It was my third day in my new office when I had my first face to face with the 'team' I was expected to supervise, babysit, or otherwise keep on task. They didn't all show up together, Marvin, who told me to call him "Mother's Milk, or M.M." came first. Then Frenchie, he insisted he preferred the moniker to his 'real name', walked in with Kimiko. Finally, making a late entrance, alone, because I knew that Hughie had taken a position with Victoria Neuman, came my actual charge. William "Billy" Butcher. He was more imposing than M.M. And I could see him studying me with a sneer on his face. Great. Fun.

"Everyone take a seat, please." I'd asked Anthony to round up extra chairs, and I even stopped before coming in to pick up coffee, juice, and pastries. If I was babysitting, fully fed children behaved better than hungry ones, I recalled from past experience. "Grab something to eat, take a drink, and we can-"

"Are we gonna have story time too?" I closed my eyes and found myself counting to ten. "Gonna pat our bums and put us all down for a nap?" Another slow ten count and I felt it was safe to open my eyes.

"Mr. Butcher," my lips were barely moving and in the back of my fucking head I was trying to think of an illness that would get me out of this fucking assignment without losing my status in the agency. Fuck. "I thought, since it's our first meeting, that perhaps breakfast would be warranted." Fuck you, asshole. I felt a flush of guilt for thinking it. He'd been through a shit ton of bullshit, Veronica, I reminded myself.

He snorted, didn't take a chair, but also didn't keep offering snotty fucking comments. Kimiko carefully selected a flaky turnover, and sat down with a napkin and a cup of juice. The other two men also chose something to eat, M.M. carefully sanitizing his hands first, and taking more than ample time to cover the corner of my desk he was nearest with a layer of napkins before sitting his danish dead center. A cup of coffee close by, and I thought about how right I'd been about his OCD. Frenchie took a moment longer to choose, clearly having a very low opinion of the offerings, but he made due.

"I'm sure that Mallory told you who I am, but I'm glad we could meet before we delve into the purpose of-" I heard his hiss of air that was almost another snort, but not quite, it was still clearly a sound of disbelief that they were stuck with me. Same, mister, same.

"You're here to watch us so we don't get out of line," I didn't have to look at him to know he had rolled his eyes. "And you're a 'doctor'," it came out as pure fucking snark and I had to stop myself from launching a cruller at his fucking head.

"I'm a CIA officer, Mr. Butcher, just like-" I stopped, and let out a long breath. "Yes, I am a doctor, I'm a psychologist, AND I'm most definitely your fucking handler." Why beat around the bush? I finally looked up and locked eyes with him. "Yours in particular."

The others had watched our tiny exchange like it was an exciting tennis match. All eyes were on him as they waited to see what he'd lob back at me. He said nothing, his mouth set in a sneer, his eyebrows furrowed, but he was fucking silent.

The rest of the 'meeting' went smoother, if only because he kept his mouth shut. I gave each member, aside from Billy, a card with my cell phone number on it. We set up a schedule to meet regularly, and then after they finished their breakfast, the others left.

I heard M.M. warn Billy to keep his head, but I thought that was a losing battle. If Butcher had been wound tight before, I could almost see the tautness of his strings now. He waited, until the door closed behind Kimiko before stalking to my desk. If he'd hoped for a flinch from me, he was left wanting. His nostrils were flared and I could almost see the churning of his thoughts and words in his head. Huffing out another breath, he sat in the seat that M.M. had vacated.

"A babysitter," he snarled, eyes locked on mine. "She thinks I need a bloody babysitter."

"She thinks you need a steadying influence," I tossed back with a shrug. "Your behavior will make or break this little endeavor, and if you want the supes under control, then you'll play nice." His stare grew shrewd.

"Maybe I don't want them controlled, maybe I want them six feet under." His voice was like gravel.

"Then you'll definitely need to play nice," I offered, leaning back in my chair. "No one is going to sit idly by while a renegade vigilante murders," his glare grew if possible from the term. "To the outside it would look like murder, you do understand that, right?" Another flare of his nostrils and I was tempted to roll my eyes and ask if I should hide whatever he saw that was red behind me. "If someone takes out the glory that are supes, WITHOUT EVIDENCE, then the public would lose their collective shits, even you have to get that." I shook my head. "They need to be regulated, even the public and their fans can agree with that. And they definitely need to face consequences for the shit they fuck up-"

"Like Homelander?" He bit out. "They blame Stormfront for everything, and then a press conference announcing that everything is all spiffy because his ass is right where it should be." I waited, he needed to vent, and I was his in house therapist. "He's never going to be held accountable unless-"

"Unless you take him out on your own?" I tilted my head to see if he understood how bad of an idea that was. "You and your team JUST got vindicated and cleared, why would you want to stir that pot already?"

He almost growled at me. "Maybe because he fucking-" He stopped, trying to get himself under control, but I could see it was a close thing. "He's not who everyone thinks he is."

"He raped your wife. Got her pregnant with a supe baby. And now she's dead." It was a summary leaving out a huge chunk of his issues with Homelander, but I didn't want his fucking head to explode. "Shouldn't Vought be held accountable too?" I had wondered about this, when I'd first started looking into Butcher and his cohorts. Vought was the source of the madness, why not take the company down. I knew that Raynor had tried, I'd been in the room when she confronted the Stillwell woman, but I knew that it wasn't Butcher's focus, that was simply his bargaining tool.

"I gave the CIA all the evidence to take them down," yeah, implying that we dropped the ball, which we did, but it still made little sense to me. "It's personal with me and him."

I nodded, I knew that too. "Yes, and yet, it's like the worst dance you've ever been engaged in, isn't it?" He was still studying me, but he didn't look ready to wrap his hands around my throat now. Progress. "Work within the parameters, and there will be a fucking route to him, I know it." I couldn't explain HOW I knew it, I just felt it. "Look, I'm not going to ride your ass, or hold your fucking hand. I just have orders to make sure that you don't end up on a fucking wanted poster again, alright?"

I could have sworn that his eyes twinkled at some part of what I said. "Gotta admit, my mug looked damn good on those posters." And then he stood up and was gone. Jesus, this man was going to fucking give me ulcers, I knew it.