My Star Spangled Invisi-Gal [MCU/Dispatch] (Complete)

[cliffc999]

As the old saying goes, 'Evil always triumphs in the middle'.

 

[ShogunTrooper]

You know, it kinda feels like a no-brainer, but I think you just introduced a factor that is probably gonna be copied in other crossovers: No documents.

Having no documentation, and starting at the bottom, despite being qualified for something higher, is a very easy way to explain why a character may end up working for SDN and as part of the Z-Team. Especially since the Z-Team is just the bottom rung of the organization, not the penal squad, as that's the Phoenix Program which a crossover character wouldn't really have any reason to be part of, unless they were a criminal or wrecked enough on the initial arrival to be arrested and offered a spot as community service.

A whole lot of other series don't have that justification, that easy "in" for a protagonist to be part of the main cast, at least to my knowledge, and here you are basically presenting one on a silver platter.

And as is pointed out in the story itself, it also means that any such hero is gonna be under some scrutiny, because people, especially the Z-Team, are gonna ask themselves "WTF are you even doing here?", since in their eyes they should be, well, anywhere that isn't the Z-Team. Especially for the likes of, as seen here, Captain America, who oozes charisma on top of having an easily-marketed set of powers, something the corporate types of SDN would be lusting after like the fanbase is after Malevola.

Again, it should be a no-brainer once it's pointed out, but I don't think a lot of people would think of that.

 

[cliffc999]

something the corporate types of SDN would be lusting after like the fanbase is after Malevola.

Click to shrink...

*snerk* That will actually become a plot point in several chapters.

 

[SemiSaneAuthor]

As the old saying goes, 'Evil always triumphs in the middle'.

Click to shrink...

So by any chance did you start reading Irregular Webcomic after I referenced that in the original Thread on SB? Or are you just remembering that line.

(If I randomly quote good Schlock Mercenary Lines and link them, is there a chance you read Schlock Mercenary and then as one of The Very Good Authors on These Forums you start writing a Schlock Mercenary fix? You know, as just a random example and not anything kinda specific ...)

 

[cliffc999]

I have little interest in reading Irregular Webcomic and I stopped reading Schlock Mercenary years ago. I did remember the line you quoted.

 

[ShogunTrooper]

*snerk* That will actually become a plot point in several chapters.

Click to shrink...

I can imagine that. Especially since it's already mentioned that Cap hates being a "show pony" at a few points. Would be weird if the corpo stooges didn't try to strongarm him into doing PSAs at some point.

 

[cliffc999]

I can imagine that. Especially since it's already mentioned that Cap hates being a "show pony" at a few points. Would be weird if the corpo stooges didn't try to strongarm him into doing PSAs at some point.

Click to shrink...

From Chapter 1:

"Back when I first enlisted the Army had me doing War Bonds tours for months before I could finally get myself a real combat deployment." Steve said disapprovingly. "No. Thank. You. Your company was the only one that agreed to give me a guarantee of no show-pony or PR work, just actual hands-on heroing. Plus, you were one of the only offers that didn't insist I commit to a fixed contract but instead left me the option of resigning at my discretion."

"Still wish you'd agreed to help shoot the PSAs." Chase muttered. "Only other people we got available that have any hope of getting through them without a PR disaster are Phenomaman and Blazer, and he's kinda so-so on them and she's got so many dumped on her already it just makes a man want to weep."

Click to shrink...

Cap got that into his initial employment agreement and now they're going nuts with missed potential, but until he agrees to change his mind(*), they can't make him do it. So they're going nuts trying to figure out how to make him change his mind... especially since as offering him more money has already failed.

(*) Although Blazer did talk Cap into doing one PSA (mentioned in passing in chapter 9) because he took pity on how overloaded her own shooting schedule was, a decision they both soon regretted given that it sent corporate even more nuts to try and get Cap to go full show pony.

From chapter 9:

"Okay, did you actually get a fast-track offer from corporate to go straight to the A-Team of the Hollywood branch that you then dropped like a hot rock, or is the rumor mill smoking blunts again?" Courtney probed.

"I got an offer. Which I immediately round-filed." Steve acknowledged.

Click to shrink...

 

[cliffc999]

Earth-Dispatch
Arrival: D Plus 34

Steve Rogers finished stirring the pot sitting on the electric stove in the apartment's tiny kitchen, and took one last spoonful and sniff to check the taste. He sighed in satisfaction. "Dumplings are ready."

"Finally!" Courtney teased from where she was sitting at the small countertop in-between the kitchen and living area that served as a dining room table. "I think I grew a gray hair over here waiting."

"One home-cooked meal, just as promised." Steve said as he finished ladling the chicken dumpling stew into two large bowls. Removing his apron, he carried them over to the countertop and sat down. It was the evening of the same day that they'd attended the proto-pulse test, and Steve and Courtney had decided to celebrate the almost-one-month anniversary of their having originally met each other with a nice dinner at his place.

"Mmph!" Courtney moaned in satisfaction through her stuffed cheeks. "Delshus." she mumbled.

"Old family recipe." Steve smiled slightly in reminisce. "Mrs. Barnes used to cook this all the time. When I got old enough to use a stove, she showed me how."

"Barnes? You were adopted?" Courtney asked.

"No, no. My dad died before I was born – in World War I, actually – but my mom didn't pass away until I was grown up. But she had to work shifts at the hospital late sometimes, so a lot of the time I ate dinner at the neighbors'." Steve explained. "I'd known her son Bucky for years and years, so Mrs. Barnes was used to having me over."

"Okay, I've gotta ask. 'Bucky'?" Courtney grinned. "They actually named people that back then?"

"On his birth certificate it was James Buchanan Barnes, but since his dad was also called James you can guess what happened there." Steve chuckled.

"Not really hard, no." Courtney smiled and kept eating.

"This is nice." Steve continued after a couple minutes of just enjoying the food. "And I'm glad you came over. I was kinda afraid you were still mad at me."

"I wasn't ever mad at you." Courtney explained patiently. "I just… have stupid coping mechanisms sometimes." She looked up at him ruefully over her dripping spoon. "You live alone for long enough and also have a superpower for vanishing, then your easiest way of dealing with uncomfortable shit becomes running."

"I get it." Steve nodded. "But once you start running, it gets kinda hard to let yourself stop."

"Tell me about it." Courtney sighed. "But you… you weren't ever the running kind, were you?"

"No." Steve admitted. "And that got me beat up in practically every back alley in Brooklyn. If I had a nickel for every time Bucky had to get his knuckles skinned up bailing me out of another fight before they had to carry me out on a stretcher, I'd be richer than Tony. So… sometimes I look back and I wonder. I was brave, yeah, but was it right for me to drag him into that much trouble on my behalf? Because he'd never have needed to get into any of those fights unless it were for me. Seriously, he was the toughest kid in the neighborhood. Nobody messed with him if they had any sense at all."

"Did he ever complain?" Courtney asked simply.

"Not once." Steve shook his head.

"How'd you meet him?" Courtney continued.

"Mom had just moved into the neighborhood. First week I'm there, some punk kid tells me to hand over my lunch money or else he'll take it off of me. And since I never had the sense to stay out of trouble I just run my mouth right back at him-" Steve began.

"Hold up. You, Mister Self-Control incarnate, ran an automatic mouth?" Courtney said incredulously.

"Oh, I was incorrigible." Steve agreed. "I didn't start getting a lock on my mouth until after the serum. After I got powers then picking fights with people would've been bullying. But when I was the underdog?" Steve rolled his eyes gently. "Seriously. Every back alley in Brooklyn."

"So you ran your mouth back at a bully, and…?" Courtney continued knowingly.

"I got pasted." Steve nodded. "I had my fists up and I was trying, but I wasn't getting any licks in. And if I did manage to get any in then I wasn't doing enough damage to wake up a sleeping kitten. So soon enough I'm down on the ground and he's about to start putting in the boots, and suddenly this other kid comes flying in and lays the bum out with one punch. He bends down to ask me if I'm all right, and-" Steve laughed softly at himself. "And I'm sitting there with a fat lip and a shiner I can barely see out of one eye with, completely out of wind, and the first thing out of my mouth is 'I had 'em on the ropes.'"

Courtney laughed until she snorted. "You were hopeless."

"And Bucky looks back down at me and laughs, and the first thing he says back to me is 'I guess you did.' And from that moment on we were inseparable."

"After you went into the ice, did he have a good life?" Courtney asked, and then winced in distress at Steve's expression.

"Bucky didn't wait to be drafted, he joined the Army right after Pearl Harbor. I tried to join up with him, but I already told you about my health." Steve shrugged. "Tried several times, actually. I told you about Dr. Erskine waivering me. I didn't tell you that I originally came to his attention because he'd wondered why a kid who had maybe half the disqualifying physical conditions in the manual had lied on his enlistment forms five separate times trying to sneak or beg his way past the physical."

"You falsified government documents? You?" Courtney goggled.

"And each attempt was a Federal crime potentially chargeable as perjury." Steve agreed. "Said so right on the fine print at the bottom of the form." He chuckled. "I always wondered why people in the modern-day always believed the fable that I was 100% incapable of telling even the littlest white lie, when it was public record how I'd originally gotten noticed by the project."

"I don't even understand how that works. Wouldn't getting caught trying to fake your way in get you failing a security clearance, not earning one?" Courtney puzzled.

"What Dr. Erskine had originally been looking for when he'd been going through the medical reports from the induction centers was exceptional physical specimens, yeah, not guys like me." Steve admitted. "I was just a pattern that happened to catch his eye. And since I also happened to be in the induction center the day he was there he took a moment out to indulge his curiosity and talk to me about why the heck was I was even doing this. I didn't even know he was part of any project until after he introduced himself, I originally thought he was just one of the Army doctors working there." Steve looked briefly into the distance, reminiscing. "He wanted to know why I was so desperate to get over there and start killing Nazis. I told him that I didn't want to kill anyone but that I didn't like bullies, and I didn't care where they were from." Steve looked across the counter at her. "But you were originally asking about Bucky. And the real reason I was so desperate to get in the Army was that I didn't want him to go over there alone."

"And?" Courtney drew Steve out gently.

"I got taken up by the project, and then picked to be the candidate." Steve said. "So there I was, America's first super-soldier… and then the only one, because a Nazi spy assassinated Dr. Erskine the day I was injected. Stole the last sample of the serum as well, then smashed it before letting us recapture it. I don't know why they didn't have any backup records or if something had happened to them, they didn't ever explain that part to me, but I was intended to be a prototype and then I was the only one."

"So they sent you over there by yourself?"

"Nope. Put me on a USO tour to go sell War Bonds. I'd show off my superpowers in public for morale purposes and do a whole song and dance, while they were implying there were other guys like me secretly over there doing commando stuff without actually having to tell that lie out loud. Which is actually why I've got the flag costume instead of something more tactical, it was originally from a propaganda tour. I just kept wearing it after it started to mean something else." Steve explained.

"War Bonds tour? No wonder you hate the PR fluff stuff SDN tries to make the A-Team do so much." Courtney laughed.

