My Star Spangled Invisi-Gal [MCU/Dispatch]

[Simonbob]

The reason international tensions are so much higher in the MCU is because of HYDRA. Zola even explained in TWS that "For seventy years HYDRA has been secretly feeding crisis, reaping war.", all to make the world so desperate for security that it would sacrifice its freedom

Click to shrink...

Fucking HYDRA.

Those guys are just..... There are groups that don't make sense in MCU, but HYDRA's the worst.


"We're the right people to be in charge!" Huh, ok, why?


Just cause, I guess. No ideology, no reasons, just greed. Nothing IRL does that. Nothing. It'd have to be half mind control, and half "the Nazi's didn't go far enough!".

 

[TheBiggerFish]

Just cause, I guess. No ideology, no reasons, just greed.

Click to shrink...

Greed is an ideology to some people.

 

[Simonbob]

Greed is an ideology to some people.

Click to shrink...

The only groups IRL that have Greed as their ideology are corps.

And even they usually aren't that bad. (Unless you get to the biggest banking/finatial organisations, but even then, there's rules.)


If you just want to switch your brain off, and go "Bad Guys! No excuse needed!", that's fine, but I'm now just a little too knowlagable about people and groups, so it becomes obvious the writers don't grok people very well.




Seriously, there are groups that want control over the World, but all of them have an ideology about why they should be in charge. Why they'll make things better.

 

[cliffc999]

Earth-Dispatch
Arrival: D Plus 10

"What are you doing, Steve?" he moaned into his bathroom mirror. "I'm- okay, obviously I'm attracted. My dream would never have swapped her in for Peggy if I didn't like like her, but-"

Steve's mumbled soliloquy continued without pause as he efficiently shaved, showered, dressed, and headed out. Normally he cooked his own breakfast, but given how distracted he was this morning Steve had decided it would be a good idea to simply let someone else be handling hot grease and kitchen implements today and so he'd stopped at a diner on the way to work. It wasn't until his order was being placed in front of him by the smiling waitress that Steve consciously caught up to the fact that he was sitting in the same booth that he'd shared with Visi yesterday, in the very same diner, and he groaned and buried his head in his hands.

Cap managed to avoid talking to himself like a crazy person while he hurriedly ate his breakfast and then started the drive to work, but as soon as he was alone on his motorcycle the pressure of his thoughts boiled over again. His not-so-internal monologue continued all the way into the parking lot.

"-it makes sense on some level, I suppose. I don't have all the pressure of SHIELD's constant op tempo anymore. I must have been a coiled spring that just had the pressure taken off. So my feelings would be running a little out of control under those kinds of circumstances. And she's a feisty brunette with a good left hook who's been struggling with things like vulnerability and trauma while trying to make up for a past she regrets… God, it's like somebody did a composite of Peggy and Natasha." Cap was still muttering to himself as he pulled into the parking spot and got off his motorcycle. "But I still don't have the slightest reason to assume that she likes me that way, and the last thing she needs right now is to be pressured into anything she might not want. So… don't push her away, but don't try to read anything into it. Don't pull a Robert and try grabbing and kissing her because you're imagining a signal that's not there. Just stay her friend. Just act normal." Cap took several deep breaths, getting his 'work face' straight with an effort, before squaring his shoulders and walking into SDN. Just another normal shift on another normal day.

Cap felt a small twinge of guilt at his relief that Visi wasn't doing her 'I wasn't waiting for you, I just happened to be standing in the lobby for a while before you arrived at work' thing today, so he didn't have to face a stress test of his new 'act normal' initiative first thing in the door.

Act normal! Steve reminded himself as he headed towards the conference room for roll call, until the sounds of an argument in the break room drew his attention. He turned his head to see what was going on, and his body went taut at the first glimpse of Flambae, his fist wreathed in flame, angrily waving that fist directly in the face of an upset Visi.

* * * * *
​

"So you thought she was in danger, and you reacted." Robert said flatly, his arms crossed as he leaned on the conference room wall.

"Yes." Cap said guiltily.

"By spinning him around and punching him into the wall so hard that we've still got a Flambae-shaped divot in the break room."

"… yes." Cap's shoulders slumped.

"Did you even know he had superhuman resilience?" Robert narrowed his eyes.

"Actually, yes." Cap nodded. "Or else I'd have scaled down the punch. I wasn't trying to kill him, I was just trying to cold-cock him."

"You certainly managed that." Robert relaxed. "And yeah, it definitely means a lot that you still had enough self-control to pick your damage setting. But you still overreacted, and I've still got to rack you for it. You helped me write the new training module for the usage-of-force escalation chart, so you of all people should not have taken a swing without at least giving Flambae a verbal challenge before using force."

"You're right. I was out of line." Cap exhaled. "I'm sorry. He just rubs me the wrong way, but I shouldn't have brought it into the workplace."

"Was that the reason?" Robert looked at him knowingly. "You just didn't like him?"

"… and it was Visi." Cap reluctantly admitted. "I felt… protective."

"You do know she was actually guilty of what Flambae was yelling at her for, right? Vanishing his brown bag in the refrigerator as a prank would annoy me too, if it were my brown bag. Now granted that he certainly shouldn't punctuated his objections with his fist, particularly not when it's on fire-" Robert began.

"Does he even know he's doing the equivalent of threatening someone at gunpoint everytime he does that?" Cap said vehemently. "It's deliberately brandishing a lethal weapon with intent to threaten harm. That's still aggravated assault even if he doesn't touch anyone."

"I doubt he's bothered to educate himself on the legalities." Robert rolled his eyes. "So yes, I will speak to him about that… when it's his turn. Right now it's your turn."

"Right." Cap braced himself back to the position of attention. "I did it, I'll accept the punishment."

"Barring emergency necessity, you don't get any more joint calls with Visi." Robert said immediately and Cap winced. "Hey. Take breaks together, go to lunch together, hang out after work, whatever you want. But you just admitted that your tactical judgement occasionally slips a little when she's involved, and that means no more field partnerships until further notice." He looked at Cap. "This is exactly why the HR policy about relationships is what it is, so that the management staff knows what's going on whenever things start to slip a little and we can fix it using the minimum necessary adjustment instead of not knowing what's wrong until there's a huge blowup that needs a more drastic fix."

"We're not in a relationship. We're just friends." Cap protested.

"You can't deny that you've caught feels, Cap." Robert shook his head. "It looks pretty obvious to me."

"Damn." Cap swore. "If it's obvious to you, it'll be obvious to her."

"Am I missing something?" Robert looked at Cap confusedly. "I mean, I'm not God's gift to women but I like to think I at least know the basics, and I really doubt you'd get rejected if you asked. She's more comfortable around you than she's been around anyone else here."

"And that's exactly why I don't want to press for more." Cap said. "Even by implication. She needs to finally have a friend she can trust much more than I need to have a new girlfriend."

