Spider-Man: Home Sick

13 - Heist!

Ned's P.O.V

"Are you sure you want to do this?" I was crouched down in the back of a van, Happy at the wheel, Aunt May right beside me.
"Absolutely." Aunt May had a hard look of determination on her face.
Happy parked just outside the Daily Bugle building and turned to face us "Okay, you remember the plan?"
We both nodded but Happy went over it anyway (probably for exposition's sake).
"I'll go up, use my Stark company pass to get through the front door, and pretend I'm here to interview J. Jonah Jameson about the latest Spidey video. Ned, you sneak in while Aunt May's distracting the people at the front desk, get into his laptop, and get out of there as fast as you can. We'll keep in contact with these earpieces." He passed one to each of us. "If something goes wrong, just run. Don't turn back. Just run. You ready?"
We both nodded.
"Let's go." He got out of the car and walked as casually as he could through the front door of the building.
Through my earpiece, I heard his conversation with the man at the front desk, and his footsteps as he was allowed through to the elevator.
Then it was May's turn.
"Good luck."
She whispered to me. She clambered out of the back of the van as stealthily as she could and marched purposefully to the front desk "I demand to speak to your manager!" She yelled so loudly it almost burst my eardrum. "No, I don't want to hear it! I need to see him right now!"
"Ma'am - he-he's in a meeting, I -"

I almost felt bad for the poor man, but then I heard her say the code word 'Death Star' (though how she managed to slip it naturally into conversation, I'll never know) and I had to go.
May had subtly shifted around the front desk until everyone in the front lobby's eyes were glued to her, and therefore their backs were turned from the door.
I snuck through the door, scuttled behind the people just watching May yell at this random guy, and made it into the elevator unnoticed.
My stomach was twisted into knots the entire ride up, but I didn't encounter a single person. There was almost a scary lack of people in the building.
Finally, I reached the top floor and perambulated along as naturally as I could, trying to avoid the eye of anyone I passed and pretend that I was meant to be there.
As I passed a door marked 'Interview Room', I glanced through the glass in the door for a split second to see Happy with his back to the door, across a desk from him was a man I recognised to be J. Jonah Jameson from the dozens of times I'd watched him revealing Spider-Man's secret identity.
I kept walking until I reached the office at the end of the hallway labeled 'J. Jonah Jameson'. Checking that no one was nearby, I slipped in and made a beeline for the laptop sitting on the desk in the middle of the room.
It had been left unlocked, so all I had to do was slam in the hard drive and wait a little while as the data downloaded.
This is almost too easy! I thought boastfully Almost as if they wanted us to succeed... I rushed to the laptop, but it wasn't even halfway done yet. I couldn't do anything except wait, each second passing by agonisingly slowly, dreading if someone was about to walk through that door.
Just as it had finished downloading and I'd grabbed the memory stick, shoving it into my pocket, a colossal hand grabbed my shoulder, lifting me off my feet, and a deep, powerful voice growled in my ear.
"Gotcha."