New Avengers Snippets!
Jul. 20th, 2006 11:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rabidsamfan12. Gnaws
Oct 18 06
Disclaimer: The New Avengers are copyrighted, but not by me. I think Canal+ or Mark One Productions owns the rights at the moment. Which means, of course, that this is fanfic – me playing in someone else's sandbox. Even moreso, anything in dark blue is a scene taken straight from the screen, dialogue and all, that either didn't hit the novelizations, or that didn't hit them in a way that satisfied my sense of the character arcs that I'm exploring. Links to quotes and screencaps (where they appear) are courtesy of bromfield hall.
As a rule
*** means I'm still adding onto a piece or scene and
### means I'm satisfied with that bit for now.
---
http://www.bromfieldhall.co.uk/tnaquotes14.htm
http://www.bromfieldhall.co.uk/gnawspics.htm
Summary: For them as hasn't seen it lately: A year after the first hint of trouble, Gambit, Purdey, and Steed encounter big trouble in the sewers under London.
Scenes
Well well
That's a stupid remark.
Tis not.
It most certainly is. Well well. It doesn't mean anything.
If you'd let me continue I was going to say Well Well, and what is old unsentimental Gambit doing here with flowers.
Well, well.
You're right, of course, when you say it it does sound rather stupid.
Well, well and what is steel-hearted Purdey doing here?
I'm a woman. Women are allowed their idiosyncrasies.
And nobody knows that better than I. I couldn't let the old chap go unremembered. Could we?
Exactly a year ago.
To the day.
Did we come here out of sentiment, Gambit? Or guilt? We never did discover who killed him.
No we didn't.
Perhaps one day.
Your inquiry at the ministry never came to anything?
Nothing. It's a dead trail now. Thornton resigned six months ago.
Thornton?
You know, the man who grows things.
***
She cocked her head at Gambit. "What about your side of the investigation? You never did tell me what you found."
Gambit shrugged. "Nothing to find. Harlow didn't have any people left except his father, and he'd gone childish three or four years past. Didn't even understand what I was telling him. A few friends in the department, a very open ended relationship with a girl who lives in Camden. Some old Army buddies. None of whom had any reason to want him dead. There was an odd neighbor I thought about, but she'd been in Scotland the night Harlow died. And no sign she'd ever had any chance to acquire the kind of training it would have taken to hit him like that."
"So he died because of something he found out. Something at the Ministry. It might not even have been related to the break-in at all, for all we know."
"Not if his killer decided to lay low afterwards, no," Gambit said, opening the cemetery gate for her. "Like you said, a dead trail."
***
"A snake? Are you sure?" Steed asked.
Gambit shook his head as he rubbed at his collarbone. "Not positive. But it was something the size and shape of a snake – a really big one – you know, an anaconda."
Steed raised an eyebrow. "This far from the Amazon?"
"Maybe someone had it as a pet and it got loose. Like the alligators in the sewers in New York," Gambit suggested. He looked up at the pipeline above his head. "It was up there – I don't even think it was trying to attack me – just flailing its scalesome tail." He moved his left arm around with wincing success, but Steed could see that he wasn't shaking off the blow easily.
"Come over here into the light, and let's see if anything's broken," he ordered.
"Just bruised, I think," Gambit said, but he let himself be towed over to an open space and submitted to having his coat and shirt opened to reveal the long triangle of reddened skin down his chest where the "snake" had struck him.
"That's going to need ice," Steed observed, nearly as interested in the shape of the mark as he was in the undamaged lines of the bones beneath it. "But not a doctor, unless you'd rather."
"Ice'll do," Gambit said, buttoning up his shirt again. "Steed, do you suppose this has anything to do with what happened to George?"
"Of course I do. And so do you." Steed didn't have to ask if Gambit was thinking about that emptied clip. He was thinking of it himself, remembering how well Radcliffe had always scored on the target range.
