Whatever It Takes

Chapter Sixteen

In the school shop, the smell of burning metal wafted through the air. Peter and Emma stood above the gleaming weapon that looked like something the Chitauri had spat up as Peter wailed on it with a hammer. Emma crossed her arms, "I still can't believe you took that thing. We need to call Happy, Pete." Peter slammed the hammer down again that only seemed to dent the metal as if he slammed a soup can to the floor. What the hell was this made out of? "He won't listen to us, Em," slam.

"Then lets call Tony." Slam, Peter let the hammer down again and twisted his brows in frustration. Emma wondered why she hadn't already. "He won't listen either, you know that." Peter's tongue stuck out past his lips. Something he always did when he was focused and at times even partially annoyed with a task.

Emma shifted her weight and peered over her shoulder, "We're going to get caught. Did we really have to do this during school hours?" Peter ignored her. Slam, slam. Finally, a piece of the weapon came loose. Peter pulled out a piece of metal guarding the glowing stone inside as Ned strolled up besides them. He huffed, "thanks for bailing on me," Ned complained.

"Yeah, well, something came up." Peter justified. Ned's eyes fixed on the weapon, widening slightly, "whoa, what is that?" Peter started to work around the stone, prying it with a flat headed screwdriver. "I don't know, there's some kind of a vaporizer with it," Peter explained, breaking loose another piece closer to the power source. "Nearly killed us both last night," Emma said with her eyes on the weapon as her brother hacked away at it. Ned's head turned to her for a brief second with wide eyes, "really?" he questioned, and then, as Ned does, went on one of his tangents he doesn't mean but can't seem to process first before he goes on them. "Awesome!" Ned exclaimed. Peter and Emma each shot him a look and watched as Ned thought his words over a second time.

"I mean, not awesome. Totally uncool of that guy, so scary." Ned tripped and feigned his words. After another look to his friend, Peter turned back to the weapon, leaning closer as he wedged the screwdriver back in and pried some more. "I think it's a," crack, "...power source," he concluded.

"Yeah, but it's connected to all of these microprocessors," Ned pointed to a group of wires on the weapon, "that's an inductive charging plate. That's what I use to charge my toothbrush." Emma heaved a breath from her nose, "well, if we can't use it for anything else, at least we can charge a toothbrush with it." She quipped, "but that means that whoever made this is combining some Star Trek crap with our tech." Peter shrugged, she wasn't wrong, "yeah, pretty much. Alien tech with our tech."

Ned huffed a sigh of disbelief, "That is the coolest sentence anyone has ever said," he leaned onto the table, "I just want to thank you guys for letting me be a part of your journey into this amazing-" Emma was grateful that Peter cut Ned off with a final hefty swing of the hammer to the weapon. Sparks flew following a loud clank! form the metal. The three looked behind them and at their teacher. An older man who was a year away from retirement and none the wiser stared at a book and yelled: "keep your fingers clear of the blades!" Emma wondered how many times he had yelled that in his career. And how many times someone had been on the unfortunate end of that reminder. They turned back around. The stone was finally free, still glowing like a flood light on the work table. "We've got to figure out what this thing is and who makes it."

"And try not to die doing so," Emma added. Ned didn't care about the danger of it at all. He never did. "We'll go down to the lab and run some tests," he said. He and Peter shared their handshake and agreed. Emma eyed the stone as if it were pulling her into a trance. This was until Ned turned to her and held out a fist. Emma denied it, and watched the look on Ned's face grow into that of a hurt puppy's. She almost regretted not taking the fist bump. But having nearly drowned last night and being treated like a party trick by Ned, she couldn't find it in herself to truly feel sorry.