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Things are going pretty damn great the past few months, Ford thinks as he sets the needle down. He steps back, drifts over to the couch as the first notes of Frank Sinatra filter out of the old phonograph. Settles in with his book.
He glances up about halfway through side-A as an explosion wracks the house. Returns to his book when there’s no follow-up. Gets up when the record ends, leaving the distant sound of Anton’s techno blaring from the workshop loud enough to rattle the windows clear on the other side of the Estate. Flips the record and settles in for side-B.
He barely gets two songs in before another explosion shakes his molars, followed by two more in rapid succession.
He sighs, dog-ears his page and sets the book on the coffee table before making his way to the workshop. Picks up a fire extinguisher on his way.
The pounding techno cuts out abruptly, just as he starts down the steps. Anton’s on the phone when he walks in.
“Oh, nothing much,” Anton says, phone cradled between his ear and his shoulder as he hits the last remnants of the fire with a few short bursts from an extinguisher. “What? No, definitely not. You’re hearing things, Phil. Must be going senile in your old age.”
“You good?” Ford asks.
“Yeah, all good in here,” Anton says, swapping his shoulder for his hand and heaving the extinguisher onto the worktop behind him. “All under control— what? People say that all the time when there’s actually nothing to worry about. I think you’re just biased.”
Anton makes a face at whatever Phil says next.
“…fair enough,” he says. “Okay, yeah, I sorta… blew some stuff up. Yes, I was wearing proper safety equipment.”
Anton’s wearing a t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers. His safety goggles are clear on the other side of the workshop, along with every other piece of PPE he owns and never uses. Some of it still has its tags on.
“You are? Yeah, yeah we should grab coffee— I know this great place off highway nine, just North of Tarrytown. One o’clock work for you? Ugh, fine, old man. We can go at eight. That’s beside the point,” Anton rolls his eyes. “Alright, see you then. Don’t get dead. I’ll do my best.”
He hangs up, pockets his phone.
“Self-heating hot pockets were a bad idea,” he says in way of explanation.
“Told you,” Ford says, setting his extinguisher next to Anton’s. “Why’d you let Clint talk you into trying?”
“Talk me into—? No, this was my brain child, thanks. Clint had nothing to do with it. He gets no credit for this,” Anton grabs a shovel, uses it to pick up the still-smoking hot pocket. “Except as a consultant, because I couldn’t decide which fillings to use for my prototype. Think I can pin this on him for insisting I put pineapple in there?”
“Probably not,” Ford holds the door open, follows Anton up the stairs and out into the driveway. “Are you just gonna leave that out here?”
“Yes, I’m going to leave a highly reactive, potentially unstable frozen handheld pizza on our driveway. I think it could really use a giant hole, tie the whole yard together,” Anton deadpans, dumping it onto the gravel. “I just wanted it out of the workshop while I grabbed a lead box from the garage. You want that thing detonating in there again, unsupervised?”
“You could’ve sent me to grab the box,” Ford says. “Or had me watch the bomb pocket while you grabbed one. What was Phil calling about?”
“Whatever, ancient history,” Anton says, leaning on the shovel. “He’s in town for a few days, lands late tonight. Asked if I wanted to grab coffee in the morning, or something. I was thinking I’d finally return LOLA— just pull the pin already and find out how pissed he is I fucked with his dad’s car.”
“Phil Coulson isn’t going to be mad you gave him a flying convertible,” Ford says. “Pretty much every Agent that’s been around long enough to have worked with him has at least one story about his retro spy gadget collection. Guy’s a nut for that kind of crap, and you know it.”
“Yeah, but it’s—” Anton sighs, glaring down at the bomb pocket. “He rebuilt that car with his dad. She was all he had left of him. And then I got her dumped in the Pacific Ocean, and just… threw out the engine that they spent Phil’s entire childhood putting together.”
“You didn’t do jack shit. Killian’s the one who bombed the Malibu house. And the engine was unsalvageable, you said so yourself,” Ford reminds him. “She’s still the same car, other than that. He’ll love her.”
