I DID IT! YAY FOR ME!

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Main Title- Amazing Spider-Man

Playing Basketball- Amazing Spider-Man

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(when it goes up): lokidottir

For now, I found this gif of Loki that made me absolutely crack up. I couldn't resist.

Chapter Twenty-Four

~Thea's POV~

The others are taking the Declaration into Tony's room, Kyle, Bruce, Jack and I make our way there.

"What happens after this?" Jack asks suddenly; he's been on his phone the entire time on the drive back to the hotel, frowning. I can't help that think something is wrong. "We go to the jewel place is, right?"

"After we crack the code, yes," says Bruce lightly.

"And...we are going with you, right?" asks Jack.

This time, I'm the one that frowns and open my mouth at Jack, but he gives me a very pointed look that clearly tells me to shut up. So I do.

"Why are you asking that?" asks Kyle, letting us into the hotel room.

"You know," says Jack accusingly, "Because you tend to leave us out on some important stuff."

Kyle rolls his eyes as we settle down onto some of the couches to wait for the Declaration's arrival.

When it gets here, and after Steve practically slams the door shut and triple-checks the lock, Natasha is quick to clear everyone from the table. "Agents Coulson and Hill will be here soon. Only them, Bruce, and I are going to be touching it."

Nobody argues this point.

"Wait," I say as they move the framed Declaration onto the table. "Were you and Kyle kissing?"

Clint Barton looks up so quickly, I'm surprised he doesn't crick his neck.

Jack smirks, "You were all over each other."

Nat rolls her eyes unconcernedly, "It was field work. Kyle's not the first person that it's happened to."

Clint doesn't look any more satisfied, and Steve coughs surreptitiously into his hand.

Kyle's half-moon smirk comes out as he grins at Natasha. Wiggling his eyebrows, he says in a smooth voice, "Don't deny that you didn't like it."

Natasha's response is to spray him in his unused eye with the antibiotic spray Bruce and Tony had brought back from the truck. She speaks up to be heard over Kyle's yells and various curses as he totters around the room, trying to get the spray out of his eyes, "I want everyone to back up. Just because we stole a national treasure doesn't mean that we are going to destroy it."

Her voice is so commanding that everyone does as she says, even Kyle, who is still looking at her imploringly.

*

Coulson and Maria arrive ten minutes later, although Coulson is still speaking hurriedly into his cell phone. As Maria gets on some white artifact gloves, Coulson speaks to Tony in an undertone, nodding towards Jack and me. While Jack frowns, I cock my head. That was weird.

When Coulson gets off the phone, he, Maria, Bruce, and Natasha (all white-gloved) begin to take the frame off of the Declaration. Very, very carefully, they lift it off and hand it to Steve, who very carefully sets it down on the floor beside the table.

Natasha and Bruce flip over the old document, and then Maria calls over to Max, "Give me the hairdryer from the bathroom, will you?"

"You're using a hairdryer?" Jack yelps, looking delighted. "That's what they used in National Treasure!"

"Well it got the job done, didn't it?" asks Kyle, who still looks sullen, his eye all puffy.

Although this is a significant event, it's a bit boring to watch Nat and Coulson run the hairdryer over the document and for Tony to record the various letters down, which Jack and I cannot make heads or tails of.

Half an hour later, Bruce nods. "That's it. The 'a' was the last letter."

While Coulson and Maria begin to carefully roll up the Declaration, Natasha takes off her gloves and walks over to Tony, "What'd you got, Stark?"
"A lot of jibber-jabber," he replies, "Like Jababahamara, or something."

"Give me that," says Natasha, grabbing the piece of paper from Tony's hands. Frowning, she says, "Are you sure you wrote it down right?"

"Are you sure you handled a very important document of American history right, Natasha?" asks Tony, looking insulted.

Natasha rolls her eyes, and Clint walks over. "How about we just google these letters?"

"They're clearly all mixed up," points out Natasha, "This isn't even English."

"True," says Clint, pulling open Bruce's laptop, which is sitting innocently on the small counter of the kitchenette next to them. "But whatever clues Jefferson left on this thing might not've been English."

"He was American!" protests Natasha as Clint takes the piece of paper from her hand.

"He spoke six languages," pipes up Tony.

Natasha shoots him a 'you're-not-helping' look.

As Clint carefully types the letters into the keyboard, Coulson glances around the room, "Do we need anything else? Any other significantly important American documents to steal before the end of the day?"

"Nope, thanks for checking," says Tony. "By the way, if it's so simple to just give back the Declaration like you're returning a library book, why couldn't you have borrowed it just as easily?"

I had been thinking this the entire day, but stealing the Declaration isn't something one does everyday, so I hadn't protested.

"It was fun to see you guys do it," says Coulson lightly, and before anyone can say anything else, he steps out of the room. Maria follows him, shooting back an apologetic look.

