590/Fashion Crimes

Fashion Crimes
Date of Scene:	18 March 2020
Location:	2020 Spring Fashion Show, Upper East Side, NYC
Synopsis:	A would-be terrorist drops a bomb. Spidey catches the bomb...and a Looker catches the terrorist.
Cast of Characters:	Lia Briggs, Peter Parker

---

Lia Briggs has posed:
Pricey champagne and hors d'oeuvres. The sound of cameras clicking so rapidly it's almost like a living thing. Beautiful young women walking back and forth in ridiculous clothes while doing their best emotionless expressions. Loud music being played on a stereo somewhere to keep anyone from being able to think too much. It may not be fashion week, but New York is never shy of designers with wares to show off to a public ranging from adoring to sarcastic.

Out among the crowd, mingling with journalists and photographers and socialites, Lia is perfectly in her element. A smile here, a word there, a subtle reminder that one of her proteges is up on stage tonight -- all the things she can do to make sure the coverage is positive and that her girl soaks up at least her rightful share of it. Watching her, you could almost believe she doesn't miss the catwalk herself. Almost.

Peter Parker has posed:
Emil Ah-hazad Jackson cleared the fence with the backpack, smiling harshly. He is pretty sure he lost the Webhead in the park. He had to have gotten enough of a lead on him.
He looked at the large auditorium, the pretty lights, the beautiful women, the important people. Tonight, he was going to change that...in the same way that a spoiled child trashes the living of the house his parents are visiting.

LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT WHAT I CAN DO!

The fact that this will be the last night of his life matters little to him. In fact, it gives him added speed to his feet as he pulls the tab and starts the timer. Two minutes to glory.
"At last, the whole world will know my name..." he panted.

"Yeah...MUD."

His eyes widened. That was NOT far away. Fifty feet...forty...

Lia Briggs has posed:
The fashion industry is known for its self-absorption, and they live up to it today. So many people are focused on the beautiful and the damned that one more interloper, even an inveterately hostile one carrying some sort of destructive device, passes almost unnoticed. Oh, a few people at the edges of things notice Jackson heading this way and a few of them even wonder aloud if this is maybe the designer's way of spicing up the show a little, throwing in some unexpected designs, maybe even a touch of the dramatic. Clever! It's been done, but then so have most things. It might even be worth a line in the VOGUE writeup --

And then there're a few who really believe this is a genuine problem. One of whom is Lia, because you can't be thinking THE WHOLE WORLD WILL KNOW MY NAME that loudly without alerting any passing telepath in the neighborhood, even one who may be better-known for other qualities. She's not ruffled. Looking alarmed would be bad publicity. She puts her untouched glass of champagne down without looking to make sure someone will collect it, excuses herself from the conversation, and moves swiftly toward the newcomer, the crowd parting around her without being conscious of what it does.

Peter Parker has posed:
Thirty...Twenty...TEN...

And then the webline impacts the backpack and PULLS. His arms swing back to allow the backpack to come off, because otherwise both arms will be dislocated. His forward momentum is slowed but his lower body hasn't gotten the memo yet and so his legs go out from under him and he lands flat on his back.

The red-and-blue fashion disaster catches the backpack, unzipping it...

Oh, crap.

01:25

Lia Briggs has posed:
Resplendent in a blood-red outfit -- including a corset that would fit right into Emma Frost's wardrobe if it were thoroughly bleached, although fortunately the rest of her clothes are more modest -- Lia walks briskly toward the unfortunate perpetrator and, of course, the nice young man who's in the process of disarming him. Fortunately, not literally. She spares the former a momentary glance as he gets suddenly yanked backward and hits the ground hard; he won't be any trouble until he figures out how to breathe again, at least. The latter warrants a more genial nod, a dash of that oh so famous smile, a stylish cocking of the head. "Everything all right?" she asks, having the good manners not to attempt to read his mind and find out without asking. Some things just aren't done!

Peter Parker has posed:
Spider-Man, the bane of New York if J. Jonah Jameson could be believed, looked up at her. As he did, she could see what he was holding.

It was your garden-variety backpack, but the flap that was opened wide revealed a chunk of ugly something, nestled behind jars of nails and needles and ball bearings and a large timer with 01:15 in red numbers, counting down.

Mary Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?
With terrorist cells and living Hell and dead bodies all in a row...

Spider-Man dropped to his knee, examining the backpack bomb. It was an ugly piece of work. Stable, easy to bounce around, until the timer hit zero. And then Mr. Bomb was no longer your friend.

"I have to disarm it..." Spider-Man whispered.

Lia Briggs has posed:
Oh. Oh, /dear/. Now that's a real problem.

"I don't think I can contain the whole thing safely," Lia says first. She's not worried yet because, after all, there's still more than a minute to go before Boom Time arrives! Nothing to sweat about. That's an eternity in superhero terms, right? Right.