Gambit frowned. "If it was a snake… maybe he missed it… in the dark, in the water."
"If it was a snake," Steed temporized. "I think I'll go back to the police cordon, warn them to work in pairs – and not to shoot unless they've got no other choice. A snake that large doesn't generally eat two meals in short order. Radcliffe's shots may have irritated it into attacking."
"What do you want me to do?"
"Go home, ice that shoulder, and try to get some sleep," Steed said. "I'm going to need you come morning."
###
***
Steed was right.
It really was a giant rat. A giant rat! Gambit stared for a moment in sheer disbelief, mentally apologizing to the tramp they'd interviewed the night before. The teeth on that thing had to be longer than a man's hand.
It squealed, taking a step closer to Purdey and Steed, and he shook himself out of his first sense of shock, bringing up the tank-stopper and bracing it on the line of iron railing that blocked the passageway as he aimed. First, try for the heart.
The recoil stung the bruise he'd taken the night before, but the rat (The Rat!) didn't even slow down. It changed targets though… now it was heading after him.
Reload. Aim. He had a better shot at its head now; could aim right between the angry eyes. He took a deep breath, squeezed the trigger, and prayed.
This time the bullet struck something vital. The Rat reared back, squealing with pain, and the tunnel filled with the smell of blood and urine as spasms racked it's huge, foul body. It collapsed at last, and went still, and Gambit braced against the railing, waiting for his gut to decide that the thing was really dead.
"A tank at thirty paces," he repeated, almost to himself. It was almost a consolation to see that Steed looked nearly as unsettled as Gambit felt. It was one thing to postulate a huge rodent running around the sewers, and another to meet one. Especially one which shrugged off a tankkiller shell to the body as if it were a mere inconvenience.
Purdey, predictably, recovered her aplomb first. "Well," she said cheerfully. "There's one good thing to come of all this."
***
Gambit tugged the sewer map out of his inside pocket and dug out a pen to mark where they were. It would be easier to send in a cleanup crew that way. Which reminded him…
"Can the two of you get Chislenko out? I want to try to find its nest."
"Whatever for?" Purdey asked.
"Yorick," Gambit answered, meeting Steed's eyes. "And any others I can find. There've got to be dental records. And I'd like to make sure that there was only one rat. Heaven help us if it had a mate."
"The police can do that," Steed said.
Gambit hefted the shell gun. "Not without one of these."
"Thornton only seemed to think there was only one," Purdey said.
"Thornton?"
"The man who grows things. From last year, the break-in just after Harlow died," she added when Steed and Gambit didn't follow. "He's got a laboratory not that far off. With access to the sewers."
"Is that how you got down here?" Gambit asked, and at her nod added, with an appreciative lookover, "I didn't think you were dressed for wading."
She stuck her tongue out at him cheerfully. "Want any help looking?"
He shook his head. "Nah. I'm just being cautious."
"Three hours, no more," Steed said. "After that either the police or the army will take over, depending on who I can chivvy down here." He gave the rat another incredulous look. "And who'll believe me when I tell them what they're looking for."
***
Epilogue
Alternate versions
Ficbits and Dialogue notes
He died with his boots off. P
Or he was snatched, along with George. G
Oh? P
Gambit has a theory. S
I saw a big shadow, heard a sound like a train. I think they've got a machine down there. A fast mans of transport. G
A sewer buggy. But how'd they get it down there? P
In pieces. A light alloy construction. So light, they have to add ballast. G
What? P
Gambit found a grain sack down there. S
You have been a busy boy. Just popped up for some air?
No. For some heavier artillery. Now George fired a full clip at it. And they still got him. I'm betting that machine is armor plated too. And this little baby will stop a tank at thirty paces. Purdey, when you take your bath tonight, call down the plughole. Who knows, I might be near.
Will he need help do you think?
Would he admit it if he did?
I think I'll get another pair of these more my size. (pause) If there was an underground machine, could it be nuclear powered?