“Yeah, I dunno,” Anton says, tapping the tip of the shovel against the ground. “Maybe. Probably. I’ll find out in the morning, I guess.”
He taps the shovel again a few more times, expression pensive.
“I’m gonna go try again. I think I know what I did wrong,” he says, and wanders off. Taking the shovel with him.
“Bomb pocket disposal first,” Ford calls after him. Anton halts, pivots on his heels.
“Damn it. I knew I was forgetting something,” he says. “Alright, let’s go.”
He scoops the bomb pocket back up and strikes out across the grounds, holding it as far in front of him as possible. Ford strolls after behind, hands in his pockets, wondering how the hell he wound up here.
Not the bomb pocket thing— he’s been in weirder situations. Like the time he’d spent three hours trying to explain to the Boston police department why it wasn’t his fault the pub he’d been drinking in had broken out into a riot after the barstools decided to get up and walk away on their own. Technically it had been his fault, but how was he supposed to know that trying to turn water into beer was going to tip the local entropy into chaos? Anyway, point is— ridiculous bullshit like this has been happening to him his entire life.
Which, he supposes, could explain the other half of the situation. Anton’s the long-presumed-dead, long-lost son of Ford’s dad’s employer and lifelong best friend. Put it that way, it only makes sense they’d cross paths, fall in love.
Things have been pretty damn great, he thinks. He’d joined SHIELD as an official Agent, been reassigned from his duties as Anton’s handler to general-duty-slash-Avengers-liason, moved back to the Estate with Anton, and… frankly, just gotten back to how things were before Zemo made his escape. Except, since Anton’s finally realized he’s been head over heels for Ford this whole time, with the added bonus of sex. Really, really great sex.
Anton’s obliviousness had been agonizing at times, sure. Frequently aggravating. But mostly just entertaining to watch.
He’s the smartest guy Ford’s ever met, and yet— it took him two years to figure out what everyone else had been able to see from day one. It’s kind of endearing, in a weird way. But maybe Ford’s just generally endeared by him.
“Get the door for me?” Anton asks, drawing to a halt a few feet away from the garage.
Ford pulls the chain to lift the door, pinning it in place once it reaches the top. Wonders if Anton’s ever going to get around to replacing it with an automatic opener, or if he should just call somebody to do it himself.
“Thanks,” Anton says, pressing a quick kiss to Ford’s cheek as he walks by. Ford’s heart skips a beat as it always does, even three months after they finally got together. He hopes he never gets used to it.
“You should really start keeping these in the workshop instead,” Ford says, pulling a lead box off of the ‘empty’ shelf and setting it on the floor in front of Anton. Anton flips the lid open with the tip of the shovel, dumps the bomb pocket inside, and slams the lid shut just as it detonates again.
“No room in the workshop,” Anton says. He leans the shovel against the shelves, heaves the box onto the ‘contained’ shelf.
“You could make room,” Ford says. “And then you wouldn’t have to cart explosive and-or radioactive materials through the house every time an experiment went wrong.”
“It’s a good motivator to dispose of it quick,” Anton tries. “Alright, fine. Buzzkill. I’ll take a few of these back with me. Happy?”
“Forgive me if I don’t burst into song, babe,” Ford says dryly. Anton rolls his eyes, kisses him once before snagging two empties and making his way back to the house.
Without the shovel.
Ford sighs, fondly exasperated. Grabs the shovel, closes up the garage, and follows him back.
Anton sleeps fitfully that night, as per usual. Wakes Ford a few times, on accident. Mostly by burying his face in Ford’s chest or back and wrapping himself around Ford like an octopus before he falls back asleep. Ford only just got him to stop apologizing every time he wakes him a few nights ago.
While he would prefer to sleep through the night uninterrupted, he’s never been much good at it himself. And as far as reasons to wake up in the middle of the night go, Anton looking for a little comfort is one of the least distressing.
