February, 2001
Six Days after the Nazi Gold Incident
Maverick Solutions Offices, Harlem
"I'm very happy with your qualifications Mr. Khan. You're sure the commute won't be too much trouble?"
The new office definitely had a much better vibe ever since the Ghostbusters took care of the crate of Nazi Gold, and Herman swept the place for all of the expected pre-existing SHIELD bugs. My stress levels were down by a lot, and I had been feeling a lot more positive. Which definitely helped when I was conducting interviews for some very important positions in Maverick, like my current interviewee.
Yusuf Khan was a name I recognized. Professionally, he was skilled in finance, currently working for a bank in Jersey City, notable for an exceptionally good work ethic and a very promising resume. Personally, he was a Pakistani immigrant, father of two… and it was for that last reason I most well knew of him. His daughter, Kamala Khan, was one of the big success stories of Marvel's 'New Generation Legacy' All-New All-Different NOW! pushes, probably helped by the fact that the Captain/Boy/Kid/Ms. fill-in-the-blank prefix/suffix Marvel legacy was long, storied, and filled with varied and interesting characters generally connected by their history with the Kree.
"No, it won't be any kind of problem. I live very close to the new train line. Traffic will be a negligible issue," Mr. Khan replied. I nodded.
"Well, with that in mind, I think I can say that you are hired." I smiled, and extended a hand, which the somewhat surprised Mr. Khan shook. "Welcome to Maverick Solutions. My secretary Mrs. Watanabe will give you a call probably tomorrow about scheduling, if that's alright."
"That should be perfect! Thank you very much Miss Anderson." Yusuf made his way out of the door to the office, and I sank back into my very comfy leather chair, sighing heavily and brushing some of my hair out of my eyes before grumbling and leaning forwards to fix my bun. At that time, the door opened, and Mrs. Watanabe came in, carrying a pair of mugs.
"I saw that you forgot to put a new pot on." She smiled, handing me the mug.
"Thanks Marnie. Gods, I think that's the last of the admin positions? Right?" I wasn't entirely sure because of the fact that I'd been doing a lot of interviews over the course of the past week. Enough prepping, going over documents, and other busywork that I hadn't been able to pitch in at F.E.A.S.T. like I'd wanted to. Aleksei and Herman had completed two more short-term guard gigs while I'd been handling all of that. It was pretty nice to have more low-intensity jobs that didn't require all hands on deck. But all the paperwork and other Entrepreneurship that I'd had to do definitely was taking a bit of a toll.
"Yes, it is." Marnie nodded as she sat down in the chair across from me. "With Mister Khan, we finally have a proper CFO. You interviewed Misses Knowle for the Human Resources position yesterday, and hired Miss Kildare and her Hestia Group for Public Relations on Tuesday."
I exhaled deeply, and unthinkingly took a sip of tea, starting at the heat and very nearly spilling it all. Marnie laughed, giving me the basically patented 'Asian Grandmother Soft Smile'. The kind of smile that conveys a great deal of exasperation and knowing looks all in one expression. "You remind me of my granddaughter, Yuriko is always 'work, work, work' when she's got things to do. The both of you need to relax a bit more."
"Yuriko's the one who…. Just made Captain, right?" I asked, and Marnie nodded.
"She's very proud to follow in her grandfather's footsteps, and I'm very proud of her." Marnie sipped her own tea, which already had a metal spoon sitting in it. "Now, I have a few more documents for you to go over and finalize, and then once you're done with that, I want you to take a break. Got it?" She held out the sheaf of papers, but pulled them away from me when I went to take them.
"Got it?"
I sighed again, and then took another sip of tea after remembering to blow on it this time. "I get it, I get it." She finally handed over the papers with a laugh.
"Very good."
The offered papers were the finalizations for hiring the new active duty members of Maverick. And there were some interesting picks. Most of them were probably normally bit characters in any normal comic… but they had impressive resumes nonetheless.
Clyde Olsen and Cecil Kennedy were graduates of Taskmaster's Elite Training Program. That wasn't the one for just basic mooks. People who had gone through the full course and survived were probably on the standard C-List if they decided to put on a costume. Good catches, especially since those two had actually paid the extra price to actually be allowed to pass on said skills. Bad things happened to people who didn't pay that price and still tried anyways, and Taskmaster was apparently very clear on that.
Louis Decker, Lennox Coleman, Valerie O'Doherty, and Willow Simon were former SWAT members, who quit after the previous NYPD Chief nearly got busted for active corruption before most of the witnesses came up 'Missing'. Of course, criminal connections didn't help out much at all when the Scourge came for said chief, and gunned down everyone in the station, police and civilians, and everyone in the holding cells. There were reasons that people actually had some respect for The Punisher, while the Scourge were universally treated as villains.
