Protective Custody

Bryan Mills knew he should have seen it coming. In a way he had. But he'd never expected it here, on American soil, in the middle of a beautiful family night.

Everything had started out so perfectly. He and Lenore had gone to meet Kim and Jamie at the Acquerello for dinner. It was a special occasion, the first real dinner they'd had since the marriage, a chance for him and Lenore to get better acquainted with Jamie, who Mills had to admit he was starting to like better and better. It was the sort of happy family occasion Mills had dreamed of having for years, but had never dared to hope would actually come to pass.

He should have suspected something when the valet couldn't find either of their cars. One, perhaps, he could have overlooked, but two? The sweating concierge had apologized profusely and tried to offer explanations, even offering his own car, but Mills had been blissful and thoughtless and had laughed it off, saying they would walk to the subway. It was a beautiful night, cool but not cold, and they had passed the time by pointing out the few stars that could be seen. Lenore had been leaning on his shoulder, giggling like she was sixteen, and Kim had been leaning on Jamie's. It was all perfect.

And then the van had pulled up alongside.

There was no screech, no sudden rush, no suspicious slowdown beforehand—he'd have had more warning if there was. Instead, the van had been driving down the road at a perfectly normal rate, and then suddenly slammed to a stop, disgorging a squad of men in dark masks.

He'd reacted quickly. He could say that, at least. Even taken unawares, he'd leapt into action, knocking down the first two assailants out of the van and whipping out his pistol before the others could stop him. A few shouts had sent them scurrying for cover, and he'd shouted at his family to run, but other men were pouring out of the alleyways now, and escape was no longer an option.

They were Albanians—Mills could tell by the orders being shouted—and they were determined to take him and his family alive. They had tasers and stun guns, but no pistols. Mills had no such limitations, and managed to shoot at least six of them before someone knocked his gun away.

From there it'd devolved into a free-for-all melee. Mills felt pretty good about how it'd gone, really. Since the incident in Istanbul, Lenore and Kim had both insisted on self-defense lessons, and between that and the pepper spray both carried, they managed to hold their own. Even Jamie took down a thug or two, which made Mills like the boy more than ever.

But then... that man had appeared.

He'd stepped, not run, out of the alley, clad in a long dark poncho. Mills had seen him out of the corner of his eye but had accounted him no special attention. Then the man had whipped off the poncho, revealing the power suit and combat gear beneath. Two whips of crackling pure energy sprouted from his gauntlets, and his smile was dark and fierce beneath his mask.

The first whip had wrapped around Lenore, sending her into convulsions of pain. The second wrapped around him as, heedless of all else, he rushed to aid his wife. The second it touched him, Mills felt every nerve afire with pain, and his muscles seized up in defiance of his own will, leaving him helplessly twitching on the ground, barely able to feel the concrete beneath his head. He was powerless to watch as Kim and Jamie too were sent screaming to the ground. His arms and legs were dead weight, irresponsive to the impotent rage of his brain as he watched the masked men drag his little girl toward the waiting van.

Suddenly, there was the screech of tires.

Several SUV's emerged from the blackness of the street beyond and bumped up onto the sidewalk, squealing to a stop, completely blocking in the attacker's van. Expressions first of confusion, then of terror, broke from the masked men as car doors slammed and suited men became visible behind the headlights' glare.

The lightning man stood firm, however, and sent one crackling whip straight through the engine block of the foremost SUV. Through the haze of pain, Mills noted distantly that the weapons must have varying degrees of power—that would have sliced right through him or Lenore. The car didn't exactly explode, but it did buck wildly, tipping over and crashing backwards toward the suit-clad men behind it.

From the other side, though, bullets were already flying, and the rank-and-file of the thugs were dropping like flies. Several shots pinged off the whiplash man's power armor, sending him stumbling forward. He turned in rage, raising one sparking energy whip as he had done before.

But before he could bring it down, a dark-skinned man leapt from behind the downed SUV, a thin silver rod in his hand. Shouting something, he plunged it into the ground, and the force sent a silver disc atop the rod flying upwards.

A glowing blue wave of pure concussive force exploded outwards, sending the lightning-whiplash man flying. He crashed bodily against the opposite SUV and lay still.

