8754/Undercurrents: Pinging on the Radar

Undercurrents: Pinging on the Radar
Date of Scene:	12 August 2019
Location:	West Farms, The Bronx
Synopsis:	Spider-Woman and Captain Quaid come across a hit on a Hook stash house. Spider-Woman takes out the bad guys in 94 seconds. She turns Captain Quaid bright red in 2.
Cast of Characters:	Frank Quaid, Spider-Woman (Drew)

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Frank Quaid has posed:
Frank is driving his unmarked black Tahoe through the West Farms area in the Bronx. He is in his usual work attire, a brown suit with his vest underneath his shirt. No extra jacket tonight since it was warm. He and Jessica Drew are coming back from meeting with an informant who claimed to have information about plasma rifles being sold in New York. It turned out to be mainly rumour and little detail to corroborate; possibly yet another crank. But sources needed to be met and handled since they occasionally gave up gold.

After his recent interactions with HR got him grilled by HR, Frank was not eager to bring her with him even though SHIELD might be interested and he ought to bring his SHIELD liaison. So instead he called Jessica, who he knew he could trust. And thankfully she was free.

"...No, I'm serious. Darcy walked onto the floor and stood in my doorway wearing this yellow mini-skirt thing, some tiny roller derby jersey and crazy hair," Frank says dryly.

"You can believe that got everyone in Team A standing up to look. And you know Darcy, she's loud, so she starts on about getting me to go out with her. I don't think I've ever been caught that flatfooted. I just wanted to get her out, so I said sure. She took me to a roller derby game, and we had Chinese. And you know, it was fine. A strange night out, but fine," Frank monologues. "But damn good thing I went back to the office after dinner. I was in front of the Deputy and HR for having relations with a subordinate at 6 am the next morning and spent two hours explaining what happened. I'd probably be suspended if I hadn't come right back in. A couple days later? She shows up in stilettos saying she's got a hotel room and wants me in it. I sent her away, but seriously. I've gotta have a chat with her."

Frank shakes his head as they cruise through the darkened streets. "She like that all the time at SHIELD?"

Spider-Woman (Drew) has posed:
"From everything I have heard from numerous sources? Yeah. It's why I interact with them as little as possible. The last raid I went on with them, she declined to assist, but instead sat in the jet petting - get this - a puppy she brought to the raid. She never got out of the jet. Sat there suckling on a lollipop and petting the puppy. I don't get it...." Jess trails off thoughtfully. "But the last guy I went out with ended up in her apartment the next day. So maybe all the rumours are true," she says with a shrug. "At least I never had to see the guy again. This is why I don't date." She smirks. "Don't think I will be volunteering for any more raids with them anytime soon, though. It's like herding cats on speed." She laughs, then adds, "The cats. Not me."

Frank Quaid has posed:
Frank looks over at Jess disbelievingly. "You've got to be... Well, depending on the guy I could see that. She comes on hard," Frank shakes his head. "Typical. Toss a dime chasing a nickel."

Frank turns right around a corner and finds himself staring at Jess's silhouette more than the road. He pushes the button to roll down his window a bit.

"Please tell me you're shitting me about SHIELD, because the idea they're as unprofessional as they seem scares me," Frank says.

Spider-Woman (Drew) has posed:
Jessica shakes her head. Her hair is down, falling in soft waves over her shoulders, and a black leather jacket is zipped up over the crimson gradient of her bodysuit beneath. "I am sure they have their strong points. Certain they're there, somewhere. But it hasn't been my experience to see one in a very long time. I feel like maybe I'm just caught up with the wrong group when I am there."

Jessica is watching Frank quietly for a long moment, before she seemingly clears her head. "And they're behaving as ridiculously as I did with Sebastion. That doesn't bode well...I was close to him before we ever found out what he is. So it was harder for me to accept that disparity. But I did. They met him as he is now, and they still fawn over him like he's a favourite pet. Maybe Darcy hasn't realized--" But Jessica cuts herself short, there. "I shouldn't be petty. I just don't understand their workings anymore. So I submit my reports and hope that clear heads prevail."

Frank Quaid has posed:
"I gave them the crim psych profile, so we can hope," Frank says. He catches Jess looking at him and turns his attention back to the road. But he cannot help looking sidelong again at the stop light.

"It's a big agency, probably same as us. You got some units who could make Sherlock Holmes look like a halfwit. And other units that'll shoot themselves in the foot before they figure out how to get their cars outta park."

The light turns green. Out of long habit, Frank clears the intersection both ways as his foot comes off the brake. He catches movement in the corner of his eye and slams on the brake again. At such low speed the SUV only jerks a little.

