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Bella looks up Tony Stark. (There's no reason not to.)

...Okay. He looks familiar. And his death those several months ago was really very suspicious, and she doesn't think anyone has been doing her morgue trick in New York City. And his more reclusive identical twin's body was never found at all. (If there was an identical twin, and not just Tony Stark theatrically pretending to be two people with mirrors or holograms or Photoshop and cooperative witnesses giving insistent interviews and then suddenly being dead and no longer able to pretend. There was, after all no sign of a twin before a sudden debut when he - they - was or were fifteen, and... "Sherlock Holmes", really? There's not even a hint of a twin in Tony's birth announcement, which she checks because that's the obvious thing to check.)

Come to think of it, Mr. Does Not Stick To Flypaper never introduced himself.

She supposes that his cute laser trick didn't work that well, if he got got. (But she saw it burn him. It's a clever weapon, should take almost no skill to wield a continuous beam - what kind of onslaught could have gotten around that?)

Nothing about her routine changes in response to this information.

Until several days later when she's crossing another neighborhood (seventeen to go) and - he just keeps popping up, doesn't he?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

cross_and_bow

"Stand down!" orders one of Charlie's subordinates. Another is checking for pulses. Charlie himself is radioing for backup, but he's got his sidearm trained on Sherlock.

From:

eversomuchfun

There are six demons left standing. Out of twenty.

Sherlock makes a gentle shooing motion at them.

They break and run.

He laughs.

From:

cross_and_bow

"Stand down!" repeats the cop.

Charlie doesn't ask. He shoots.

From:

eversomuchfun

Still giggling, he is just a little too late with the dodge. The bullet catches him high on his left shoulder.

He turns to Charlie and sweeps an extravagant bow with no sign of pain.

Then he bolts down the nearest alley.

From:

cross_and_bow

There are more shots, but none connect, and they can't catch him.

Bella, oblivious, is reading in her room.

From:

eversomuchfun

A small pebble strikes her window with pinpoint accuracy, nowhere near hard enough to break it.

From:

cross_and_bow

She looks out the window. (She doesn't open it.)

From:

eversomuchfun

Sherlock is standing on the lawn, laughing. His shoulder is bleeding; his hands and coat are streaked with miscellaneous ichor. His teeth and face, however, are spotless.

"But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?" he calls up to her through his giggles. "It is the east, and Juliet is the sun! Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon who is already sick and pale with grief that thou her maid art far more fair than she."

At that point, he is laughing too hard to stand; he sits down in the grass, leaning back on his hands.

From:

cross_and_bow

Bella opens the window. "Are you drunk as well as injured?" she asks him.

From:

eversomuchfun

"No," he says cheerfully. "But you are clearly an oracle. You'll never guess what just happened."

From:

cross_and_bow

"...Did Charlie shoot you?" she asks, exasperated. "Why was he in a position to shoot you?"

From:

eversomuchfun

He spreads his hands.

"Well, I'd just killed about two dozen demons in front of him, so I imagine he wasn't too sure what to do with me. Under the circumstances, 'shoot it' was a reasonable option. Ruined my favourite coat, though, remind me to pretend to be angry about that."

From:

cross_and_bow

"...Pretend to be angry? What two dozen demons?"

From:

eversomuchfun

"My favourite coat has a great big fucking hole in it," he says, gesturing indicatively. "And my shoulder is none too happy either, but unlike the coat, the shoulder will repair itself. I invite you to apply to your father for explanations of what he was doing facing down twenty-six assorted hellspawn with four cops and a corpse. Police business, I imagine. I ran across them on my way here."

From:

cross_and_bow

"I... see," says Bella. "Charlie's all right?"

From:

eversomuchfun

"In perfect health, last I saw him," says Sherlock. "As I was fleeing down an alley."

From:

cross_and_bow

"Ooookay. Why would you need to pretend anger about your coat? And to whom?"

From:

eversomuchfun

"I wouldn't, really," he says. "But I am not, in fact, angry, and it seems vaguely like the sort of thing one gets angry about, and furthermore it seems not impossible that I will eventually meet your father and have the opportunity to berate him for it, if I can keep a straight face long enough, which at the present moment would be a task far beyond my capacity to achieve."

From:

cross_and_bow

"Why pray tell are you acting drunk?"

From:

eversomuchfun

"Because I just killed twenty fucking demons," he laughs. "And then got shot."

From:

cross_and_bow

"Should I be concerned about my mental faculties if the same thing ever happens to me, or is this a Sherlock thing?" she inquires.

From:

eversomuchfun

"Adrenaline, endorphins," he shrugs. "I don't know if I have them anymore, but apparently I have a reasonable facsimile."

From:

cross_and_bow

"Noted. Thank you for killing the demons," says Bella. "Do you happen to know what they were doing, besides, apparently, killing at least one - cop? Bystander?"