He wishes he knew how to help. Wishes he could wave his hands or snap his fingers and make the nightmares stop, for both of them. And it’s infuriating, having all this magic and not being able to use it to fix things— but they’re both making progress. Slowly but surely.
Anton goes back to sleep after his nightmares, or at least stays in bed. Most nights. Ford doesn’t wake up screaming so often. He doesn’t know about Anton, but he feels like he’s getting better quality sleep, too. And it’s a lot harder to spiral after a nightmare when he can hear Anton breathing next to him. Snoring, sometimes.
Anton insists he doesn’t snore. Ford’s gonna get a recording of it one of these days, he swears.
They get up at six-thirty, have some cereal and coffee. They don’t talk about their nightmares. Not today. Not yet.
Ford’s pretty sure he knows what Anton’s are about, considering he tends to talk in his sleep. Considering he knows the broad strokes of Anton’s life, and plenty of the details to boot. He’s got no idea if Anton’s figured his out, but he’s sure he has his suspicions. Whether he’s willing to believe some of those suspicions is up in the air— the bulk of what haunts him is… unusual, to say the least. But that’s not all Ford dreams about. The other nightmares are probably easier to deduce.
Sitting bolt upright, still pleading with someone to wake up is a pretty big clue, for one.
“I should head out,” Anton says at a quarter-past seven. “If I want to save the reveal for after I’ve bribed Phil with a latte and one of those cinnamon snails, anyway.”
“Alright,” Ford says. Takes a sip of his coffee. “Have fun. Say hi for me.”
“Copy that,” Anton says, presses a kiss to the top of Ford’s head on his way to drop his bowl and mug in the sink. “See you later.”
“See you,” Ford echoes.
After he leaves, Ford does the dishes and cleans the kitchen. Goes for a run, grabs a quick shower. Starts a load of laundry, waters the rose garden, and reads a couple more chapters of his book. Swaps the load into the dryer.
His phone rings on his way back to the drawing room, a little after two. He answers without glancing at the caller ID.
“Yeah?” he says.
“Got a question for you,” Clint says, shouting over the sound of some battle in the background. “How much do you know about extra-dimensional slime monsters summoned from the depths of hell?”
“Depends,” Ford says. “What form is it taking?”
“Uh— hold on a sec. Hey! Sam! Would you say this thing’s more of a chicken-octopus, or a chicken-spider?” Clint says. “It’s got a beak, a crown, and a wattle, that’s why. Of the two of us, who’s actually spent time with chickens outside of what you get at the grocery store? That’s what I thought.”
“Clint, drop the chicken thing,” Ford says. “Not helpful.”
“It’s a chicken-octopus,” Clint says. “That ring any bells for you? Because we’ve been trying to take this thing down for like half an hour, and we can’t seem to make a dent in it.”
“What color’s the slime?” Ford asks.
“Blue,” Clint says. “Like, blue raspberry icee blue. Why?”
“You got any incendiaries?” Ford asks. “If not, you’re gonna need to rig something up. Fire’s just about the only thing that’ll damage it, let alone kill it. And make sure you burn all the slime, too, or else it’ll regenerate in a couple of days.”
“Man,” Clint whines. “I liked this shirt. Alright, ten-four, good buddy.”
Ford hangs up.
He’s got a feeling he should check in on that. Probably.
He focuses, steps through a fold in space, popping out next to Clint on a catwalk in some warehouse absolutely drenched in slime.
“Jesus shitting— oh, hey Ford!” Clint says, after jumping about a foot in the air. “Never gonna get used to that. You here to help?”
“Figured it might be a good idea to drop by, yeah,” Ford says. “How attached are we to keeping this place intact?”
“Is that Ford?” Sam calls up from the ground level.
“Hey Sam,” Ford calls back. “We should probably evacuate.”
“Fine by me,” Sam says. “Let’s burn this shithole to the ground and get the hell out of here!”