Eh?
Turn the lights off.
(n.b. Gambit's Cockney is fairly strong here. Purdey, listening, might know that he's fair shaken up by George's disappearance. After all, his theory has a major contradiction. If the machine is armored so well that it can't be shot through, then it won't need ballast.)
***
This is where I bid you good bye. Perhaps we shall meet again. Tomorrow I will continue the search.
Then we'll probably meet. Because we'll be here.
No rats. Strange, that thing. We have been down here some hours and not seen a single rat.
you thinking what I'm thinking?
At any given time there are thousands of rats down here. Now not one.
You are thinking what I'm thinking.
What's big enough, and strong enough, to drive all the rats away?
***
(It's one thirty in the morning when Purdey gets to bed. And it was dark when they were at Steed's, so again, that's an argument for the events happening nearer the winter solstice – they were down there "some hours" without finding anything.)
***
Steed? That water over there: it's an outlet. A sewer outlet.
That was where you went to fill your bottle?
Yeah. I left him.
When you went to fetch the water. Did you see anything?
It took Joe! I saw it. Big and dark! Its sides all wet and slimy.
What was it? What took Joe?
It was a huge fish. A killer shark.
What?
I saw it! I saw its jaws. Its teeth! Like razors!
A killer shark…
This far inland?
***
That's it Steed. I've been round the whole area. Twice. Nothing.
I think just one more time.
'swhat the man said.
(whipcrack)
You all right?
Yeah, yeah. Yeah I think so.
You saw it?
I felt it.
Well, what was it? Killer shark?
Killer shark, no.
What was it?
It was a snake.
***
(n.b. Purdey goes back into the sewer sometime after dawn. (There's light outside the lab window.) She may have been dialing Gambit's number, since there's no answer and he's on his way out to Steed's.)
Gambit may be the only one of the three of them that got any sleep that night. Purdey was up in the lab, reading Thornton's notes and Steed was up doing research and concocting ratbait. Of course, Gambit was the only one of them that got damaged, too.
Thinking Out Loud
There's a real challenge in taking a story as silly as "Gnaws" seriously. Just the kind of thing that begs for fanfic.
An interesting bit here, when Steed and Gambit go to talk to the tramp. I can just imagine someone calling up Steed and saying "This is your kind of case" after all the odd things Steed ran up against in the sixties.
Also, time of year notes… The office closes at sixthirty, and the guard is just going around flicking off lights before Carter breaks in. What time of year is it dark in London that early? (Any time after late September or before mid-March). N.B. lots of people wearing warm clothes… And dried leaves on the ground at Harlow's grave.
It occurs to me that Gambit calls George Radcliffe "George". That's unusual. He calls other men by either their last names or a nickname off the last name a good bit of the time – particularly colleagues. "Braddy" for Bradshaw and "Willie" for Williams. And George seems to know him well enough to take getting a gun in the ribs as a demonstration of a sense of humor, rather than a personal insult.
So chances are, it's Gambit who goes through the sewers, looking for bits of bone and things that might be identified as the body… Something to bury in that little graveyard where Harlow is. He's a lot more sentimental than Purdey gives him credit for. (And more of a romantic.)
In My Not So Humble Opinion
Okay, okay, the villains aren't much fun, the giant rat is ridiculous, and the writer didn't seem to know how to use Steed very well until the last act, but there's something about this episode that sets the plotbunnies to biting at my ankles. Probably the Purdey/Gambit scenes – not just the interchange at the graveside, but also all the bits with the pair of them in the sewers together… and of course there's a bonus point for her grabbing his arm like that!