"The really funny thing is I can't even honestly say it was a waste of time." Steve huffed amusedly. "During the months I was on the tour War Bonds sales were up five percent overall. And that was real money, even in 1940s dollars."

"Yeah, all the extra bullets that much money would buy? That was probably a hundred times as much damage to the German army as you did personally." Courtney acknowledged.

"I don't know, I did a lot of damage." Steve joked. "But yeah, looking back I couldn't even say they were wasting me. The decision made sense from a logistical standpoint. I just hated it. Pretending to be a hero when I hadn't so much as gotten within five thousand miles of the enemy… it drove me nuts. And then they sent Captain Phoney overseas to do a morale tour for the real combat troops, which was maybe the stupidest idea anybody had ever had in the history of the Army." Steve looked down. "And I got over there just in time to find out that Bucky's unit, which was in the area - we were up by Azzano during the Italian campaign then - had been lost behind enemy lines and he was a POW in a Nazi base too heavily defended to try and raid."

Courtney drew a pained breath, and then her eyes went wide as Steve continued without a beat. "So of course I went completely out of my mind, convinced a couple people I knew to help me steal a plane and a parachute, and jumped in all by myself to try and do a one-man POW rescue."

"Every back alley in Brooklyn, huh?" Courtney eventually snarked.

"Remember back at the donut shop, when I said that you wouldn't believe some of the orders I'd disobeyed even if I'd told you?" Steve grinned back at her. "So yeah, the base turned out to be an experimental facility run by the Nazi mad science division, HYDRA. Which, as it happened, had also been experimenting with the super-soldier serum. Dr. Erskine had originally been a defector from there before he made it over to try perfecting his serum for the US instead, and the Nazis had a guy who'd also been injected with an earlier version of it. Johann Schmidt, aka the Red Skull. HYDRA's commanding officer." Steve looked grave. "He's where Dr. Erskine had learned that psychological stability was really important for serum recipients, because Schmidt had already been off his nut even before getting juiced. And afterwards he was so far gone that he made Hitler look well-adjusted. The serum magnifies everything, you see. Good becomes better, and bad becomes worse." He breathed out. "Anyway, I can't even begin to take the whole base by myself, superpowers or not… but I don't have to. They've got like several hundred guys held prisoner there, including Bucky, and as soon as I started to bust them out they all grabbed what weapons they could and then we started the biggest damn riot you ever saw. That's why they'd all been sent to the HYDRA base from the regular POW camps in the first place. They'd been troublemakers."

"How'd you get back?" Courtney asked.

"Walked." Steve answered simply. "Took us a couple days, but we made it back across the lines and to our unit. And after they decided not to court-martial me, I finally got my combat posting. I was already a captain – they'd directly commissioned me for propaganda purposes, even if I made sure to actually get the officer training as well – so they put me in charge of a new special company, the Howling Commandoes. Our mission was to go up against HYDRA and all their mad science projects. They gave me free choice of any men I wanted for it. Bucky was the first guy I picked, and the men who'd broken out of the POW camp with us were the rest."

"So you finally got your wish, to fight alongside him." Courtney smiled.

"I did." Steve smiled, before his face fell. "And I brought the Howlers through the war practically intact. We lost only one man in action in the entire war, a record no other combat unit equaled." Steve's expression told Courtney everything she needed to know.

"Bucky." She nodded sadly. "Steve, I'm so sorry."

"It was on the next-to-last mission of the war, the one before we finally took down Schmidt and his last base… and I went into the ice." Steve continued softly. "We were basically doing a train robbery, only the 'robbery' was to capture Dr. Zola, Schmidt's chief scientist. We needed him alive to find the base. There was a fight on the train-" Steve shook his head, visibly waving away the details. "And Bucky fell off the train to his death, saving my dumb ass in a fight one last time."

Courtney got up and crossed over to give Steve a hug, and the two of them silently reassured each other for a long moment.

"He never regretted a thing." Courtney finally said. "I'm as sure of that as I can be of anything."

"I know." Steve sighed. "Still miss him, though."

"Of course you do." she agreed.

Steve and Courtney both got up to put their empty dishes in the sink and then moved to the couch, where they sat down side by side with their arms around each other.

"I… really wish I'd had a Bucky, growing up. Or a Mrs. Barnes. Or a Steve Rogers." she continued reluctantly.

"Rough?" Steve asked simply.

"Not quite Great Depression rough." Courtney answered slowly. "But yeah, we were poor. Bad neighborhood. Parents that had to work all the time just to make ends meet, latch-key kid. And, of course, health problems."

"Living not knowing when even a simple game of tag is gonna knock you down into a crisis isn't fun even if you can afford all the doctors in the world." Steve agreed. "And I definitely couldn't. If my mom hadn't been a nurse I don't think I'd have lived to grow up."

"My mom was a waitress." Courtney answered. "Dad did day labor when he could get it, moped around doing nothing when he couldn't. And money was tight enough that they hated every dollar of it they had to waste on the sick kid."

"They actually use the word 'waste'?" Steve asked mildly. "Or was that just you?"

"Them." Courtney answered knowingly. "Went on and on about how things were tight enough under normal circumstances, and how losing so much time from work taking me to the free clinic and the ER was only making it worse and why couldn't I just get in shape and stop being so lazy or something."

"That's not how it works." Steve moaned. "Which of course you knew that."

"No I didn't." Courtney shook her head. "Not back then. I mean, what the heck do little kids know except what their parents tell them?"

Steve hugged her a little more tightly and let her stop and find her own pace. "That when you started stealing? To try and help your family's ends meet?" he eventually asked sympathetically.

"No." Courtney shook her head, and then gave an embarrassed chuckle. "Would you believe that I actually went to Catholic school?"

Steve looked down at his girlfriend, particularly at her punk haircut and nose ring, and chuckled. "Only if I indulged in thinking about a very tacky stereotype."

Courtney snorted once. "Yeah, I know. Girl from traditional upbringing goes complete punk rebel after becoming disillusioned in childhood. That one's fresh off the typecasting stereotype platter." She looked downcast. "But no. Stealing was wrong, and if you worked hard and stayed honest then eventually it would all work out. Just like they taught in school and you saw in the movies."

"Except for you, it didn't." Steve acknowledged the obvious.

"I found out I had invisibility powers when I was fourteen." she continued. "And I didn't really use them for anything. I mean, I have to hold my breath to use them, and putting strain on my lungs was something I tried to avoid then. But, I did tell the few friends I had about them." She lookd downcast. "At least, I thought they were my friends."

"Weirded them out?" Steve probed gently.

"Freaked them out. Completely." she said. "From that moment on I was the neighborhood witch. In the historical sense, as in 'non-traditional female who was the superstitious community scapegoat for everything that went wrong'. House cat got lost? Blame the invisible girl. Can't find your wallet? Of course she stole it. Car wouldn't start? She must have sabotaged it. You name it and I caught the blame for it. Even if two dozen people had seen me in class while it was going on."

"From your setup I expected some pretty rough stuff, and I am still disappointed in those people." Steve declared firmly.

"So I just pulled into my shell and started avoiding people entirely. I had books and TV and movies, I had exams to study for… a college scholarship to try and earn… and a whole neighborhood to escape." she mourned. "I didn't get beat up in back alleys – girls do bullying differently than boys, and since they already knew I could turn invisible I could just use my powers to leave any conversation I didn't want to stay in. But it sucked." she breathed out explosively.

"Loneliness always does." Steve agreed. "Solitary confinement is used as a punishment in every human culture, no matter how different they are otherwise. And has been for all of known history."

"I know." Courtney agreed. "And finally I'm coming up on graduation, and I've busted my hump and gotten those straight A's… it's not like I had a vigorous social life to distract me from my studying… and then I get turned down in favor of the girl who's next in class. Because she could get a letter of recommendation from the school, you see, and I couldn't." She blinked away angry tears. "Not a single teacher would stand up for me, because all they'd heard for years was accusation after accusation and not a single person standing up for me. And you can't ever have that much smoke without a real fire, right?"

"That was really not very Christian of them." Steve said angrily.

"Catholic school was grade school, high school was the local PS." Courtney corrected him. "Anyway, that was it. I wasn't going to college, I couldn't hope to get even a job waiting tables anywhere in the neighborhood what with being the local pariah, and my folks were going to throw my 'freeloader' ass out on the street without a dime in my pocket. I'd done everything right, I'd played by the rules as hard as I could, and in the end I had nothing to show for it. Everybody agreed that I just had to be a thief and a liar and a backstabbing bitch even when I hadn't done any of that, just because of what my powers were."

"And suddenly everything you said to Robert that day makes a whole lot more sense." Steve realized.

"Yup." Courtney nodded. "So after that I was just fucking done with trying to be the good girl. If everybody wanted the invisible bitch so badly then they could fucking have her, and I'd ram it down all their throats and make 'em choke. Went right out and stole my first thing the day the guidance counselor told me I was getting bounced, and never looked back." She slumped. "And here's me with all this quitter talk after you had all the hard knocks growing up too, and went straight from zero to hero without a bump. You must be really fuckin' disappointed in me."

"Nope." Steve shook his head. "Not a bit."

"I hate it when you do that, you know." Courtney looked up at him plaintively. "When you make excuses for me that you never would for yourself. That's just… reminding me that I'm not really a hero."

"Nonsense." Steve gave her a comforting squeeze. "Being easier on the people you care for than you are on yourself is called caring for people. It's just what you do for the people you- you're close to. It's what you're supposed to do, even if your folks never did." He sighed. "Is that why it says 'Courtney Jane Doe' on your personnel file?"

"You've read my file?" Courtney looked at him alarmedly.

"Just the public-facing parts that anybody in the office is allowed to." Steve reassured her.

"Yeah. It is." she admitted. "My genetic donors ditched me without a second thought. So screw them. I won't even take the family name from 'em, let alone anything else." She laughed once, bitterly. "Not that they ever gave me much else."

"I didn't have it as rough as you did." Steve said. "I had my mom. I had Bucky and his folks. I had other decent people in what was a pretty decent neighborhood… sure, we were as poor as church mice, but we were mostly traditional people. Old-fashioned community spirit, like they don't have as much of anymore."

"Damn sure didn't where I lived." Courtney admitted.

"Courtney, I don't look down on you for hitting the wall like you did." Steve reassured. "You had no support at all, and you were just a kid. If I'd grown up without a mom who cared about me, a brother in all but blood, other grown-ups who set good examples, then there's no guarantee that I'd still be me. I might've just ended up this bitter little punk with barely any good in him at all, assuming I wasn't dead." Steve exhaled heavily. "Chase believes that people are born good or bad, but that's nonsense. The hero team I was with during that alien invasion I mentioned once, the Avengers… yeah, we'd literally saved the world. But our members were a billionaire playboy who'd lived out every celebrity scandal you could think of before he finally turned his life around after surviving a terrorist attack and figuring out there was more to life than just money and girls and booze. A Norse god-"

"Seriously?" Courtney goggled.

