Actions

Work Header

Rating:
Archive Warning:
Categories:
Fandom:
Relationships:
Additional Tags:
Language:
English
Stats:
Published:
2026-04-22
Words:
1,440
Chapters:
1/1
Hits:
10

Back's Against the Wall

Summary:

Tiny and Dennis make a scary pizza delivery

Notes:

(a) Buddy is a redheaded private investigator. He's the youngest yet tallest of his adopted siblings and loves to eat carrion. He's genuinely friendly but isn't opposed to being terrifying if the situation calls for it.
Buddy's husband, Dennis, is Boutique Coastal's chief data analyst and lead archivist. Dennis doesn't just "know facts"—he is a walking encyclopedia who manages the most sophisticated database in the industry. The brilliant, soft-spoken specialist who always has noise-canceling headphones around his neck. He works in a quiet, dimly lit office filled with high-end monitors and physical reference books. Having graduated at the top of the Academy, he is technically Gilbert’s most valuable asset. Gilbert handles the people; Dennis handles the math, the routes, and the historical accuracy. He is the only person who can out-fact Buddy. If Buddy has a hypothesis for a case, Dennis is the one who provides the verbal 500-page data set to prove it (in about ten seconds).

(b) Don is a mellow, air-headed oddball and the second youngest sibling. He's a paleontologist with an affinity for digging holes and telling everyone his life story.
Don's wife, Lily, is a botanical illustrator and rare plant scout. A whimsical, "Cottagecore" professional, she travels with the Pteranodon crew not to dig for bones, but to document the flora of the regions they visit. Her childhood high-energy "clinginess" has evolved into unwavering dedication. She is Don’s biggest fan and his constant shadow. While Leroy (her brother) used to find her "in the way," she is now the indispensable partner who cleans Don’s finds and catalogs them with beautiful watercolor sketches.

(c) Shiny is an awkward, feminine, aqua-haired Boutique Coastal Travel Consultant & Curator, who likes to collect shiny shells but is deeply afraid of the dark.
Shiny's husband, Gilbert, is a logistics coordinator and operations director of Boutique Coastal (his uncle is the CEO, but he earned this job). A young executive who is technically "off the clock" but can’t stop checking his watch. He wears a perfectly tailored suit that is a modern, chic version of his Uncle’s old uniform. He still enters every room like he’s stepping onto a Broadway stage. His "Good morning, Pteranodon Team!" is loud and energetic, usually accompanied by a dramatic flourish with his tablet or itinerary.

(d) Tiny is a clever, courageous, green-haired tomboy and National Geographic field journalist. She’s the oldest of the siblings and famous for her foodie segments where she tries local seafood.
Tiny's wife, Cindy, is a specialized wildlife rehabilitator. She likes to work with the small, the overlooked, and the fragile. A brilliant but anxious scientist who prefers the company of small animals to large, "stomping" humans. She wears oversized sweaters and carries a high-tech medical kit at all times. In a professional setting, Cindy doesn't literally faint anymore—instead, she is hyper-reactive. If a project hits a snag, she might have a brief "system crash" where she needs five minutes of silence and a heavy blanket before she solves the problem with staggering efficiency. While Tiny is messy and covered in dirt, Cindy is perfectly groomed. Every thread of her clothing is intentional; she has a very high sensory awareness.

Work Text:

A thick, humid August heat clings to the red bricks of the Hanscom Park quadplex, the air smelling of sun-baked grass and the distant, metallic tang of the Omaha lagoons. On the shared porch, the Pteranodon siblings and their spouses are gathered in a tableau of Sunday afternoon lethargy.

 

Buddy, a towering figure with a shock of red hair and the sharp, scanning eyes of a man who notices the scuff on a shoe before the color of a shirt, is midway through a snack of cured, pungent jerky. Beside him, Don is elbow-deep in a decorative planter, his brow furrowed as he carefully excavates a particularly "charismatic" pebble. Lily sits at his feet, her floral sundress splayed like a fallen peony, her charcoal pencil dancing across a sketchbook to capture the exact serration of a fern leaf. Nearby, Shiny is adjusting her silk scarf, her aqua hair shimmering under the porch lights, while Gilbert—looking like he just stepped off a mid-town stage in a breathable, slate-grey Italian suit—checks his Patek Philippe for the fourth time in ten minutes. Cindy, tucked into an oversized knit cardigan despite the heat, is meticulously organizing a travel-sized medkit, her movements jerky and precise.

 

The peace shatters as a dusty delivery truck roars into the driveway. Tiny, her green hair wind-whipped and a smudge of dirt across her cheek, leaps from the driver’s seat with a triumphant yell. Dennis follows at a more measured pace, his high-end noise-canceling headphones resting around his neck, his expression one of dazed intellectual stimulation.

 

Buddy stands, his height casting a long shadow. "You two look like you just humped through a swamp. What happened to the 'quick' run?"

 

Cindy is on her feet instantly, her hands hovering near Tiny’s shoulders as if checking for invisible fractures. "Your heart rate looks elevated, Tiny. Did you encounter a stressor? Was there an environmental hazard? Why is Dennis’s shirt torn?"

 

Tiny lets out a booming laugh, throwing an arm around her wife. "Stress? Babe, it was a riot! We got the order at the shop, right? Normal pizza, normal address—except for the 'Special Instructions.' It wasn't 'extra napkins' or 'leave at the gate.' It was just a string of ten digits."

 

Dennis adjusts his glasses, his voice calm and academic, cutting through the humidity. "I realized quickly that it was an MGRS—"

 

"That’s a Military Grid Reference System," Tiny interjects, her eyes sparkling with the thrill of the hunt.