I just mentioned my favorite scene, so I'll go with a pet peeve… What the hell is the timing? I mean, if Gambit is at Steed's place after dark (or before sunrise) so that Purdey can find out about those radioactive boots, then how many hours do they spend down there? *grump fuss* Hmm. Maybe Steed had pulled all the blinds so they could watch a movie…
my TNA fic links
Oct 18 06
Disclaimer: The New Avengers are copyrighted, but not by me. I think Canal+ or Mark One Productions owns the rights at the moment. Which means, of course, that this is fanfic – me playing in someone else's sandbox. Even moreso, anything in dark blue is a scene taken straight from the screen, dialogue and all, that either didn't hit the novelizations, or that didn't hit them in a way that satisfied my sense of the character arcs that I'm exploring. Links to quotes and screencaps (where they appear) are courtesy of bromfield hall.
As a rule
*** means I'm still adding onto a piece or scene and
### means I'm satisfied with that bit for now.
---
http://www.bromfieldhall.co.uk/tnaquotes14.htm
http://www.bromfieldhall.co.uk/gnawspics.htm
Summary: For them as hasn't seen it lately: A year after the first hint of trouble, Gambit, Purdey, and Steed encounter big trouble in the sewers under London.
Scenes
Well well
That's a stupid remark.
Tis not.
It most certainly is. Well well. It doesn't mean anything.
If you'd let me continue I was going to say Well Well, and what is old unsentimental Gambit doing here with flowers.
Well, well.
You're right, of course, when you say it it does sound rather stupid.
Well, well and what is steel-hearted Purdey doing here?
I'm a woman. Women are allowed their idiosyncrasies.
And nobody knows that better than I. I couldn't let the old chap go unremembered. Could we?
Exactly a year ago.
To the day.
Did we come here out of sentiment, Gambit? Or guilt? We never did discover who killed him.
No we didn't.
Perhaps one day.
Your inquiry at the ministry never came to anything?
Nothing. It's a dead trail now. Thornton resigned six months ago.
Thornton?
You know, the man who grows things.
***
She cocked her head at Gambit. "What about your side of the investigation? You never did tell me what you found."
Gambit shrugged. "Nothing to find. Harlow didn't have any people left except his father, and he'd gone childish three or four years past. Didn't even understand what I was telling him. A few friends in the department, a very open ended relationship with a girl who lives in Camden. Some old Army buddies. None of whom had any reason to want him dead. There was an odd neighbor I thought about, but she'd been in Scotland the night Harlow died. And no sign she'd ever had any chance to acquire the kind of training it would have taken to hit him like that."
"So he died because of something he found out. Something at the Ministry. It might not even have been related to the break-in at all, for all we know."
"Not if his killer decided to lay low afterwards, no," Gambit said, opening the cemetery gate for her. "Like you said, a dead trail."
***
"A snake? Are you sure?" Steed asked.
Gambit shook his head as he rubbed at his collarbone. "Not positive. But it was something the size and shape of a snake – a really big one – you know, an anaconda."
Steed raised an eyebrow. "This far from the Amazon?"
"Maybe someone had it as a pet and it got loose. Like the alligators in the sewers in New York," Gambit suggested. He looked up at the pipeline above his head. "It was up there – I don't even think it was trying to attack me – just flailing its scalesome tail." He moved his left arm around with wincing success, but Steed could see that he wasn't shaking off the blow easily.
"Come over here into the light, and let's see if anything's broken," he ordered.
"Just bruised, I think," Gambit said, but he let himself be towed over to an open space and submitted to having his coat and shirt opened to reveal the long triangle of reddened skin down his chest where the "snake" had struck him.
"That's going to need ice," Steed observed, nearly as interested in the shape of the mark as he was in the undamaged lines of the bones beneath it. "But not a doctor, unless you'd rather."
"Ice'll do," Gambit said, buttoning up his shirt again. "Steed, do you suppose this has anything to do with what happened to George?"
"Of course I do. And so do you." Steed didn't have to ask if Gambit was thinking about that emptied clip. He was thinking of it himself, remembering how well Radcliffe had always scored on the target range.
Gambit frowned. "If it was a snake… maybe he missed it… in the dark, in the water."
