. He didn't get up to greet him but he did fold his hands professionally on the desktop.
“Yeah, uh somebody or some-thing? Left a bunch of worms on the first floor like in the middle of the hallway. And I was checking to see if anybody knew anything about it. I visited Gamora and she said to come and ask you.” Peter gestured around the store but didn't really move any farther in.
“I did not, I am sorry I can't help you.”
“Oh, that's okay. It's not a big deal nobody got hurt or anything. I'm just trying to pass the time you know?” Peter didn't really have much else to say but Drax was looking at him like he expected him to to keep talking so he just went with it.
“Yes.”
“Okay well, thanks, have a good night man.” Peter wasn't scared of Drax, honestly, but he didn't have either of his usual social buffers to keep the conversation going.
"Thank you for visiting.”
He thought of going back to ask Gamora what was up with that guy, but he had more places to stop. Although it wasn't at the best angle he thought he would check with Bifrost to see if they saw anything. Even if Clint wasn't there that day the store manager/resident optometrist was a pretty friendly guy.
“Peter Parker I presume?” He was greeted from across the store when he walked in.
“Hi Mr. Heimdall.” Peter made his way back to the optometry portion of the store.
“What brings you to Bifrost?”
“This is going to sound kind of weird, but did you see anybody doing anything unusual by the doors earlier?”
“Can't say that I did, why do you ask?”
“I think by now it's a long story.”
“I have time.” the man motioned to his empty store and then to one of the customer chairs. Pete told him the whole thing. “I've worked in this mall for a long time and can't say I've heard any other stories with live worms in them. I don't know anything for now but I'll keep my eyes open.” He winked.
“Thanks!”
“Sounds like you might have missed Kraven's, if you want to check there. It's right across from Boardgame.” Heimdall called to Peter on his way out.
“Oh yeah! Good call!” Peter was going to check in with the Mayhem crew but they looked a little busy so he headed right to Kraven's. He wasn't sure if he wanted spooky rat-guy Marc to be there or not. On the one hand he had already met the guy. On the other hand, he was super strange.
“Hey boy. I can't sell you a hooka unless I can check your ID!”
“I'm not here for a hooka?” One look at this other employee and Peter wished Marc was there instead. The store was not large or even particularly well organized so there was really no way to be a reasonable distance from the counter.
“Are you here for a fake ID? I can do that too, don't tell the boss.” The ukempt man behind the counter howled in laughter.
“No, I just wanted to know if you saw who spilled the worms in the hallway?”
“Playing gumshoe are you? Well I'm not a squealer! Snitches get stitches!” The man pounded his fists on the counter for emphasis and the supposed antiquities rattled.
“I don't really think anybody is going to get in real trouble over some worms? We just sort of want to know the context?” Peter backed away.
'Tell you what, we can bargan! You scratch my back I'll scratch yours!” He came out from behind the counter.
“Um. I think I'm good thanks.”
“It'll be easy, for the low low price of 10 dollars American you can buy my mixtape. And then we can talk about who did what in the mall when.”
“Uh, nobody wants your terrible terrible music Ulysses.” A highly distinct voice cut off the too-eager weirdo.
“This is between me and the boy En.”
“He just came in to ask you about the, uh worms in the walkway not to your sound-clown, spotty-fy, kazam, or whatever, C'mon Pete, come here. We'll finish our conversation about the merits and de-merits of legacy editions.” The Boardgame employee colloquially known as "The Grandmaster" put his arm around Peter's shoulders to steer him out of the store.
“Thanks, he was - “
“What you kids call 'extra' “ He made air quotes.
“I was going to say terrifying, but extra works.” Just then Pete got a text. “Oh, May, I gotta go, thanks again man!”
“Hey Honey, how was your day? Anything interesting happen?” His aunt greeted him when he got in the car.
“Well I never did find out who left the worms.”