Tony rolls his eyes.

"Got it!" exclaims Clint, who is peering so close at Bruce's screen that the light is illuminating his face, "Jagaddala Mahavihara."

"Pardon?" asks Natasha.

"Jagaddala Mahavihara," repeats Clint. "It's an ancient ruin in India. One of the less heard about mahaviharas of its era...that would be around the 11th or 12th centuries...it's on the north-west border of Bangladesh and India, near Paharapur."

"All right," says Tony, "Anything significant about it?"

Clint scrolls through the pages. "Well... it's home to one of the most sacred sights in Indian history. According to legend, one of the princesses- her name was Siyarnah- was murdered in her bed by a jealous courtier...her jewels have never been found, but they're priceless."

"So it seems like we have to go find these jewels then," says Steve.

"Appears we do," says Natasha brusquely, "Okay, we head out tomorrow. Jack, Thea, go back to Thea's and my room with Clint. Actually, how about everyone clears out? Steve and I are going to get dinner. Sounds good?"

I expect Jack to protest getting shoved out of the room, but instead, he grabs my hand and pulls me out of there.

"What's going on?" I whisper to him as we go into the bedroom, basically locking Clint out. "You've been acting weird since we've got in the car."

"This is what's wrong," says Jack, pulling out his phone and handing it to me.

Taking it, I frown. It's a text from Peter.

From: Spider-dude

You and Thea need to get out before you guys leave. They're not going to take you with them. Wherever they're going.

"What?" I squeak, trying to make heads and tails of this. "How does...Peter's in New York!"

"I know," says Jack grimly, re-taking his phone and beginning to go through the texts some more, "He's been watching us the whole time. When he went to Stark tower that time, he wasn't just going there to visit. He was fixing a bug onto one of Stark's satellite computers so that he could hack into it."

"All right..." I say slowly, "So you're saying that everyone here is planning on locking us up in the hotel room while they go to India?"

"Worse. They're planning on shipping us back to New York."

I'm enraged, but try to keep my voice down so that Clint won't be able to hear us. "WHAT?"

"I know," says Jack, who doesn't look nearly as upset as he should, "Luckily, however, good 'ol Pete and I have a plan."

"A plan?" I ask dryly.

"Yes, a plan, Thea, please try to keep up" says Jack. When I stick out my tongue at him, he continues, "You see, Thea, to get on a flight to India, they're going to need to leave at a certain time to avoid getting in trouble with the government- don't ask me why, you Americans have stupid rules. But anyway, for India, they'll need to leave in that cool S.H.I.E.L.D. plane-"

"I thought S.H.I.E.L.D. was closed down," I say.
"They still have planes," points out Jack, "Anyway, for India, if my math is right, and it almost always is-"

"You sound like Stark."
"If I were Stark, I would have said that my math is always right."

I snort, "Good point."

"Anyway, for India, they're going to have to leave around twelve noon tomorrow. More importantly, however, they'll need these," from Jack's bag, he pulls out a series of papers, all rolled up in a scroll-like container, "-to get clearance into India. Because I guess their air routes are a little complicated to maneuver"

"How'd you get those?" I demand, looking at the container greedily.

"I'm talented," Jack replies gracefully, "Regardless, if they don't have these papers tomorrow at noon, they can't take off and will have to wait until five. If we take them and get out of this hotel by that point, they're going to have to take us with them, provided they want to get to India within the week."

I see way too many loopholes in this plan, but let Jack continue.

"The airport is precisely twelve minutes from here, meaning we'll have to be careful, because if they catch us at any time in the morning, they'll still have time to take off. So after breakfast, you and I are going to sneak out with these papers and flee into Washington DC. We may have to shake off some people, but if we can stall until twelve, we're golden."

I still see too many loopholes in this plan, but Jack seems to be finished lying out the finer bits of his plan

"We're going to run around Washington DC..." I say slowly, "Which we have no idea how to navigate, to stall a bunch of spies, demigods, super soldiers, etc so we can get on a plane to India to retrieve some murdered rajah daughter's jewelry?"

"First of all," says Jack, "Not all of them- probably not many of them at all- are going to chase us. They need all the hands they can get what with handling this Declaration business, manning the cars, and getting ready for takeoff. I'm thinking about five or six, maximum."

"I'm pretty sure they're going to be faster than us," I say, thinking of Loki and Steve.

"Probably," says Jack cheerfully.

"You've been watching too much National Treasure." I groan.

He rolls his eyes, "We've been planning this plan against this repetitive sort of betrayal way before now, as in, as we were arriving at Washington DC before."

"This is a bad idea." I say, but can't help but feel a little bit excited at the prospect.

"But we've got Peter on our side."

"Peter?" I demand, "He's in New York!"

Jack smirks. "He's not now."

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