“Not that attached,” Clint summarizes. “Place is super abandoned, and we already got the idiot kids who summoned this thing clear of the building. Steve’s lecturing them about meddling with forces they don’t understand a couple blocks away.”
“Anyone else in here, or was it just the two of you?” Ford asks.
“Nah, Bucky’s helping with the lecture, and Nat bailed so she could go Christmas shopping,” Clint says. “She’s insane about Christmas. God help the other morons trying to brave the Black Friday crowd, lest they find themselves on the wrong side of her elbows.”
Ford grabs Clint’s shoulder, drags him through a fold to Sam’s side, then drags the two of them about a hundred yards from the warehouse.
Clint nocks an explosive arrow, takes aim. Ford chucks a fireball through a broken window as the arrow detonates.
Sam lets out a low, appreciative whistle.
“We should probably call the fire department, huh?” He says. “Keep this a controlled blaze, and make sure they don’t try to put it out before that thing’s had a chance to get extra crispy.”
“Nose goes,” Clint says.
Sam’s the slowest on the draw, grumbles under his breath as he pulls out his phone to make the call.
“Any idea what Natasha wants for Christmas?” Ford asks Clint, watching the blaze with a critical eye. He lobs another fireball through a window on the opposite end of the warehouse. Nods to himself, satisfied.
“That’s easy,” Clint snorts. “Electrical weaponry, perfume, jewelry, and-or designer shit. Shoes and bags, that kind of thing. Not Birkin, though. She has opinions about Birkin.”
“They’re ugly bags,” Ford agrees, raising his voice slightly to be heard over the octochicken’s dying screams of rage. “What about you? You got a list?”
“Eh,” Clint shrugs. “Surprise me. And remind Anton he still owes me those Night-Night arrows, will you? You have any ideas for Barnes? Because I’m kinda drawing a blank. I mean, Anton’ll probably get him some shitty sci-fi DVDs or something, and Steve’ll pick out something super romantic and sentimental— or some inside joke thing that Bucky’ll throw at his head while he laughs himself sick. But I got nada.”
“Yeah, I’m still trying to work that one out myself,” Ford sighs. He’s sure buying a Christmas gift for his boyfriend’s dad would be hard enough, under normal circumstances. Adding on the ‘formerly-brainwashed ex-assassin from the forties’ part? Makes it damn near impossible. Especially since Bucky’s still trying to figure out what his hobbies used to be, and whether he still even likes them. “How’d the life-drawing class thing go?”
“Oh, he’s terrible,” Clint says cheerfully. “Turns out he only went back in the day so he could pester Steve.”
“That tracks,” Ford says. Clint fires another explosive arrow into the building. “Cooking class?”
“He liked it alright, but I don’t think he went back,” Clint says. “He’s gotten really into the food channel since then, though. And Anthony Bourdain’s old shows.”
“Good taste,” Ford says. He’d had a normal level of fascination with Anthony Bourdain, growing up. Wonders if Dad ever put together why thirteen-year-old Ford was always so insistent about watching A Cook’s Tour with him.
Maybe he’ll get Bucky a copy of Medium Raw. It’s a solid book. Bourdain’s a remarkably good writer, on top of being an accomplished chef, damn easy on the eyes, and an all-around pretty cool guy, generally speaking. It’s almost unfair, really.
“Fire department’s sending a couple trucks out, should be here in about five minutes,” Sam says, pocketing his phone once more. “Said we can head out, once they get here.”
“Thank fuck,” Clint says.
“You can say that again— I’ve never wanted a shower so bad in my damn life,” Sam agrees. “Is it safe to wash this shit down the drain?”
“No clue,” Ford says. “But if it regenerates at the water treatment plant, I’ll handle it.”
“Fine by me,” Sam says, wiping ectoplasm on his shirt. “Eugh— this stuff’s nasty.”
“Really? I kinda think it’s fun,” Clint says, playing with a gob of it like it’s more of that DIY slime he’s been obsessed with. “Shame we have to destroy it unless we want chickenpus coming back for seconds. Otherwise we could’ve bottled this shit, sold it to Mattel or something. We could’ve made millions.”