Of course, it would help to have a plan. Which, right now, she doesn't. So she goes for the next best thing, crouching down beside the fallen terrorist and seizing his shirt collar to shake him awake. If he /can/ be awakened; he may well be too concussed or unconscious to be roused. "Whatever you do," she says directly to him, "don't think about how to disarm the bomb." Of course, if he either can't be awakened or doesn't know, things are going to get awkward. Fast.

Glancing aside toward Spider-Man, the redhead asks, "Do you know how to? Or should we all be running?"

Peter Parker has posed:
Emil looked up at her, grinning savagely. "You'll never manage it in time. They will VENERATE ME."

His brain is entertaining a thousand dreams of infamy, of glory in the afterlife, of dusky women giving themselves to him. They all have his little sister's face, too. That's a deep problem.

Spider-Man is dealing with his own deep problem. He doesn't glance up at the people not forty feet beyond, smiling, pointing, admiring beautiful women. Because he is thinking...
...and a bold plan comes to him.

He grasps one thick wire with the intent to pull it. INSTANTLY his Spider-Sense is alive with alarm.

01:00

The next one. Again with the harsh buzz of imminent danger.
Then the next...no good. The next one...no good.

00:45

Lia Briggs has posed:
There's patience, and then there's being /too/ patient. "Listen, you," Lia says to Emil, "if that thing goes off, I'm going to make sure you're here to survive it. And /no one/ will venerate you then. You'll never get to the afterlife. You'll be trapped here. Forever. And I /will/ make it unpleasant."

And she snarls. She makes sure to display the fangs to full effect, although it's also worth mentioning that she does it with her head tilted in /just/ the right way to look like a poster from a vampire movie if someone were to be able to photograph her. Old habits die hard.

Peter Parker has posed:
Emil is suddenly filled with terror. He had been told stories of the Algul, but he thought they were stories for weak minds, and now he was at the mercy of one. And then the brave soldier decides to lighten his burden by loosening his bladder in response.

00:35

Danger...danger...danger...he was running out of wires, how was he going to...
He stopped. His fingers were gripping one wire, with every intention to pull it...

...and the Spider-Sense was dead silent.
It was...the best of all the bad ideas...

00:20

Spider-Man YANKED the wire free.
The timer stopped at 00:18...held there...and then went mercifully dark.
Spider-Man yanked ALL the other wires. Nothing.
His entire body sagged as his legs went rubbery and he plopped on his butt.
He didn't care. The bomb was deader than disco.

Lia Briggs has posed:
That's one way to get Lia to drop you. Hopefully, whoever takes advantage of it is ready to get dropped straight on their head again, since that is exactly what happens this time around. "Oh, for heaven's sake," she says, disgusted, and also presumably unaware of the irony. "So much for that idea," she says, and turns back toward Spider-Man just as he's about to pull out the first wire. "Do you have any idea--"

Even if you'd be fine post-explosion -- well, post-explosion and a few glasses of frosty type O negative -- being blown up is not the sort of thing one looks forward to. So, were anyone watching, they'd get the chance to see Lia's famous face screwed up into an 'oh damn this is going to hurt' wince for /just/ a second or two. Luckily, one of the two possible observers is focused on the bomb, and the other is probably unconscious. And then, a moment later, there's a wire out, and she can breathe again. If she needs to breathe. It's the thought that counts. "Oh. Well. Good work," she says, searching for the right words and not yet finding them.

Peter Parker has posed:
Spider-Man looks up at her, and...wow. Those are some LONG canines. The look along with the dress and hair and...everything else. She's a looker, all right.

But right now, any worries about having thoughts unbecoming to a guy about to go on a date with a Kryptonian are baseless. Even fear is off the table. The endorphin rush of relief submerges everything else.

He looks over to the crowd just beyond the curtain. No one, apart from him, the vampiress, and the would-be suicide bomber, knows what almost happened. And that...is truly grand.
Spider-Man pushes the deactivated bomb away from him. "...Thanks, Elvira..." he breathes, feeling cold sweat giving him a sudden chill.

Lia Briggs has posed:
Even the handful of people who were more interested in where Lia was going than in what was going on at the show gave up almost immediately once it became clear that she was just taking it upon herself to act as an impromptu security guard. Someone might get a shot of Spider-Man -- there are lots of photographers, after all, and some might even have contacts at the Bugle -- but that's just opportunism. They're all rapidly going back to their gala in happy ignorance.

Lia, meanwhile, is already straightening herself up, not that the experience really did much to muss her. Hers is a face likely to be all too familiar to any avid perusers of Victoria's Secret catalogs or Sports Illustrated swimsuit issues from the mid-twenty-teens, even if the fangs weren't really a thing at the time. "Lia," she corrects, though without rancor. "You're welcome, although you seem to have managed all right without me. Nothing broken?"