Cormac Silva was an interesting one. He was what was termed a "Professional Mook." He'd worked for several dozen smaller villain organizations in effectively menial combat jobs. Normally, that wouldn't be very impressive… but the man had been doing that for almost three decades. He had a lot of work experience, and the fact that he'd survived for that long was obscenely impressive.
Julia Blevins and Gilbert Ingram used to be Beekeepers for an outlying A.I.M. (they insisted on the periods) Subsidiary. One of the ones that mostly just did weird science instead of trying to take over the world. Which meant that both of them had a fair amount of hands-on skill when it came to engineering. Not as overall skilled as Herman, but they still knew their way around most of the average Supertech that might show up in a standard situation.
And those were only the non-powered applicants.
I had four new powered applicants of note, amongst several that very much weren't. Those ones, I still hadn't done interviews for. That would be tomorrow's job. There was also the fact that one of them had a direct reference from Captain America: Rachel Leighton, also known as Diamondback. Originally started out as a fairly mundane member of the Serpent Society, skilled in gymnastics and contortion, but later received several different Super-Soldier procedures. Interesting pick, also chronically trying to go straight but getting drawn back into villainy.
Next, there was probably the most… controversial hire. Bartolomej Medved didn't have an actual name in the comics he came from, only being known by the nickname of 'Pretty Boy'. He was a former member of The Reavers, a private military contractor notable for their heavy use of high-end cybernetics… and also for the fact that they acted as the private muscle for the Hellfire Club. Not that that was publicly known in any regard. I was extremely curious about what could make Pretty Boy quit a very high-paying job to jump ship over to me.
Then, there was a name that I was very surprised was showing up this soon. Mike Peterson was a 'graduate' of one of the many Deathlok projects, which put him in the very high-end category when it came to military cyborgs. Out of universe though, he wouldn't have been invented for around twelve years for Agents of SHIELD, and to my knowledge hadn't been ported over into the comics. But hey, I guess just because the comics hadn't focused on a character, that didn't mean they didn't exist.
Finally, Robert "Robbie" Morten was the most mundane out of any of the powered applicants. A Siancong Veteran turned high-end club bouncer who had paid the Power Broker for enhancements, and was seemingly looking for a bit of a change in work. It was honestly a fairly common origin for powered mercs in Marvel.
All of them looked fine, and I'd be doing the rest of the interviews tomorrow anyways. There were more powered applicants of course, but pretty much all of them were absolute greenhorns of a very specific type. The type who had some tiny, minor gimmick, similar to the 'Fearsome Five'. The proliferation of MGH, Kick, and other drugs of note that could give or boost powers made a lot of two-bit thugs and would-be heroes think they were big leagues. Knockoff Supertech could do much of the same, just like tiny amounts of magical training from Mail-In Wizard Courses. Some might call it eliteist, but I needed professionals at the moment, not liabilities who would need to be babied, and very well might cause more harm than good. With that done, I signed where it was necessary, stamped where it was as well, and then handed the forms back to Marnie. "You still want to handle stuff for the restaurant positions?"
She nodded. "Yes, I can deal with that. You've gotten enough on your plate anyways. You will still need to do the interviews yourself, but I will take care of the paperwork."
Marnie got back up, and moved over to the door. "No more work today. Rest."
I took another sip of tea, and sighed. Well, I did have some stuff to do today that wasn't busywork. So, after I finished my tea, I shut off my computer, made sure all my cabinets were in order, shut the office blinds, and then went outside. I punched in a specific number on my phone, and waited for a familiar cab to pull up, and got in the open door.
February, 2001
Tinkerer's Auto Shop, Manhattan
Tinkerer's shop was basically the same as the last time I'd seen it, though this time there were two relatively normal looking cars inside the shop, along with what I was pretty sure was a Sentinel. Mason was currently halfway through removing said Sentinel's thoroughly clawed head with several industrial waldoes mounted on tank tracks. He didn't pay me any mind until he had finished the disassembly of said head, letting the waldoes haul it off through a large door.
Then, he turned and came over. "Miss Anderson, a little early." He adjusted his glasses, taking a look at the two cases in my hands. One of which was a normal briefcase, while the other was my Dynamo Mark IV. "Ahhhh, I can see some of the urgency."
Mason tapped his hands together, a grin sliding across his face. "On to business, I'm assuming you want to upgrade." The last word was said with a great deal of excitement.
One of those Waldo-Tanks rolled over and took the armor suitcase from me. "Yeah. I've been thinking. While I still don't want internal computers, I could do with some kind of a sensor suite."
Tinkerer nodded. "I have a few external sensor system pieces that could function very well… but I'm assuming that's not everything?"
I rolled my neck, trying to get rid of some of the stiffness from the cab's seat. "So, you wouldn't happen to have any spare modular panels like Iron Man was using for a while?"
