Disclaimer: I do not nor will I ever own any of characters depicted below that you may recognize...they belong to forces higher then me, and I respect them and applaud them for their beautiful creations.
"Someone tell me why the stupid A.I. just woke me up at" Clint looked at the clock situated on the wall above the conference table with a groan, "5 in the morning?!"
Sherlock rolled his eyes at the archer, who glared with eyes narrowed at everyone in the room.
"Justice waits for no one." A dry voice answered Clint, and Clint grimaced. "Right. Whatever." Clint saluted the man who'd just spoken. "Tucker. What brings you here on this lovely morning?"
Tucker, a tall gray-haired man wearing a stoic expression, slid his hands into the pockets of his neatly pressed slacks and eyed Clint severely.
"My boss." He spoke curtly.
"Who is?" Dean, about as awake as Clint, shot the man he didn't know a bleary look.
"Who do you think?" Sam rolled his eyes as he sipped coffee. Dean snatched the cup from Sam's hand, inhaling the drink with fervor.
"Short, brown, who's secrets have secrets?" Tony guessed wryly, poking Thor, who sat next to him, eyes closed and forehead resting on the table. Thor grunted but didn't sit up.
"Something like that." Tucker nodded. "She awake?"
"She is, I promise." Bucky appeared in the room next, carrying a fully dressed Reagan upside down, giggling madly and reaching out for the closest person to her, which fortunately, was a smiling, mostly awake John. Bucky handed over the toddler happily, and strode over to shake Tucker's hand.
"Ed." Bucky greeted warmly. "What brings you to our neck of the wood?"
Tucker shrugged. "Dropping off a few files for the Winchesters perusal," Sam and Dean perked up at that, Sam intrigued and Dean suspicious. "I heard you're dealing with a case?"
Bucky nodded. "Three level tens." He admitted, and Tucker whistled.
"Heavy case load." Tucker sympathized, and Bucky shook his head.
"You have no idea."
"What's taking Charlie so long?" Cas asked, and Bucky winced.
"She's not been feeling well." He shrugged. "It's just taking a little longer for her to get ready this morning than it usually does."
Steve made a face. "She was sick the other day too, when I went to her office." He winced. "Not the best time to get sick."
"It's probably just stress." John shrugged, bouncing Reagan in his lap. Reagan reached out to poke Sherlock, and he shot her a glare.
"Files for us?" Dean shot Tucker a look. "What kind of files?"
Tucker pulled his hands out of his pockets and reached into his suit jacket. He stepped forward and handed Sam and Dean each a card. Cas smiled.
"The SSE divison?" Sam read. You're the director of it?" He shot Tucker an appreciative look. "I've been hearing all about this new division on the news. It's one of President Case's first big changes; creating this division. It deals with special situations, right?"
"Nah." Tucker dismissed. Sam and Dean shared a look.
"No?" Dean asked.
Tucker shrugged, an enigmatic smile on his face. "The public is aware of the division, but the cases they cover are a little different."
"What?" Sam asked.
"SSE doesn't stand for Special Situations." Charlie spoke, entering the room, wearing jeans, and a gray tank top, Teddy perched on her hip. She handed the child over to Tasha, who stared at the little boy, head tilted.
"It stands for?" Dean pressed. Charlie smirked.
"Take a guess."
Sam narrowed his eyes. "Did you create a new division of the FBI just to give Hunters a legitimate profession?" He asked, and Charlie grinned.
"I created a new division in the FBI so Hunters could still do what they do and not only get paid for it, but also have benefits and a team that will protect them and they can rely on, and you even have a union."
"So…" Dean narrowed his eyes. "Not Special Situations…Supernatural Situations?"
Charlie grinned. "Exactly." She shrugged. "It's not a foolproof plan, but now you have actual authority and the opportunity to be legitimate citizens and have travel expenses paid for and no more getting arrested for saving people."
"Charlie…" Sam huffed. "That's brilliant!"
Charlie shrugged. "It's a work in progress." She explained. "Tucker is the director of the division, but he's mostly in charge of the Field Agents, of which Cas is a consultant."
Sam and Dan looked at Cas, who shrugged. "And Bobby is mostly in charge of our Research Analysts."
"Bobby?" Sam raised a brow. Charlie shrugged.
"He didn't want to be a field agent, but we needed him."
"And the files you want us to look over?" Dean turned to Tucker.
"Job offers." He answered swiftly. "I understand you two are the best hunters around, so I'd like to offer you a job."
"Under duress?" Sam joked, and Tucker shrugged.
"Under orders of my boss." He corrected. "But, pretty much the same thing."
Sam and Dean accepted the files, and immediately began looking through them.
"Benefits, the chance to still do you job but maybe have more than that." Tucker explained. "The FBI protects their own; which means wives, kids," Tucker shrugged.
