February, 2001

Maverick Solutions Offices, Harlem

Ahhhh… the feeling of a new office. I was standing in front of said new office, watching as Aleksei wrangled the moving van. Quite literally, actually. The poor driver had gotten one of his tires stuck in an open manhole. Well, okay, to give the guy some more credit, it wasn't really his fault. The manhole cover hadn't been all the way across the actual hole, and he hadn't seen it when he was trying to park. Thankfully, there wasn't really anything too fragile in this truck, so the biggest deal was just getting things unstuck. Unfortunately, Aleksei couldn't get good enough leverage on his own, and didn't have my suit on me.

"You know… it's weird. When we unpacked that last load like an hour ago, that manhole wasn't open," Herman noted, even as Aleksei and the driver walked around the truck, trying to figure out what to do other than call Triple-A.

I nodded, equally confused and mildly concerned. I really missed being able to just check my phone and see if, say, The Lizard was out and about. "You think Curt Conners had another… episode?"

Herman shook his head. "In Harlem? Middle of winter? Nah. But it wouldn't be bad to do another sweep of The Bunker." I giggled a little at that. Herman had taken to calling the basement section of our new office The Bunker, capitalization necessary, and refused to hear any other name for it.

As Aleksei and the driver seemed to be getting to the end of their rope, I heard an incredibly deep, bassy voice behind us. "Ay yo. You must be the new folks in the neighborhood."

When the both of us turned around, we were met by the sight of an incredibly jacked African American man with a shaved head and a short beard… wearing jeans and a yellow t-shirt in the middle of a chilly New York winter day. Next to him stood a much shorter brown-haired woman in a winter coat, one hand clasped over a very obviously pregnant belly, the other holding a paper-wrapped package. Y'know… in the rush that had been the past few weeks… I'd almost forgotten that our new office was in Harlem, and that Harlem already had a particular super team.

"Oh! Um… yeah! I suppose we are!" Oh gods, I sounded so freaking awkward. It was… kind of difficult to keep the excitement out of my voice though. It was freaking Luke Cage and freaking Jessica Jones! I hadn't ever actually encountered either of them in this world before, and I still had a problem with getting starstruck. I remembered, back in my previous world, reading through a bunch of my dad's old and well worn comics, including a great many issues featuring Power Man and Iron Fist: Heroes for Hire. Jessica Jones on the other hand… well, I read Alias when I was probably a bit too young to properly get the content within it. But hey… it's not like my introduction to Brian Michael Bendis was the start of a massive roller-coaster that eventually would just go down and down and down. Nah, how could famed writer Brian Micheal Bendis ever go on an insane downward spiral that crashed and exploded and then kept exploding through most of my life?!

And that was just my experience with them from my original world. In 616… well, Luke Cage wasn't necessarily a big name on a national level, but the best way I could describe the general opinion of Luke Cage in New York was extremely positive. He was the model image of a Working Class Hero. A guy who helped people out… and also accepted money for it. And could actually be hired to help people out. That was, after all, the whole point of Heroes for Hire. He wasn't a literal god straight out of myth like Thor, or a steel titan in an ivory tower like Tony Stark, or even a terrifying specter prowling the night like Daredevil. As much as most people knew, he was just a guy from Harlem with super strength and steel-hard skin.

Jessica Jones, on the other hand, was much less fondly looked upon. Especially with her reputation as being… not the most scrupulous private detective. Not even getting into her involvement in starting the near-scandal involving Captain America that had been mostly covered up. She wasn't exactly disliked by the average New Yorker, but she wasn't exactly liked either.

"I see you got a little bit of a problem. Need a hand?" Cage rumbled.

It was Aleksei who answered, still trying to figure out a way to move the truck. "Is that Man of Power I hear? Yes, assistance would be very welcome."

Cage moved over to join him, the two of them now working to get some proper leverage, leaving me and Herman with Jessica, who had been staring at me with a conflicted expression the entire time. It was… really awkward. Awkward enough that Herman decided to walk off to join the rest of the guys. And godsdamn, Jessica Jones could stare really hard.

"Sooooo…." I broke the silence, only feeling more awkward. Jessica continued to stare for a moment, before she held out the package to me.

"Here. This is for you. I just came to give it to you." She stated gruffly, as I took the offered package, before turning around and walking off.

"Huh." I watched Jessica go, even as I heard the sounds of the truck being lifted up and put back down, followed by Aleksei giving an exclamation of triumph.

"Huzzah! Muscle once more prevails against weak metal! Ohoho!" I turned, and walked over to them, watching as Herman pointed out the manhole to Cage.