“Pretty much every toy company already has their own slime already,” Ford says. “You would’ve made like fifty bucks at a table in Central Park, tops.”
“Fifty bucks is fifty bucks,” Clint says. “New SHIELD pays even worse than old SHIELD.”
“You don’t pay rent, and your brother set you up with an unlimited credit card,” Sam says. “The hell you need fifty bucks for, Barton?”
“Principle of the thing,” Clint says vaguely. “Are we sure all of this has to get destroyed?”
“Yes,” Ford says. “If you try to save some and unleash that thing on the Tower, I’m gonna be annoyed. Just so you know.”
“Yeah, fair enough. I keep all my stuff there, anyway,” Clint sighs. “Having to burn down the Tower would be a lot less fun than burning down that warehouse. I like my stuff.”
Ford’s phone rings again. He checks the caller ID, groans. Hits ‘answer.’
“I thought I told you never to call me again,” he says. “In fact, I distinctly remember deleting my number from your fucking contacts list.”
“Oh shit, this thing connects to phones now? Nevermind— that’s no way to talk to an old friend, Fordsy!”
“We’re not friends, and don’t call me that,” Ford says. “What the hell do you want, Rumple?”
“Rumple?” Clint asks, and Ford waves him off.
“What, I can’t just call for a chat? See how you’ve been?” Rumple asks.
“I’m hanging up now,” Ford says.
“Wait, wait!” Rumple protests. Ford puts the phone back to his ear, waits for whatever horseshit he’s about to get dragged into. “Alright, fine, this isn’t a social call. I trust you remember a certain— ahem— artifact you entrusted into my loving care?”
“I remember,” Ford says. He doesn’t like where this is going.
“Well, it just so happens that an interested party broke into my home last night, and took it from me. Among other things,” Rumple says.
“What other things?” Ford asks, voice sharp.
“Oh, bits and bobs. Mere trinkets, nothing to concern yourself with,” Rumple says. “Valuable, certainly, but not magical. Anywho, our interested party left through the garden door— I’m sure I don’t have to spell the rest out for you.”
Stupid fucking Rumplestiltskin and his stupid fucking magic doors.
“If they stole from you, how come the ‘interested party’ isn’t currently eating their own intestines?” Ford asks. “What happened to that overkill zero-tolerance policy of yours, Rumple? Losing your edge, in your old age?”
“There’s no need for rudeness, Fordsy dear,” Rumple scoffs. “I wasn’t home when the visitor dropped by, if you must know. I had other business to attend to, and by the time I returned they were long gone. Left no trace behind, except leaving the garden door hanging open and ransacking my vault. I had a devil of a time putting everything back in order, I’ll have you know.”
“Riveting,” Ford says. “Why the hell’s this my problem?”
“Garden door, Fordsy,” Rumple says. “They’re running amok in your realm. Now, I could go after it myself—”
“Fine, I’ll track down the fucking artifact,” Ford says. “Just stay out of my fucking dimension. And get a guard dog, or something.”
“I knew I could count on you—” Rumple starts.
Ford hangs up.
“Piece of shit asshole imp,” he mutters, ramming his phone back into his pocket. “Oh, no need to worry about an unimaginably fucking powerful magical artifact disappearing from my vault to run amok on Earth! Ford will take care of it. Shitbag.”
“Jesus,” Sam says, staring at him in utter shock. “The hell did that guy do to you?”
“Seconded,” Clint says. “Dude, you didn’t even get that pissed when Strange’s stupid cape threw you through a horde of rabid zombies.”
“He knows what he fucking did,” Ford says. “I gotta go. Magician stuff.”
“You and Anton are still coming to dinner though, right?” Clint asks. “Steve’s making colcannon, and Bucky started on the stew last night. The whole Tower smells fucking amazing.”
“Are you kidding? You couldn’t pay me to miss out on that,” Ford says. “We’ll be there.”