"Really not seeing how those two things contradict each other." Robert shook his head. "But okay, it's your lives." He stopped and remembered something. "Oh yeah, and your pay's being docked to repair the wall."

"Fair enough." Cap acknowledged. "Anything else, sir?"

"Dismissed." Robert said with an encouraging smile. "Send in the hothead on your way out. And… good luck."

Cap wasn't sure whether to feel upset or relieved that Visi had already headed out on her shift by the time he got out of the office, and with a resigned sigh he mounted his motorcycle and headed out. His morning shift went otherwise without incident – Robert had made sure to give him and Flambae assignments spaced as far apart as possible, as much as the call volume had allowed – and soon enough it was time for lunch.

"How's the spaghetti?" Visi was giving him a medium-cocky grin as Cap took his first bite of the house special at the place she was recommending to him today.

"I could smell the extra garlic before she brought it to the table, Visi." Cap smiled back at her. "Fortunately for you, I like garlic."

"Next time, Gadget! Next time!" she portentously orated like a cartoon supervillain and then chuckled.

"And speaking of pranking-" Cap began slowly.

"I literally just turned the bag around and moved it to the other corner. I didn't even take it out of the fridge. It's why Robert didn't bust me. I didn't actually break any rules." Visi eye-rolled. "And then Flambae crashed out entirely just because he didn't see his brown bag right away, how is that my fault?"

"Sorry. The version I'd heard made it sound like you'd tossed it out. I should have known better." Cap said guiltily. "But even if the justice of the situation isn't against you, is it smart to keep throwing gasoline on an open flame like that?"

"If was a 'do the smart thing' person I wouldn't be in the Phoenix Program." Visi grumped. "… oh God, that look. It's like someone just strangled your puppy or something. Please stop that look, you're making me feel guilty even for crimes I haven't committed." She facepalmed. "Did you get enough sleep last night, Cap? You've been jittery all morning." She paused and continued more seriously. "As if the part where you slammed a guy almost through the wall wasn't a clue."

"…I could have slept better." Cap gratefully seized on the exit line.

"Did you get in trouble for punching him?" she asked after several minutes of both of them concentrating on their food.

"I am being punished by not being allowed to have joint assignments with you until further notice." Cap explained.

"Yeowtch." Visi winced. "Okay, maybe I should tone down the goofing around the office a little. Ordinary busts are one thing, but when the new supervisor wants to get creative about making sure people don't want to get called into the office more than once-" She laughed slightly. "I guess that's why they special-hired him to be the hardass who had to whip this misfit squad into shape. Kinda like Major Payne, he'll do ironic punishment to scare us straight."

"Major who?" Cap asked. "Is that a superhero?"

Visi laughed until she snorted. "It's a movie, you goof! Guy who spent his entire life in the Army doing all the super-tough missions and never having a life ends up finally hitting retirement age and so they won't send him out anymore, so he ends up as the new instructor at this military school for kids and it spends the next ninety minutes playing it up for laughs." she cheerfully rambled on, oblivious to Cap's expression. "But eventually he bonds with the screw-ups around him and learns to appreciate his new life, even if it's nowhere near as intense or important as his old one was."

Cap sat there frozen, making a titanic effort not to show any reaction on his face at all as he tried to process why on Earth what Visi had just rambled about would even make him feel like he needed to process anything, while steadfastly ignoring the analogies that could be drawn between what she'd just said and his own situation.

"911. Barricaded hostage stand-off." Robert's voice came from Visi's communicator as he punched the command override. "SWAT's stuck outside the building, they can't make any moves because they have no idea what room the asshole's in or what he might have stacked in front of the doors. Lunch break's over, Visi, they need you to scout for 'em."

Visi and Cap both stood up immediately, before he remembered with a guilty flinch that Robert had only called one of them and he was currently forbidden to do ride-alongs without specific permission. He slowly, reluctantly sat back down.

"Can you settle up for me here, Cap?" Visi asked him, and Cap nodded. "Thanks. Got to go!" She grabbed her coat and headed out without a backward glance.

"So that's what it feels like." Cap reflected sadly, as he watched his superhero friend head out into the fight while he stayed safely behind. He dutifully finished his now-tasteless lunch, paid the check, and left.

* * * * *
​

"Finally." Flambae said icily as he confronted Steve. The man had actually followed him home from SDN, although Steve had readily noticed the flying man trying to discreetly tail him and had simply pulled off into the nearest large parking lot and waited for him to swoop down. "I've been trying to catch up with you all day!"

"I apologize for overreacting." Cap said stolidly. "I should not have leapt to the worst possible assumption."

"Yes, that is precisely what we are going to talk about, flag-man." Flambae hissed as he drew nearer. "Because I want you to understand me very clearly when I say-"

"I don't care what you say." Cap felt the last of his patience snap. "What, are you going to set my stuff on fire? Hurt me? Kill me? Over petty pride? As if that would change anything? You're nothing but a bully! An ordinary, petty bully, just one with more power to abuse than he should ever have had been given!"

"FUCK YOU!" Flambae screamed, immediately firing a full-strength flame blast that would have incinerated a normal person on the spot. Cap easily blocked it with the shield, then charged forward and knocked Flambae sprawling with a shield bash. The man flew back ten feet and hit the ground rolling, but immediately rolled to his feet with more agility than Cap had expected and took to the air again.

"It is long past time someone put your arrogant ass down!" Flambae raged as he swooped and soared, firing blast after blast towards the ground-bound Captain. Cap weaved through the barrage, cartwheeling over one blast and slipping under another, parrying a third with his shield, and leading him away from the store and towards the emptier corner of the lot.

"I have the mobility, fool! I have the high ground! I command the flame, and my skin does not-!" Flambae ranted as Cap was pressed hard but gave no ground. However, the slight pause Flambae took to monologue was just the opening Cap needed, and he threw his shield in a hard, slightly arcing toss-

-that soared several feet wide of Flambae's head as he easily leaned to one side.

"Hah! You missed -!" Flambae grinned, stopping to sneer down at his now-shieldless opponent,.. right before the shield that had just rebounded off the lamp post behind him came soaring back to catch him directly in the back of the head.

Flambae was knocked out of the air and sent sprawling forward to tumble towards the ground, only he landed on Cap's fist first.

"Try that again, and it ends even worse." Were the first words Flambae heard as he struggled back to consciousness.

"Fuck." Flambae swore as he shook off his grogginess, all the fight suddenly leaving his body. "All right, you win." He looked up at the Captain sadly. "I just wanted to- it doesn't matter now."

"Are you injured?" Cap asked concernedly. "If I hit you too hard-"

"No, no, I am fine." Flambae reassured him dully. "Except for my pride, of course, And my hoped-for future as someone who was not going to be in prison. I just tried to fucking kill you, that's enough to void my probation. How long until they get here?"