"Yeah, an hour ago, that hadn't been moved, and I don't see any sign of maintenance people. Kinda suspicious." Herman shrugged. Cage nodded in response.

"Ain't the first time I've seen something like that lately. Weird people on the streets at night, manhole covers moved around, more break-ins than usual. Dunno what's causing it."

Well. That wasn't ominous at all. There was a moment of more awkward silence, before Cage broke it. "You guys want another hand unloading?"

Luke's help meant that half an hour later, we were a lot more unloaded and inside the office than we thought we'd have been, which was around the time that I heard the sound of a car pulling up along the relatively quiet street.

"Daaaaamn!" Aleksei exclaimed as I turned around, whistling with envy as a familiar 1978 Pontiac Firebird pulled up into a parking spot nearby. "Original decals, near pristine paint… now that is good car!"

I knew that car very well. After all, the man driving it had spent so many afternoons tinkering with it in the garage. And said man was Lawrence Anderson, my father in this world, who was in the middle of stepping out of the car. My dad was a short, fairly stout man, very obviously fairly far along into middle age, though remarkably young looking regardless. He was wearing a brown bomber jacket over a green and blue plaid shirt and khaki pants, with heavy black boots that crunched in the snow. He had receding brown hair nearly gone entirely to grey, a wispy mustache, and a very stubbly chin.

"Where's my little girl?" He waved over in my direction, voice thick with a Brooklyn accent, as I happily waved back and ran over.

"Dad! I wasn't expecting you for another hour!" I gave him a big hug, which he returned in kind.

"Traffic from Westchester wasn't that bad today. Thought I'd surprise you!" He let go of me, and then walked over to the trunk of the Firebird, and opened it, pulling out a big stack of pizza boxes. "Stopped over at Louie's on the way here. I'm guessing these are your proud employees?"

Aleksei and Herman had made their way over, Cage lagging behind a bit. "Yeah! Herman, Aleksei, this is Lawrence, my dad. Dad, these are Herman Schultz and Aleksei Sytsevich, my employees. And that's Luke Cage over there."

The pizzas were passed off temporarily to me so that handshakes could be exchanged, before Herman took custody of them. "Let's get these inside before the freeze gets 'em, and finish unloading," he stated, and I could see him itching to get into those classic large New York-style pizza pies.

The pizzas were deposited inside next to Jessica's package, and we all pitched in on finishing the unloading efforts, during which the guys struck up a conversation about cars.

Or rather, conversation about the car, the Firebird that was his pride and joy to rival me, that—in Dad's mind at least—was definitely worth more than the entire payday I had gotten from the Fisk job. Every time he talked about it, the exact figure always got slightly higher. He said that was because as the car got older and he continued to keep it in peak condition, its value continued to increase as other cars of the same model broke down, or were lost, or otherwise vanished from the market. Personally I suspected he was over-appraising it by at least ten thousand.

Honestly I didn't know why he cared so much about the price on it. He'd bought that car when it was new, more than 30 years ago now, and made keeping it running his go-to hobby since before I was even born.

I tuned out most of the conversation. Almost every memory of my childhood had him smelling of engine grease, whenever he wasn't at work he was probably out in the garage doing some tune-up or another on The Car.

Mom had told me once that he hadn't actually known anything about auto maintenance before he'd bought the Firebird, and hadn't started learning until it was several years and near-wrecks old.

Still, he enjoyed it, and the rest of the guys (especially Aleksei) did as well, so I didn't particularly mind. Everything went as normal until we got all the stuff inside, and then came the furniture assembly and placement. I'd picked up a new, very much larger desk and a much more comfy office chair, and as always, assembly of them was a bitch. Thankfully, Dad volunteered to help.

For a little bit, we worked in silence, until Dad finally spoke up. "So. How've you been Ash? From the news, you've had a really eventful couple months. Especially that business at the Garden."

I sighed heavily, stopping my efforts to screw two pieces of desk together. "It… wasn't good. I really messed up Dad. Like, really messed up."

"Whaddya mean? No sane judge or jury in the whole state… heck, the whole damn country would ever convict you for killing that Killgrave guy, 'Enemy of All Mankind' I think it is, free license to shoot the bast-err... you know, to anyone brave enough." Dad replied, pretty much exactly as I expected he would, and I shook my head in response.

"N-no… not what I meant." My voice sort of flubbed awkwardly a bit, and I let out a grumbling noise as I sat back on the floor. "I mean the thing with Ronald Ryan. I… well, I really dodged a bullet there… It could have been a lot worse."

"Wait, is that jackass trying to sue you? That fucking sonnavabitch. If you need 'em, I know a buncha bigshot lawyers. I'll give Mallory a call… hell, if it's big enough, I can call Denny. He's a Named Partner at his firm and-" I shook my head to cut him off.