"We work with a half-demon who actually commutes to Hell, or so she says, so don't judge." Steve poked affectionately at her. "A Norse god whose dad had actually had to exile him to Earth without his powers to learn humility, because he'd been apparently been an arrogant enough jackass back home he had to be kicked out of the house just to keep the peace... and who did learn his lesson, became one of the most honorable people I'd ever met, and got his powers back. A man who got cursed with a transformation into an uncontrollable monster and got nothing but hunted by the government for it as the entire world told him he was a monster… and who decided that he'd rather fight as hard as he could to teach the monster inside him how to help people, and who did. And two secret agents, one of whom was a defected assassin who had more kills than Coupe under uglier circumstances before she grew up enough to decide that wasn't the person she wanted to be and she'd spend the rest of her life trying to help people to make up for the lives she'd taken. And the other government assassin who'd originally been sent to kill her, and then decided that he was done with just killing people without maybe at least trying to save them first."

"You're shitting me." Courtney gaped. "Seriously, you're describing a dysfunction junction that makes the Z-Team sound normal."

"Did you never wonder why I could take anything around the SDN office in stride?" Steve smiled. "Oh yeah, and our team also had this dumb kid from Brooklyn who'd lost every fight in his life, until he got someone to give him a leg up so he could finally win one." Steve looked down at her lovingly. "Our whole team was made out of nothing but people who'd changed hugely from the folks they'd originally been into the people they wanted to be. You only stay a villain when you're like that Shroud guy and you don't want to change, or you're like Schmidt and you actually have physical brain problems on top of also being a Nazi war criminal. But that's not 'born' bad, that's 'went bad and stayed bad'. Even the Red Skull, because he didn't have to take a serum even its own creator was warning him would probably drive him crazier, and he definitely didn't have to grow up to join HYDRA." Steve kissed Courtney on the forehead. "So if I meet a lady who ended up stealing stuff because she spent her whole life as a kid being told she wasn't good for anything more by everybody she should have been able to count on but who all gaslit her repeatedly until she finally believed the nonsense they were selling… and who thinks that means she can't ever move on to being a good person who deserves good things… then I'm gonna tell her I think she's being an idiot."

"You have this unrealistically rosy picture of me that isn't me at all and that's just not healthy for a relationship." Courtney insisted. "Seriously, tell me one thing about me right now that you actually dislike."

"The nose ring." Steve replied immediately.

"What?" Courtney blinked.

"I get that they're normal to wear in public now, but I'm still just not used to things like that. I'm sorry." Steve said embarrassedly.

"Okay then, I'll take it out." she agreed.

"You don't have to do that." Steve shook his head.

"Steve, single girls like to look good how they think they should look good. Girls with boyfriends like to look good for their boyfriend." Courtney smiled. "I only started wearing this thing as part of my bad attitude era anyway, so maybe I should have ditched it already. And if you think I'd look cuter without it then pffft, it's gone."

"Thank you." Steve agreed simply. "And for a more serious answer to your question… I think that rather than talk about what I don't like about you, I'd like to talk about why I do like you. Because you use the words 'pity project' a lot, and I want to make sure you know that it's not that."

"I use it because I can't imagine what you actually do like about me." Courtney admitted. "And you're… what do people like about each other in relationships, anyway? I've had hook-ups before, but you're my first guy I've actually dated."

"You've heard my dating history, I'm barely ahead of you there." Steve admitted. "So yeah, relationship-wise we're the blind leading the blind… which I think we'd already agreed on when we started out." He chuckled.

"Well, sexually we're not." Courtney admitted frankly. "Hook-ups, remember? If we ever get that far then that's really not the part I'm worried about because I will steer you right around those curves, don't worry. But emotionally? Yeah, we're really a work in progress there, aren't we?"

"Do you know when I first fell for you? The moment when I caught feels just beyond being your friend? Because please don't ever doubt that we were already friends even before the other thing started." Steve entreated her.

"That part I don't doubt." Courtney reassured him gently.

"It was the day you made the cut." Steve continued. "The moment you looked up at the leaderboard and saw your name move up. You didn't see your face then, but you just had this adorable little smile… this little quirk of your lips made out of pure happiness. And it wasn't just that you were smiling, but why you were smiling. You weren't happy that you were keeping your job, or that you'd beaten the person you were competing with, or even that you'd get to stay with your new friend. You were just happy about having finally made a difference. About having done a good thing and at long last being acknowledged for it." Steve smiled down at her gently, taking her hand softly between his. "And you were a feisty one as well." He grinned at her wickedly. "Pretty girl who can choke out a bad guy like nothing but who's got a good heart deep down… what can I say, I've got a type."

"I'm not gonna tell you what I like about you, your head is already swollen enough." Courtney poked at him gently. "But… thank you, Steve." She looked slightly wistful. "I… hope I don't ever disappoint you."

"I don't think you will. But even if you do… I've disappointed people before, and still kept them. I get that you didn't get remotely enough of that when you were growing up, but if people are worth anything then they'll understand when something's really not your fault." Steve affirmed.

"Problem is, the stuff I'm still scared to tell you about was my fault." Courtney fretted.

"Did anyone die?" Steve asked. "Because I just got through telling you that I had no problem working with reformed assassins."

"… someone almost did." Courtney muttered.

"Are they okay now?" Steve questioned.

"I don't know. I'm still waiting to find out." she said pensively.

"Okay then." Steve nodded. "All right. You're still waiting to find out, and I can wait to find out too. You'll talk when you're ready, and I'm fine with that."

"Thank you." Courtney smiled tearfully. "I- is it okay if we stop talking and I just kiss my boyfriend now?"

"Nothing would make me happier." Steve smiled, and he took Courtney into his arms.

* * * * *
​

Author's Note: I originally just wanted Steve and Courtney to check in emotionally and then I got an entire chapter out of one conversation. For once my muse did not torment me! Thank you, muse. And yes, those two dorks are finally kissing. Haven't gone further than that, though.

Canonically, Steve is slightly weirded out by piercings. He mentions that to Natasha during TWS.

'I'll steer you around the curves' is of course a reference to Faith from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, another one of my favorite emotionally troubled bad girls turned good. … huh, I seem to have a fictional type of my own.

'Courtney Jane Doe' was originally a suggestion from poster 'Nikas' back on SB. I have adopted it, because it fits here.

Steve actually did canonically increase War Bonds sales by a full five percent when he was on the tour, which is a legitimate achievement. Even when he was just a show pony, he was still not a useless show pony.

And no, none of Courtney's origin story here is canon. She doesn't have a canon origin story. So behold the latest voyage of the USS Make Shit Up, long may she sail. But yes, I like to try and imagine how the heck the Courtney we see could get in the particular messed-up headspace she had to begin with, and this is certainly a plausible route.

 

[KaitouPrism12]

Courtney's pa*Cough*-Excuse me, gene donors are such pieces of shit. And they should choke on it when news of Courtney and Steve's wedding hits the news back in their town. F*ckheads.

I'm so glad that they were able to open up even if Courtney isn't ready yet to explain and go through the whole story of how she took down Mecha Man.

The piercing thing I was a little iffy on but if Steve was willing to tolerate it and Courtney was willing to compromise, then that's the end of discussion.

Thank you for writing this and have a good day.

 

[cliffc999]

Courtney's pa*Cough*-Excuse me, gene donors are such pieces of shit. And they should choke on it when news of Courtney and Steve's wedding hits the news back in their town. F*ckheads.

Click to shrink...

I reemphasize that Courtney's backstory in this fic is non-canon, as we have zero canon on what her life was like before she started her villain career. But yeah, I fanon'ed up that backstory to try and explain where the heck her inner deredere came from, because in-game Courtney does revert away from her crass and crude persona as soon as her walls come down. I firmly believe that a whole lot of what you see from Courtney in the early and middle game is performative.

It's just, it takes virtually the entire game (and her hero route ending) to get her to lower her emotional tsun- barriers in canon, while Steve is getting them down (at least with him) notably sooner.

Note particularly this bit from chapter 7:

You even corrupted my vocabulary. Go back in time and listen to me the week before you showed up, my mouth made Chase look like a nun. But for some reason words just come out of me different around you.

Click to shrink...

Courtney hasn't figured out yet that the reason that's happening is because she did use to talk that way... once upon a time. And for the first time in a long while, she's maybe starting to feel like that girl again.

 

[KaitouPrism12]

Wow. Now I want to see a snapshot of her hometown and everyone that didn't believe her to see the wedding photos in lights.

 

[cliffc999]

Wow. Now I want to see a snapshot of her hometown and everyone that didn't believe her to see the wedding photos in lights.

Click to shrink...

I was imagining Courtney's hometown as Los Angeles, so she actually could just go troll her folks right now... if she ever wanted to see them again, which she doesn't. I gave her that dramatic name change for a reason.

 

[Lillie Jones]

Thanks for the chapter

 

[ShogunTrooper]

Note particularly this bit from chapter 7:

Click to shrink...

Yep, Cap has that thing where he manages to bring out the best in people.

Spend enough time in his vicinity, and he will help you self-improve. Do not resist. In fact he is closing in on your position rapidly, carrying two cups of coffee. You can scream and bite, but you know it will happen.

Well, given the candidates he has to work with here, I somewhat expect him to have to throw hands with one of them at some point, because sometimes you got to get your aggression out before you can talk, but he'll get there eventually. Even if he, and the other individual, have to walk into a few doors on the way.

Wow. Now I want to see a snapshot of her hometown and everyone that didn't believe her to see the wedding photos in lights.

Click to shrink...

Courtney is the kind of woman nobody ever expected to see in a dress, let alone a wedding dress, but then she walks down the aisle wearing one and a fair few jaws are bound to hit the floor. From Punk Girl to Blushing Bride.

Similar to Cap, as nobody is likely to have seen him in a proper suit before, at least on this world, if to a lesser extent, since, well, everyone can probably imagine what that would look like, given how much of a gentleman he is. Assuming he doesn't rock up in Dress Uniform, which would also be quite the look if First Avenger and Endgame are any indication, though unlikely given he officially wasn't in the Army in this dimension.

 

[cliffc999]

Poster 'NeutralWotan' in the SB thread donated some fanart of what Visi looks like without her nose ring.

Spoiler: Visi Without Piercing

 

[ThedudeManBro]

Poster 'NeutralWotan' in the SB thread donated some fanart of what Visi looks like without her nose rings.

Spoiler: Visi Without Piercing

Click to shrink...

Hehehe~ abs~

 

[Lillie Jones]

thanks for the chapter
Continue on
Cheers!

 

[cliffc999]

Yep, Cap has that thing where he manages to bring out the best in people.

Spend enough time in his vicinity, and he will help you self-improve. Do not resist. In fact he is closing in on your position rapidly, carrying two cups of coffee. You can scream and bite, but you know it will happen.

Click to shrink...

Hannasus' "Wrap Me In The Banner I Made" on AO3, perhaps the single best Steve/Sharon shipfic I have read, had this bit in the first chapter as Sharon is trying to mentally come to terms with her spying undercover on Steve.

It helps to pass the time while they're reviewing the latest mind-numbingly dull surveillance report on Rogers' trip to Target for toilet paper and laundry detergent. It's also a defense mechanism. Dehumanizing the target makes it easier to ignore the fact that they're violating his privacy and betraying his trust.