"I didn't call them." Cap surprised him. "In the Army they'd have called this a 'wall-to-wall counseling session'. Two guys taking it out behind the supply shed to settle their differences when they couldn't settle it any other way. Officers learn not to see what happens when that happens, unless it gets out of hand."

"Attempted manslaughter isn't 'out of hand'?" Flambae asked in honest confusion.

"I don't know yet." Cap replied. "Why did you even do it? I was expecting a punch, not an incineration. Are your powers that hard for you to control?"

"No, no, my control over the flame is perfect." Flambae insisted. "My control over myself, on the other hand… is not so perfect."

"Well, in my experience, there's generally two causes for when a man is always boiling over that way. Either he's got something eating him, or he's just a natural born asshole." Cap agreed. "So, what's eating you?"

"What, not going for the asshole theory?" Flambae said challengingly.

"Originally, I had been." Cap admittedly frankly. "But you heard the speech the other day. Robert was right. If we can't believe that we're not entirely hopeless then we shouldn't be here wasting each other's time. And I suppose that also extends to trying to believe that the guy next to you isn't entirely hopeless either." Cap rolled his eyes. "Even if he makes that kinda hard sometimes."

"That… is more forbearance than I was expecting, under the circumstances." Flambae said slowly. "But you have a point. As to what is 'eating me', as you say…" Flambae looked up at Cap. "You are from the past, the 1940s. They had opinions about gay people back then. And you always looked at me as if I were something to be scraped off of your shoe. So yes, from day one I wanted to punch your bigoted ass into the ground."

"What you saw my disapproval of your manners, not your orientation." Cap sighed wearily. "I grew up in Brooklyn, near the Navy Yard. The largest homosexual community in New York at the time was around there. I regularly saw people like that as a kid growing up. They were just people. Some good, some bad, some indifferent, just like any other people."

"… I see." Flambae admitted embarrassedly. "But I think you must see as well. For I grew up in Afghanistan." Flambae surprised him. "Ah, you wince. You are familiar with that culture?"

"Mostly through briefings, didn't deploy there." Cap said. "But… yes. I know how that culture feels about it."

"Then you know what I survived, and why I might be just a bit oversensitive about the issue." Flambae said meaningfully. "And even after I fled from that environment I lived as a vagabond, on the outskirts of many other societies, and such places often have their own intolerances. And again, I was often alone. Most people run away to join the circus or to become a criminal to find freedom. I ran away to such places to find more support, more structure, than I had ever known before then… even as fragmentary as it was. For I had previously known none at all." Flambae breathed out heavily. "So yes, I have much anger. Anger has been my truest friend since I was a boy. Anger kept me from being killed simply for the way I was born. Anger was what let me survive attempts by entire gangs of older boys to beat me to death. And when my power came, anger is what fueled the flame."

"But it also burns you out." Cap countered. "When my best friend died in combat, I was angry enough to try and fight the entire German army by myself… and I made a very good attempt at it. But-"

"Was he avenged?" Flambae asked simply.

"The man who pulled the trigger. The rest of the men he was fighting alongside. The man who commanded them all. All of them died by my hand, or at my command." Cap agreed soberly. "And it changed nothing."

"It meant that those Nazi bastards went on to kill no more good friends." Flambae protested. "That is not nothing."

"I meant, it changed nothing for me." Cap corrected mildly. "My friend was still dead. My heart was still empty. And if I'd filled that emptiness with nothing but anger… I wouldn't have liked who I'd have become."

"Perhaps you should have tried." Flambae countered. "Because I did. And that anger has let me fight harder and longer and faster than I could have done otherwise, to survive many places and people that would otherwise have taken my life." He looked at the horizon reflectively. "So that is why when the people keep telling me that I must have less anger, that I must change my ways, I always wish to ask them. Why should I be so quick to abandon that which has helped me survive so many times? Where would I be without it?!?" he finished impassionately.

"You'd be at peace." Cap answered simply, and the evening air fell silent.

"Peace." Flambae said slowly. "And have you actually found this peace?" he challenged.

"Not for a while." Cap admitted. "But… I think I might finally be starting to."

"To find peace." Flambae said musingly, before chuckling. "And suddenly I am amused to realize that that that actually reminds me of what I originally came here to say. Which was that… even back when I still wanted to set you on fire, I also wanted to be entirely clear with you that I was not even thinking of attacking Invisigal to get to you. When I have a problem with a man, I take that problem straight into that man's face. I do not strike at those precious to him, or around him, just to try and torment him. That is coward shit, and I am no coward."

"… do you realize that you were originally phrasing your reassurance in the single most un-reassuring way humanly possible?" Cap finally managed to get out after a shocked pause. "And that's why we ended up punching each other?"

"In hindsight, yes, I have realized." Flambae chuckled. "In my anger management training I should also ask for advice on diplomacy, perhaps?"

"It might help." Cap smiled. "And this is you after anger management training? Good God."

"Hah, no, they only just started." Flambae reassured him. "Apparently I should have been getting it earlier, but you know what they said at the meeting."

"How's Sonar doing?" Cap asked. "I definitely know he needs counseling."

"I am not sure, I do not know him well." Flambae replied. "As for us, Captain… we are at peace now, if you accept. You could readily have taken my job and my freedom, and you chose to let me keep them free and clear. I will respect that."

"Thank you." Cap nodded.

"But that having been said, the next time she hides my lunch I will not be held responsible for my actions." Flambae continued. "The cafeteria food at SDN is absolute shit, I would rather starve than touch it."

"I'll ask her to please respect the food a little more." Cap conceded. "If you'll remember to just check every bag in the refrigerator before you assume it's missing. Also, it might help to write your name on both sides of the bag."

"Or at least a big red 'X' or something." Flambae agreed. "Captain, a question for my curiosity. That origin story you gave us, was it true?"

"Every word." Cap reassured him.

"Bullshit." Flambae countered. "You are no man grown in a tank, no living weapon. You are too emotional, you have too much empathy. And are also too prone to making an idiot of yourself over a pretty girl." he teased.

"Flambae, just because everything you know is true that doesn't always mean you know the whole story." Cap said knowingly. "That paragraph I gave you was the outline. I just left out all the off-duty parts."

"Hahahaha!" Flambae laughed. "You would think after having been in the criminal lifestyle so long I could spot the trick, but no, entirely under our noses! Good one!"

"What does the team think about me, now that you're asking?" Cap wondered.

"Opinions vary. Some believe that your backstory is a fable, and you are actually some SDN veteran brought in to try and stealth mentor us or do an 'Undercover Boss' thing. Some actually believed your little trick about being more weapon than man, and so give you as much space as you ask for. Some simply don't give a fuck so long as you don't annoy them." Flambae shrugged. "Me? I thought you were a self-righteous hypocrite lording it over- well, it doesn't matter what I thought. Clearly you are not."

