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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:

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?"

From:

eversomuchfun

"Bystander," he says. "I could venture a few guesses, but my information is not complete."

From:

cross_and_bow

"What're your information and your guesses?" Bella asks.

From:

eversomuchfun

"Four species of demon," he says, settling down a little. "Numbers roughly equal. One dead human, cold. The way those demons fought, they were uneasy allies at best, united briefly against a common enemy. My best theory is that the human stumbled across some kind of meeting or negotiation, perhaps heated, and was sufficiently alarmed and sufficiently new in town to call 911. The demons swarmed her before the police could arrive."

From:

cross_and_bow

"Reasonable train of thought. Should I worry about the results of the meeting - or its disruption?"

From:

eversomuchfun

"I should, perhaps," he laughs. "I'm the one the survivors will be hunting."

From:

cross_and_bow

"There could be collateral damage, or they could be plotting to blow up the elementary school or something sinister like that - non-vampire demons won't be repelled by the crosses around the place."