The unexpected relief gave Mills's brain the final permission it needed to pass out, and as he did he caught only the tail words of what was being said.

"...area secured... civilian casualties... take them to the safe house..."

"You're quite the dangerous man, Mr. Mills," the smiling man who'd introduced himself as "Coulson, Phil Coulson," remarked. "Not often someone manages to piss off the largest Albanian criminal family."

Mills shrugged, wincing as he felt the third-degree burns on his arms and chest. "I had a... rather messy vacation in Istanbul about a year ago."

"Yes, I've seen the report from the embassy." Coulson nodded, consulting a tablet on the edge of the table. "Very... terrifying."

Mills used the opportunity to scan the room. He and the others had awoken in comfortable but secure room fitted with four beds, a bathroom, and not much else. The slim and nervous brunette attending to them had left to "get someone," and five minutes later Mills had been brought into the next room to meet the smiling middle-aged man now sitting across from him.

The room itself was not terribly remarkable—small, sparse, and comfortably though not luxuriously furnished. There were no windows, and the doors all looked very solid. The low, plush chairs in the center were undoubtedly intended as a sort of lounge, but everything else looked very efficient. Put simply, it was too thrown-together to be a base or compound, but too organized to be a random hideout. It was as effective a safehouse as Mills had ever seen.

Despite "Phil Coulson's" casual nature, it was easy to see the importance he carried. Men in suits were constantly going up to him and whispering in his ear, or handing him tablets that Coulson would give back with a brief word of thanks. Despite the constant flood of visitors, at least three remained in the room constantly, most notably the dark-skinned man from before and an Amazonian-looking asian. They made no overt glances at the two of them, but Mills could tell they were watching.

"Phil Coulson," was the boss, and a fairly high-ranking one at that.

"So you're government, then?" Mills asked, sipping the water from the glass before him.

"Used to be. Not anymore." Coulson nodded. "We still have contacts, though, which is how we got the incident report."

Mills nodded, running through the various rogue agencies he knew. "And what do you want with me and my family?"

"Nothing." Coulson shrugged. "We were after Mark Scarlotti—the psycho who attacked you." He obligingly handed Mills a tablet, and Mills saw the image of the man who'd attacked them, in an orange prison jumpsuit and scowling. "Calls himself Blacklash." Coulson rolled his eyes. "Original. Former employee of HAMMER, managed to get ahold of Ivan Vanko's old designs and cooked up his own version. Did contract work as an assassin for a while, before we took him down." A long sigh. "Then he escaped. An underworld contact told us he'd recently signed up with the Hoxha gang, an Albanian human trafficking cartel. Scarlotti's something of a hired gun, so our analysts looked to see who the Hoxhas would be most likely hiring a gun for." Coulson pointed a finger. "And that was you."

Mills grunted as he handed the tablet back. "You have my thanks. I never thought they'd be able to get to me on American soil."

"That's the interesting part." Coulson frowned, taking the tablet back. "They shouldn't have been able to, particularly with Scarlotti in tow. Interpol, CIA, and Stark Industries have been searching for him high and low, and half the men who attacked you were on one terror watch list or another."

"That sort of thing takes connections... connections the Albanian mob wouldn't have." Mills mused, considering.

"Our thoughts exactly." Mills looked up as a long, wavy-haired brunette took the seat next to Coulson.

"Agent Beckett." Coulson introduced her without looking up. "Head of the investigative division. She tracked down Blacklash."

"Technically, sir, it was Gideon who made the call about Mills being targeted." Beckett glanced at Coulson.

Coulson just nodded absentmindedly. "Get anything out of Blacklash?"

Beckett rolled her eyes. "Please. Guy might call himself an assassin, but he's still a corporate flunkie. He rolled as soon as I started to push him."

Another nod, this time of satisfaction. "What'd he say about the travel arrangements?"

"Arrangements don't begin to describe it." Beckett reported. "They had a private jet and everything they needed to grease straight through customs. They've been tailing Mills for about a week now, and they had everything all set to fly him and his family back to Central Europe."

"Hm." Coulson scrolled through the pages on the tablet. "That's unsettling."

