February, 2001

S.H.I.E.L.D. Facility,????

Two women sat in a brightly lit interrogation room, across from one another. One was on the shorter side, lanky, mousy and jittery, her blonde hair hanging limply and messily around her head. The woman across from her was effectively her complete opposite. Tall, statuesque, with long green hair and matching sunglasses and jacket. The S.H.I.E.L.D. eagle was emblazoned prominently on her lapel.

"So, before we begin Ms. Anderson, I need to ask… are you alright? You've been through a lot over the past few days." The S.H.I.E.L.D. operative asked, leaning forwards.

Ash sighed heavily, fidgeting with her hammer necklace. "I guess? I don't regret doing it, by the way… I think. I doubt that the Allfather will judge me harshly for it…"

She rubbed at her head. "It… doesn't feel good… but…"

The S.H.I.E.L.D. agent nodded. "First time's always the worst. Don't worry about it. Nobody's blaming you. But… why don't you start at the beginning. We'll go from there."

"Alright…" Ash put her medallion back under her shirt, before tenting her hands. "The weird stuff started at the beginning of the week… we were still working on getting stuff packed up for the new office. Thank the gods that we decided to take apart the mail security system last…"

February, 2001

Maverick Solutions Temporary Office, Manhattan, New York

One of the first business purchases I'd ever made, right after renting the office space, was ordering a StarkTech Model 2 Mail Security System. The system was pretty simple. It was basically an advanced mailbox with a scanning system designed for detecting foreign elements, and using a mild radiation generator with a very short half life to eliminate things like contact poisons, electronic bugs, viral agents, and long lasting pheromones. As a woman running a very public business related to Superheroes in the Marvel Universe, the reasons for this should be many and obvious. The Mandrill fucking exists. 'Nuff said.

It also alerted me of when something had contained one of those elements. Unfortunately, the Model 2 was the budget version, and couldn't actually tell me what kind of foreign element had been detected. I knew I should have played a grand or so extra for a Baxter Custom. Reed Richards' products were more expensive on the most part… but they were also basically handmade, custom tailored supertech. My Uncle Jim always said that the big problem with Reed Richards wasn't that he wouldn't share his inventions: far from it, as the man was currently actively scamming the hell out of the entire automotive industry, taking huge sums of money in exchange for not making his Fantasticars available to the public. At the same time, he'd made deals with a lot of smaller auto shops, especially in lower income areas of the world, with Baxter Design assisting in providing effective, affordable, low polluting vehicles for people who wouldn't be able to get their hands on them otherwise. Sure, it meant that we weren't getting flying cars any time soon… but on the other hand, have you seen how New Yorkers drive with four wheels on the ground? But I digress.

Back on track, Uncle Jim always said that Richards' problem was that he was too much of a perfectionist. The man apparently took product safety to a whole new level, testing things to an absolutely absurd extent. Everything had to be ensured that poor handling wouldn't cause anything catastrophic to happen. Apparently, it had to do with a time when The Controller had seized command of some of Richards' newly released generators, and remotely exploded them. Thankfully, nobody had been harmed, but it was a close thing. As a result, almost all of Baxter Design's products, save for those from the Outreach Division, were personally overseen by Richards in some regard, and checked over to a degree that vastly exceeded normal required safety standards. That kind of testing wasn't easy, rumor had it that Richards had converted an old salt mine into one giant testing facility where his science was thrown at the wall to make sure it didn't stick. Thus, Baxter Design products cost a pretty penny extra, but they were head and shoulders above StarkTech in terms of quality and lifespan. Reed Richards was a man who had taken planned obsolescence as a personal offense. Quite literally. There were reasons that this world would never see the iPhone, and IBM was still going strong making computers. And why you didn't hear much at all about Apple anymore. Shame the smelly hippie had to take the rest of the company down with him...