 

"An MGRS grid," Dennis continues, ignoring the interruption with the practiced patience of a man who manages complex datasets. "A ten-digit one. In technical terms, that implies a precision of one meter—approximately 3.28 feet. It’s a coordinate for people who don't want to be found by anyone without a map and a compass."

 

Tiny leans against the porch railing, grinning at the group. "Exactly! So, I’m thinking, these dudes are either massive nerds, really good at nav, or they've got some serious high-speed gear. I was interested. I wanted to see who was at the end of that string."

 

Shiny sighs, buffing a seashell against her palm. "Of course you were. Heaven forbid we just eat the pizza ourselves and call it a day. You're such a thrill-seeker, Tiny. It’s honestly exhausting."

 

Gilbert checks his watch again, a dramatic flourish of his wrist. "Time is a finite resource, Pteranodon Team! Efficiency is the soul of Boutique Coastal. Dennis, tell me you didn't waste forty-two minutes of billable logistics on a scavenger hunt."

 

Dennis offers a rare, small smile. "I thought, 'Oh, tight. Easy tip.' But then I pulled up the satellite overlay. This grid was a rather absurd distance away from the nearest paved road. Logically, I should have marked it undeliverable. But it was my last run of the shift, and Tiny was already revving the engine. I said... well, I said forget it. We went for it."

 

"I didn't just go for it, I sent it!" Tiny exclaims, her hands gesturing wildly. "I parked the truck on the shoulder of the fire road, pulled on my hiking boots, and we hoofed it. Four kilometers, straight up a series of fire breaks. It was brutal. I loved every second."

 

Don looks up from his hole, eyes wide. "Four kilometers? Did you find any fossils? The strata up those fire breaks are surprisingly rich in Late Cretaceous limestone."

 

"No bones, Don, just sweat," Tiny says.

 

Dennis taps his Garmin. "My wrist unit told me we had arrived at the exact grid. I looked around. Nothing but scrub brush, cedar trees, and heat waves. Total silence."

 

"I pulled out my phone to see if they’d messaged," Tiny says, her voice dropping to a theatrical whisper. "Zero bars. Dead zone. So I just cupped my hands and bellowed, 'Hello! I got a delivery here!' as loud as I could. I figured if nothing else, I'd scare the birds."

 

Dennis points to a spot on the porch floor to illustrate. "About two feet to my left, in some sizable vegetation I’d previously dismissed as a static juniper bush, a Marine crawls out. He was wearing a full viper hood—"

 

"Think the top half of a ghillie suit," Tiny adds for Cindy’s benefit.

 

"—and a face painted in disruptive forest patterns," Dennis finishes. "He looked less like a human and more like a very hungry forest spirit."

 

Tiny slaps her knee. "He looks at us and goes, 'Dude, you actually came! What a G!' And then, like a scene out of a movie, three more of them just... materialize out of the dirt. They were quietly rejoicing, like we were delivering the Holy Grail instead of a pepperoni thin-crust."

 

Don blinks, his air-headed wonder peaking. "They were living in the dirt? Like... like burrowing owls? That’s so cool. Did they tell you their life stories? I would have asked about their favorite shovel."

 

"They were a bit busy eating, honey," Lily says softly, patting Don’s hand.

 

"They took the pie," Dennis says, his eyes reflecting the memory of the data. "Then they slid me a handful of crumpled, sweat-soaked five-dollar bills. It was clear they’d all chipped in whatever they had in their kits. It was a grassroots funding effort for snacks."

 

Tiny grins, her energy infectious. "We had some good laughs. Once they realized we weren't from the base or their command, they figured we were just moonlighters with a death wish. They kept thanking us over and over. They’d been on this op for three days, eating nothing but MREs and grit. They just wanted real food."

 

Buddy crosses his arms, his PI brain ticking. "Wait. If they were in a 'hide' and had no signal, how did the order get through in the first place? That’s a massive security breach or a technological anomaly."

 

Dennis nods appreciatively. "That was my first question. The lead scout admitted he’d stepped out of the hide to a high point an hour earlier, caught a flickering signal, and placed the order on a whim. He got a quick grid from his GPS to put in the notes, but he told me he never expected a driver to actually be enough of a... 'legend' was his word... to hike it in."

 

"He called us legends, Dennis! Don't be a killjoy and undersell it," Tiny nudges him. "They were so stoked. And the best part? They tipped us forty-something bucks in small bills. Most profitable hike of my life."

 

Cindy lets out a long, shaky breath, her "system crash" averted now that the narrative has concluded safely. She pulls a wet wipe from her kit and begins scrubbing the dirt off Tiny’s hand. "Forty dollars is not worth a potential encounter with armed individuals in camouflage, Tiny. But... I suppose your protein levels are fine if you're this loud."

 

Shiny rolls her eyes, though she’s smiling. "Only you two would find a military exercise and turn it into a delivery service. Honestly, the brand integration possibilities are fascinating, but the logistics are a nightmare."

 

Gilbert stands up, clapping his hands together with a resounding crack. "Enough! The 'Pteranodon Pizza Recon' mission is a success! But now, we have a synergy meeting with a very important tray of grilled vegetables. To the backyard! Move, move, move!"

 

As the group filters toward the back, Buddy lingers for a second, looking at Dennis. "An MGRS grid in a dead zone? You'll have to show me that coordinate later. I want to see the terrain mapping."

 

Dennis nods, his headphones clicking back over his ears. "I already have the topographical data pulled up. It’s fascinating, Buddy. Truly fascinating."