A grey Ford compact flies through the red light in front of Frank and Jess, left to right. It screeches on the brakes on the other side of the intersection in front of a decript looking little white and green rancher with barred doors and windows. Two young men get of the backseats of the car. One starts shooting at the front windows of the house. The other lights a molotov and gets ready to throw it at the front of the house.

"Well shit," Frank says dryly. "You were right. Should've taken Wilson then 43rd."

Spider-Woman (Drew) has posed:
Jessica is already out of her jacket and slipping out of her boots and jeans, before the first shot is fired. She opens the door of the SUV and glances back at Frank. "Or maybe we shouldn't have," she replies. "Stay safe. Call go backup." And with that she fires off a web toward the rooftop on the left-hand corner across the intersection and slingshot herself atop that roof, crouching and slipping on her mask. "You got me?" she asks into her comm, hoping that his channel is open. She thwips off another web toward the guy with the cocktail and gives a firm jerk, pulling him toward the street and away from the house.

Frank Quaid has posed:
"On it," Frank says about calling backup. He is a little slow on the draw as he watches Jess dress down and web off.

"Damn it Frank, grow up," he mutters to himself. He puts the SUV in reverse and backs onto the sidewalk around the from the action.

"Yep, got you," he calls back to Jess on the truck radio. He dials dispatch with one hand and puts it on speaker. "Calling now. You need a hand out there?"

Out front of the crack shack, the young man with the molotov lobs it toward the house. His friend keeps shooting.

Inside the house there is shouting in Portugese. A shotgun barrel pokes around the edge of the window and fires blindly out front, well wide of the mark.

Spider-Woman (Drew) has posed:
Jessica takes a running start and leaps high into the air toward the lower roof across the street. She lands on hands and feet on the back side of that roof, on hands and feet, and creeps toward the peak to peer over. Below, she can see the man with the gun shooting at the house, and she fires off two webs toward him. One at his gun hand and the other at the opposite shoulder. She gives a hard jerk just as they should make contact, an attempt to yank him up onto the roof with her surprise attack. "Gonna try to secure these two and then breach the house," she says to Frank on her comm.

Frank Quaid has posed:
"Of course you are," Frank says to himself.

"Copy," he says over the air. Frank finishes calling in backup and leaves the phone on for updates. Out of morbid curiousity he starts the timer on his watch with a smirk.

The man with the gun out front has no idea what is coming. The webs hit him and he goes flying as Jess intends, yelling all the way.

"What the fuck?" molotov says and spins in a circle, utterly clueless as to where his friend went.

The shotgun in the house goes off again, just as poorly aimed. From the sounds of it there three men in there, and one is hurt.

Spider-Woman (Drew) has posed:
Jessica webs up the gunman, and affixes him to the roof, kicking his gun up out of his hand and catching it, then gives the same treatment to Molotov, pulling him aboard the roof to join his friend. But she does at least web them down several feet apart so they can't help each other out. "Watch your goddamned language," she asides to them. "There's a lady present."

With weapons separately secured, Jess drops silently down off the roof.

"Stay covered," she says quietly into her comm. "I'm gonna stealth in the back, so they're likely to flush out the front, once I make my presence known." She reaches up and simply rips the bars off the back door and kicks it in with a catastrophic crash. "Don't shoot, I'm here to help!" she quips, then flattens against the wall outside the back door.

Frank Quaid has posed:
"Copy. Twenty four seconds so far," Frank says over the radio.

Frank shakes his head. "Twenty four," seconds he mutters. "Superheroes..."

He puts the Tahoe in gear and hits the gas. Frank pulls wide into the intersection and turns back to the right. The emergency lights on the truck flip on. The driver of the grey Ford looks over too late. The big SUV T-bones the car, not hard, but then accelerates through it. The car is driven over the curb into a street light. Frank drops the truck into park and uses the bullet proof door and glass of his truck for cover. The driver in the car is wide eyed and stuck, with his doors pinned closed.

"Hands on the roof," Frank orders. The driver, a really young guy from the looks of it, quickly complies. Frank turns his attention mostly to the front door.

Someone is still yelling in pain inside the house. All of the voices sound like they are in the front room. When the bars are ripped off and the door is kicked in with a bang, there are is definitely some surprise and commotion. The first reaction of the guy with the shotgun is to pump a round through the wall between the front room and the little kitchen. Most of the pellets stick in the wall, the rest pepper the sink and window to the side of the door. It also sounds like someone is working very quickly to unlock the front door.