"I'm starting to think that the problem with the Z-Team is that it's not a team, it's just a bunch of people who work near the same building." Cap thought out loud. "A loose assembly of little sub-cliques or loners where people don't even really know each other, but we're still all expected to be able to work with anybody else in combination as the assignments come in."

"I understand some other branch offices function better than ours, but the Torrance branch has always been the least well-regarded and well-funded. In fact, it sometimes feels like an outright dumping ground." Flambae agreed. "SDN may be keeping us out of jail, but there is a reason none of us are particularly enthusiastic about it as an organization. Before Robert all the dispatchers they gave us were fucking idiots and assholes, that's why we couldn't stand them. At least our current boss is only one of those two things."

"I'm not even going to ask which." Cap replied amusedly. "And he's only been here a few days, so he can't fix everything right away. Still, if you think it's a good idea then I'll put the 'not quite a team yet' item in the suggestion box."

"We have a suggestion box?" Flambae looked at him surprisedly.

"Yes, it's called 'using your words and actually talking to your supervisor of your own free will about your ideas and/or concerns'." Cap replied amusedly.

"No wonder none of us ever found it." Flambae snorted.

* * * * *
​

Earth-Dispatch
Arrival: D Plus 11

"I caught an interesting view through some parking lot security cameras the other night, when I was curious as to why a certain transponder was paralleling the route I knew you use to drive home." Robert greeted Cap in the hallway the next morning.

"I walked into a door." Cap replied evenly.

"… you're certain?" Robert asked, and Cap gave a confirming nod. "All right then, if you say so." Robert chuckled while briefly tapping his nose, and Cap acknowledged the gesture with a brief smile.

"Aww, who's this?" Visi's voice came sweet as sugar over the cubicle wall, pitched almost in baby-talking tones. "Who's this little guy?"

"His name's Beef, and get your damn hands off him." Chase grumbled. Cap and Robert both looked over to see Visi kneeling down by a dog bed up against the wall of Chase's cubicle, vigorously belly-rubbing a cute little black-and-white dog who eagerly rolled back and forth waving all four paws in the air while Chase glowered thunderously down at both of them.

"It's fine, Chase." Robert called out tolerantly.

"Well, he is your dog, but-" Chase looked up and saw the Captain adjacent to Robert and broke off. "Don't you have a meetin' about to start?"

"Come on, both of you." Robert told them, and Cap and Visi headed towards the conference room.

"Walked into a door?" Flambae asked Cap curiously as he entered with Visi trailing him. Robert had stopped outside to wait for Blazer.

"Private joke." Cap reassured him.

"Okay, hold up, since when are you two talking to each other without disses bein' served or hands bein' thrown?" Prism gaped incredulously at them.

"We settled our differences like men." Flambae waved a hand lazily. "He's all right."

"Hah!" Punch Up laughed. "I could've told you that already, lad!"

"Really?" Malevola raised an eyebrow. "Hmmm." she rubbed her chin and gave Cap a thoughtful look.

Visi crossed her arms and gave Malevola an icy stare from where was standing slightly behind Cap, and Malevola looked back at Visi and widened her smirk. An angry flare of Visi's nostrils was met with Malevola giving Cap a leisurely up-down gaze-

"Good morning, everyone." Blazer greeted the room, and Cap and Visi cleared the doorway as Blazer and Robert entered together. The tension instantly deflated.

"All right." Robert began. "We have a special project today, regarding our former member Coupe. Just because she got fired doesn't mean she doesn't still have friends in this room… or enemies outside of it." He reached into the manila folder he was holding and slid some pictures out on the table. "These are known assassins from the organized crime outfit Coupe was working for when she got arrested. We don't know which one of them have been sent here to Torrance. We don't know if they've sent anybody else that isn't a known associate. For that matter, we don't even know if Coupe is still in town or if she's already cleared out. But what we do know is that her old outfit has sent someone, both because Coupe herself has gone entirely dark – even to Punch Up – and because some of our information contacts have reported that new faces in town have very recently started offering money for any current info about Coupe."

"So it's time to get out there on the street and kick arse!" Punch Up said vehemently.

"A branch manager has the privilege of putting all non-911 calls into the bit bucket and declaring that we're having a 'limited services day' if they deem it necessary to free up manpower for a greater tasking." Blazer spoke up. "This isn't exactly the sort of tasking corporate normally anticipated it being used for, but I don't have to get their permission every time I want to do it. Obviously the branch office can't do it all the time or else questions would be asked about why none of our subscribers are getting what they paid for, but I haven't invoked the privilege anytime recently… and I'm choosing to do it now. So for today Robert's board will be dark except in case of actual emergency. And that frees all of you up to hit the streets and roust out all the usual suspects until you find someone that knows something."

"Not a problem, boss lady." Flambae grinned cockily.

"I've drawn up lists of targets and teams." Robert continued. "One special note; Visi, you're the one who has her ear to the street to the best, so today you'll primarily have legwork taskings and not rousts. But we still don't want anyone caught alone on the street today if we have assassins in town, so you'll take some muscle along. Sonar? That's you."

"I'm… not really a bodyguard." Sonar said nervously.

"Visi's no slouch in a fight, we all know this." Robert said reasonably. "And your enhanced hearing is also an excellent information-gathering tool, so putting you on the legwork team makes sense. Plus, you do have a reasonable amount of muscle… and more importantly, you're capable of flying while carrying Visi. Most of those assassins don't have flight powers, so you don't need to be a bodyguard. You're an escape option."

"Cap, since you don't know people in town and Golem is not exactly an investigative resource, you two are the brute squad today." Robert continued. "Both of you stay loose and ready, and if any other team needs backup today – or we get a location on the primary targets – then you roll out and drop on them."

"Strategic reserve. Yes sir." Cap acknowledged stolidly, and Golem grumbled a slow acknowledgement.

"Oh, and one last thing. Coupe's out of contact, so she doesn't know that we're still trying to look out for her. So don't be subtle out there. Make sure everybody on the street knows that even if she's no longer employed at SDN, she still has friends." Blazer said encouragingly. "Maybe if we're loud enough, she'll hear that message out there too."

"God, I hope so." Punch Up nodded eagerly.

"So let's get to work." Robert said, and everybody got up and moved with purpose.

"Chill, Cap, I'll be fine." Visi reassured him breezily as she briefly stopped to say goodbye. "I used to do these legwork runs by myself all the time."

"You saved my job out there, and I owe you one. I'll do my best, Captain. I promise." Sonar assured Cap soberly, and the two men traded a nod as the new partnership headed out. Cap and Golem themselves squared up and headed for the parking lot to make sure that the heavy truck Golem normally used to get around was fully fueled and loaded.

"It's the lowest-danger tasking in the entire list, and she has backup, and he still looked like he was watching her step in front of a bullet." Blazer sighed after they were gone. "Are we going to have to put them on different shifts?"