Mason's grin widened. "It'll take a few more days than normal for something like that, but I can do it. The modules will cost extra, and take further time. I'm assuming that you want a standard spread?"
I nodded. "So long as they don't have those particular circuits that mean Iron Man can just disable them."
Tinkerer clapped his hands. "I'm also assuming that you're going to want to be picking out some things from my stockpile in case you get another one of your bigger jobs while the Crimson Dynamo is in the shop, to go along with the Anti-Symbiote weapon? Perfect timing. I have new stock in."
Mason led me through one of the doors near the back, which required a retinal scan, hand and fingerprint detector, and voice sensor, and then we passed on into what seemed to be an airlock decontamination corridor, with yet more scanners. It was one Hel of a security system, but I knew exactly why it existed as I once more walked through the other end of the lock. Technically, the room I was in now wasn't actually connected physically to Tinkerer's Auto Shop. No, the so-called "Toybox" was in essence a pocket dimension that Phineas Mason had either discovered or created, I wasn't sure which, and he hadn't explained in detail the last time I'd been here, and picked out the Crimson Dynamo in the first place.
It looked for all the world like a gigantic warehouse, with shelves that were absolutely packed with neatly ordered pieces of tech that Tinkerer had collected and put up for sale. Each device, suit, weapon, and vehicle had a specific digital price tag attached to it, occasionally changing and adjusting for whatever reason. Next to each tag there was a button, effectively acting as an 'Add to Shopping Cart' function.
I walked along the shelves, looking at the various devices on display. Most of them I didn't recognize, like the variety of random armor bits, gauntlets, helmets, and guns. So many futuretech looking guns. Some of them were more mundane, like a Glock that looked like it had had the magazine replaced with a power cell, while others looked like vaguely gun-shaped masses of greebles. None of the guns really interested me, since I was going to be getting my Anti-Symbiote Gun after I finished here… but there were other weapons that were definitely of interest. Like what looked like a futuristic warhammer with a haft about as long as my entire arm, a heavy and flat hammerhead with several round nodules on the face of it, and a blade of some kind on the reverse side of the head, with a counterweight of some sort attached to the bottom end of the haft.
"Alright, what's this?" I asked Mason, as I examined the item.
"Oh that? I built that originally for someone who had the remarkably unintelligent idea of calling himself 'Lord Graviton the Mighty'," he explained. "The hammer features a number of gravitational impellers around itself to assist with striking, along with being able to produce a kinetic shockwave on impact. It also can make use of a micro-gravity generator to lift and attract objects. If you also purchase the matched wristband, which is designed to fit under a costume, you'll be able to recall it to your hand, and have some control over it at a distance."
"Sold." I hit the buttons on both it, and the band, which was very unassuming. "I gotta ask though, what happened to that guy? I've never heard of him, and I think I would remember a crazy guy going around with a big hammer calling himself 'the Mighty'."
Mason laughed. "Well, he made the mistake of using 'Graviton' in his code-name. Franklin Hall is neither the most stable individual, nor the most accepting of those he thinks are copying him."
"Ah." I nodded, continuing to look around. A few other things made it into my cart as well, like a fairly generic personal force field generator. I would have gotten Herman to make me one of his Shockwave Shield Generators, but he was still working on a way to counteract the vibrational recoil without having to wear a dedicated suit. Or have a suit as durable and shock-absorbing as Aleksei's.
Finally, I got my other big purchase. One of Adrian Toomes's flight harnesses, though this one was fairly bare-bones and had been stripped of all the bird theming. It was one of the models designed entirely around hands-free flight, unlike the older versions, and Mason had augmented it a bit. "Silent flight, probably more agile than your Crimson Dynamo, though obviously less protective. The magnetic field also grants a slight degree of enhanced strength and impact protection for reasons that you lack the engineering knowhow to understand. Can be easily worn under clothing. Be careful around anti-magnetic inverters though, this one lacks a retrofitted polarity system."
"Well, at least those aren't particularly common." I shrugged as we moved to leave the 'Toybox' the same way we'd entered, and I went through the process of paying for all of my purchases, which were placed in specially designed cases, along with the one for my finally completed Pyro-Sonic Anti-Symbiote Weapon, or PSA, as Mason called it. The PSA was about the size of Spider-Man's web shooters in his most recent video game outing, fitting nicely into the palm of my hand, just as I'd wanted. For all the tech packed in there, it was frighteningly small.
When everything was in order, I paid in cash as was Mason's policy, and made to leave. However, the Tinkerer called after me. "By the way, Miss Anderson. Since you've been such a good customer, I'll give you some advice for free. Tell any Mutant hires you get to be careful. I've heard from the grapevine that some unsavory characters calling themselves the TransSpecies Movement have been starting to crawl out of the woodwork and target those they can. Keep that in mind."