"No, it's all fine. I'm… not fully at liberty to give details… but it turns out that 'Good Ole Ronnie Ryan' was into a lot more shady business than just trying to sell off his daughter to Purple Man." I rubbed my eyes and got back to work on the desk. As it happened, Ronnie Ryan had been in debt to the Maggia to the tune of around seven million bucks. Which explained the immediate willingness to try and sell Becky off. I knew this because I'd had to help the NYPD open up a heavily reinforced hidden panel in Mr. Ryan's office, which had held a fair amount of incriminating evidence within it. And a lot of threatening notes.

The rest I'd heard from the rumor mill that was the Bar With No Name. Apparently, before Becky hit it big as a singer, 'Big Ronnie' Ryan as he'd been nicknamed (gee, I wonder why?) had done jobs for the Nefaria family, and been involved in some shady business. According to Eddie Lavel, Ryan had been a part of the human trafficking side of the business that had put Count Nefaria at odds with the other dons of the Maggia a multitude of times. He'd been burned by most of his contacts when he'd left the organization with his life (somehow), but still maintained the mindset and attitude of an absolute scumbag. And according to some whispers that had come straight from Ryker's, he was also planning on turning in evidence on the Maggia to save his skin.

I… didn't like his chances, but if he survived long enough to get transferred to a different facility… well, the guy was more than just a scumbag, but he might also be able to put the finger on one of the most vicious mob operations in the past thirty years. But I wasn't holding out hope.

In any case, most of that was hearsay anyways, and I was trying to wash my hands of the whole incident, legally speaking. I… still wasn't sure how to feel about everything that had happened, but my conversation with Captain freaking America had definitely helped. The media circus around it all was pretty positive towards Maverick at the least. Nobody wanted to say anything bad about the people who had both thrown Cletus Kasady back to the Ravencroft (where he was still imprisoned thankfully, though he was apparently due for transfer to The Raft in a few months) and also put down Zebediah Killgrave with zero fatalities. That last one was big. Not that I was entirely sure how big it would be yet.

Still, after that, Dad and I mostly just went over the more mundane things that had been happening. My continued volunteering at F.E.A.S.T., the various issues with getting everything over to the office after the hell that had been extra inspections, other miscellaneous necessary evils of buying real estate in New York City, and most embarrassingly of all… the continued trials and tribulations that were my lack of a lovelife.

"How'd it go with Sam Larson's kid… what was his name again, Micah?" Dad asked, as we brought the four corners of the desk into alignment.

"She goes by just Mica now, and no, we tried it for a few weeks. Didn't really hit it off. I heard she's with a guy in M-Town. Can't remember the name. Just that he's got four arms." I replied.

"Ah. Well, good for her then. What about that guy that Frankie tried to set you up with. The um… Skull? Skool? The shape-shifty alien. Artos I think?"

"Skrull, dad. They're called Skrulls. And no, he had to head back into space for compulsory military service. Right when we'd really hit it off…" I sighed heavily, before grunting with exertion as we got the top of the desk into place.

"Don't sweat it. You'll find somebody eventually. Hell, me'n your mom didn't meet until we were around your age anyways. Give it time." Dad patted me on the shoulder before screwing in the final screw. With the desk now fully assembled, we stood back… and looked towards the large and very daunting box containing my new chair. "Y'know what? Let's break for some pizza."

"Yeah… yeah, let's. Pizza sounds great right about now."

The pizza was good, even if some of it needed to be reheated… but we did have an industrial kitchen setup on the ground floor that was in perfect working order. Which raised up some questions when we all gathered in the restaurant downstairs. It was a pretty sizable space, complete with all the furniture and accouterments, just that almost all the chairs and stools were stacked on the tables and counter. This place had shut down fairly recently.

"So, you guys plannin' on reopening this place?" Luke asked, having just polished off an entire pizza himself. "Used to get summa the best cheap pizza pies here. Kinda miss it, even if it was a front."

I considered things, taking another slice. "Y'know. Not a bad idea. I will admit, I'm not surprised this place got decommissioned. They called the place 'One Eyed Nick's Uptown Pizza Shop'. Not particularly subtle."

We all laughed about that. Goddamn S.H.I.E.L.D. For being one of the most effective spy agencies in Marvel… Gods, they can be stupid sometimes.

"You know, is very much not bad idea. Gives place for employees who do not wish to do combat jobs." Aleksei added.

We'd been over this before, but just vaguely. Thinking about it more concretely… well, we had more than enough leftover money to start things up, especially with all of the equipment being in place and in working order. Yeah, this was definitely a thing that could work out.

