Snuggles The Symbiote

Four things had happened since my last therapy session. The one where Missy and I accidentally foiled the Leader's plan for multiversal conquest.

First, I'd officially had my hero name changed to "Menace" because... Well, I understood what Gabby meant by cutesy names not working for her anymore now. There'd been some pushback that it wasn't a heroic name, but when I explained my reasoning for it they let it slide.

Second, they'd found some bones in the bay that were identified as Marquis. Nobody was quite sure what happened and the cause of death was ruled inconclusive. It was sad but it meant things would go back to... Whatever it was that was normal around here soon.

Third, Armsmaster had built a device able to sense recent... Interdimensional excursions. And, on a hunch, he tested it near Amy Dallon's grave. The signal was weak, but he was pretty certain that it was someone from my world who stole her body. He'd asked me if I could think of anyone who would do that, but the number of people who stole bodies, and could travel dimensions, and would come here, and...

I really hoped it wasn't The Hand. I don't want to fight Ninja Zombie Panacea.

Finally... Apparently, Spider-Man had talked to some people about what happened before I met him at the cemetery. And he knew some people who knew some people and I got a message that there was a lawyer willing to talk to me about getting control of my parents' graves and/or estates away from my aunt, pro bono no strings attached.

I wasn't sure how I felt about that.

So that's why Taylor and I were wandering around my World's Brooklyn looking for 68 Jay Street. The directions said it was in the DUMBO Neighborhood, and... come on, it's New York. All the streets are numbered. The only way it'd be easier to find your way around is if you could sense magnetic north...

...Didn't Dr. Richards invent a way to do that. Give anyone the power to sense magnetic north? Maybe I could...

No, no. This is the kind of thing I'm in therapy for. Well, one of them. I should talk about it with Doc Samson and if he thinks it's okay, then ask Dr. Richards.

I scratched an itch on my arm and decided to think about that latter.

The building we were looking for turned out to be a big brick building. Inside it was one big room with a staircase leading up to various doors.

"Taylor, did it say which door to go to?" Taylor was holding the directions.

"No, it just said that she would meet us in the main room." So the lawyer was a she.

I started looking around. Up on the wall was a bee-hive logo with a big bee in the middle and letters that spelled out Ideahive inc, which I guess was the company that owned the building, and I could make out names on some of the doors, like "Patsy Walker Temp Agency."

A door further up the stairs opened up and someone stepped out, but when I looked it wasn't a woman, it was...

A four-foot-tall duck. A quick glance at the door he'd come out of said "Howard T. Duck Private Investigations" and...

And then he was right in front of me and he looked sort of... Put upon. Frustrated? Not 'angry' angry but... I guess I'd been starring or something.

"Go on, say it," he said. "Everyone does. The sooner you say it the sooner we can all get back to our business."

"Uh, uh, say what?" I wasn't braining very good right then.

"You know, you shout 'you're a duck' and then I say some smart assed retort and then everything goes back to normal. That's the song and dance. Come on, get it over with."

"No, it's not that, it's just... I'm sorry, I thought you were an urban legend."

"Really!?" Taylor suddenly exclaimed. "That's where you draw the line? You believe in pagan gods and living islands and alien salad people and act like that's normal but an anthropomorphic duck is too much and has to just be a story?"

"I mean, yeah! That's just... " I gestured to Mr. The Duck and then waved my arms around. "Come on!? ...No offense Mr. The Duck."

"Whatever, you two work this out: My former secretary wants me to help track down some low-life who broke into, stole from, and bled all over the non-profit she runs in case he's in need of help instead of a jail cell." He waved a hand... wing? and walked out the door.

Taylor sighed. "I'm never going to understand you, am I?"

"Taylor, I don't even understand me."

We laughed a bit and then hugged and then everything was okay.

Still no sign of the lawyer who we were here to meet though. "Do we have the right time?"

Taylor double-checked the directions, then looked for a clock. "Yeah, I think so..."

Only a minute or two after he left, Howard the Duck came stomping back into the building muttering something about wasting his time and some guy who cried over boil-in-bag rice.

"I'm sorry, are you okay?" I asked.

He paused as if he wasn't used to strangers showing concern.

"...Yeah. I'm fine. May—A very nice older lady who doesn't take crap from anyone and who used to be my secretary—restarted FEAST recently, that non-profit that runs shelters all over town to provide food, medical aid, and safe beds to the homeless. Used to be run by Martin Li before it turned out that he was Mr. Negative. Last night, someone broke into one of the buildings, bled all over the place, stole some medical supplies, and left an expended bullet covered in blood on the floor. May doesn't exactly want to get the cops involved if she doesn't have to for... A lot of reasons, and asked me to look into it.

"Barely a minute after I leave, she calls me again, says that Spider-Man found out about the break-in, looked into it, and it turned out that the Punisher got shot while tracking down HYDRA remnants and broke in to treat his wound because he couldn't get back to his base in time. Basically wasted my time."

"I'm sorry," I said again. "But what does that have to do with boil-in-bag—"

"So who are those people?"