I blinked, freezing in place. "Really now? Thanks for telling me Mr. Mason. I appreciate it."
"Indeed, Miss Anderson. Pleasure doing business with you."
And with that, I took my cases back to the cab, now feeling deeply unsettled. I think I need to do something to cool off after that warning.
February, 2001
Queens, New York
I took a train over to Queens, and then walked the small distance to the F.E.A.S.T. shelter there. By that time, the sky had clouded over, and I could see a few scattered white flakes falling down to join the previous not insignificant piles of snow on the ground. Hopefully this storm wouldn't be as bad as a few of the ones we'd been getting. The wind was as cold as one might expect for a day like this, so I was very glad to get into the nicely toasty and warm shelter through the staff entrance and divest myself of my heavy coat, Thor themed hat, and knitted scarf.
"Ash! It's been a while!" May waved at me from over where she was in the kitchen, setting the knife she had been using to chop tomatoes down and coming over before putting a hand on my shoulder. "We all saw the news… are you doing alright?"
I slumped a little bit, exhaling. "I… kind of? I'm… dealing with things."
May nodded, and gave me a quick hug. "Well, everyone's missed you here. We're midway through dinner prep. Why don't you go help Tim out with the broth?"
And thus, I sank into the blissful, normal routine of getting everything ready for dinner service. Helping out in the back of a restaurant had always been… calming to me. Especially with all the hustle and bustle that had been happening lately.
We managed to get all of the massive containers of beef stew done with time to spare, which was when people started to really arrive.
I was out front, helping to serve everyone, and… well… multiple times, people in the line stopped to directly thank me. Thank me, for killing the Purple Man. I… really shouldn't have been so surprised. Zebediah Killgrave had used New York as his base of operations probably the most out of any other city in America, and it shouldn't have been unexpected to me that there were a lot of the less well off population of New York who had suffered thanks to Killgrave's megalomania.
The man had been a mass-murdering maniac with a predilection for psychological torture, and it was deeply heartbreaking to hear people talk about what they'd been through… only to take a much more positive turn to then hear them say how happy they were that Killgrave was six feet under. Well, the expression probably wasn't entirely correct in this case, since I was willing to bet that SHIELD had his body in lockup somewhere.
I'd given people something that they'd never expected to feel in regards to Killgrave: catharsis. Sudden, extreme, and long overdue karma. On live TV. I… still wasn't sure how to feel. Wasn't sure when I'd actually know how to properly feel… but seeing such an outpouring of joy and thanks from people that Killgrave had personally hurt…
An older woman who spoke about when Killgrave had made her husband and daughter walk into a full swimming pool and stay under. Daredevil had beaten Killgrave fast enough to save the daughter, but she'd suffered a degree of brain damage due to lack of oxygen, and the husband had died on the scene.
A man whose honeymoon had been interrupted by one of Kilgrave's plots, and seen his wife jump out of a window after the Purple Man had taken her to his hotel room for several hours.
A little girl whose parents had been hit by a car after being forced to walk out into a busy street while she watched from a closet because Killgrave wanted to use their house to lay low.
On and on and on. So many stories. So many awful, tragic, brutal stories… and now they all ended with "And I'm so glad he's dead."
It just reinforced how much of a monster Killgrave had been, to hear it firsthand. By the end of the night, I had finally made up my mind.
While I wasn't particularly happy about having to kill a person… I couldn't feel bad that It had been Zebediah Killgrave. I wouldn't ever lose sleep over it. There was some reticence about again, the fact that it had been me who'd done it…
But… I definitely sure I could live with myself over doing it. I wasn't going to be angsting about it any time soon, if ever.
The mood at F.E.A.S.T. only grew brighter when Aleksei and Herman landed our new flying SHIELD van next to the shelter, and started unloading the contents of the gift baskets that we were never going to eat all of. Joining them were both Marnie, and also Aleksei's new girlfriend Oksana, the waitress he'd met at that diner near Big Al's. Coupled with the festive lights and decorations that were still up, it made me feel even better, entirely banishing the dreary self-reflection that I'd realized I had started slipping into.
This had been everything I needed. I decided that I'd probably take the day after tomorrow fully off, and decompress. Maybe I could go to a spa or something. That usually made me feel better. Hell, I had a fuckton of money left over for personal use, I could go to a super fancy restaurant.
Either way, it would definitely be a 'Me' day. And I was looking forward to it. Even if I still had those interviews tomorrow.
Did I kind of feel like there was a shoe about to drop? Maybe a bit. But, when it came, I was going to meet it fist first. This was Marvel, that was just what you did.
A/N: A bit more of a filler chapter, but filler's sometimes needed, otherwise it can lead to fatigue. Also! Little bit of a shout-out.