No matter what though, I'd been a cheapskate and gotten a less advanced, but by no means less effective mail security system. So when the light on the box on the back of the door covering the mail slit flashed red… I froze up. I was the only person in the office at the time. Aleksei and Herman weren't due in for another hour, and Mrs. Watanabe had left to pick up the final background check results from the station. So… I waited until the box stopped blinking and shifted from a red glow to a green one, then I hesitantly moved over to open it. Inside was a relatively innocuous looking letter… save for the fact that it was entirely blank. But… there was something menacing about it.

I decided better safe than sorry, and retrieved the just-cleaned gauntlets of my armor, sliding them on and gingerly picking up the letter to open. Inside it was… fucking Hel, it was something so stereotypical that I had almost been waiting to see something like it. Letters, individually cut out of magazine covers and newspaper pages, aligned neatly and placed on the page.

[iF yOU KnoW wHAt'S gOOd fOr YoU, yoULl dRoP tHe Becky Ryan cONtrACt. -A. fRIenD]

Well. That's not ominous. No no. It's really fucking ominous. Classic detective thriller bullshit, which was previously contaminated by something. My alarm bells were ringing at full volume, and I hadn't even met my newest client yet. This said volumes about why we were being hired in the first place. All signs point to a stalker of some kind, and a dedicated one. Oh godsdammit, if only I had a better machine.

With a sigh, I sat down at my desk and waited for my employees to return, before explaining the details. It came as a surprise to me that neither Aleksei or Herman were particularly worried.

"She's a popular singer. No shit she's gonna deal with stalkers." Herman noted, reclining in the chair across from my desk. "Thing is, this dumb motherfucker's given themselves away in a big way."

He tapped the letter on the table with a gloved hand. "It hasn't publicly been announced that we're taking the Ryan contract. We haven't even met with the people at Silver Sunrise. That means that whoever sent this has inside information, which probably means they're fairly close to Ms. Ryan."

Aleksei nodded. "Da. It does seem that way doesn't it."

His voice was not a particularly certain tone though. More contemplative. It wasn't a tone I heard from him very often.

February, 2001

S.H.I.E.L.D. Facility,????

"So, Rhino was suspicious of things then?" The S.H.I.E.L.D. agent asked. Ash nodded.

"Yeah. Herman thought everything was standard. Just some crazy employee who'd fallen head over heels for Becky. Aleksei thought otherwise. Wanted to wait until we got more information. He was definitely right in the end, thank the gods." Ash sat back in her chair, rubbing at her forehead.

"What happened next?" The agent asked calmly, adjusting her sunglasses. "The details of the first bits of the job. It's easier to get a more personal overview of that. If you wouldn't mind?"

Ash nodded again. "Yeah, sure. So, the three of us got in the new armored car, and headed over to Silver Sunrise Music. Mainly to show off 'hey look, we've got this now, look how professional we are', but also because of the fact that all signs pointed to suspicious activity. 'Course, Silver Sunrise was around Broadway, so we left around two hours early."

She sighed heavily. "New York traffic, am I right? Well, at the very least I knew where to go. I'd gone to see Into the Woods a few days previous, and I'd passed the building there."

The agent held up a hand for a pause, and pointed to a place in the sheaf of papers in front of her. "It says here you mentioned to agents on scene that everything felt, and I quote, 'Inauspicious as a Grinning Loki' when you all got there. Want to explain that a bit more?"

Ash resettled herself, and shrugged. "The first thing that I saw as we pulled in was a marquee for The Crucible. It's never been a lucky play for me. You familiar with theater terminology, Miss Agent?"

The S.H.I.E.L.D. agent nodded. "Somewhat. Go on."

"Well, what The Scottish Play is to… basically everyone, The Crucible kind of is for me. I've been in three productions, and it's never gone well any of those times." Ash explained. "So, that was the first thing we saw when we pulled in…."

February, 2001

Silver Sunrise Music LLC, Broadway

I stepped out of the car, my armor compacted into its briefcase form held in one hand, the files we'd been mailed held in the other. Thus, it was a little bit of an ordeal to let Aleksei out of the back of the truck, but I managed it with only some difficulty. Herman had driven us there, giving me more time to go through the file again.