"Even with the jobs you do and the creatures you provoke, you still might be able to actually have a life."
"And a wicked good salary." Charlie added, arms crossed.
Sam's eyes widened. "You can say that again." He choked out.
"There's gotta be a catch." Dean argued, and Tucker rolled his eyes.
"Look through the files." He said. "Think it over. Then let me know." He turned to Charlie. "Want me to take the kids off your hands while I'm here? I have to run back by Singer's anyway."
Charlie looked to Bucky who nodded.
"That would be perfect." She smiled. "Tell Bobby I'll call him with a case update later."
Tucker nodded once and clapped his hands together. Both kids looked up. "Children. With me." The kids climbed down from where they'd been seated, and toddled after Tucker, who nodded curtly at the parents and made his way down the stairs, little feet following after hugging their parents legs.
"Well." Bucky grinned. "That was easy."
"Oh. By the way." Tucker appeared once more, and threw something at Charlie. "This was at Bobby's. Said it was for you…he wasn't sure where it came from, but he thought it might be important." Tucker saluted and disappeared once more.
Charlie looked down at the package in her hands with a dark frown. "Clint." She spoke slowly. "Better put some pants on."
"What is it?" Tasha asked.
"Time to go on a field trip." Charlie bit off, handing the package in her hands to Bucky.
"Why?" Thor jerked upright, blinking quickly.
Bucky grimaced. "Where have we seen this before?" He threw the package on the table so everyone could see what it was.
"Ohhh." Tony nodded slowly, looking down at the wrinkled package of Red Vines.
Sherlock stood. "Looks like our break is over." He intoned slowly, and though no one said anything…they agreed.
The three villain-os had made their next move.
"So what's the significance with the whole Red Vines thing?" Dean eyed the package suspiciously, as if it were sure to explode at any moment. Charlie, seated in the very back row of the silver SUV, made a face.
"It's just an inside joke Rhino and I shared. Stems from way back, our freshmen year." She shrugged.
"That's it?" Tony made a face. "This all just seems so…childish."
Charlie scoffed. "It's not all that classy." She agreed. "Which our perps are all about class, usually."
"Which means this is personal for them as well?" John guessed. "They're throwing cheap shots at your emotions in some kind of revenge play?"
Thor frowned. "But what does Loki have to gain from any of this?" He argued. "It makes no sense."
"You're telling me." Charlie muttered. "Clint." She straightened. "Take a left up here." She ordered, and Clint nodded and turned on the turn signal. Dean threw the candy back, and Cas caught it.
"Crowley has the most to gain revenge-wise." Cas mused. "You've thwarted his plans AND his revenge plans."
"So maybe this Crowley dude is the brains behind the operation, and he's running this op emotion fueled?" Tony squinted. "I can see that."
"And Moriarty's playing along because I messed with him for a bit, but Crowley was the one with the man-power to bring him back, and that's what HE really wanted." John nodded.
"Loki's still a wild-card." Clint brought up, and Charlie made a face.
"Let's leave the villain theories to James and the crew he has at the Lair." Charlie decided. "They'll work on getting a location while we follow these punks bread crumbs."
"Starting with this cemetery?" John peered out the window at the sprawling green grounds as Clint pulled in.
"Yep." Charlie sighed. "This is where my uncle was buried in my timeline." She admitted. Clint put the vehicle in park and turned back to send Charlie a grimace.
"Ready?" He asked sympathetically, and Charlie nodded.
"Yeah." She answered. "Let's just get this over with."
"I like cemeteries."
Tony shot Clint a weird look. He just shrugged.
"There is just something about them." He admitted. "They're soothing."
"Well, I'm NOT a fan of these places." John shivered. "They give me the heebie jeebies."
"I agree with you, Watson." Thor looked around, eyes narrowed. "This place is filled with sorrow and mourning."
"And dead people." Tony grimaced. "A whole lotta dead people." He turned back to smirk at Dean. "Isn't this like your second home or something?" He joked.
Dean rolled his eyes. "I've dug up my fair share of graves." He admitted. Tony grimaced.
"Gross."
"Guys." Charlie called out, a few feet ahead of them. "Over here."
The group hurried over to where Charlie stood, in front of a tombstone so degraded that the name could no longer be read on it. Cas knelt down on his knees, rummaging around in the ground nearby.
"It's just some random chick." Charlie crossed her arms. "The tombstones not important."
"But there must be something here, right?" Thor walked around the stone.
"Logically, yes." Tony agreed. "Angel dude?" Cas shot Tony a look. "You got anything?"
Cas threw a handful of dirt in Tony's direction, and Tony jumped and yelped.
"Hey!" He screeched, and the rest of the group chuckled.