"I think it was just the whole 'assassins in town' thing that had him worrying a little extra today." Robert said reasonably. "Plus the fact that he's still getting used to the new feelings at all, and kiiinda seems spooked at himself about how intense they might be. Things should settle down soon enough."

"He's really sweet on her, isn't he?" Blazer said warmly. "And I can certainly relate to that. Finding someone new that really clicks with you, then having to juggle that and also being their co-worker… it's definitely an adjustment. But often one that's worth it in the end."

"Stop, you'll make me blush." Robert teased her. "But I've already gotten the whole 'I don't think she sees me that way, I don't want to push, I just want to be a good friend' routine from Cap, so I don't think it's quite at that stage yet."

"… Robert, I would bet my amulet against a box of donuts that she's already fallen for him like a ton of bricks." Blazer looked at him incredulously.

"Has Visi said anything to you about it?" Robert asked her.

"Obviously not or I wouldn't have offered to wager on it. That would be cheating." Blazer said cutely as she kissed Robert on the cheek. "But a girl just knows sometimes." She chuckled. "Besides, Visi was ready to come over the table at Malevola just for looking at him."

"I think that you're lucky that I can't afford a box of donuts, because then you'd have to walk around as Mandy alllll the time." Robert said flirtatiously. "Not that I don't think Visi easily could fall for him, if Cap just gave her a little bit of encouragement." he continued more thoughtfully. "But I don't think she'd risk making the first move. She feels to me like life's kicked her in the teeth too often in the past for her to be up to taking that kind of leap of faith now."

"And you just said that he won't make the first move either… oh Lord help us. They're both idiots." she moaned sympathetically.

"Well… at least we'll have front row seats to the show." Robert consoled her sagely.

* * * * *
​

Author's Note: Poor Steve just cannot deal with all these feelings right now. But hey, surely the relaxed slice-of-life pace in Dispatch will give him a chance to sort himself out at leisure before he has to make any big decisions, right? Right? Guys?

And yes, the reference to the amulet – or, rather, that Blazer has told Robert about it already – means that they've both already had the dinner date scene together. It's just been offstage, as the lives of everybody else are happening offstage. But hey, I told you this Robert was solidly on the Blazer route.

Finally figured out what to do with Flambae. Tried to keep in the 'he's not entirely stable' with 'he's actually not horrible', threw in some childhood trauma, a misunderstanding or two, but hey, they settled it like men.

BTW, that was not Visi torturing Cap deliberately, that was her in full ADHD ramble mode and not consciously realizing exactly what kind of analogy could be drawn between the movie she was talking about and the person she was talking with. But hey, Visi secretly loves romcoms, and now she gets to be in one!

 

[LZB1285]

"These are known assassins from the organized crime outfit Couple was working for when she got arrested.

Click to shrink...

I suspect you've been hit caught out by the "auto-correct".

 

[Gindjurra]

Blazer wasn't blowing smoke up your ass when she told you this morning that we'd done everything we could to get those corpo fuckheads at the head office to pull their heads out and give us a fair chance to fix the mistake instead of dumping the blame on you, and they didn't.

Click to shrink...

Given the lack of training, the entirety of Team Phoenix actually has a very solid court case against SDN for this - firing someone for screwing up because they weren't given the training their contract required is wrongful termination.

Doing it to someone in order to sabotage criminal court-ordered rehabilitation might even result in jail time for the saboteur!

only to be cut off by a smashing of glass as Coupe angrily came out of the man-sized hole that had just opened up in the glass panel adjacent to the conference room door and stormed furiously towards the exit.

Click to shrink...

Even if the rest of the team doesn't join as co-plaintiffs, Coupe has a solid case for wrongful termination due to that lack of training.

I can't figure out why things are so different here."

Click to shrink...

I can, and it has five letters beginning with H.

Oh my God.

Click to shrink...

Some men need a clue-by-four. Steve's a hardier sort, but even he can't ignore a clue-by-rod from god!

 

[cliffc999]

Some men need a clue-by-four. Steve's a hardier sort, but even he can't ignore a clue-by-rod from god!

Click to shrink...

To quote Martya Koudelka from Lois Bujold's Vorkosigan series - "Some fellows you have to hit with a brick to get their attention. Some you have to hit with a big brick."

 

[Lillie Jones]

Thanks for the chapter

 

[cliffc999]

Earth-Dispatch
Arrival: D Plus 12

"Four attackers. Database says the leader is King Cobra, green costume and hood, enhanced strength and agility. Strongman is Death Adder, giant man-reptile, he has paralytic poison claws and tail as well as being a powerhouse. Third one is a guy with a nasty sonic attack mounted in a proshetic tail, calls himself Rattler. Last one is a woman who fires paralysis beams called Asp. You'd better hurry, Sonar's already down and Visi's being run ragged!" Robert's voice sounded in their headset.

"ETA one minute!" Cap called into his headset as he floored the pedal. "Visi, can you give me a callout?"

"She's in stealth mode, no comms." Robert said. "Camera view has- shit! Visi just got tagged somehow, she's visible and down-"

"Engaging." Cap replied with icy determination.

The first day of legwork and rousts had produced no results regarding the assassins that had been sent for Coupe. The only noteworthy incident of the day was when Punch Up and Malevola had actually run into a completely unrelated case while doing their legwork, a meeting engagement with a villain called Toxic who'd been making a major purchase from an underworld arms dealer. Several cyborg-augmented thugs had been captured along with a truckload of weapons, but Toxic had escaped.

What few scraps of intel had been turned up had confirmed the tip on the assassins as being genuinely in town, so Blazer had authorized a second day of 'limited service calls' as the team hit the streets yet again. And late in the morning the case had broken wide open not via turning up a useful tip, but by having the sheer bad luck of Sonar and Invisigal walk directly into the entire team of assassins as they showed up to try and buy some intel from the exact same contact that the two heroes had just finished visiting. The chance meeting had turned into a running pursuit as the quartet of snake-themed killers had taken off after them, but even though they'd been cornered and downed eventually Visi's knowledge of Torrance's back alleyways still had let her keep the duo ahead of the pursuers for just long enough for their backup to get there.

The quartet of supervillains had been too focused on their targets, too eager to close in for the kill after having finally caught and cornered their prey. And so they hadn't paid enough attention to the truck coming down the street towards them until Cap jinked the wheel and took it up and over the curb to slam directly into Death Adder.

Golem leapt off the truck's open bed as it came to a stop and walked straight through Rattler's sonic blast without even feeling it, smashing him into the ground with a furious roar. Cap leapt out of the truck cab and knocked out King Cobra with a shield toss before his feet even touched the ground, and the shieldless Cap then acrobatically dodged Asp's venom bolt and sent her smashing to the ground with a capoeira kick. A moment after that street shook slightly with the impact of Golem putting in a finishing stomp on Death Adder, who'd actually managed to shake off the impact of the truck and had been dazedly climbing to his feet.