"If it was a snake," Steed temporized. "I think I'll go back to the police cordon, warn them to work in pairs – and not to shoot unless they've got no other choice. A snake that large doesn't generally eat two meals in short order. Radcliffe's shots may have irritated it into attacking."
"What do you want me to do?"
"Go home, ice that shoulder, and try to get some sleep," Steed said. "I'm going to need you come morning."
###
***
Steed was right.
It really was a giant rat. A giant rat! Gambit stared for a moment in sheer disbelief, mentally apologizing to the tramp they'd interviewed the night before. The teeth on that thing had to be longer than a man's hand.
It squealed, taking a step closer to Purdey and Steed, and he shook himself out of his first sense of shock, bringing up the tank-stopper and bracing it on the line of iron railing that blocked the passageway as he aimed. First, try for the heart.
The recoil stung the bruise he'd taken the night before, but the rat (The Rat!) didn't even slow down. It changed targets though… now it was heading after him.
Reload. Aim. He had a better shot at its head now; could aim right between the angry eyes. He took a deep breath, squeezed the trigger, and prayed.
This time the bullet struck something vital. The Rat reared back, squealing with pain, and the tunnel filled with the smell of blood and urine as spasms racked it's huge, foul body. It collapsed at last, and went still, and Gambit braced against the railing, waiting for his gut to decide that the thing was really dead.
"A tank at thirty paces," he repeated, almost to himself. It was almost a consolation to see that Steed looked nearly as unsettled as Gambit felt. It was one thing to postulate a huge rodent running around the sewers, and another to meet one. Especially one which shrugged off a tankkiller shell to the body as if it were a mere inconvenience.
Purdey, predictably, recovered her aplomb first. "Well," she said cheerfully. "There's one good thing to come of all this."
***
Gambit tugged the sewer map out of his inside pocket and dug out a pen to mark where they were. It would be easier to send in a cleanup crew that way. Which reminded him…
"Can the two of you get Chislenko out? I want to try to find its nest."
"Whatever for?" Purdey asked.
"Yorick," Gambit answered, meeting Steed's eyes. "And any others I can find. There've got to be dental records. And I'd like to make sure that there was only one rat. Heaven help us if it had a mate."
"The police can do that," Steed said.
Gambit hefted the shell gun. "Not without one of these."
"Thornton only seemed to think there was only one," Purdey said.
"Thornton?"
"The man who grows things. From last year, the break-in just after Harlow died," she added when Steed and Gambit didn't follow. "He's got a laboratory not that far off. With access to the sewers."
"Is that how you got down here?" Gambit asked, and at her nod added, with an appreciative lookover, "I didn't think you were dressed for wading."
She stuck her tongue out at him cheerfully. "Want any help looking?"
He shook his head. "Nah. I'm just being cautious."
"Three hours, no more," Steed said. "After that either the police or the army will take over, depending on who I can chivvy down here." He gave the rat another incredulous look. "And who'll believe me when I tell them what they're looking for."
***
Epilogue
Alternate versions
Ficbits and Dialogue notes
He died with his boots off. P
Or he was snatched, along with George. G
Oh? P
Gambit has a theory. S
I saw a big shadow, heard a sound like a train. I think they've got a machine down there. A fast mans of transport. G
A sewer buggy. But how'd they get it down there? P
In pieces. A light alloy construction. So light, they have to add ballast. G
What? P
Gambit found a grain sack down there. S
You have been a busy boy. Just popped up for some air?
No. For some heavier artillery. Now George fired a full clip at it. And they still got him. I'm betting that machine is armor plated too. And this little baby will stop a tank at thirty paces. Purdey, when you take your bath tonight, call down the plughole. Who knows, I might be near.
Will he need help do you think?
Would he admit it if he did?
I think I'll get another pair of these more my size. (pause) If there was an underground machine, could it be nuclear powered?
Eh?
Turn the lights off.