Rebecca "Becky" Ryan was one of those kinds of celebrity singers that I always felt sorry for. She'd been on the Texas Beauty Pageant Rotation as a child, won a few awards for that. I was going to have to heavily resist giving her dad (who was also her manager) a piece of my mind at some point. I had to be a professional. But… back in my previous world, I'd been mother to two kids, and I couldn't fucking imagine putting them through what one of my uncle-in-laws called "The Lower American Stress Circuit."

He'd been a social worker in that general area of the country, and the stories I'd heard made my blood boil. Anyways, Rebecca had been on stage from age six, been a very multi-talented performer by age nine, put out her first album by age eleven, gotten her first platinum by thirteen… and had her first of several very public stress-induced breakdowns by fourteen. The first in a very highly publicized string of them. Apparently, she was doing better… but despite my relative unfamiliarity with her music personally, I'd gone through a few Celebrity Bodyguarding Training Courses. And I knew what to expect.

Fucking vultures. And for once I'd apologize to Toomes for the comparison. Miss Ryan was the type of person that a lot of veterans in my field would call (not derisively towards her, of course) a 'Roadkill Darling'. Basically, TMZ and others of their 'distinguished' ilk absolutely loved to get as much dirt on her as they possibly could, no matter how inane, and published the hell out of it. She probably hadn't much in the way of peace over the past decade or so, and she was just two years younger than me.

I hadn't ever actually read about her in my previous world, so she might just be a side character, or someone who didn't get too much focus. A lot of people didn't, after all. Of course, I wouldn't be meeting her just yet. I had to meet with her agent first.

Thus, the three of us headed in to Silver Sunrise Music, checked in with the receptionist, and then sat down to listen to the waiting room music while we waited for the man to be free of his meeting. It took about an hour, which gave me time to read through about half of Ben Grimm's recently released best selling noir mystery novel, The Grey Ghost. It was about a scarred former method actor who played a masked detective on TV finding himself in the role of actually being a detective, with the help of his eccentric scientist best friend. Good stuff all around. Man, The Thing was one hell of a Renaissance Man. He had sculptures displayed alongside those of his girlfriend, he was an aspiring author, he had a stint in the Superpowered Wrestling Circuit, he did voice acting for movies, video games, and books on tape. And all of that on top of being a Superhero.

Still, the good times had to come to an end, as the receptionist called out to tell us that Ronald Ryan was finally out of his meeting.

I wasn't looking forward to this.

Ronald Ryan was a man who was trying way too hard to show off that he was a Good Ole' Texan who had made it big. When he opened the door to his office, all of us were greeted by the stench of genuinely awful cigar smoke. I wasn't unfamiliar with similar smells, both from the Bar With No Name, and also the various brands that my dad was fond of. Though none of those were as offensively pungent as the overly large log of paper and tobacco hanging from Mr. Ryan's lips.

He was a large man, with the physique of someone who probably used to have the 'strongfat' look of a blue-collar powerlifter, but let themselves go hard later in life, and went from strongfat to just regular fat, with his red button down straining to contain his gut. He still had vestiges of a tan that probably came from actually working outside once, but had long since faded to leave his skin like blotchy pinkish leather covered in stretch lines and discolorations. He wore blue jeans with an obnoxiously large golden longhorn buckle on his belt, a tan cowhide vest, and a white ten-gallon hat. He had a large brown mustache, and longish curly hair that was struggling to not recede up his thumb-shaped head. All in all, he might have looked like a younger Sam Elliott if it wasn't for just how much he seemed to have let himself go, what with the doughy, blotchy, sagging skin of his face, and the aforementioned gut. I didn't like him immediately.

Some people just give off a vibe when I meet them. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad. But Ronald Ryan gave me an absolutely oily, greasy feeling, and the smile he gave me reeked of sleaze, of someone who worked his way up not through hard work, but through getting lucky once and then being too vicious to ever let go of his time in the sun. At least, until Aleksei and Herman stepped into the office behind me.

"Well howdy to y'all. Y'already know me p'rolly. J'us call me Ron." His accent was faker than the one Aleksei put on in public: he sounded like Larry the Cable Guy became Larry the Insurance Salesman.