Peter Parker has posed:
Spider-Man sighs, then shrugs. "Just a few bruises, a heart rate about as high as my IQ, but otherwise I'm tip-top." He stands up, then points an arm at Emil and plants his body to the ground with a jet of webbing. "Stay."

He looks at Lia, but he doesn't know her from Adam. He has no interest in lingerie, sports, or fashion. That's MJ's wheelhouse. Unless she has showed up in an issue of POPULAR MECHANICS or WIRED, she's a complete stranger, and it shows. No lengthy looks, although you can't tell much from a mask. He's not moving into personal-space range, and his posture suggests only mild interest.

"Well, Lia, you might want to call the non-emergency number for the cops, but also tell them to notify the bomb squad for disposal purposes." He tilts his head. "You...don't seem to be too unsettled by this. Should I be worried about the whole fangs thing?"

Lia Briggs has posed:
Unlikely. Singularly unlikely. Lia in POPULAR MECHANICS, that is. She does, at least, have the whole vaguely bored expression of the professionally photographed down perfectly, though. Which is a pity -- she'd look better without it -- but at least bodes well for the personal space thing remaining comfortable for everyone involved.

"I'll have Sierra call them," she agrees, not detailing whether Sierra is her personal assistant, boy/girlfriend, security service, or something else entirely. A glance down at Emil and she applies a psychic shock just in case he was getting any ideas about disrupting the event with yelling. "It's not my first terrorist experience, so I thought it'd be more helpful to ... well, be helpful, instead of running around and screaming. And no, not unless you feel like following in /his/ footsteps. Lucky for him I've already eaten tonight."

Peter Parker has posed:
Following in his footsteps? MAN, the press he's getting sounds like it could be worse than he thought it was. "Riiight. Well, I'll hang around behind the curtain until the cops show, and then I'm putting on my boogie shoes."

No sense scaring the Beautiful People.

Spidey looked around again, then at a glimpse of the stage through the curtain. MJ would be at home up there, he was sure. His posture settles into a peering stance, looking at the stage for one long moment, before looking back at Lia. He may not know that face, but he doubts he will ever forget it from this point forward.

Because teeth.

Lia Briggs has posed:
"I'm sure no one'll mind a bit," Lia says. Because none of them will be paying attention. She doesn't mention that, though. "Can I have someone bring you a glass of champagne while you wait? Canape?" she offers. No sense not being accommodating to someone who just saved a whole passel of lives, after all.

She's attentive, even a little curious, watching him closely despite her veneer of celebrity vapidness. One thought's strong enough that she catches a glimpse of it even without going fishing. "My goodness," she says, surprised. "What a lovely face." Wait, who's she talking about? Oh, well; she's smiling, at least, although this time without showing her teeth. "Sorry. Couldn't help it. Does she model?"

Peter Parker has posed:
Spider-Man blinks. "Uhm, no. No champagne. No snacks, sorry. I don't think I could even AFFORD what the hor d'oeuvres here cost. I..."

He blinks. How did she...? Who was she...?
He blurted out the first thought that came to mind. "She's...she could." Yeah. MJ could. She had that...that star power. That charisma.

So how the devil did this woman guess? Unless it wasn't a guess, and she knew. And if she KNEW...

Ah, geez, he had to get out of here FAST.

"Listen, it's been swell, but the swelling's gone down, and I think I hear sirens..." Spider-Man turned and spotted a good place to put a webline, firing one to hit the top of the tall fence. "I'm just going to get out of your hair now."

Lia Briggs has posed:
She laughs merrily, shaking her head. "I didn't mean I'd /sell/ you some," she says. "It's the least we could do, after all, and you've probably not idea how much they'll throw away at the end of the night anyway. But please yourself! Though if it's all the same I'll have someone leave a tray out just in case. It gets cold clinging to the tops of buildings."

But then he's preparing to leave. And the tantalizing prospect that is being able to profit from Mary Jane Watson's potential modeling career will go with him. So, rather than offer a friendly good-bye or any other sort of gesture, she goes right after it: "Tell her to call Lia! Call Lia and say that Emil sent her!" Peter probably has no idea who that is. But MJ? That's a much better bet!

Peter Parker has posed:
Spider-Man looks back. He heard what she said. And in time, he'll take her advice. But right now, the dangerous woman is scaring him.
He pulls and launches himself skyward, clearing the fence easily and landing on the side of the building beyond it...and then runs along the side of the building as if it were level ground before springing off of it and swinging away on another webline.

When the police show up a couple of minutes later, only Lia and Emil know that he had ever been there. No pictures, no cameras, no selfies.

Just another working-class superhero on the fringes of the Beautiful People.