Beckett shook her head grimly. "No, that's not the unsettling part. The unsettling part is, according to him, he wasn't even working for the Hoxha gang, just alongside them." Coulson looked up at her and she nodded. "The whole thing was a favor his real employers were doing in return for the Hoxhas joining their organization."

"So... my family and I... we were a party favor?" Mills felt unusually troubled.

"Sounds like it." Coulson chewed his lip. "Did he offer any details on this organization?"

"He's more scared of them than he was of me." Beckett gave a little shamefaced smile. "But I picked up enough to make some guesses. Apparently they're an alliance of major crime organizations across the globe. Call themselves the Maggia."

Coulson nodded, rubbing his chin. "We've been hearing rumors of this internationally. The Yakazuchi-zumi, MR-13, the Sons of Anarchy, Casa Nostra, SP-9, the Barksdale group... All of them have been unusually coordinated of late. No turf wars." He glanced at Beckett. "Berlin, you think? I assumed Red was playing games with us..."

Beckett shrugged. "Impossible to say. There was this one guy, Fisk, that was on NYPD's radar, but we never got close enough to find out anything. Definitely doesn't sound like Hydra, though."

Mills had been listening carefully. "And this 'Maggia' organization is after me and my family?"

Coulson and Beckett exchanged glances, then reluctantly nodded. "That's about the size of things." Coulson agreed. "From the sounds of things, the Hoxha gang is small potatoes compared to some of the players involved in this, so they'll probably join anyway, but..."

"...but this organization will look weak if they can't finish off a simple problem." Mills finished grimly. He let out a long sigh and rubbed his eyes. "When does it end...?" He muttered.

There was a brief silence as he massaged his temples. Then, surprisingly, Coulson spoke again. "An idea has just occurred to me." He said. "We might be able to offer you a way out of this... dilemna."

Mills looked at him skeptically. "You can dismantle Maggia and any connections who might take revenge for their deaths?"

"What? No." Coulson looked mildly overwhelmed at the mere idea. "I mean, even our membership could hardly hold a candle to theirs right now. But we could—perhaps—put your family into protective custody."

Mills was pretty sure he heard the asian woman give a frustrated sigh.

Perhaps Coulson heard it too, because a shamefaced expression filled his face. "You're clearly a very capable operator, Mr. Mills." He said, in a slightly louder tone. "You have years of invaluable experience, and no concrete connections to any major agencies, which removes a number of potential complications."

Mills gave a dry smile. "I give up my life, work for you, and you keep my family safe?"

"I did say we weren't government, right?" Coulson shrugged. "We're operating on a limited budget. We need all the help we can get, we can't afford to be a charity."

Another sigh from the asian woman. Mills thought he saw Beckett roll her eyes too.

None of it made much difference, though. "It sounds like the only real option I can take." Mills shrugged, putting out his hand. "As long as you keep my family safe, I'm on your team."

"Mr. Mills, my team is my family." Coulson shook it. "Welcome to SHIELD."

A/N: Hey, two in one day, huh? Honestly, this is because it's summer, I have no job, and the internet at where I'm living is pretty slow. So there's a limited amount of ways to waste my time. The next couple ones are practically written already. Oh, but I would really like it if you would take the time to review this chapter.

References in this story: "Maggia" is the Marvel universe's stand-in for the Mafia, which practically owned the comics industry in the early days. "Blacklash" was one of their assassins, a HAMMER employee who was actually the earliest incarnation of Whiplash, the villain in Iron Man 2. Oddly enough, he's not black, he just wears a black costume.

"Agent Beckett" of course, is from the TV show Castle, whose recruitment was explored in "Contingency Plans," and "Red," the "underworld contact," is Reddington from Blacklist, as seen in "Shadow Partners."

Again I'd like to plug "Brighter Futures," the Dresden Files / "Recruitment Drive" crossover I co-wrote with bissek, who came up with the plot and details while I wrote the dialogue. Seriously, it's a great story. Also, I've decided to collect all the Recruitment Drive stories in one community. I've always hated people who create communities for no other reason than to gather all their stories together, but I swear it makes sense in this context. First, all the stories are spread over the many different crossover categories, and second, I'm not the only one writing them. So a community is actually useful.