His office felt just as fake as the accent. All seemingly nice wood paneling that I knew from my little experience with interior decorating was just textured plastic glued to the wall, a wall full of pictures of him awkwardly shaking hands with a bunch of celebrities, most of whom were so obscure I barely recognized them. Oh, and also the insane amount of cowboy nick-knacks that were everywhere. Up to and including a fucking framed bull's skull sitting on the wall behind his desk. It was like he had seen the stereotype of what the rest of the country thought Texas was like and went 'yes, I will become that'... it was like it was all a shield, a front to hide something else just out of sight.

"No. I don't really know about you. You're Miss Ryan's agent and manager, correct?" I stated as we all sat down at Mr. Ryan's desk. It was a bit of a lie. I'd done my homework on Ronald Ryan. Ex-Marine, though he'd never actually been deployed for anything other than garrison duty on Okinawa from what I could tell, dishonorably discharged for disorderly conduct: shorthand for excessive drinking and the consequences thereof. Married Christabella Thomas shortly after. They had one daughter, Rebecca, in the first year of their marriage, before Christabella divorced him. The divorce proceedings hadn't gone very well for her somehow, despite tangible evidence of heavy domestic abuse. Through some sort of legal sorcery, Ronald had flipped the usual script and taken everything, including full custody of Rebecca. Personally I bet a lot of his winnings either went to a particularly nasty lawyer, or straight into the judge's retirement fund. Not that that was the story he told in his two autobiographies. "Tell me, you wouldn't happen to have any idea about this?"

With that, I pulled out the letter that I'd received this morning out of my pocket, and slid it across to Mr. Ryan. "This was dropped off in my office mailbox this morning. I'm assuming it's not new to you."

From Mr. Ryan's change in expression from jovial to fearful for just a moment before he put that Rootin' Tootin' Cowboy Grin back on, I could tell that no matter what he said, it very much wasn't new. "Well… y'see, some'a Becky's fans get crazier than a blind mule…"

"I did not know that blind mules were known to be the crazy." Aleksei interjected, voice a dull rumble. Mr. Ryan actually jumped a little at that. It wasn't particularly surprising. Aleksei had a full foot and a half of height on him, and several hundred more pounds of pure muscle.

Herman nodded. "Whoever dropped that letter put some kind of unknown contaminants on it. So forgive us for being cautious. We take the safety and security of our clients very seriously, and withholding potential causes for concern makes maintaining that safety and security much more difficult." He intentionally sounded bored and apathetic, as if just reading from a booklet of terms and conditions. Somehow, that seemed to make Mr. Ryan even more nervous than Aleksei's threatening rumble had.

"So if there's anything weird about this… we need to know." I stared directly into Mr. Ryan's watery eyes… and he blinked.

"Ain't nuthin t' worry 'bout." He shook his head. " Jus' some nutso fans. Now lemme tell'ya what we're gonna need'jya for…"

February, 2001

S.H.I.E.L.D. Facility,????

"So, you knew you were being lied to?" The agent asked.

Ash nodded. "It was kinda obvious. People like that… well, they tend to lie compulsively. Even if it doesn't benefit them. But you probably already know that. You're the secret agent after all."

That got a little laugh out of the agent. "I'm aware that Ronald Ryan's part in all this was a lot bigger than any of you suspected, and that didn't come out until later?"

That got a heavy sigh from Ash. "Yeah. I thought he was a sleazy scumbag at first, but in just a normal 'Stage Dad Gone Big' kind of way. And the fact that he kept eyeing me up. Want me to continue?"

"Please do. Why don't we get to the part where you actually met with Ms. Ryan."

February, 2001

Silver Sunrise Music LLC, Broadway

Mr. Ryan had an assistant show us to Rebecca's dressing room, where she was currently basically camped out, since he had a few more meetings to take care of. However, before we got to the door, the assistant stopped. "So… um… you're Ms. Ryan's bodyguards, right?"