"Visi?" Cap ran to where she was kneeling in the street adjacent to Asp's unconscious body, puffing into an inhaler. Sonar was just visible lying down behind a parked car nearby.

"He-" Visi gasped for breath. "We - fuck!" she wheezed twice more before the inhaler began to work, and she finally returned it to her pocket.

"Sorry, Captain." Sonar whispered weakly. "I tried, but-"

"He couldn't take off, King Cobra had clipped his wing with his first shot in that ambush." Visi explained weakly from behind Cap. "Then when they caught up to us again he got tagged by Death Adder trying to keep him off me, and then Rattler's damn sonic attack absolutely wrecked him with that sensitive hearing of his. At the end he was tanking practically all the muscle there by himself."

"You did fine, Sonar." Cap assured him as he knelt over the wounded hero. "You held out until your backup got there. That's all you needed to do."

"Flambae is here!" his voice sounded out on the radio immediately before the flaming man himself came swooping down out of the sky. "Are you all right?" he called out urgently.

"Sonar's down, we need a medevac." Cap said crisply as he did his best to triage and stabilize the casualty. "Can you fly and carry him at the same time?" he asked Flambae.

"Easily." the man replied as he picked the fallen man-bat up. "Nearest hospital?"

"Clinic at the SDN facility." Robert ordered. "He'll need the proper antivenom for what Death Adder used, we're getting some prepped here."

"On my way!" Flambae acknowledged, and with a whoosh of flame he flew back into the air.

"Incident secured." Robert announced on the team channel. "Prism, report back to link up with Flambae. Cap, Golem, after you've gotten your prisoners safely in the police wagon you bring Visi back here as well. Everybody else, resume assignments. We've got what was almost certainly the team of assassins coming after Coupe taken down, but let's not assume they were the only ones in play until we finish double checking."

"Are you okay?" Cap asked Visi worriedly.

"I fucking lost out to perfume, would you believe?" Visi spat furiously, as her and Cap sat adjacent to each on the curb while they waited for the police. "I was heading for Rattler so I could sap him over the head and get his sonic attack out of Sonar's ears, and as soon as I got near Asp that stank-ass whatever she was wearing gave me a fucking spasm! Even with me holding my breath, just the whiff I got up my nose was- what the hell was that scent, Eau de Sarin?" She furiously scuffed one shoe on the pavement. "There's Sonar bleeding out at like three to one odds, and I can't even get a solid hit in without losing out to an atomizer full of overpriced flowery shit. Fuck, even before we had to run King Cobra just fucking tanked everything I sent-" Visi fumed as she stared angrily down at her skinned knuckles.

"One whiff from Asp's perfume and you were down? The asthma was that disabling?" Cap asked concernedly.

"No, but as soon as I started to choke I lost my invisibility and remember, I was like only eight feet away from Asp. I managed to duck her first shot just enough to only get winged by it but that still left me numb and shaking and not good for much. Lucky for me that's just when you guys showed up."

"You still did a great job staying ahead of them on foot for long enough to get here." Cap reassured her. "Even with Sonar unable to fly, that alley run you led him on almost lost them. And there were four of them."

"Running and hiding. And then getting taken out of the fight on the first solid hit that connects." Visi replied bitterly. "Real fuckin' list of achievements there."

"I'll… let you two talk." Golem's slow, lumbering voice sounded almost amused as he moved away to go secure the prisoners.

"I only got my powers after I joined the Army," Cap began slowly, reflectively, letting Visi have a moment to wind down. "Before the super-soldier serum, I had a lot of health problems. Including asthma."

"Don't lie to try and make me feel better, Cap." Visi snapped at him. "They wouldn't let you enlist with asthma."

"I had a special waiver." Cap explained. "Dr. Erskine didn't consider my physical imitations a problem, because the serum was supposed to fix them all anyway. And I was considered the ideal candidate for the project psychologically, better than anybody else they could get."

"You really had asthma… in the 20s and 30s?" Visi's anger fell away as she looked at him wonderingly. "What, was it like some mild version or something? 'Cause I doubt they had rescue inhalers back then."

"'Mild' is not the word I'd use." Cap said sardonically. "As for inhalers, I'm not sure if they had them but I certainly know I didn't have any. Couldn't possibly have hoped to afford one." Cap said. "They gave me breathing exercises, said they'd help. I guess maybe they did, if New York smog back in the era of no pollution controls didn't kill me even with twenty-four years of trying. Or maybe the exercises just helped me not to panic." Cap carefully didn't look at Visi, letting her preserve her dignity. "But yeah. Never 100% knowing when the next lungful of whatever you breathed might trigger a spasm, or how bad it might be… having to keep a little part of yourself on edge at all times just in case… that was not a fun way to live at all. So believe me, I get it." He put a comforting hand on Visi's shoulder. "You don't like people knowing?"

"I don't even know why I didn't tell you." Visi answered the question Cap had really asked with a little catch in her voice. "SDN already knew, the rest of the team knew… I'm surprised you didn't see it in my file, that weekend you were helping with the paperwork."

"Chase didn't let me have those parts of the personnel files for everyone, said that it wasn't necessary for what we were doing and I wasn't there to break other peoples' privacy for my own curiosity." Cap replied. "And he was entirely right about that."

"I just… people react to it, sometimes." Visi said softly. "I didn't want to weird you out or anything."

"Well, I'd like to know what kind of inhaler you use so I can carry a spare for you." Cap offered before wincing briefly. "Assuming that we get any non-emergency calls together in the future. Forgot about that for a second."

"Wouldn't I be more likely to need a spare inhaler during an emergency?" Visi teased.

"You're right." Cap smiled. "And-"

"Police are here." Golem lumbered to his feet.

"I'll talk to them." Cap replied, and Visi stayed behind while he went over.

"He likes you." Golem said suddenly, as they both watched Cap dealing with the responding police units.

"It's not like that." Visi protested.

"Do you like him?" Golem asked her simply.

"Not that way." Visi shook her head firmly. "He's fun to hang with, maybe, but there's nothing serious."

"Visi." Golem looked at her disbelievingly.

"He'll be gone in a couple months anyway, when they promote him to some shiny Downtown team the instant he's eligible." Visi replied helplessly. "So why even think about it?"

"He might stay. If you asked him." Golem said wisely.

"You're dreaming." Visi shook her head. "And I wouldn't even have the right to ask."

"Okay, it's all wrapped up." Cap greeted them as he returned. "Let's load up and get back to base."

"You got it, Cap." Visi smiled at him cheerfully… only for her expression to turn rueful the instant his back was turned.

"What are you looking at?" Visi turned and snapped at Golem.

* * * * *
​

"Good job, everyone." Robert said professionally as he stood at the head of the conference table for the afternoon briefing. "First the good news, Sonar got a little banged up but once we countered Death Adder's venom there was no other serious injury. He just needs a day of observation and fluids… and letting the bruises heal up some… and he'll be back in action Monday."

