Juggernaut was pretty sure that his whiteboard was making the intelligence team nervous. Either they were sick of the eyesore, or they were scared that it was a passive-aggressive sign that he was mad at them for their lack of progress. He wasn't, so he moved it. They needed every ounce of concentration they could get.

He would've moved it into the Marvel meeting room, but he didn't want the others to see it and question his highly questionable thought process. Instead, he rolled the whiteboard into his own room and shoved it against a wall. Now he could glare at it even on the off hours, which wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

He sat cross-legged on the edge of his bed, mentally crossing names off a list while flipping through items on his pager. He'd started to look over every mission dispatch received, even if they weren't for the Marvels, just in case anything seemed off. Precautionary or paranoid, he'd let Michael decide. He had way too much to do already and this only added on to that, and nothing suspicious had come up yet, but it was better than risking another warehouse incident.

When he was done with this hour's information, he glanced at the whiteboard, at the picture of Speed that Lady Marvel had tacked on as a joke. It had been a while, but no one had died since then, so Juggernaut hoped that the murderer had been scared off. A copycat killing might be flattering, but a highly-publicized copycat killing of a speedster? That wasn't flattery—that was a threat, and he was glad the murderer seemed to have gotten the message, even if they would never know who it was from. Now it was just a matter of finding them before they got bold again.

Juggernaut frowned when the next hour's assignments popped up on his watch, not ready to jump from murders to filtering through missions. There was too much to think about, and the investigation was moving so slowly. The general consensus was this: no one saw anyone do anything. The body just showed up at the docks, the body was just found hanging in the alley, and the body just happened to be tied to propane. He hadn't gotten around to talking to anyone yet, but once he did, he knew things would go faster. He wasn't the LAPD, and he wasn't Celestro's human detectives. If he asked a question, he'd get an answer or someone would lose a limb—depending on the virtues of the person, of course. He wouldn't hurt the owners of the sushi restaurant next to Fairy's alley, but he'd take out Silvera's eye (which Echo suggested) if he didn't cooperate.

There was a knock from the hallway, followed by a tentative, "Sir?"

"Come in," he said.

Emika opened the door. "Dr. Leitner finished a new lens, and he wants you to come try it."

"I'm in the middle of something," he said distractedly, not lifting his eyes from his watch. "Can we do that later?"

Emika shuffled her feet and looked at the schedules on her tablet. "I'd push it back," she said with an awkward cough, "but you have the charity benefit, the address for CNN, the LAPD correspondence, the—"

"Alright, alright," he interrupted. "I'm coming."

Juggernaut followed her to the elevator, irritated. He liked staying busy, but lately, there was too much to do. It was all because of the stupid anniversary and all the bells and whistles that came with it. Well, that and the murders, but he was fine dealing with the murders. Preferred them, even.

Leitner, his over-eager lab technicians, and two nervous interns were waiting in Testing Room Two, the widely-unknown sibling of Testing Room One. One was where potential recruits were given the super-steroid to have their powers tested, and Two was a larger, fortified room for analyzing experiments. Propped up against a wall was a new, unscarred metal target, thicker than the last one. Leitner was holding a small tray with the latest prototype of his long-term project: contact lenses that would change the color of Juggernaut's lasers.

Eight years had produced several hundred prototypes, and not a single one worked.

Leitner held out the tray, excited. He was always convinced that the next one would be it, but Juggernaut didn't share the enthusiasm. He took off a glove, gently picked up the left lens, and backed up to the taped x on the floor.

Leitner cleared his throat. "You're...only taking one?"

Juggernaut looked at the right lens, still on the tray. "Are they different?" he asked evenly.

"Ah, no." Leitner cleared his throat again. "They're the same."

"Then why try both?" Juggernaut said with a cold smile, putting the lens in. It felt wrong, and he could barely get his eye to close over it. "It's a little thick."

"It's not optimized for long-term use yet," one of the interns said. "Right now, we're just trying to get the color change right."

Juggernaut turned to face the metal, eyes growing hot, and lasered it. The beam from his right eye was, naturally, red, and the beam from his left eye through the lens was—surprise, surprise—also red. He could hear the disappointed sighs of the team behind him, but he couldn't enjoy their sorrow because the lens fucking melted. His vision blurred as the plastic spread and spilled down over his eyelid.

"I thought we already fixed the melting problem!" he snapped, rubbing his eye.

"We've been revisiting old prototypes and trying to improve," Leitner said in a small voice. "So the melting problem...it's back."

Which meant the next dozen or so lenses would be the same way.

Wonderful.

"Sir?" Emika said. "That's all Leitner has for today. You have to go meet with the police, and then there's—"

"I got it," he said. "I got it."

Juggernaut left the room, still clawing out leftover plastic as his left eye refused to open all the way. That was why he didn't notice that Lady Marvel was in the hallway with him until she threw something and said, "Heads up."

He caught it right in front of his face, coming eye-to-eye with a disembodied head. He lowered it to see Lady Marvel standing there in clothes splattered with blood, sighing.

In a sarcastic, sing-song voice, she said, "We have a problem."