He looked really nervous… but it didn't seem to be because he had two former supervillains and one woman who looked a bit like a really irritated young librarian. "Yep. We are… Scott is it?" I stated, reading the lanyard around his neck. "You wouldn't happen to know anything about why we were hired?"

I wasn't expecting an actually helpful response… and thus was very much surprised when I got one. "Yeah actually. I'm one of the guys who goes over her fan-mail. We've used to have some of those imported Latverian sensors… but Mr. Ryan wasn't happy about that. Said we were spending too much for something that wasn't a big deal. Had us sell them off and replace them with StarkTech ones a little before stuff started getting weird."

I blinked, now giving the poor kid my full attention. "Tell me everything."

Scott gulped, but continued. "A couple weeks back, we started getting weird letters. They tripped off the scanners… but the ones we've got aren't the best. No idea what was actually on them… but they're creepy. We didn't pass along most of them to Ms. Ryan, because she's not doing the best already and…"

His face was pale, and he had the look of someone who'd seen some shit. "It's... it's fucked up shit. We've all seen shameless letters full of elaborate fantasies before, but these ones were different. We'd made a game out of picking apart the stuff in the worst ones and laughing about it, but nobody was laughing about these. There was this one where..."

February, 2001

S.H.I.E.L.D. Facility,????

"Yeah, I'm not repeating any of that. It's in the written statement. I don't want to think about them, I don't want to talk about them, I just… yeah. You've seen them, I take it?" Ash crossed her arms, and sighed with relief when the agent nodded.

"You don't have to. Especially now that you know the context. Please continue."

February, 2001

Silver Sunrise Music LLC, Broadway

All three of our faces were expressions of varying degrees of abject disgust, as Scott finished his recounting. "Ooookay. That's… a bit more serious than I was expecting."

"Da… I… am very glad I did not pursue singing career, if this is what fans are like." Aleksei nodded. "This is level of crazy I expect for cultist, not fan."

Herman shook his head. "Not really that surprising. Not the degree of it anyway... though I'll be honest, the fact that they knew enough to be able to even describe that accurately means there's more to this than your average psycho. And I hate that I know enough that I can say that." Herman tapped his temple, as he did when he was thinking. "Sometimes, fans are worse than cultists. I know I was a bit blasé earlier… but I'm getting very suspicious now."

Scott looked between us. "You'll… probably want to meet Ms. Ryan now, right?"

"Yeah. I think that'd be best." I replied, wanting to focus on something other than the previous conversation. Scott knocked on the door four times with a small pause between the third and fourth knocks, then a longer pause, and knocked again twice in rapid succession.

"We… um… worked out a system to let Ms. Ryan know it was one of the assistants, rather than the marketing people or Mr. Ryan…" Scott noted.

"Ummm… G-gimmie a sec!" A strained, nervous sounding female voice with a light Texan accent called out from behind the door. About three minutes later, it was pulled open a crack, and I could see a single eye peeking out, framed by ragged blonde hair. "W-who're y'all?"

"We're your new bodyguards, Miss Ryan," I stated calmly. Odin's Beard, she sounded like a mess. I could hear stress, worry, panic, and exhaustion as clear as day in her voice. And when she opened the door fully, the situation just seemed worse. Rebecca Ryan was a fairly pretty girl, and I could definitely see why she was a highly popular hearthrob... but that prettiness was marred by the fact, but she looked about as much of a mess as she sounded, and I just kind of wanted to give her a hug. Her eyes were very clearly red from a great deal of recent crying, which had mixed with her makeup to streak her cheeks with running mascara, her skin was pale from lack of sunlight, with a half-hearted attempt at a spray-on tan. She was also only half-dressed, wearing a sports bra and ratty sweatpants… which let me see the fair mix of healed over and fresh bruises around her upper back… right where they could be easily covered by most shirts.

At least I couldn't smell much in the way of alcohol in the room, nor the cloying stink that most kinds of commonly abused celebrity drugs left. Ms. Ryan also didn't seem to have much in the way of signs of the abuse of said substances. She generally gave the impression of a stressed out cheetah who'd had her emotional support dog taken away. It was just… really sad in general, and I couldn't help but feel a great deal of empathy towards her. I'd met people like her before in both this life, and my last. People who never had a chance to be normal, and were just stifled and used by everyone around them.