"Thanks for all the help Mr. Cage. Seriously, we wouldn't have gotten anywhere near as far along without some extra help. Same to you Dad, especially with you getting in early."

Luke waved me off. "Don't worry 'bout it. Jus' helping out new neighbors. And jus' call me Luke. Mr. Cage makes me feel old."

"Hey, what kinda dad would I be if I didn't stop by to help my little girl get settled in." Dad chuckled. "I remember when you got your first apartment… or when you graduated. I brought pictures, by the way!"

"Oh god why?" I groaned, shrinking back into my chair. I loved my dad, but he sometimes tried way too hard. And I had to deal with the after effects. Like dealing with my employees seeing my embarrassing haircut from graduation. Pigtails, what was I thinking?! Aaaaaaaaaaaa-

To distract myself, I decided to open the package that Jessica Jones had handed me, and found that it was a gift basket. A gift basket with the standard assortment of snacks from a pre-packaged gift basket of that type… and also a bottle of Really high-quality whiskey. It had a note tied onto the neck of the bottle, which I untied and raised up to read. "I was planning on saving this for when the purple bastard finally kicked it, but I'm trying to go sober nowadays. Enjoy. J.J."

I smiled. "Well, I'm definitely going to crack this one open. As both a 'Fuck You, Killgrave'… and in celebration of the new Office!"

The sentiment was generally universal.

"Here Here!" Said basically everyone else in the room.

I had no idea how strange things were going to get over the next two weeks.

February, 2001

Two Weeks Later

Maverick Solutions Offices, Harlem

"HOLY FUCKING SHIT, HOW MUCH STUFF ARE WE GOING TO GET?!" I exclaimed, pacing back and forth in the hall outside my office's door, clutching at my head with both hands. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-"

We had gotten So. Many. Gift Baskets over the course of the past two weeks. So many. Enough that there was an entire room on the second floor that was lined floor-to-ceiling with the things. At least, the non perishable ones. The fruit from the fruit baskets had either been eaten as soon as possible, or were taking up one of the refrigerators. There had been a lot of the things delivered to the office. So many. It… well, it made sense, with what had happened. Especially since there were entire fucking dedicated multi-state support groups and organizations for assisting the Purple Man's victims. And that was just in the United States.

And we'd killed him on live TV. I'd killed him on live TV. Uncensored. Oh, the news had tried to, but the videos were out there, and fairly widespread. And Killgrave had died in spectacular and gorey fashion. And then I'd basically crushed his corpse in a bear-hug to keep him from resurrecting.

Of course, it wasn't just the insane quantity of gift baskets that we'd been getting over the past weeks. Oh no. There had been a lot of money.

Holy shit, it was a lot of money. Some of it came in checks, some of it in cash, some of it in more… strange forms. Like one chest of gold coins. It came from all over. Private citizens, Businesses, several 'Charitable Foundations', and at least ten governments, including the US, UK, Croatia, Russia, and more. Killgrave had been declared an 'Enemy of All Mankind' after he left the service of the Soviet Union back in the 70's. And in the decades since, he had made a lot of personal enemies, and ruined a lot of lives. And there had been so many bounties put on his head.

And the total came to around Sixty. Million. Dollars. Or at least, it would have, until one Wade Winston Wilson tossed in exactly Nine Million, Six Hundred and Ninety-Six Thousand, Nine-Hundred and Sixty-Nine, extra dollars turning the total into an even 69,696,969. Nice. And that was just the stuff that wasn't split up into smaller sums or given in weird forms. Just the food alone was probably worth... a lot. It was an insane sum. And I was more than a little freaked out.

Again, I was still trying to process how I felt about killing Killgrave, and had been awarded tens of millions of dollars for it. Now, that wasn't going to stop me from accepting the money. I had employees to pay, expenses to cover, and taxes of various kinds.

Of course… that wasn't what was causing my current tribulations. No, that would be the fact that Aleksei was standing in front of me, holding a gold bar. "Yea Boss, it came from crate that was delivered to garage. Old looking crate. Filled with gold."

"You… you didn't THINK TO CHECK THE BARS OVER?" I half-shrieked, pointing to the mark stamped on the end. A tentacled skull sitting atop a swastika. "FUCKING HYDRA HAD A BOUNTY ON KILLGRAVE? WHAT THE FUCK?! WHAT THE FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH A CRATE OF FUCKING NAZI GOLD?!"

Aleksei rubbed at his chin. "I may know guy. Will give him call!"

I had a bad feeling about that.

A/N: Alrighty, now we move on to a bit more of a cooldown arc. Hope you all still enjoy things, even if they're going to be a bit more low-energy