The problem is that it's not actually possible to dehumanize Steve Rogers, no matter how many jokes you make about his ass. He's just so nice. So earnest. So good. He is a man who never fails to say please and thank you and good morning, who always has a friendly smile to offer even when he's tired or running late. Sharon has literally seen him stop to help an old lady across the street—twice.

There's an aura of goodness to him that's almost palpable; he emits it through the pores of his skin like one of those plug-in air fresheners. Just being in the same room with him makes you want to be a better person. He's a hero out of a storybook come to life. A walking Disney prince. He should be followed around by cartoon birds and a trio of singing mice.

Click to shrink...

 

[Gindjurra]

Assuming he doesn't rock up in Dress Uniform, which would also be quite the look if First Avenger and Endgame are any indication, though unlikely given he officially wasn't in the Army in this dimension.

Click to shrink...

The fact he wasn't in this world's US Army doesn't remove his right to his medals from his Earth. He might have to get some of them custom replicated, since his Earth likely has differences in medal specifics - especially with HYDRA stirring the pot - but he absolutely would have the right to them. Including any posthumous awards after he went MIA but presumed KIA.

Given he was both a Hero - he deserves the capital - and a highly effective soldier, I'd imagine the full monty would be an amazing sight. Someone might even get blinded if they catch sunlight reflected off his chest at the wrong angle.

After all, it is canon that he has effectively received the Congressional Medal of Honor twice!

 

[cliffc999]

Earth-Dispatch
Arrival: D Plus 36

"Good morning, everyone." Blonde Blazer greeted the assembled Z-Team at Monday morning roll call. "We're shuffling some assignments this week, so here's the new team roster. Sonar is now moved over to headquarters staff full-time-"

"Wait, we can get promoted?" Flambae interrupted. "When did that start?"

"It's not a promotion, it's just them deciding that the scary bat-headed guy with business experience would work better as admin instead of customer service." Sonar explained.

"If I might continue?" Blazer asked Flambae sweetly while crossing her arms at him and tapping her foot, and he silently acknowledged his mistake.

"And replacing him on the Z-Team's active call roster will be Waterboy." The hero in question nervously peered around the corner of the conference room door upon hearing his name.

"Uh, h-hello…" he tentatively waved at the group.

"You sure about this, boss lady?" Punch Up asked doubtfully.

"Be nice, guys." Invisigal said soothingly. "It's not like some of us weren't less than impressive our first few weeks out." She gave Waterboy an encouraging smile. "I used to be last on the leaderboard consistently, and now I'm almost halfway up. Don't worry if it takes you a little while to settle in."

"That man has been a horrible influence on you." Malevola whispered teasingly to Visi.

Blazer quirked a smile. "And given that we've cleared at least some of the immediate training backlog and have also been experiencing increased call volume, also returning to active rotation will be Captain America."

Cap stepped out into visibility from around the corner and behind Waterboy and gave Visi a proud smile at her recent encouraging moment, to which she immediately responded with a furious blush. The remainder of the meeting, including Blazer, indulged themselves in a brief chuckle.

"And now in more serious news." Blazer continued soberly. "Upon reviewing several incidents last week, we've determined a pattern. Robert?"

Cap and Waterboy both entered the room and took places around the conference table as Robert stepped up to the projector and tapped the controls. Images of several of the prior week's incidents came up on the screen. Highlighted photographs displayed similarities between all the events in question – specifically, the energy weapons used by the criminals in those incidents, as well as their red-glowing cybernetics.

"Furthermore, Royd's forensic analysis of the remains of the hacking device recovered in the incident involving Coupe revealed that the same person who'd manufactured it had also manufactured the cybernetics and energy weapons involved in these other incidents. Not only did they have certain design elements in common, but many of the individual components had been manufactured by the same chip fabricator. Which means that those components had all been procured as a single lot from a single source, meaning that the same villain had provided all this tech to Coupe and these hired goons." Robert explained. "So there's definitely a new gang in town – one with access to sophisticated technology and resources - and they are recruiting. Not just street muscle, but also superpowered lieutenants."

Robert fell grimly silent, and Blazer continued. "And given Toxic's connection to one of the incidents involving these new weapons – the underworld arms trading case several weeks ago, that Punch Up and Malevola ran into by accident while we were searching for Coupe's would-be assassins – we're almost entirely certain of who this new gang leader might be."

A picture of a hooded figure wearing a skull-faced gas mask colored an angry demonic red, with two glowing green pupils and a left eye surmounted by a cybernetic targeting monocole, filled the screen. "Shroud." Blazer said grimly. "His technology allows him to, among other things, cybernetically augment normal people into low-level superhuman combatants."

"There are also claims that superhumans implanted with his augments will have their powers boosted, but those are as yet unverified." Robert continued. Nobody noticed Visi's hands twitch slightly under the table at that statement.

"And that's in addition to Shroud's already-known and considerable capacities at tactics, organization, super-science, and hacking." Blazer said. "These are his known and identified superhuman lieutenants." Two images filled the screen… Toxic's and Coupe's. Punch Up winced and sighed at that latter one. "There were several more villains whose images were taken in the Mecha Man incident of several months ago, we don't have names for them yet and we're not certain if they are regular employees of Shroud or were just hired for the occasion." Robert continued as several more images appeared on the screen – a blue-and-white suited lightning controller, a muscular man in a white skull mask wielding two red-glowing energy khopeshes, and a dark pink living blob-man.

"Hey, that's the guy I fought in the loading dock robbery last week." Golem pointed at the blob-man.

Robert tapped a few keys and the blob-man's picture was moved over to the 'Known Lieutenants' column. "So yeah. These are the faces to keep an eye out for out there."

"We have no intel yet on what Shroud's plans are or what his next move may be. So everybody stay cautious out there; remember your training about not being ambushed, and if you have even a strong feeling that something's wrong then don't hesitate to call for backup." Blazer assured. "When we know more about what we're dealing with, we'll keep you informed. Until then, it's time to get to work."

"Good luck out there, everyone." Robert nodded to the team, and the meeting broke up as everyone headed out.

"Waterboy, for your first couple of days out there they decided it would be best if you partnered with me." Cap said as the two of them reached the parking lot and checked out an SDN car instead of Cap's usual motorcycle.

"Okay." Waterboy said tentatively, before he turned and looked wistfully out the window at the other departing heroes. "S-she's nice, isn't she?"

"Excuse me?" Cap asked politely.

"Invisigal." Waterboy looked down bashfully. "W-what she said, in the meeting…"

"Yes, that was very kind of her." Cap nodded amiably. "And she was telling the truth about having trouble getting off the bottom of the rankings for a while, but all she needed was some encouragement and a little self-confidence."

"Do- do you think she might…?" Waterboy kept looking out the window in the direction she'd driven off in.

Cap blinked in realization before smiling kindly. "I certainly agree that you've got good taste, but she already has a boyfriend."

"Oh." Waterboy slumped dejectedly. "I- she wouldn't possibly… change her mind?"

"People do change their minds sometimes, but I think her boyfriend would be very sad if that happened." Cap said as reassuringly as he could.

Waterboy suddenly looked over at Cap in realization. "Oh no."

"Relax." Cap replied. "You're entirely correct that girls who don't judge people based on superficial appearance are the best kind of girls, and I agree that they're hard to find. But she really isn't the only girl in the universe who's like that, so there's someone out there for you too. You just need to keep looking."

"I-if you say so." Waterboy sighed.

* * * * *
​

The day's shift passed largely without incident. There were almost no 911 calls beyond a couple of routine cases of street crime, but the non-emergency service calls ranged from a missing pets to industrial cleanup. Overall, it was just another tedious day making money for the SDN… until shortly before shift change.

Visi rubbed her aching eyes as she finished returning the unimaginatively named 'Mr. Cat' to their nervous owner. Ugh, are there any of those dumplings left? she texted Cap. I seriously need some comfort food after this shift.

Sorry. Leftovers don't usually survive very long around me. Cap texted back apologetically.

One of the reasons you should take one of those promotions is so that you can afford your grocery bill. Visi texted amusingly. Honestly, how did that metabolism survive on the front lines?

They had to issue me the ration packs normally intended for four-man recon teams operating away from base. Cap typed back.

I should've known. Visi texted back with a smile- until all the streetlights where she was parked flickered out, leaving her in the darkness. Her communicator went dead. Visi immediately went invisible and moved away from where she'd been standing.

Blackout. No comms! she texted furiously, thanking God that at least the cell phone towers had uninterruptible power supplies.

Same. Cap replied. RTB now.

OMW!

Visi mounted her cycle and drove off through the stalled evening traffic, cutting through back alleys as needed. A couple of minutes later, her radio clicked on.

"Everyone, this is Dispatch. The power's out through the entire city. SDN's running on the emergency generators." Robert said wearily. "Everybody spread out to the locations I'm putting on your screens, link up, and stand by. Flambae, you're the only flyer on shift so you get to bat cleanup a lot. Everybody else will be on the buddy system, and we're going to be working a lot of overtime tonight."

"All branch operatives, this is Blonde Blazer." she came in on circuit. "SDN is going to state of emergency Yellow. For those of you for whom this is your first time, that means no non-essential service calls and we unify our dispatch grid with the local 911 center. Hopefully the power will be up against almost immediately and we can stand down… but if it's out for any length of time, get ready for a lot of search-and-rescue calls and looting incidents."

"Shit." Visi swore as she arrived at the designated rendezvous. "Hey Punch Up." She greeted her diminutive teammate.

"Visi." He nodded back. "Damn it, I can barely see my nose in front of my face without the headlights on. You?"

"Got a flashlight." She pulled a four-cell Maglite out of her cycle's saddlebag and flicked it on and off. "Sure wish I had night vision powers, though."

"Aye." He agreed.

"Visi, Punch Up, Norden's Sporting Goods three blocks away from your location is reporting looting in progress." Robert said. "Flash mob."

"Shite." Punch Up swore as the two heroes headed over there. "Sporting goods store means they're going for the guns. We don't get there quick and put this down hard, it's gonna be an armed mob."

"We go straight in and swinging hard, got it." Visi agreed.

Several miles away, Flambae was busy airlifting out a medical emergency case that had been stranded in freeway traffic, while Malevola and Golem were busy trying to stop looters in a shopping mall. Cap and Waterboy were already hip deep in trying to stop a gang fight between some drug dealers and the competitors who'd decided to use the blackout as an opportunity to rip them off, and similar chaos was erupting all over town.

Almost forty minutes later the blackout was still continuing, and half the Z-Team as well as Blazer herself was busy backing up multiple responding units at a three-alarm fire in a retirement complex. Prompt action by the heroes had prevented any deaths, but serious injuries and close calls were in profusion.

"Great job, Waterboy." Cap reassured the aqua-powered hero as he finished hosing down yet another section of the complex. "Take a break, you're about ready to drop."

"I-I can do a little more." The young man insisted.

"Break. Now." Cap pushed gently. "You work yourself into a collapse right now, that's just more fires that don't get fought because you're on the bench longer than you need to be. We'll go get some food."

