Chapter Text
Noir was back in his flat by two-thirty-six AM, feeling like a fresh shiner was covering his whole body. His shoulder stung slightly from a bullet that grazed the skin above the bone, but such a minor flesh wound was already knitting itself back together. He rolled the shoulder blade a few times for good measure, feeling the new skin forming against the old. It would be nothing more than a new scar within the hour. Boy, he hated guns.
Bolting the door behind himself and wedging his filing cabinet in front of it for good measure, Noir finally relaxed in his small, safe, grey flat. He kicked off his boots, shrugged out of his trench coat and rolled his mask up over his mouth. Without coat tails to flap, the wind subsided, making room slightly less cold. Maybe he would fix the heater tomorrow. Maybe it would stop breaking for dramatic effect every time a particularly dark event happened as well, but it didn’t seem likely.
He took three steps forward, looked towards the bedroom, then collapsed onto the sofa. The springs and the awkward angle would make his neck cramp and his feet always dangled off the end. But from here, he could look at his big board. His big board of clues, also known as his wall. Every good private eye needed a big board. And while most of them kept theirs in their offices because apparently it was “healthy” to “separate” “work” and “home,” Noir knew that was just an invitation for crooks to break in and learn what he knew. Get a step ahead of him. Grab the advantage. That was how private eyes wound up pushing daises.
Plus, this way he could drift off to the land of nob while lost in whatever case was at hand. Or more likely, lie awake in thought until he hit a revelation. But this one was a stumper, and as his eyes followed the grey lines of string that connected idea to idea, Noir was starting to see that there really were too many blanks to ever connect the dots.
The cold was starting to bite into his toes, but he didn’t want to tuck his feet under the blanket. Then he wouldn’t be able to see his socks. He rubbed them together a few times and kept staring at the board. He hadn’t want to acknowledge it before, the harsh reality, but it was becoming undeniable. The grey, cold, Nazi infested reality. The science in the thirties just wasn’t advanced enough to ever facilitate inter-dimensional travel.
Noir rolled over, curling in on himself. Months of tracking down top scientists. Months of saving top experts in the field, then quizzing them for info. Favours cashed all over the city. Favour cashed abroad. Months. Nineteen to be exact.
The science simply didn’t exist.
It wouldn’t exist until the distant future.
And with every passing day that he didn’t receive contact with one of the others, maybe it didn’t exist then either. Or maybe, they just weren’t looking for him. Who would?
The cold became too much to bear, and Noir tucked his bright pink unicorn socks under the blanket at last. Maybe Gwen would come to get them back. Or Aunt May would come for the rubixcube. Or Miles for the can of spray paint. Or Ham for the camera. Or Peter B for his tracksuit bottoms.
Maybe one of them would come.