Visi's sigh of relief was audible on the other side of the table, even over the general murmur of appreciation from the rest of the team.

"Also, Coupe's in the clear. The, uh, Serpent Society-" Robert continued.

He paused to let the entire room, Cap included, indulge in a brief round of laughter at the sheer absurdity of that name and theming. Even Robert's own somber mood lightened momentarily.

"-were the only team Coupe's old employers had sent, and between how much money they'd wasted on hiring the snakes and the clear message we sent, chatter is that they're cutting their losses." Robert continued. "They're still mad at Coupe, but they're not going to throw good money after this much bad money."

"That makes sense. She already testified against them as part of her stayin' out of prison, so all the damage she could do to 'em's already been done. Takin' her down now is just for sendin' a message, and after what we did the message is gettin' too mixed to be worth it. Her old mob likes profit more than payback." Punch Up said soberly.

"And that leads me directly to the bad news." Robert announced like the tolling of a funeral bell, his shoulders slumping in weariness. "After… after the takedown of Mecha Man several months ago, it was assumed that the master villain Shroud had left town after achieving his objective. He'd ended the career of his arch-nemesis' son. Gotten his final victory. And also lost his last chance to recover the Astral Pulse. So why stick around?" Robert exhaled heavily. "Except that skirmish yesterday has shown that it's very likely that assumption was made in error. Toxic, you see, was Shroud's field team leader for the villain squad he put together that defeated Mecha Man. And unlike most of the other villains involved in that battle, who's been locals, he'd originally come into town with Shroud. Toxic had been a key part of Shroud's original breakout from prison in the first place. If Toxic is still here, then so's his boss."

"What do we know about him?" Cap asked simply.

"Shroud is… dangerous." Robert finally replied. "He's a technological genius, an exceptional planner, relentlessly thorough, and he thinks ahead. The trap for Mecha Man... had already anticipated the possible tactics that Mecha Man was going to use, even the ones that had been improvised on the spot. Mecha Man only escaped with their life by gambling that life on a very risky maneuver that could easily have gone either way… and as everyone knows, Mecha Man's suit still suffered irreparable damage and they were in a coma for weeks." He looked up at the group. "If you're entering a situation that it even looks like Shroud has had a chance to prepare for, then the best advice is to abort immediately. And to pray that you spotted the trap far enough in advance that your exit route isn't already blocked." Robert stopped briefly and continued in a firmer tone of voice. "Everything else we know about him is in the files, please stop and pick up a copy of them for your weekend reading. Not that we have even the beginnings of a plan for Shroud right now, but…" Robert trailed off.

"Bastard's probably already putting a plan together for us." Flambae said grimly. "Or for the city. Or for whatever the fuck he's still here for."

"Undoubtedly." Blazer's voice broke in as she entered the room. "But Shroud's still a long range problem. For right now, I just wanted to add my voice to Robert's in congratulating the team on the excellent performance you've given for the past couple of days."

"You all came together, you all had each other's back in the clutch, and you all got the job done." Robert affirmed. "Well done, everybody."

"Z-Team, hell yeah!" Prism gave a cheerful thumbs-up.

"Not to ruin the moment, but has there been any further word on Coupe?" Punch Up broke in.

"… no." Robert conceded. "She hasn't checked in officially or reached out to any of us, and there haven't been any sightings."

"Haven't heard anything neither." Punch Up said somberly. "Well, hopefully she'll get the word over the weekend and reach out later. And even if she doesn't… at least she's still safe."

"But for right now it's Friday afternoon, the sun's getting low, and we've already had a long day. So I'm declaring an early amnesty." Blazer lifted the mood. "Those of you on weekend rotation know who you are, I'll see the rest of you next week."

The whole team got up and headed cheerfully to the door. "Hey, you guys want to come out with us for drinks, or you got your own plans?" Flambae called out to Cap and Visi, and they both momentarily froze.

"Uh, we're good!" Visi finally answered after a moment and Flambae just gave a knowing chuckle as the rest of the Z-Team headed out.

"That was… strange." Robert said to Cap and Visi as the rest of the team faded into the distance. "Talking about myself in the third person like that. I felt like I should have had a monocle and an accent." He tried to joke.

"Are you okay?" Visi asked.

"I'm just… telling myself that Shroud's still being around for round two means I've still got a chance to beat him." Robert clenched his fist, his voice taut with rage. "Assuming I can get back anything to beat him with…" Blazer placed a comforting hand on Robert's shoulder, and he relaxed.

"You've already got that." Cap assured him. "You've got us."

Robert nodded in brief acknowledgement, and Cap and Visi left him alone with Blazer as they headed out.

"You gonna be okay?" Cap asked Sonar as him and Visi stood by the side of his hospital bed.

"Eh, it only hurts when I laugh." Sonar tried to joke.

"Seriously." Cap said somberly. "Visi says you saved her life out there. Thank you. You ever need help, don't hesitate to ask."

"I think… I think I'm already starting to get it." Sonar replied after a long pause. "What I need."

"I know." Visi agreed seriously. "You spend that much time letting yourself down, then getting even one moment where you don't feel like a complete fuck-up is kinda…."

"Addictive?" Sonar grinned crookedly.

"I think she was going to say 'fulfilling'." Cap chuckled. He looked around. "I'd have thought at least some of the others would touch base before heading out." he said with mild disapproval.

"They passed through before the afternoon meeting." Sonar reassured them. "It's you two that put work first." he teased.

"Look, you get bored later on and want me to smuggle anything in here that the docs won't let you have, just text me." Visi said. "… almost anything." She trailed off embarrassedly.

"Have a nice weekend, guys." Sonar laughed gently. "I'll see you Monday."

* * * * *
​

"It's nice to finally see your face." Visi smiled as the two of them headed down the sidewalk with Cap in his civilian clothes. As Visi's 'costume' was mostly-normal streetwear and no mask, she hadn't needed to change.

"Well, we were running out of places I could go in the suit. Work… a couple diners where you were a regular… definitely not Crypto Night." Steve deflected.

"Eugh. Overpriced fancy-label booze, bitchy snob of a bartender, stuck-up clientele that looks down their nose at anyone not a 'real hero' while being largely corpo shills." Visi agreed vehemently. "That's why I waved off Flambae's offer of drinks. The gang's mostly given up on Crypto Night as well, and that means the only place the team can go drinking in costume is the, uh, villain bar."

"Probably not a good idea to walk me in there in costume." Cap agreed. "And doesn't sound like the kind of place I'd want to show my face."

"Very likely not. And so now everybody thinks we're having our own private date night when we kinda just got, uh, assumptioned into it, so if you just want to call it a…" Visi withdrew into herself. "I mean, it's not like you'd actually have to-" she began to ramble faster and faster as her expression drew up into a pensive, wistful yearning that just tore at Cap's-

"I had a dream about you the other night." Cap's blurted admission stunned both of them into silence.