With a lazy salute good-bye, Ford steps through another fold and into the scene of the crime.
Well, as close to the scene of the crime as he can stand to get, anyway. The other side of Rumplestiltskin’s garden door.
Better known as Sleepy Hollow, New York. Just outside of the Old Dutch Church.
He probably shouldn’t have been surprised to find out that Washington Irving’s Headless Horseman was just a bored Rumplestiltskin in a costume, but he had. He’d been naïve, back then. Still thought the world couldn’t possibly be that ridiculous.
He strolls through the headstones in the old graveyard, keeping his eyes peeled for evidence. Wishing it was just a few months later, that there was some snow on the ground. He could do with a nice, easy to follow path of footprints. Something simple. For once.
He finds his first piece of evidence at the treeline. The incredibly overgrown, incredibly full of magical, aggressive plants treeline.
“Oh, come on,” he groans.
“Kiddo, I think I can safely say that this is the coolest thing you’ve ever built,” Phil says, delightedly steering LOLA back below the clouds as they make their descent. They’ve been flying around for a few hours, stopped upstate for lunch. Spent long enough dawdling that it’s getting close to sunset, now.
“She’s pretty cool, yeah,” Anton allows. “I still think my nanotech robot suit is cooler.”
“No accounting for taste,” Phil sighs, shaking his head. There’s a loud boom from somewhere down below, sending out enough of a shockwave that LOLA bucks and jitters with the force of it. “Woah, what the hell was that?”
Anton pushes his sunglasses on top of his head, rolls down the passenger-side window and leans out.
“What the fuck,” he says, the wind whipping his voice away before it reaches his own ears.
He pulls his head back in, rolls up the window.
“You’re armed, right?” He asks. “Nevermind, stupid question. Put her down in that parking lot over there.”
“Why? What is it?” Phil asks, but does as told.
“Ford’s down there,” Anton says. “Fighting a what looks like two herds of deer, sixteen trees, and an army of beavers. Don’t ask me why.”
“Let’s find out, then,” Phil puts on the parking brake, and they hop out, weapons at the ready.
Anton really should’ve known better than to leave the Nanosuit at home. But he at least has a few throwing knives, and a gun of his own. Old habits die hard, and you never know when your day out with the old man is going to turn into a battle against an angry forest.
They dart across the street, toward the old churchyard, leaping over gravestones as they barrel their way toward Ford.
“Turn that into a dam, you buck-toothed bastards!” Ford cries, throwing one of the trees at the beavers. “I swear, I’ll turn all you assholes into a fur coat if it’s the last thing I do.”
“Hey sunshine, how’s it going?” Anton calls over the sound of Phil taking out three of the deer in rapid succession. “Need an assist?”
“Die, you furry little— Anton?” Ford turns, a beaver held in either hand. One of them bites him, and he flings it into a nearby headstone with a sickening crunch.
It doesn’t get back up.
“You wouldn’t happen to have seen the moron with the pan flute around here anywhere, would you?” Ford asks. He waves a hand, and the charging horde of deer fly back a good thirty feet, propelled by a wave of red light.
“I’m afraid we’ve seen zero morons so far,” Phil says. “Hi Ford, good to see you. What’s the situation here?”
“Hey Phil— oh, you know. Typical magician stuff,” Ford shrugs, still holding the other beaver by the scruff of its neck, even as it tries to maul him. “You guys have earplugs? Because you shouldn’t be here if you don’t.”
“FRIDAY, activate Nanomasks please,” Anton says. His, Phil’s, and Ford’s deploy in moments. “What are we filtering for, exactly?”
“Pan flute music. Weren’t you listening?” Ford shakes his head, drop-kicks the beaver into the branches of one of the animate trees. The tree burps, sending leaves and bits of beaver fur fluttering through the air. “FRIDAY, you know what to do.”
“Blocking all pan flute music, starting… now,” FRIDAY says. “Anything else?”