"Hey Captain." Punch Up greeted him, still covered with soot and ash from where he'd gone directly into burning sections of the building to clear wreckage and open up routes. "Damn long night." Punch Up turned grave. "Visi caught some smoke. It's not serious," he rushed to reassure the man immediately, "but she's over by the ambulances while they're havin' a look."

"Can you show Waterboy where the nearest place to grab something to eat is?" Cap asked him. "I've got to go check on her."

"'Course you do. Come on lad, over this way." Punch Up said.

"Visi?" Cap asked worriedly as he came up on where the young woman was sitting on the sidewalk near the Fire Department emergency trucks, where a casualty collection point had been setup. She looked up from where she was busy breathing steadily into an oxygen mask from one of the fire department's portable oxygen bottles and gave him a thumbs-up.

"Bad night?" Cap asked, sitting down next to her.

"My inhaler ran out." she admitted embarrassedly, her voice muffled by the mask. "I knew I should've checked it this morning." Cap's immediately reaching into his pocket was met with a head-shake. "No, it's good, I bummed a new one off the medics. Just…"

"They should put a notation in your file not to send you to fires." Cap fumed.

"They did. Volunteered anyway." Visi admitted sheepishly.

"… please stop taking chances like that." Cap sighed as he put an arm around her comfortingly. "You don't have to prove anything that badly, to me or anyone else."

Visi's face scrunched up in what Cap would never admit out loud to her was an extremely cute display of stubbornness, and she visibly gathered herself for a rebuttal- when an alert broadcast sounded from every SDN communicator in the area.

"All heroes, all heroes, major supervillain attack in progress at MDC Los Angeles Southwest. All available heroes respond immediately."

"Not you." Cap firmly held out his hand as Visi shot to her feet. "Not until they clear you." He pointed at the paramedics.

"Rrrrgh." she growled in frustration but knew better to argue. Visi sat there frustratedly, watching as every other hero mounted up in their vehicles or used their own mobility powers, if any, to travel ahead.

* * * * *​

"Hey babe!" Toxic sneered as his acid barrage splattered off of Blazer's aura. "You're a little behind schedule tonight, we expected you earlier!"

Blazer's furious punch was met by Morphus' absorbing the force of the blow with his gelatin-like body, as he attempted to wrap around and suffocate her. Fighting against the restraining fluid Blazer used her full strength to clap her hands together several times, sending massive shockwaves rippling through the villain's amorphous body and stunning him temporarily.

As she fought free of the gelatin Khopesh slashed open the street beneath her with red scythes of cutting energy flung from the tips of his eponymous weapons. Blazer caught herself before she fell more than several feet, but that was enough of an opportunity for White Lightning's electrical beams to arc furiously off her aura, before being joined by Toxic's corrosive blasts. The combined firepower forced her to retreat temporarily as minor traces of damage began to leak through her invulnerability, but her attempt to fly away and then swoop back for a flank attack was met by an armored SWAT van being telekinetically tossed through the air by the psychic supervillainess that Flambae and Malevola had captured earlier this week, and that had just been freed from the Municipal Detention Center by the squad of villains that Shroud had sent to force a jailbreak. Blazer swatted the armored van aside as if it were a fly, but she'd been delayed just long enough for Toxic to dodge her rush.

"And our special new guests are right on schedule!" Toxic cheered as he saw the escaping prisoners began to fan out through where they'd breached the compound walls. "Okay, team two? Blow it now!"

A series of explosions sounded distantly from a nearby building. "What have you done?!?" Blazer cried in alarm.

"Oh don't worry, nobody's dead… yet." Toxic sneered. "But those demo charges did just weaken the interior support beams a little, so given how weakened the structure is over there I'd say there's maybe… oh, two minutes before the top floor over there decides it would rather move to the basement? And oh yeah, that's the hospital wing, so somebody really should go over there and help support their local jail before that happens."

"You… how dare you risk-?" Blazer gaped in shock.

"Calculated risk, if you please." Toxic laughed. "Give us credit where credit's due!"

Blonde Blazer glared furiously at Toxic, but then had to fly off to the hospital wing before it collapsed and help support the weakened structure until the rooms in danger could be evacuated.

"Okay! Lightning, take charge of the evac." Toxic ordered as she flew away. "Matchstick boy's incoming right now and I've got to fly up there and head him off. But we've got at least five minutes before the nearest ground-bound heroes make it here, so all you've got to worry about is crashing through that police barricade over there."

"No problem." The electric villainess laughed mockingly. "Normal SWAT cops versus us? Our only danger will be boredom."

"Just don't dawdle. You know how tight the timing is on these things." Toxic reminded her, and shot skyward to intercept the incoming Flambae.

* * * * *
​

"As it turns out, you didn't miss anything." Cap reassured Visi as they met back up at the SDN Torrance branch building to clock out. "By the time we got there, the jailbreak was already over."

"Yes." Blonde Blazer fumed. "I was pinned in place and couldn't pursue, Flambae couldn't get past Toxic's interference, and nobody else could keep up with the escaping prisoner convoy without immediately getting hammered by the firepower they had available. And given that Toxic had been leading the villain squad, and I saw almost all of the known and suspected lieutenants making up the rest of that squad, it's pretty obvious who arranged for all of this."

"Shroud." Cap said gravely.

"You said almost all?" Punch Up asked.

"Coupe wasn't there." Blazer shook her head. "Shroud's apparently not rushing to put her on missions where she can be expected to run into us."

"Plus, she's a stealth expert." Cap said. "Be a waste to put her on the big smash-and-grab jobs when she could be used elsewhere. Which makes me wonder what else Shroud was doing tonight that we haven't found out about yet."

"The power failure wasn't a coincidence, was it?" Flambae nodded.

"Nah." Royd contributed. "Preliminary analysis indicate dat de hack yesterday at de ISP snuck a virus in lots of de 'smart' electrical meters all through town. Dis whole 'Internet of Things' concept have a security bug or two dey goan need to fix."

"How does messing with the electrical meters in a bunch of houses cause a power failure?" Malevola asked.

"When the safety features in the meters are falsely reporting short circuits and overvoltages in thousands of residences all over town, and that makes the power-management algorithms in the electric company's grid control computer start hallucinating that the entire power grid is on fire." Robert answered. "Every time they tried to reboot the grid, a fresh wave of trouble signals through the Internet from all those hotwired meters shut it back down immediately. Took them over half an hour to trace what the fault even was – it was not something anyone had ever seen before - and then they had to figure out how to disconnect the monitoring system entirely."

"Shroud crashes the power, waits for SDN's emergency drill to deploy us all over town, waits until all the heroes are exhausted from having chased looters and fought fires all night-" Cap analyzed.

"Yeah, and the retirement complex fire was deliberately set." Visi broke in. "Picked that up from the fire marshal at the scene after you left, while I was stuck there twiddling my thumbs."

"The whole thing was set up to get us out of position, exhausted, and too far away to respond in time, so that the detention center would be wide open for a jailbreak." Blazer sighed.

"Recruiting drive." Chase glowered. "The supervillains we'd spent the last week catchin', they're all back out now and with a new boss to be grateful too. Plus all the normal criminals got sprung likewise."

"Plus he just made a big splash on the local villain scene and got his name out in a big way." Prism said.

"Yeah." Visi agreed. "There's several other gangs in town just got served notice they got competition now. And all the independents and street-corner hustlers out there, they see Shroud's big intro splash and maybe they're a little impressed, and maybe are a little slower to back the incumbents."

"So what are we doing about it?" Sonar asked.

"LAPD is out of ideas. Sheriff's department is out of ideas. I'm out of ideas. Does our military advisor have anything?" she asked hopefully.

"If we just keep chasing after them, they'll just keep outrunning us." Cap said. "We need to get inside their decision loop… but that's kinda hard when we don't know their mission goal, don't have any locations on their bases or staging areas, don't have any inroads to their communications, and don't have anyone to interrogate who actually knows anything."

"Shroud's goal seems pretty clear-cut. Build a gang, recruit an army." Robert said.

"Yeah. But you mobilize an army not as an end, but a means to an end. So the question is 'who's he going to be fighting?'" Cap wondered.

"For the near future, the other gangs in town." Blazer said. "But after he's suitably pushed aside his rivals – assuming he does – then once he's solidly established himself, what does his gang do next?"

"Shroud's takedown of Mecha Man several months ago was for the purpose of capturing the Astral Pulse from him, but it was lost – almost certainly destroyed - in the fighting." Robert said slowly. "So he's gotten his revenge… destroyed his old enemy's legacy… lost the prize he was hoping to steal… where does he go from there?"

The silent conference room was his only answer.

* * * * *
​

"We have had a successful beginning." Shroud orated tonelessly from the catwalk suspended over the warehouse. "Our enemies have been left grasping at straws. Our ranks have been swollen by those we have liberated. Our war chest is full, our armory well-stocked, our capabilities have been demonstrated. But this is only step one."

"So don't start pricing those retirement condos just yet, guys!' Toxic's voice mocked the assembly from where he stood at Shroud's right hand. "Because now the real work begins! Those of you who haven't seen the doctor yet, we're gonna have to cycle you through and get you your augments. And once we're all jacked up and ready to go… well then! It'll be time for you to get back out there and go revisit your old friends!"

"Correct." Shroud resumed speaking right on cue. "We have bloodied the noses of the heroes… but now it is time to withdraw and leave them floundering, with nowhere to apply their strength. And in that interim we shall turn our strength elsewhere, to those who believe that they control the crime of Los Angeles."

"Uh, they do control the crime." A large hulking thug with outsized cybernetic arms said. "Like, they're all over-" The dimwitted muscle finally clued in on the expressions he was drawing from the two men on the balcony above. "-shutting up now, sir."

"Armstrong, we're really gonna have to talk later about appropriate timing." Toxic said menacingly.

"As our intellectually unimpressive compatriot has just demonstrated, there is a belief among many that they are the ones who truly control the crime in Los Angeles." Shroud chuckled menacingly. "A belief that we shall disillusion harshly. The syndicates and gangs who believe that the city is theirs will be swept aside, one by one. Those with the wisdom to choose the winning side will be rewarded. And those who do not will be punished. And for those of you here, who will have been with us from the beginning, the rewards will be the greatest."

"For we are the Red Ring. And in the fullness of time, this city will be ours."

* * * * *
​

Author's Note: Poor Waterboy. Crushes on the first girl to speak nicely to him in a long while, then immediately finds out his training officer is her boyfriend. But at least he didn't have time to torture himself with a hopeless crush for days and days, he can start accepting things right away.

No, Steve is not going to show him the 'Skinny Steve' picture. Think about it. It's not really comforting to tell Waterboy 'I got a miraculous glow-up that got me out of looking like you, but you already have superpowers and so that's just something else you can't hope for'. But Cap really will sympathize with the poor guy for obvious reasons.