———— earlier that morning ———

Andrea Lavigne was a French artist famous for moving pieces, and she'd dated Kaia Kane, aka Blaze, for a few years. Sometime during that stretch, Lady Marvel and Juggernaut—as 'friends' and coworkers of the artist's girlfriend—had been invited to Paris for Andrea's first major exhibit. It was a publicity stunt on both sides: the exhibit got attention for having famous American superheroes as guests, and Celestro began to dabble in sponsoring international things, furthering their reach and power. Despite that, Andrea became a good acquaintance, and even after her and Kaia's breakup, she didn't cut ties.

The Los Angeles exhibit was her first one outside of Europe. Lady Marvel couldn't claim to understand or love Andrea's work, but it was fun and full of surprises. There was a painting with eyes that changed color every time someone walked past, and a toy car that raced across the floor and, instead of hitting the wall, went up it, and there was an axe that swung down from the ceiling and smashed into an intricately painted glass window, which was replaced by a new window every hour so that the next wave of guests could see the action. There were things Lady Marvel didn't even realize were part of the exhibit until they moved, like the axe-in-window, which she and Phase had been standing by, wondering why the area was blocked off by velvet rope, when it happened.

Lady Marvel and Phase walked through the building together, friends catching up rather than the famous American superhero guests she and Juggernaut had been in Paris. It felt good. But then, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a woman not-so-discreetly taking a picture of them. If either of them were on their own, the civilian clothes might have been enough to make them unrecognizable. But a woman who kind of looks like Lady Marvel, standing with a man who kind of looks like Phase, in an exhibit sponsored by Celestro? Dead giveaway.

Lady Marvel shook her head, well aware of what tomorrow's ridiculous tabloid headlines would be.

Phase also noticed the woman. "Well," he said, shrugging. "Guess we're secretly married now."

She winked. "Shhh."

They laughed and moved on, too used to rumors to take them seriously. No one believed the tabloids, anyway.

Lady Marvel was eyeing a painting, trying to figure out if something was about to pop out at her face, when a sharp crackle made her flinch. She turned just fast enough to watch the skylight shatter as a refrigerator box fell through and hit the ground with a heavy thud that echoed off the walls. Everyone stared at the mess.

"Wow," she whistled, looking up at the broken skylight, a formerly beautiful circle of glass. "She put a lot of effort into that piece."

"Marv?" Phase was reading the program pamphlet. "That's...not part of the exhibit."

Lady Marvel blinked and glanced around. The guests weren't in awe, they were shocked and uneasy. The security guard was standing there, thoroughly confused.

No. This wasn't part of the exhibit.

Lady Marvel slowly walked forward. She was going to check it out even if the guard told her not to, but she nodded to him anyway in hopes of approval. He nodded back with a nervous swallow, still confused.

Phase followed her toward the mess of glass while everyone else was ushered back. Lady Marvel crouched down by the refrigerator box, a horrible smell emanating from it. There was so obviously a corpse inside that she wanted to turn around and leave it for the cops to deal with, but she was already going to smell like death, so there wasn't much to lose. She tore open the box and, surprise, surprise, there was a corpse inside.

Lady Marvel inhaled sharply because it was wearing a supersuit, and it was headless.

And as if that wasn't bad enough, the body then exploded.

_____________

Juggernaut wasn't surprised by the head. "I take it the exhibit didn't go well?" he asked.

"That's Eagle Eye," Lady Marvel said. Her real name was Sara Evans. "She's not one of ours."

Juggernaut shook his head. Lady Marvel noticed that his left eye was barely staying open, and there was something dripping down his face. It looked like the melting problem was back.

"It appears our murderer has expanded to killing non-Celestro supers, too," he said tiredly. "What happened?"

"They put the corpse in a refrigerator box and dropped it through the skylight," Lady Marvel explained, picking at a splotch of dried blood on her wrist. "And then it exploded."

He turned the head around to face her. "And they let you take this?"

"No. The body was headless. I found that on the sidewalk on my way here, one block down."

"Well." He laughed, sounding more exasperated than amused. "I had to meet with the police anyway, may as well bring them a present."

Emika came out of the door behind him, stopping short. "You really need to get going," she said quickly. "There's the correspondence afterwards, and then—"

"Alright," he interrupted. "I'm going!"

Emika nodded and froze, finally noticing what he was holding and Lady Marvel's blood-splattered clothes. "Is your trip over?" was all she asked after shuddering.

Lady Marvel smiled. "The exploding corpse cut it short."

Emika inhaled and exhaled once, slowly, clearly picturing all the work she and Fox had to do now that there was a new name to add to the growing list. "I need you in Fox's office."

Lady Marvel raised an eyebrow. "Can I change first?" Whatever they wanted her to do, she doubted they'd let her do it looking like this.

"Ten minutes," Emika urged, turning on her heel and leaving in a rush.

Lady Marvel moved to follow her, passing by Juggernaut as he went the other way. He was still rubbing his eye. She couldn't believe he hadn't snapped yet over the extensive lens testing.

"Did it at least work?" she teased.

He laughed. "What do you think?"

And we're back! Updates are, once again, every other Wednesday! Thanks for sticking around, and I hope this chapter was a good jump back into the book.