“That’s it for the moment, thanks FRIDAY,” Ford says. “Hey babe— you know where the chainsaw wound up? I tried summoning it from the garden shed, but it wasn’t in there.”
“Try the armory,” Anton says, thinning out more of the herd. “Why the hell are we shooting Bambi, exactly?”
“Because a world-class idiot broke into an imp’s vault and stole Pan’s Pipes, which were in there for a reason!” Ford shouts the last part as loud as he can, summons the chainsaw. “Ah, perfect. Hold that thought.”
He pulls the starter cord, and the chainsaw roars to life in his hands. Phil and Anton finish picking off the deer and the last of the beavers just in time to see Ford turning the last tree into lumber. He turns the chainsaw off, a pleased little smile on his face as he sends it back to the armory.
“I’m building me a deck chair,” he says, resting a foot on one of the mangled trunks. “After I find this asshole and beat some sense into them. FRIDAY, do me a favor and scan the area? We’re looking for a humanoid, roughly five-foot-four, maybe a hundred pounds soaking wet.”
“I’ve got one match to that description, located approximately sixteen yards due East,” FRIDAY says.
Ford sets off, kicking beaver corpses out of his way as he goes. Phil and Anton exchange a bewildered look before following him.
They find the thief trying to climb over the churchyard wall, and doing a spectacularly terrible job of it.
“Come on, come on,” the thief mutters, scrabbling for purchase halfway up the bricks, only to fall back to the ground. Landing on their ass with a quiet ‘oof.’
“Making your daring escape, are we?” Ford asks, arms crossed.
The thief freezes, halfway to their feet. Slowly finishes standing up, and turns to face them.
Their thief, as it turns out, is a teenage girl. Maybe fifteen at the oldest.
“Um,” the girl squeaks out. “No?”
“Good choice,” Ford says. “Hand over the Pipes.”
“What Pipes?” the girl asks, entirely too innocently. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, mister…?”
“You can call me Ford, and you’re not getting more than that,” Ford says. “You’re not getting their names either, missy. Hand over the Pipes, or I hand you over to Rumple.”
The girl pales considerably, scrambles to rifle through her jacket pockets. Practically throws the Pipes at Ford, who catches them easily.
“I’m sorry!” she wails. “I just— you don’t know what it’s like— no one believes me about this kind of stuff, a-and I just thought, if I brought something back from another realm—”
“You’re a magician?” Ford asks, cutting her off mid-grovel.
“Um, not exactly?” she says. “I’m a medium, or whatever. I guess. Everyone thinks I’m crazy, but I’m not.”
“For talking to ghosts? No,” Ford says. “For breaking into Rumple’s vault? Yes. Absolutely. What the hell were you thinking? Do you even know what this is?”
“A… weird flute?” she tries. “I dunno, Wash told me about the door, and said there was all kinds of cool stuff in there, and that most of it would prove magic is real. Prove I’m not lying.”
“Wash,” Ford says, voice utterly flat. “Washington Irving? The ghost of Washington Irving told you to rob Rumple’s vault.”
“Yeah, him,” the girl shrugs, kicking idly at a loose chunk of brick on the ground. “He said no one would even notice if I took a few things. How’d you even figure out anything was missing? That place is a heap.”
“What Rumple lacks in conventional organization skills, he more than makes up for with meticulous inventory,” Ford says. “Trust me. He once billed me for putting an extra sugar cube in my tea without asking.”
“Wow,” the girl says. “What a jerk.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” he huffs, pocketing the Pipes. “Your buddy, Wash? Also a huge jerk, for the record. He knows damn well who Rumple is, and what he does to thieves. You could have been killed. You understand that, right?”
“I know, I know,” she groans, hanging her head. “I’m Nora, by the way. And that’s all you’re getting. Um, if I promise never to go back ever again and return everything, can I go home? It’s cold out here.”
Ford sighs, scrubbing a hand over his face.
“Yeah, sure. Whatever,” he says. “Hand it over.”