Spider-Woman (Drew) has posed:
"Shotgun Steve has terrible aim," Jess tells Frank as she crawls up the wall to the soffit and in the back door onto the ceiling. "Sounds like they're incoming....er...outcoming." Her voice is hushed and breathy into her comm. She carefully slinks along the ceiling through the house, making haste toward that front room until she can peek into it upside down from the kitchen ceiling.

Frank Quaid has posed:
Shotgun Steve, a heavily tattooed latinx man with MD12 writ large on the back of his bald head, is making his way very carefully into the little dining room toward the other end of the galley kitchen. Another obviously MD12 man is on the floor saying what are probably heinous things in Portugese while he tries to stop the bleeding in his left leg. From the fact he is still conscious, it is probably nothing more than a flesh wound.

A tall skinny Caucasian man is just opening the front door. He gets the gate open and sees the Ford crunched against the lamppost and the blue and red lights.

"Aww, shit," he says. "Fucking cops!"

He turns and bolts in the opposite direction. Which happens to be right toward Jess.

"What the fuck?!" he yells and falls over backwards when he sees the masked face looking into the room... From the ceiling!!

Spider-Woman (Drew) has posed:
"Remind me to buy you guys a dictionary for Christmas," she says as she reaches down with one hand to fire a blast of green electricity at the thin man's chest. Following the venom blast into the room, Jess plasters the one who was shot in the leg with a net of webbing to keep him immobilized.

She follows the green blast with another blast toward the thin man, this time webbing, as she looks to figure out where Shotgun Steve has buggered off to. "Three in here, one took fire, nonlethal," she tells Frank. "Needs paramedics. Ah, heck, might as well have them at the ready for all three."

Frank Quaid has posed:
"Copy," Frank says. The driver of the Ford starts to lower his hands. Frank glowers at him. The hands go back up to the roof. Sirens are approaching from a couple of directions. Frank tells the dispatcher to send paramedics to hold a block out for three injured men.

"Sir, the lieutenant wants to know if you went in there alone," the dispatcher asks over the speaker of Frank's phone.

Frank snorts. "Of course not, it's dangerous in there," Frank retorts. "Spider-Woman is in there. I'm just watching."

There is bit of laughter in the background that comes over the line.

Slim is stunned by the venom blast and falls to the floor. Both he and the MD12 man with the leg wound are easy pickings. Jess can hear the footsteps of Shotgun Steve trying to run quietly through the kitchen on the other side of the wall from her to sneak up behind Jess from the way she came into the room.

Spider-Woman (Drew) has posed:
Jessica, upon hearing the footsteps, scrambles quietly up the wall to the ceiling and begins to draw upon the energy in that surface, preparing a sizeable venom blast for Shotgun Steve, the second he comes through the door, as she drops down onto him and puts it into him point-blank.

Frank Quaid has posed:
Shotgun Steve rounds the corner from the kitchen into the front room ready to lay waste.

"Shit, shit, don't shoot!" manages the thin man on the ground, still groggy. The injured MD12 man freezes.

Whatever Shotgun Steve was going to do next is lost to the world. Jessica drops on him with a venom blast. Shotgun Steve goes down like a ton of bricks. The gun is stuck under the man poking out either side but he is completely senseless.

"94 seconds," Frank says on the radio. "Not bad. I could do it in 92," he deadpans.

"You get that dispatch?" Frank asks.

"Yessir, canceling tactical.... Sir? Tango 4-3 says to tell Spider-Woman she cheats."

"10-4, dispatch. I'll get /right/ on that. Tell 4-3 when they show me a better time I'll buy them a round," Frank replies.

Spider-Woman (Drew) has posed:
Jessica webs up Shotgun Steve and kicks his gun away. "All three are neutralized, and I'm coming out," Jessica warns Frank and anyone else on the channel by this time. She stands in the doorway for a moment, looking out at Frank with a grin, then when she is sure the three are definitely staying down, she steps outside and trots over to the truck and hops inside, stripping off her mask. "Honey, I'm hooome."

Frank Quaid has posed:
Frank just looks across the front of the truck cabin from where he is standing and blinks.

"Sir? Can you... Repeat that?" the dispatcher says over Frank's speaker phone.

Frank closes his eyes and bites back the laugh. "Ahem. 10-22, dispatch, scene secure, I'll be on radio," Frank says and reaches over to turn off his phone.

"You're almost as bad as Lewis!" he quips. "You know what kind of rep I'm gonna have? After all these years keeping it respectable," Frank says with a smirk.

Spider-Woman (Drew) has posed:
Jessica grins as she slides into the seat lt beside Frank and shuts the door, slipping off her mask. She leans over and says softly to Frank, hopefully so the phone can't pick her up, "The difference between Lewis and me is, you like it when I do it." She presses a soft kiss against his cheek and grins. "Let's go home..."