And yes, that was very uncharacteristically kind for canon Visi. Of course, after like a month of being Steve's girlfriend she's not canon Visi any more. And even in-game, Visi becomes notably softer on her hero route, once you finally get her past the catharsis and acceptance of her confession to Robert in episode 7. Steve's just gotten her to most of that character development earlier, even if she still has that particular big hurdle on her path to clear.

The 'power failure event' in episode 5 is just a power failure. I'm rolling with it a little re: a non-canon jailbreak and such. And yeah, Blazer's ability to be anywhere on the map almost immediately and her being a one-woman army means that if your plan involves any kind of major alert scenario, you need a line item called 'How to delay her long enough to finish up and leave'.

I really feel bad about being so hard on Visi's lungs, but honestly. Asthmatic people should not be firefighting, and setting fires is a useful tactic Shroud keeps repeating because it works.

And yes, Shroud's plan so far actually is 'build up power'. Remember, at this point in time he's not expecting the Proto-Pulse experiments to actually deliver any useful results. If things change later on, then he'll adapt.

 

[The Unicorn]

The fact he wasn't in this world's US Army doesn't remove his right to his medals from his Earth.

Click to shrink...

True, but it does remove both the evidence he has that right and thus most of the reason to wear such medals.
People who see him wear the medals would not see a decorated soldier of an elite unit - they'd see (at best) a glory hound claiming medals no one can prove he didn't earn just for the sake of claiming glory, or (at worst) a fraud draping himself in stolen valor.

While Steve doesn't care about the views of most such people, ha also isn't the sort to pick a fight without a good reason, and wearing those metals would be picking a fight.

Earth-Dispatch
Arrival: D Plus 36

Click to shrink...

Very nice chapter. I suppose it was too much to hope that the line about villains driving a wedge between people to make them easier to recruit would have been enough to get Visi talking.

 

[cliffc999]

Very nice chapter. I suppose it was too much to hope that the line about villains driving a wedge between people to make them easier to recruit would have been enough to get Visi talking.

Click to shrink...

Uh, it entirely was. Visi would not have actually started to open up about her childhood and her trauma - which she did in the immediately following chapter - without that realization. For that matter, it's why she accepted the dinner invitation in the first place.

But remember that the main thing keeping Visi's self-hatred issues as in remission as they are is the fact that Cap - an unquestioned good guy - approves of her and likes her. As long as a real hero is treating her like she is one as well, she can maybe just start to believe that she is too. And so Visi is quite understandably terrified that admitting the truth about the Mecha Man incident would void that approval and *poof* away the main source of not-being-miserable she has in her life right now. So she was only able to open up part of the way - so far.

(Yes, keeping your relationship afloat on a lie of omission is a recipe for long-term whoopsie. My Visi may be less of a hot mess than canon Visi was at this same point in time, but 'less' is not 'zero'.)

Of course... Cap has already figured out most of what Visi is hiding - when the topic finally comes up he'll even itemize the clues that led him to that conclusion, most of which readers saw him gather on-screen - so when Visi's dark secret does come out, it's not going to be any problem at all. It's just, she doesn't know that.

 

[cliffc999]

Earth-Dispatch
Arrival: D Plus 39

"The last time I saw something this unhelpful from my chain of command, they were trying to drop a- let's just say our own air support was about to vaporize us." Cap fumed.

"This would be roughly the business equivalent." Sonar agreed. "Every request Blonde Blazer has made to try and get more resources or intel or access to respond to the Shroud situation has been… not exactly denied, but sidetracked into bureaucratic limbo."

"So, like the Department of Defense." Cap nodded. "You don't want to risk your career by being the guy who had to sign off on a hard 'No' in case it comes back to bite you later, so instead it's 'Gee, we'd really like to help but we're overextended and you'll have to take your place in the queue.'"

"Worse yet, our branch office's evaluations are about to go down." Sonar continued. "The head office has a performance tracking system for branches as well as for individuals, and-" He shook his head. "There's been a shift in emphasis of the evaluation criteria recently. A little re-weighting."

"Re-weighting?" Cap inquired.

"Customer satisfaction is job one." Sonar quoted the corporate jingle ironically. "Never mind that we've had multiple major emergency situations in the past month, the fact that we've had to postpone doing the bread-and-butter calls multiple times is hurting the average. And given how they just re-weighted the average, that's dragging the branch down more than the fact that we've managed to get through an oil refinery fire and the retirement complex fire with zero deaths, plus all the rest."

"How are they scoring the jailbreak?" Cap asked.

"Three guesses." Sonar said disgustedly. "Never mind that full-time security on the prison wasn't our responsibility in the first place, or that we followed SDN policy in the blackout to the letter and that's why we were out of position to respond. The only thing corporate is focusing on is that technically we had someone there who could have prevented the escape and didn't. So obviously that's a big black mark all on us – and Miss Blazer in particular - and nobody else."

"I'm almost starting to wonder if Shroud knows someone at the head office." Cap said disgustedly.

"It's possible, I suppose, but he wouldn't need to. If you're familiar enough with the psychology of corporate America then a lot of these reactions are fairly predictable. All he'd need to do is set up the same basic conditions and he could count on something stupid being done from on high to tie us up in a holding pattern, even if he didn't know exactly what." Sonar replied. "But the summary is that Blazer's very soon going to get micro-managing orders from head office on how to 'remediate the shortfall' here, and those orders on redeployment and focusing more on the cases that subscribers actually pay for are going to basically leave us with no time to actually devote any serious effort to the Shroud case except randomly running after 911 calls as they pop up."

"Contrary to popular belief, my superpower is not actually conjuring strategic miracles on demand." Cap sighed. "And while I've worked in a government bureaucracy before, I was hardly as much of a master at navigating it as some other people I've seen. I'll give it some thought, but off the top of my head I don't see any way I can help fix this one."

"That's the part you're not going to like." Sonar said diffidently. "The reason I asked to talk to you about this off-the-books is because you're the one person at the Torrance branch office who currently has something that someone very senior at corporate actually wants this month. And you would very likely be able to bargain for their cooperation in helping get our branch the freedom to maneuver that it needs in return for your actually giving it to them… as opposed to your several prior refusals."

"… my accepting that transfer offer to the Hollywood team and becoming one of SDN's hot new marketing faces." Cap realized, and then he sighed and rubbed his forehead in frustration. "In return for which, our publicity-obsessed vice-president might possibly use his authority to get the rest of the head office off our backs. Or he might not."

"I'll keep helping her compose the best rebuttals we can, but there's only so much talking can do when the people above you just don't want to listen." Sonar said. "Sorry to drop this on you, Captain, but it was all I could think of."

"This situation isn't your fault, and…" Cap paused and winced. "And I've been a show pony before when it was actually producing something. But I'm still not sure- I'm really going to have to think about this for a while." he sighed.

* * * * *
​

The furious blasts of electricity spattered uselessly off of the Mighty Shield as Captain America charged through the furious barrage of laser fire, his dash barely keeping one step ahead of Shroud's gunmen as they failed to adjust their aim in time.

"The hell is wrong with you idiots? He's just one man!" White Lightning cried furiously as she switched her aim to a nearby fire hydrant and blasted it open, soaking the entire sidewalk with water. Cap immediately jumped clear of the ground in a leaping somersault, just barely ahead of her next electrical blast arcing through the water and creating an electrified field trap that would have seriously injured anyone still standing on it.

Cap landed in a crouch on top of a nearby newspaper dispenser, crouching down fully behind the shield against the laser fire now accurately homing in on the temporarily immobilized target.

"There! Just keep him pinned!" White Lightning ordered her men. "I'll finish up insi-"

The electric villainess turned around to walk face-first into Invisigal's foot, as she faded into visibility while in the middle of her leaping side-kick after first rebounding off the nearby wall. White Lightning was sent sprawling into the two nearest of her supporting gunmen, knocking their aim off, and the immediate reaction of the others was to turn and start firing at her. Visi threw them a mocking grin and faded out again, leaving them shooting at air, as Cap's shield toss came arcing in and rebounded off several of the other gunmen, knocking them flat.

The prone White Lightning slapped her palm flat on the wet ground and frantically discharged the most powerful blast she could… which did nothing but shock her remaining men into unconsciousness, as she'd been too desperate to note that the burst hydrant had still been spreading the water further and further. Invisigal faded into sight again, having leapt into the air just in time to avoid the shock… and she'd chosen her landing point with precision, as Visi came down on top of the prone villainess with both knees and then delivered a gleeful roundhouse punch directly into her face.

Cap recovered his shield and walked up to his girlfriend grinning ear to ear as she stood up off of the thoroughly cold-cocked White Lightning. "Friendly fire is just the worst, isn't it?"

Visi grinned wildly back at him. "And tactical synergy's still the best."

"Dispatch, this is Cap. We've got White Lightning and seven gang members in custody. ETA on the prisoner transport?" he said into his communicator.

"Sending it now. Be there in just a few minutes." Robert replied. "Great job, guys. Now we've finally got someone we can question."

"What was even here for them to be hitting anyway?" Cap asked curiously as he looked at the row of seedy storefronts they'd been fighting in front of.

"Probably the stash house of another gang." Visi said. "Not that we can go in and look. No search warrant, and all the action happened outside."

"Strange to think that the person who called in the emergency was probably another criminal gang." Cap sighed. "And that we just acted as their protective muscle."

"Way to buzzkill, Captain." Visi said disapprovingly. "But… yeah, kinda sends a mixed message. Still, these guys needed taking down no matter what they were doing at the time."

"You're right about that." Cap agreed regretfully.

"Look, about what Sonar told you this morning..." Visi sighed mournfully. "You know that whatever decision you make, I'll support it. Right?"

"I know." Cap replied softly. "I just- I'm not selfish enough to keep ducking the PR tour just because I don't like it, not if doing it would actually help. I just can't shake the conviction that it wouldn't help. No matter how rational a move it seems, it just feels wrong."

Visi visibly failed to find words, and settled for a comforting hug from behind. Cap half-turned and hugged her back with one arm, until the approaching sirens warned them to straighten up and look professional again. The police arrived along with the prisoner van, and the perps were swiftly cuffed, tagged, and loaded up.

"Dispatch, we're going to escort the van in." Cap radioed. "This is the first lieutenant of Shroud's we've actually caught since the major action started, and we'll definitely want to hang on to her."

"That's a great idea, but you know the new mandates about 'service efficiency'." Robert sighed. "I can't even authorize a 'nonessential tasking' like that."

"Then we're going on break and we'll call you back in fifteen." Visi replied immediately.

"Hah. Break it is- oh damn it! The board just lit up, and we've got more calls. Which means I can't authorize break right now-" Robert swore. "You guys are going to have to split up and take these-"

"'I'm from the head office, and I'm here to help.'" Cap air-quoted sarcastically.

* * * * *
​

Earth-Dispatch
Arrival: D Plus 40

"Good news. We've finally got a break in the Shroud case." Robert addressed the assembled team in the conference room.

"It's about time!" Flambae swore frustratedly. "After those idiots let White Lightning and her goons escape yesterday – the van didn't even get halfway to the jail before Toxic broke them out!"