“Really?” Nora asks, looking up at him with a distrustful expression. “Just like that? No bartering, no threats? Not even a little double-talk? What kind of Fae are you?”
“I’m as human as you are,” Ford says. “And you’re a kid. You do dumb shit, comes with the territory. The important thing is that you learn from doing dumb shit, which is hard to do when you’re being fed your own intestines.”
Nora flicks a glance between Anton and Phil, as if expecting them to add anything. Shrugs.
“Yeah, okay,” she says. “I like my intestines where they are, or whatever. Is it cool if I just dump this shit on the ground? No offense, but I really don’t trust you guys to not just abduct me for the Wild Hunt—”
Nora cuts herself off as Ford’s expression flickers into something horrible, for the briefest of moments. Something raw, terrified.
“We won’t,” Ford says, unexpectedly forceful. He takes a deep breath, and when he speaks again, his voice is back to its normal laid-back tone. “Just dump it, and go home, Nora. Tell Wash to go fuck himself, if he tries to talk to you again.”
“Oh, trust me— if he comes anywhere near me, I’m sending his ass so far past the other side he’ll never come back,” she says darkly, but sets to work emptying her pockets.
When she’s done, there’s a truly impressive pile of gold, silver, and precious gemstones at her feet.
“So… we’re cool, right?” Nora asks, backing away from the pile slowly. “I can go home now?”
“Yeah, we’re cool,” Ford says. “Keep your nose clean from now on, alright? I won’t be nice about it, next time.”
Nora sprints away before he finishes talking, throwing a cheerful wave over her shoulder as she goes.
“What,” Anton says. “The fuck.”
“Seconded,” Phil says, still watching Nora’s hasty retreat— there’s a lot of tripping over her own feet, and slamming her shins into gravestones. Kid has zero grace.
“Kids,” Ford says, shaking his head as he shrugs out of his sweatshirt, uses it to bundle up the pile of loot. “Could’ve been worse, I guess. I wasn’t much older than her when— nevermind. That’s a story for… later. Much, much later. I’ve got loot to return. See you guys at dinner?”
“What the fuck,” Anton repeats, gesturing emphatically at the bundle tossed over Ford’s shoulder, then at Nora’s still-retreating back.
“What?” Ford asks, seeming genuinely confused by their bewilderment.
“You were being attacked by beavers, deer, and evil trees, Ford,” Anton says. “Why might be an important question to ask.”
“Oh, right. This is… weird, to you guys,” Ford adjusts the bundle, looking a little sheepish. “She stole Pan’s Pipes from Rumplestiltskin’s vault, which I put in there so that they’d be safe, and never be played again. They’re pretty much pure nature magic, used to belong to Pan himself. Nasty stuff. We’re lucky she only knew Hot Cross Buns and the first few bars of Run Away With Me, or things could’ve gotten a lot worse.”
He stares off into the middle distance, face grim.
“A lot worse,” he repeats.
“Worse how?” Phil asks.
“You know that story about Dionysus wandering Greece, turning sailors into dolphins, and making his followers go mad and tear a guy apart with their bare hands?” Ford asks. Phil nods, because of course he does. “He used Pan’s Pipes to do it.”
Ford’s watch beeps, and he groans.
“Mother fucker, the laundry’s gonna be all wrinkled by the time I’m done here,” he says. “I gotta jet. See you later.”
He strikes out, back across the graveyard, bag of loot jangling loudly as he goes. Knocks shave-and-a-hair-cut-two-bits onto a headstone not far from the church, and vanishes in a flash of golden light.
“Does he do this kind of thing a lot?” Phil asks, a little distantly.
“Not that I’ve seen,” Anton says. Ford’s been better about offering information unprompted, but Anton’s starting to suspect there’s still a hell of a lot more room for improvement. “Is it weird that I thought it was kinda hot, watching him chainsaw those evil trees? That’s weird, right?”
Phil pats him on the back sympathetically.
“A little bit,” he says.