"N-new bodyguards? I… uhm.. wasn't 'specting that. H-hey… aren't y'all familiar?" She pointed between us.

"You may have seen us on the news, Miss Ryan. We're Maverick Solutions. I'm Ashling Anderson, no codename and these are my employees: Herman Schultz, alias The Shocker, and Aleksei Sytsevich, also known as The Rhino."

Rebecca blinked, seeming a bit more animated. "Ohhhh r-right! Y-you're those reformed villains an' folks. Th' ones wh-who beat C-carnage at th' Fisk Gala, right?"

"Da we are! The boss and I, we shoulder-slammed him until he went out of window, after Herman blasted him with gauntlets!" Aleksei boomed cheerfully, which made Rebecca smile tentatively. Leave it to Aleksei to be able to pull that off.

"B-by the way… y'all c-can just call me Becky. Most p-people do…" Godsdamn, I kind of just wanted to give the young woman a hug. Despite being only a little younger than me, she was pinging my maternal instincts obscenely hard. I also wanted to put on my suit and go back to give her father a piece of my mind. Unfortunately… I had to stay professional.

February, 2001

S.H.I.E.L.D. Facility,????

"I guess you're happy about what went down at the concert between you and Ronald Ryan then?" The agent asked, going through the documents she had in front of her.

"Yeeeeep!" Ash nodded, popping the p at the end of the drawn-out word. "You can say that again. I regret absolutely nothing, and would say that under oath if I had to."

The agent chuckled. "Not everyone gets that kind of satisfaction."

"Yeah. What came after… less so. Anyways… want me to keep going in detail?" Ash shifted again, seemingly finally finding a comfortable spot.

"The next few days were only partially relevant. We can skim over those, and then I'd like you to go over the End-of-Tour Concert please."

"Right. So. The first few days, everything was normal… There were some merch signings, that TV interview. Becky actually went out to eat a few times. We were there for all of it." Ash recounted.

"What happened with the group from TMZ? You didn't give much detail…"

Ash giggled. "Oh them? The ones who basically broke into that pizza place we'd booked out? Well, they were a very big possible security threat. You never know what kind of weapon someone can store in recording equipment. It was their own faults really. So sad all their footage got erased and they got tazed." The sarcasm in her voice was so heavy that it probably outmassed Wilson Fisk.

"Anyways. All the while, seven more letters came through. And they were just as bad as the others. And they started getting more and more threatening. One of the last ones basically said 'I'll be there at the last concert to finally whisk you away'. I warned Mr. Ryan that we should reschedule, or even cancel, but he was insistent. Now we know why… but at the time…"

"I understand." The agent nodded. "Again, nobody's blaming you."

Ash took a deep breath. "Becky actually started doing a lot better over the course of those days. I suppose getting to go out and live a little instead of staying locked up in your room will do that. Unfortunately, I had to nix any thoughts about going clubbing. Too many potential risks. I did take her out to the Bar though."

The agent cocked her head. "And you're saying that the Bar With No Name was safer than a club with dedicated guards?"

Ash nodded vehemently. "Most of the clientele of the Bar are Supervillains, and it was Trivia Night. Nobody messes with Trivia Night at the Bar With No Name. Not even The Punisher. And also, it's a general rule that if you start shit in there, you get hit. Full stop. It was also a good way to get away from all the crowds. I think Becky enjoyed herself the most there. That was the night before… well…"

"The concert, yes? Please, tell me what happened."

Ash stopped trying to recline, and sat perfectly straight in her chair, now entirely attentive. "Well, everything started out fine. First three songs and the weirdest thing that happened was that one guy trying to give her an unopened can of Redbull. But during the middle of the break before the fourth, that one light fixture started 'malfunctioning', and it was all downhill from there."

A/N: Originally this was supposed to be one chapter, but it got a bit away from me. This Chapter was typed out 100% on phone.