Visi groaned and Cap winced in frustrated reminisce as Robert continued. "However, while she was the only lieutenant we caught yesterday, she wasn't the only henchman. Flambae, two of the goons that you and Prism picked up from that attack on Northside weren't quite as silent as the rest. We now know what Shroud's calling his gang – the Red Ring – More importantly, we've got a line on the location of his cybernetic augmentation facility, because these goons remember where they got wired up."

"Uh, are we sure this tip is any good?" Visi asked worriedly. "I mean, we already know that Shroud likes to lure people into traps."

Robert carefully masked his wince and nodded back. "That's entirely true. Which is why we're not going straight in this time… and why you'll be the most essential part of the operation."

Less than an hour later, as many of the Z-Team as could be freed up from being on call via 'creative scheduling' were waiting nervously as Invisigal crept ahead. "Okay, I'm inside. Why would Shroud put his cybernetics facility inside of a food wholesaler?"

"Distribution centers like this for grocery chains are built with the facilities for industrial refrigeration, commercial power, and areas that can be repurposed as sealed hygienic spaces without ever having been regulated or recorded as medical facilities." Cap contributed on teamchat. "Buy a defunct one, pay to fix it up a little, move in your equipment, and nobody notices a thing."

"Clever." Visi whispered back. "Right, I'm playing ceiling cat up in the rafters and… yeah, we've got Red Ring goons here posted as security. There's a couple patrolling the warehouse floor and I can see lights on in the offices from here. I don't see Shroud or anybody with superpowers, though."

"Cameras? Security systems?" Robert asked on channel.

"Yeah, and not the kind a grocery store chain uses. Setup's crude, but entirely workable." Visi reported. "You picking up the view on my headset cam?"

"Feed's clear." Robert said. "See if you can get me some imagery of the north side as well, then we'll check the offices."

"What do you mean 'we', white man?" Visi joked as she faded into invisibility again and moved off.

"Huh, the camera still works even if she's invisible. That's handy." Robert said with mild surprise.

"If she can still see to move around while invisible, then obviously her powers let light in." Prism scoffed. "They just don't let it back out."

Ten minutes later Visi had finished her cautious sweep of the offices and the ground floor, taking camera footage the entire way.

"Right, the facility's definitely here. We've got a cybersurgery theatre set up in what used to be that one storage locker, and the meat locker's been repurposed for parts and organ storage. Equipment looks to have been stolen from a hospital somewhere, but there's no thefts been reported locally." Robert analyzed. "Shroud's not here right now, though, and neither are any of his important goons."

"If we take out his setup, then that means he can't expand the Red Ring any further until he's set up a new surgical facility." Sonar contributed, having reunited with the team just for this raid.

"Plus we might get clues as to his larger setup from the captured gear. I mean, he stole it or bought it from somewhere, and it wouldn't have been a small job either way." Malevola said.

"Agreed. We'll do the raid. Captain, you've got field command." Robert agreed.

"Start your hack." Cap ordered. "Before they even know we're there, I don't want them to be able to call out for help at all. No phones, no Internet, nothing. Even radio jamming if you can possibly arrange for it."

"That I probably won't be able to, but its 99 to 1 they'll just use existing telecom setup." Robert agreed. "And, hacking now."

"All right." Cap looked down at the hasty floor plan they'd drawn from Visi's scouting report and began explaining the plan.

Several minutes later the team was in position. "Visi. Status?" Cap whispered into his headset.

"I'm at the breaker box. Say when." Visi whispered eagerly.

"Three… two… one… go!" On Cap's word, Golem tore straight through the exterior loading dock door and charged in, Flambae and Sonar hot on his heels. Malevola's teleportal brought her, Prism, and Cap directly into the store's security office. The several Red Ring goons on duty there were unconscious before they even know what was hitting them.

"Hey, why are the lights still on?" Malevola said worriedly.

"Visi, status? Visi, check in!" Cap said hurriedly, to met only with silence. "Flambae, check in!" Cap continued frantically.

"Warehouse clear!" Flambae replied immediately. "All targets do-"

The entire building shook with a thunderous detonation as Flambae's broadcast cut out, and the fire alarms and sprinklers went off as the several heroes in the office squad went to their knees.

"Malevola, Prism, get down there!" Cap ordered. "I'm going for Visi!"

"On it!" the two ladies acknowledged as they portaled away, and Cap took off at a dead run.

* * * * *
​

It was the afternoon immediately after the botched raid, and the overhead image of a devastated warehouse was still visible on the projector screen. The entire half of the food distribution center that had been warehouse and loading dock had been cratered and left open to the sky by the detonation of the giant fertilizer bomb that had been prepositioned in one of the trucks parked in the interior of the loading dock. Golem and Flambae's metahuman resilience had let them survive the blast, but Sonar had escaped alive only because he'd flown into the interior building to also go check on Invisigal as soon as she'd failed to report in.

"Approximately five million dollars in property damage. Three alleged members of the Red Ring gang killed by the IED. A completely warrantless search-" the senior HR representative began.

"It wasn't warrantless, sir." Invisigal protested. "We had imagery of Red Ring presence on site. That was probable cause to enter."

"Illegally obtained imagery." HR glared icily at her. "And therefore of no value as evidence."

"Sir, if she could enter the building without having to unlock a door or a window, that's not forcible entry." Cap pointed out reasonably. "And if the building was abandoned and the only occupants were illegally squatting, that's not even trespassing. For that matter, any sign of occupancy in what should be an empty building can be considered probable cause to suspect a crime in progress. She was legally present, and anything she – or the camera that she was carrying - saw and recorded is admissible."

"Be that as it may." the HR representative waved away Cap's objections. "You recklessly conducted an unauthorized raid on your own initiative, to no good result and leaving SDN open to multiple lawsuits! Potentially including wrongful death suits! Not to mention the slight PR problem we have of explaining why an IED more appropriate to the Second Gulf War just detonated in the commercial district of Torrance!"

"We get sued because these gobshites blew themselves up with their own bomb?" Punch Up said incredulously. "How the hell does that even work?"

"Sir, I take full responsibility for the outcome." Robert said evenly. "I turned up the clues, they ran their plan by me, I dispatched them to this task."

"I'm the branch manager. The responsibility falls on me." Blonde Blazer said immediately.

"We didn't even tell her what we were doing until after it blew up in our faces." Robert cut in immediately. "She's blameless."

"It was my entry plan, and I led the team in." Captain America stated. "Robert was in an advisory role."

"As far as the head office is concerned, you all were in serious dereliction of procedure." The HR man said icily. "Fortunately for most of you, there's nowhere else we can transfer you to that's further down than where you already are. But you can rest assured your former freewheeling days are over. Time accounting will be strictly enforced from now on, and Dispatch will be expected to adhere to procedure to the letter." He glared down at Robert. "Especially by newer and less experienced dispatchers. And as for you, Ms. Blazer, you've let your branch run hog-wild for long enough. Clean this mess up and keep these people in line from now on, or else you'll be downtown explaining to a review board why you should even be allowed to keep your job." He sniffed. "There has already been some question raised as to whether you should have been promoted from field duty to a management position in the first place. Perhaps it would be best if you just voluntarily transferred back there without prejudice."

"No thank you, sir." Blonde Blazer said resolutely.

"Oh, and one last question. According to your account, your decision to risk the raid was ultimately based on the testimony and footage provided by Invisigal. So where was she during the critical moment of the raid?"

"Unconscious on the floor, because someone zapped me from behind while I was waiting at the fuse box." Visi answered shamefully, her face pale. "I didn't even see who."

"That's where I found her, and unconscious." Cap immediately confirmed.

"Why didn't they kill you while you were helpless?" the HR representative questioned piercingly. "After all, they had no hesitation about trying to blow the rest of your team to pieces."

"That explosion was potentially survivable by at least half of us." Cap immediately pointed out. "If the Red Ring had truly been out to leave no survivors, they'd have hit us immediately after the bomb blast softened us up with Toxic and all their other heavy hitters. Their apparent objective with the truck bomb was just to cause the unfavorable PR incident, not assassinate the Z-Team… as well as do the maximum damage with the minimum risk to themselves."

"Well, they certainly accomplished that, Captain. And you made it easy for them." HR sneered. "Nobody is coming out of this mess looking good, especially not you lot. This branch is on probation until further notice, and appropriate disciplinary action will be handed out after HR has finished a detailed review. Until then, get back to work – and try not to screw it up any worse than you already have."

* * * * *
​

Earth-Dispatch:
Arrival: D Plus 44

The Torrance area remained quiet for the next several days as Red Ring activity spread further out into LA County. The pre-existing criminal gangs and syndicates found their territory being encroached upon by the high-tech newcomers, who had more supervillain muscle available to them than any other gang in town and whose street muscle was all cybernetically augmented and armed with high-tech weapons. The several mercenary supervillains that the largest LA syndicate could field were systematically lured into traps of their own and brought down by small teams of villains led by either Toxic or Coupe, and in barely a week every other player in LA was on the defensive. Worse yet, Shroud was methodical enough not to expand too far or too fast and leave himself vulnerable. Every single inch of territory he claimed remained solidly in his possession regardless of what reprisals his competition tried.

Meanwhile, SDN's Torrance branch was so mired down in red tape and corporate procedure that progress on the Red Ring case was at a standstill. The head office was breathing down Blazer's neck, and every single dispatch call was being subject to practically real-time review in the system by corporate oversight. Every hero in the Torrance branch office was grumbling at the newer and less pleasant working conditions, and every hero not on the Z-Team was enthusiastically and bitterly blaming their least popular compatriots for the screw-up. Morale in the office was at an all-time low, and job performance only avoided following it due to the Z-Team's stubborn refusal to give the HR representative the satisfaction. Even so, matters were building to a blow-out.

"And the hell of it is, we can't even go get drunk and blow off some steam because they'd use that to bust our asses!" Prism fumed at morning roll call. "I ain't had any relaxation 'cept stayin' home and shitpostin' on the Internet, and that gets kinda old after a while!"

"I'm really sorry I blew it for everyone, guys." Visi mourned.

"Hey, nobody thought to have you check the trucks. Not even me." Cap reassured her.

"This is bullshit." Flambae swore viciously, having only just returned to duty after spending several days recuperating in the infirmary. "Shroud is playing SDN like violins, and they don't even care!"

"And that wasn't even his real cybernetics facility." Golem mourned. "He'd stolen that gear from a rival gang and just set it up in an abandoned building."

"The two goons we captured must have been primed specifically with that story." Cap agreed, thinking back to what Robert had told him about how Shroud had used the same tactic to lure Mecha Man into that ambush.

"How the hell is he so consistently one step ahead?" Malevola wondered. "Sure, the guy's supposed to be a criminal genius, but he hasn't made a single mistake yet."

"I guess somebody's got to be the champ." Sonar moaned. "Pity we're the ones that have to deal with him."

"Pity our head office has all their heads so far up their arses they're shittin' in their own mouths." Punch Up cursed.

"Indeed." Flambae stared angrily down into the flame protruding from his upraised palm. "Shroud is busy taking over half the crime in the county, and SDN just fiddles while LA burns."