"HYDRA is an organization of militaristic terrorists and mad scientists. There are people who say they're not Nazis, but they were founded in Nazi Germany by Hitler's apprentice and a leader of the Thule Society, most of the leaders are Neo-Nazis or actual Nazis, and their plans all seem to involve maintaining the purity of the human species, creating or discovering a 'Mater Race,' and installing fascist military dictatorships in territories they control 'for the good of the people' air quotes, so what else are you gonna call them?" I asked. "If it walks like a..."

I didn't finish my metaphor when I remember whose company I was in.

"No. Go on. Finish your thought," Howard said with an intense stare.

"...Anyway," I moved on. "The Punisher is... Have you ever seen that movie Death Wish with Charles Bronson? Imagine that, but a lot more violent, and if the main guy just admitted that he was a serial killer who liked killing. Frank Castle is a despicable piece of crap who deserves to spend a long time in a small cell."

"Well, that's a hot take that I'm sure won't piss off a lot of people," Howard commented. "So, what you here for?"

"My racist aunt is mismanaging my parents' estates and a lawyer here offered to look at it pro-bono to see if there was anything to do," I replied. "And we're supposed to meet her down here at... Taylor, are you sure we've got the right time?"

Taylor checked the directions again. "Yeah, this is the time we're supposed to be here. I don't know why they didn't tell us which office to go to."

"Well, there's only one lawyer with an office here," Howard said. Then he screamed up the stairs. "Jen! You have clients meeting you today!?"

Jen? Uh-oh.

"Yeah! They're late though!" A woman's voice yelled down, muffled by a door.

"They're down here! They say they weren't told what office!"

About a minute later Jennifer Walters, the Sensational She-Hulk, was standing down in front of us looking at the written directions we were given. "Yeah, sorry about the mixup. It happens."

I very awkwardly avoided She-Hulk's eyes as we climbed the stairs. The last time I'd seen her was when I went crazy and attacked the Avengers for their codices.

Once we got into the office and sat down, I blurted out. "I'm sorry, about the last... At the mountain, I mean."

She held up a hand. "Sweety, that wasn't even the worst hero-on-hero fight I've been in in the last month. It's fine."

She started going through a large stack of paper. "Now, normally there would be very little we could do without a will and very little we could do to get our hands on one, but, you're a Mutant. Thanks to the Krakoan Deal, you have certain rights and privileges comparable to a diplomat or foreign head of state, and by citing the Doctor Doom precedent we can maliciously abuse that... Legally, you could just walk into your aunt's house, take anything that you're pretty sure belonged to you or your parents and the sum monetary value of anything that she sold or threw out and there's nothing she could do about it, which I'm sure a lot of people would love to be able to do in this situation." I think she was making a joke, but... "But we're not here about the strict monetary value of a property, were here abut the graves and the mishandling there-of," honestly a lot of that flew over my head and I was a little scared by the implications of what I did understand.

"Now, I've already called in a favor from my time with Heroes for Hire, so Alias Investigations is looking into if there are any legal records, things your parents might have filed, arrangements they might have made, that could prove that your aunt had limited rights or that your parents had wishes counter to the arrangements she made that your aunt should have had a reasonable chance to have known about. If that turns up anything, then it won't be a slam dunk case, but we'll have a case. If not, then—"

There was a thump on the wall and then tapping at the window. She-Hulk got up and checked the window, opening it and allowing Spider-Man in.

"Jen, there's an issue with that thing I asked you about and..." Then he saw Taylor and I were here. "oh... Ffffu~udge."

"What's wrong?" I asked. "Howard the Duck said you got involved in an investigation about the Punisher and Hydra and..." Taylor put a hand on my shoulder.

"How does Howard... Never mind, uh..." Spider-Man put a hand up to his forehead. "I shouldn't tell you this, but... You have a right to know, uh... To hear Frank tell the story, once I found him passed out in an ally, he had tracked some members of a HYDRA remnant cell to a cemetery. They were, uh... You have memories from people who... What do you know about something called the Infinitas Agenda?"

At first, I was confused, but then a flash of confused codex memories—immortal general super-soldiers during the war, two different kinds of Zombies, and a giant naked man with a Nazi sewn into his chest ripping that man out, crushing him, and giving some line about how HYDRA created him but didn't own him before teleporting away to be a God somewhere.

When my head cleared, I managed to choke out "nothing good. Stuff about... Gods and Zombies."

"Yeah... Apparently, this remnant got their hands on some of the stuff that branch of HYDRA was working on," Spider-Man began, "and the Punisher found them in a cemetery in Queens planning to test an alchemical serum or something on bodies they were planning to dig up. During the fight, every last drop of that serum got spilled onto one grave.

"He told me the specific cemetery and described the grave when I pressed him, went to investigate... I found five dead HYDRA grunts and... a grave busted open from the inside with no sign of the body."

What would that have to do with what we were doing here...?

"Ashley, I'm sorry, but... Your mother..."

The next thing I knew, I owed She-Hulk a new desk.