"You're not a very nice angel." Tony chastised, and Cas smirked.
"I'm not much of an angel at all." He admitted. Then he frowned. "Charlie…does this look familiar?"
Cas removed both hands from the dirt, one of them holding a crumpled picture. Charlie frowned and took it from his hands.
"It's the house I grew up in." She admitted. "About a half hour from here." She squinted and brought the picture up closer to her face. "Clint. What does that look like?" She handed the photo over, and Clint took a closer look.
"It looks like a little kid got ahold of it and drew on it in red crayon." He spoke bluntly, and Charlie rolled her eyes.
"But what does the red crayon look like?" She asked, and Clint passed it to Tony, who handed it to Thor.
"It looks like…." Thor spoke slowly, and John glanced at the photo and finished Thor's sentence.
"Fire?"
Dean reached for the photo, but the second he touched it, the Polaroid burst into flames, and Dean dropped the photo with a shout.
The group stared down at the smoldering photo, and Charlie sighed.
"Looks like we're going to be fire fighters for the day." She shook her head and trudged back down the hill, toward the SUV. The group shared a grimace, and then followed quickly behind her.
"So, we have a dead guy, the King of Hell, and the God of Mischief." Bucky stood at the front of the table, hands on his hips.
"In other words, we have the build-up to the world's weirdest joke." Sam made a face, and Bucky, despite himself, chuckled.
"Pretty much." He agreed. "Now, Lottie's following their scavenger hunt, keeping them occupied, while we try to either locate them and or figure out their end game."
"But how do we track a mythological creature, a demon, and a dead guy?" Tasha made a face. "None of them really have any tracks to follow."
"The demon? Most likely not." Sherlock stood and began to pace. "Loki? His modes of travel make him nearly untraceable. But Moriarty?" Sherlock squinted. "This revenge scheme isn't his end goal."
"Moriarty's probably a lackey that Crowley brought back to help him orchestrate all of this." Bruce nodded. "We agree on that end."
"And for Moriarty's assistance, Crowley lets him live again." Steve nodded. "So he's looking at the future, after all of this is finished and he's free to do…whatever."
"Which means he'll have made contact with some of his former employees." Bucky nodded, following Sherlock's train of thought. He reached for a notebook and a pen and threw them down by Sherlock. "Unfortunately for him you've either taken out, converted, or at the very least made some form of contact with all of his former employees. Give us names, we'll track them down."
Sherlock nodded and bent over the table, writing furiously. After a few minutes he paused, squinted, and circled a name. Then handed the list over to Bucky.
"Who's circled?" Bucky asked, ripping the paper into six equal parts. Sherlock smirked.
"That's the individual most likely to have been in contact with Moriarty." He informed.
Bucky shot him a look. "We'll check all of them, just in case." He passed out the lists and sent the group a tight smile.
"Let's see what kind of lowlifes we can drag up."
"Got Him!" Bruce hurried out of Charlie's office, where he'd been utilizing her computer, eyes bright.
"Victor Baxter." Tasha read over Bruce's shoulder. "A former hired thug, turned homeless, turned, almost eight months ago exactly, self-proclaimed millionaire. He has known ties to Moriarty and was steadfastly loyal, even after Moriarty's suicide."
Bucky looked around furiously for the paper that Sherlock had written the names on, coming up with Bruce's half and looking for Baxter's name. Baxter's name was immediately visible…with the circle around his name bringing attention to it.
Bucky shot Sherlock a look, and he shrugged.
"Well. Let's go have a chat with Mr. Baxter." Bucky reached for his coat and the rest of the group followed suit. Steve hesitated.
"I think I'll stay here." He spoke up. "Hold down the fort, run the rest of the names, make sure we didn't miss anything."
Bucky raised an eyebrow, then he nodded. "Alright. Yeah." He moved to the door. "Do that. We'll be in touch."
Tasha and Bruce shot Steve a look, but he waved them away with a smile, and they followed the rest of the group down the stairs.
Steve listened for the loud clang of the Lair's front entrance to echo throughout the building before sighing and returning to the large table, staring down at the mass of paper that littered the surface.
"What a mess." He murmured, beginning to move the papers around in some sort of order.
A low cough had him jumping in fright, and he turned quickly.
His surprised look bled away into shock, and then…anger.
"You!" Steve spat. "Don't you think you've done enough?"
The figure in front of him chuckled. "Not nearly." The figure intoned.
Steve crossed his arms as the figure began to speak, and quickly. Steve's eyes widened once more, his mouth dropping open in shock at what the individual in front of him was saying.
Things were getting more complicated by the hour.
UGH. Who does this strange guy bugging Steve think he is? What a PUNK.
Extra points to anyone who knows where the name Victor Baxter comes from!
~CLC~