"And while the LAPD and the FBI are doing what they can, they don't remotely have the firepower to go up against supervillains. Their primary source of superhero response is contracting to SDN… which just doesn't seem to care." Cap sighed.

"Well… time for another day of doing nothing useful." The morning meeting broke up acrimoniously as the clock ticked off start of shift, and everybody went dejectedly out to start their assignments.

Shortly before lunch, Cap's cell phone rang. "Cap here."

"Cap, you need to get back here now. That head office asshole just showed up here again… with some corporate security guys and Phenomaman himself as superhuman muscle. And he just ordered Robert to call Visi back to the office." Sonar told him without preamble. "I have no idea what's happening, but it does not look good."

"I'm on my way." Cap said grimly and revved his motorcycle to top speed. A few minutes later he came screeching into SDN's parking lot, and immediately leapt off his bike and ran into the building at top speed.

"-this is outrageous!" Blazer's raised voice came to Cap's ears as he approached the conference room.

"No, what's outrageous is that you missed it this long." the HR representative retorted. "Our internal investigation has determined exactly how the warehouse raid went so wrong, and we will-"

The door to the conference room slammed open, and all heads turned to see a quietly furious super-soldier standing in the doorway, his shield on his arm and only a twitch away from being readied to throw. Cap's searching gaze immediately noted the position of everyone present, and his eyes narrowed at seeing a sweating and white-faced Visi determinedly trying not to show her fear… as Phenomaman's hand was solidly set upon her shoulder, preventing her from moving.

"Unhand the lady immediately." Cap unhesitatingly squared up against the powerful alien hero. "Please."

"Regretfully, I cannot do that." Phenomaman replied sincerely. "She is being placed under arrest."

"Arrest?" Cap swore incredulously. "On what charge?"

"You'd think a man of your alleged military talents would have figured it out on your own." The HR man said. "Clearly she's been Shroud's double agent all along. That's how he's consistently stayed one step ahead of you, and that's why she helped lure you all into such a disastrous raid that she was then conveniently 'disabled' during at a critical moment."

"Cap-" Visi whimpered despairingly, "I-"

Cap's hand balled into a fist. Phenomaman narrowed his eyes and began to tense. Blazer stared levelly at him, stepping up as if to stand between the two heroes.

"Warrant." Cap finally said, exhaling deeply.

"You have no business-" the HR rep began.

"Warrant." Cap repeated firmly. "You know, that official piece of paper? The one that's signed by a judge, and which states that a court of law has determined that there is probable cause to detain someone on suspicion of a crime? Do you have one?"

"This is an internal SDN investigation-" HR began.

"Son, just don't." Cap drove over him mercilessly. "Corporate security can question employees, discipline them, and even recommend to HR that they fire them. They cannot detain them by force unless the person is actively in the commission of a crime at the moment of arrest… or unless they are serving a valid arrest warrant that has been issued by the legal authorities. That's straight from both relevant case law and SDN corporate policy on usage of force." Cap smiled with bared teeth. "I should know, I helped teach the class on it."

"Is this true?" Phenomaman asked Blazer. "Have the legalities in fact not been properly fulfilled?"

"Unless that man can pull an arrest warrant from a California state court out of that briefcase right now, then no they haven't." Blazer shook her head firmly.

Phenomaman immediately let go of Visi's shoulder and stepped back. "Then I cannot lend my strength to perpetrating such an injustice. After all, our primary purpose as heroes is to uphold the law and defend the innocent."

"Thank you." Cap nodded to him sincerely before turning his icy gaze back to the corporate rep. "If you want Visi in handcuffs, take whatever evidence you have to a grand jury and get back to us… if they give you an indictment. Until then, I might suggest that Human Resources confine itself to activities more appropriate for HR, instead of operating on the belief that they're self-appointed law enforcement."

"Security, escort this man from-" HR began.

Cap immediately held up his phone and both of the uniformed security officers stepped back. "You are this close to me dialing 911 and reporting a kidnapping in progress. Now how's about you step back from this insanity and actually explain what the hell you think you're doing."

"That's precisely what I've been asking!" Blazer said heatedly. "What actual evidence do you even have for this insane a suspicion?"

"I'm glad you asked that." the HR rep sneered. "Because upon a detailed review of Miss Doe's personnel file, it turns out that we'd had the evidence of her betrayal the entire time. We just hadn't known its significance... until now."

He opened his briefcase and brought out a thin manila folder, which he opened to reveal a photograph taken during Courtney's entrance physical upon joining SDN along with an accompanying page of notations. The photograph was of her naked torso… and clearly displayed several glowing red subcutaneous stripes directly beneath her sternum. Stripes that were clearly coming from cybernetic implants almost entirely identical to those that had been seen in quite a few cases recently.

"The Red Ring's signature cybernetics package." the HR man sneered, as Blazer gasped in shock. "You work for Shroud, Invisibitch. And you have been since even before you joined SDN."

* * * * *
​

Author's Note: Re: 'unhelpful' chain of command, Cap is of course referring to the nuke in Avengers 1. *g*

And I foreshadowed it, and now it's finally here, just as some people already guessed. Visi was terrified of Cap reading her unredacted file for a reason. And yes, the long-lost and almost entirely mythical HR finally shows up in 'Dispatch'… just in time to ruin everything. But hey, that's HR for you.

And yes, fucking Shroud's a fucking asshole, and it looks like I'm getting Actually Smarter Shroud after all. I mean, not that he's being super clever here – he just repeated on the Z-Team what he originally did to Mecha Man, basically – but it doesn't have to be super clever to be infuriatingly effective.

To spoil a bit, no, Shroud does not secretly own someone at SDN corporate. What's going on is exactly what Sonar said – it's not like the corporate mentality is hard to predict, even without Shroud's tech.

 

[Simonbob]

The HR guy is such an idiot.

If you're going to arrest somebody, do it right, or not at all.



Or, if you want to piss off everybody involved, including his own security, cause a massive mess for everybody, you know, like he just did. Idiot.

 

[cliffc999]

The HR guy is such an idiot.

Click to shrink...

He entirely is.

If you're going to arrest somebody, do it right, or not at all.

Click to shrink...

It's amazing how some people, when given the slightest amount of power, think that they're king of the world. And how some people, if they have any amount of knowledge on a topic, think that they have total knowledge of all related topics.

 

[Zetakille]

"That's precisely what I've been asking!" Blazer said heatedly. "What actual evidence do you even have for this insane a suspicion?"

"I'm glad you asked that." the HR rep sneered. "Because upon a detailed review of Miss Doe's personnel file, it turns out that we'd had the evidence of her betrayal the entire time. We just hadn't known its significance... until now."

He opened his briefcase and brought out a thin manila folder, which he opened to reveal a photograph taken during Courtney's entrance physical upon joining SDN along with an accompanying page of notations. The photograph was of her naked torso… and clearly displayed several glowing red subcutaneous stripes directly beneath her sternum. Stripes that were clearly coming from cybernetic implants almost entirely identical to those that had been seen in quite a few cases recently.

"The Red Ring's signature cybernetics package." the HR man sneered, as Blazer gasped in shock. "You work for Shroud, Invisibitch. And you have been since even before you joined SDN."

Click to shrink...

And yet, you STILL need that warrant as you have no actual evidence that Visi is currently still working for Shroud. Her having the cybernetic augmentations is purely circumstantial without an actual confession/admission. Until then, there's still the possibility she broke away from Shroud's group, as impossibly small as that chance might be.

(While yes, we KNOW she's still working for Shroud due to meta-knowledge, in-universe the above is still the current situation)

 

[cliffc999]

While yes, we KNOW she's still working for Shroud due to meta-knowledge

Click to shrink...

In point of fact we don't even know that, because Shroud's a lying liar who tells lies and his 'double agent' story makes no sense.

* Shroud claims to have sent Visi in as a double-agent to get close to Robert. Except Visi joined SDN literally months before Robert did, and while Robert was still in a fucking coma with no real expectation of recovery. (And even if you believe the 'not in a coma' theory, Robert is certainly not a member of SDN at that time and there's no expectation of him ever joining.) Yes, we know the man claims to be able to see the future, but if his prediction tech is THAT fucking awesome then he doesn't need the Astral Pulse in the first place.

* A double agent has, as a very high priority, not getting themselves kicked the fuck out of the place they are trying to infiltrate. Except Visi spends all of her time before Robert gets there and the first several episodes constantly on the verge of getting booted due to her attitude problem, when an actual infiltrator would be reasonably expected to be able to at least fake having a good attitude seeing as how doing that is kinda part of the whole 'infiltrator' thing. Her behavior is simply entirely inconsistent with that of a double agent, because the first thing a competent double agent does - and remember, Visi's impulsive and emotionally conflicted but she's not actually stupid - anyway, the first thing a competent double agent does is do a reasonably good job of faking being a loyal and enthusiastic asset.

* Shroud tried to murder Visi in cold blood during the freighter mission in episode 6, which is an extremely odd thing for a man to do to his own alleged double agent. And no, 'she was betraying him' is not a valid explanation for that - Shroud, by his own admission during the interrogation scene in episode 7, says that he didn't find out she'd pocketed the Astral Pulse for herseflf until after the freighter mission so he has no reason to try and kill Visi at that time unless she's not actually working for him. Or unless he's a dick who kills even his own loyal people the instant they're not longer useful, but Shroud does not treat any of his other employees that way. (In addition to the simple fact that if he'd been watching that footage of her swiping it live, then he'd have known to search her pockets before leaving. Clearly he only watched the footage in hindsight.)

* We see in episode 8 that Visi was telling the truth about her implants being deactivated. If you give Shroud the real Astral Pulse then she doesn't get the power-up the Red Ring guys do, and if you give him the Proto-Pulse she doesn't end up puking like all the rest do. Her cyberware is entirely offline. Which, again, only makes sense if she's not actually working for Shroud anymore.

* This is not the only thing Shroud bullshits about in game. (Robert's father was actually shot once, Shroud's entire story of how cool and badass and edgy he was during the whole thing was BS.)

tldr; She's not a double agent, either in canon or here.

 

[Lillie Jones]

Thanks for the chapters
Thanks for the informative notes on Invisi Gal's supposed double agent work for shroud in cannon and games with Shroud BS is definitely inconvenient, inconsistent and Invisi gal is probably best or worst double we have seen .if the mythical HR have finally shown up at the worst possible time.
As Captain America Steve Roger's knows this by working with Best agent in the business Black Widow Natasha Romanoff SI.
Continue on
Cheers!

 

[Ceartugarda]

"Do- do you think she might…?" Waterboy kept looking out the window in the direction she'd driven off in.

Click to shrink...

It's fucking hilarious seeing as she actually quite disliked Waterboy in the game XD

 

[cliffc999]

As Captain America Steve Roger's knows this by working with Best agent in the business Black Widow Natasha Romanoff SI.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, as mentioned in the SB thread Steve might be a novice at counter-intelligence by SHIELD standards, but that still makes him a world champion compared to anybody in SDN.

It's fucking hilarious seeing as she actually quite disliked Waterboy in the game XD

Click to shrink...

Sometimes a crush is hopelessly one-sided, yes.