(n.b. Gambit's Cockney is fairly strong here. Purdey, listening, might know that he's fair shaken up by George's disappearance. After all, his theory has a major contradiction. If the machine is armored so well that it can't be shot through, then it won't need ballast.)
***
This is where I bid you good bye. Perhaps we shall meet again. Tomorrow I will continue the search.
Then we'll probably meet. Because we'll be here.
No rats. Strange, that thing. We have been down here some hours and not seen a single rat.
you thinking what I'm thinking?
At any given time there are thousands of rats down here. Now not one.
You are thinking what I'm thinking.
What's big enough, and strong enough, to drive all the rats away?
***
(It's one thirty in the morning when Purdey gets to bed. And it was dark when they were at Steed's, so again, that's an argument for the events happening nearer the winter solstice – they were down there "some hours" without finding anything.)
***
Steed? That water over there: it's an outlet. A sewer outlet.
That was where you went to fill your bottle?
Yeah. I left him.
When you went to fetch the water. Did you see anything?
It took Joe! I saw it. Big and dark! Its sides all wet and slimy.
What was it? What took Joe?
It was a huge fish. A killer shark.
What?
I saw it! I saw its jaws. Its teeth! Like razors!
A killer shark…
This far inland?
***
That's it Steed. I've been round the whole area. Twice. Nothing.
I think just one more time.
'swhat the man said.
(whipcrack)
You all right?
Yeah, yeah. Yeah I think so.
You saw it?
I felt it.
Well, what was it? Killer shark?
Killer shark, no.
What was it?
It was a snake.
***
(n.b. Purdey goes back into the sewer sometime after dawn. (There's light outside the lab window.) She may have been dialing Gambit's number, since there's no answer and he's on his way out to Steed's.)
Gambit may be the only one of the three of them that got any sleep that night. Purdey was up in the lab, reading Thornton's notes and Steed was up doing research and concocting ratbait. Of course, Gambit was the only one of them that got damaged, too.
Thinking Out Loud
There's a real challenge in taking a story as silly as "Gnaws" seriously. Just the kind of thing that begs for fanfic.
An interesting bit here, when Steed and Gambit go to talk to the tramp. I can just imagine someone calling up Steed and saying "This is your kind of case" after all the odd things Steed ran up against in the sixties.
Also, time of year notes… The office closes at sixthirty, and the guard is just going around flicking off lights before Carter breaks in. What time of year is it dark in London that early? (Any time after late September or before mid-March). N.B. lots of people wearing warm clothes… And dried leaves on the ground at Harlow's grave.
It occurs to me that Gambit calls George Radcliffe "George". That's unusual. He calls other men by either their last names or a nickname off the last name a good bit of the time – particularly colleagues. "Braddy" for Bradshaw and "Willie" for Williams. And George seems to know him well enough to take getting a gun in the ribs as a demonstration of a sense of humor, rather than a personal insult.
So chances are, it's Gambit who goes through the sewers, looking for bits of bone and things that might be identified as the body… Something to bury in that little graveyard where Harlow is. He's a lot more sentimental than Purdey gives him credit for. (And more of a romantic.)
In My Not So Humble Opinion
Okay, okay, the villains aren't much fun, the giant rat is ridiculous, and the writer didn't seem to know how to use Steed very well until the last act, but there's something about this episode that sets the plotbunnies to biting at my ankles. Probably the Purdey/Gambit scenes – not just the interchange at the graveside, but also all the bits with the pair of them in the sewers together… and of course there's a bonus point for her grabbing his arm like that!
I just mentioned my favorite scene, so I'll go with a pet peeve… What the hell is the timing? I mean, if Gambit is at Steed's place after dark (or before sunrise) so that Purdey can find out about those radioactive boots, then how many hours do they spend down there? *grump fuss* Hmm. Maybe Steed had pulled all the blinds so they could watch a movie…
my TNA fic links