"… well I better have been fuckin' awesome, then." she eventually replied with a manful attempt at bravado.

"Not that way." Cap said gently as he sat down on a nearby bus stop bench and patted it in invitation. Visi tentatively sat down an arm's length away from him. "But… kinda that way."

"Gonna need some context here, Cap." Visi looked searchingly at him.

"I told you about how I went into the ice. Well… in the dream, I hadn't. My final mission had gone fine and I was back home in New York all gussied up in my class A's. The whole unit was there celebrating the end of the war at the fanciest club in town, everything on the house, nothing too good for our boys. And I was finally going to do what I'd been waiting the whole war to come home to, go out on the town and have a dance with my best girl." Steve looked up at the early evening's stars. "And then there she was out on the floor, and I went up to her and she turned around…" He turned to look directly into Visi's wondering eyes. "And it was you."

"Oh." Visi breathed, stunned down to her shoetops.

"And so that's why I've been so out of it the past couple of days." Steve said.

"And you didn't say anything? What, I was only good enough for you in dream version?" Visi shot back, her voice hurt.

"No!" Cap protested hurriedly. "I-" He firmed his chin. "I had a million excuses, but the truth is… I was scared."

"What would you possibly have to be scared of about dating?" Visi said incredulously.

"Pushing too fast." Cap replied immediately, his voice taut. "Being too late. Missing a signal, catching a signal…" His shoulders slumped. "Everything."

"… did you leave a girl behind when you went into the wormhole?" Visi asked gently as she stared down at her own shoetops. "Was that it? I was just too soon?"

"There was only one girl. Peggy, the girl I was gonna dance with-" Cap began.

"Not to be mean, but that is such a World War II movie love interest name that I really should have expected it from you." Visi couldn't help but wisecrack.

"I think every man in the Howling Commandoes made a joke like that to her once." Cap agreed amusedly, to Visi's relief. "Howard was even brave enough to make it twice, which made him a committee of one."

"Think I'm beginning to see how you could mentally swap me in for her." Visi twitched a momentary smile.

"She was still alive when I went into the wormhole… but of course it wasn't the same." Cap said gently. "She'd gone on to have her whole life without me, after everybody originally thought I'd died. Got married, had a family, had a career… and gotten old, while I stayed frozen." He shook his head sadly. "I still went to go see her in the nursing home from time to time, but on a good day she could remember why I was there, how I'd been found alive again. On a bad day she'd think she was just seeing ghosts." He sighed. "Alzheimer's."

"How did a guy as nice as you get on God's personal shit list that hard?" Visi wondered. "But if she'd already moved ahead like that, and you'd accepted that, then it wasn't her." Her lip quivered and she blinked away tears. "Was it me?"

"No!" Cap rushed to reassure her. "I know you've got stuff in your past you're not proud of, but that was not it. I like you, not some cleaned-up dream version of you. But I knew you were already going through a lot, and I thought it was more important for you to have a friend you could trust than it was for me to have a new girlfriend."

"And did you at any point in that entire excuse for a thought process think to ask me what I might have wanted?!?" Visi said heatedly.

"Only about a million times an hour." Steve replied immediately. "But like I said, I was scared. What we already had going was still one of the nicest things I'd ever had since I got out of the ice." He sighed and looked up again. "I didn't want to ruin that."

"… yeah." Visi looked at Cap sympathetically. "I get it. Believe me, I get it." She breathed out heavily. "You want to hear about what I've been feeling from my side?"

"Only if you want to tell me." Cap said resolutely.

"Okay, you've been doing things to my head practically from the getgo, did you know?" Visi began. "Sure, that first minute you walked in the door I was only just 'Oh my God, they're sending in some shiny PR showpiece to look down his nose at all of us and he's such an asshole he literally wrapped himself in an American flag, can you believe this crap?'"

Cap surprised her by actually laughing briefly at her roast of him. "Remind me to tell you about a man called Tony Stark sometime. That is almost exactly the same reaction he had when we first met."

"But then we're busting those art thieves and you're just grinning ear to ear while we set up the prank. And then we're both laughing our asses off at the looks on their faces when they realized how they'd been played, and I'm thinking to myself Hey, this is actually kinda nice! And I'm suddenly realizing that I really need to watch myself around you or else I might make an ass out of myself. So I poke at you a little more to try and, I dunno, give you a chance to live down to expectations… and then you not only stand up for me even after I punched out our supervisor, but right out of nowhere you're saying that you want me as your first choice. Out of the entire team."

She sniffled and reached into a pocket for a tissue. "I know you'd just meant 'first choice for co-worker' and not the other thing, but still. Literally nobody had ever said a thing like that to me in my entire fuckin' life."

"In hindsight, I sorta figured." Cap encouraged her gently.

"So yeah, from that point on, wheeeeeeoooooo." She made a bomb-falling noise as she waved her hand dramatically downward. "Now I've graduated with honors from the School of Pretending Not To Give A Shit, so I don't know if you clued in-"

"Visi, if 'clued in' was the bright center to the universe then I was on the planet that it was farthest from." Cap said firmly.

"Han shot first, don't believe the corporate lies." Visi replied instantly. "But yeah. Every day after that I thought I knew what to expect, and every day I caught another curve ball. Over and over I'm expecting you to… I dunno, change your mind, let on that I was just a pity project, find a better girl, something - and instead you see me hit rock bottom, and you help me back up like I hadn't even fallen down." Her voice briefly shook with tremulous wonder. "And after that it just kept getting nicer and nicer, and closer and closer…. and I still had a million reasons in my head why it would never work. And that kept going even after I was barely recognizing myself. I mean, have you asked anybody on the team how I used to behave before you showed up?"

"Punch Up mentioned a little about how you used to be more… bitter." Cap trailed off diplomatically.

"He means I was a fuckin' bitch." Visi admitted frankly. "Nobody on the team liked being near me, and with damn good reason. But around you… it's really not surprising that everybody else seemed to clue in that something was going on between us before either of us admitted it to ourselves. Because the way I was going they had to have been thinkin' that I'd been replaced by a pod person. 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. I… I mean, they say catching feelings sometimes does weird things to your head, but is it always this deep?"

"Visi, my romantic history is a bunch of pity dates that were double dates my best buddy hooked up for me and him, and where not a single one of the dames so much as called back." Cap replied. "Peggy was the only break in that streak, and although we'd been friends for years we'd only had our first kiss the day I went into the ice. So I really wouldn't know."

"There is no alternate universe in the entirety of God's Creation weird enough that you could only pull pity dates." Visi said firmly. "You're like Blonde Blazer's even hotter twin brother!"

"Oh, right." Cap realized. "I forgot nobody here knows that the way I look now? Is not the way I looked before I got powers."

"Yeah, I get that being super-cut like you are now is a great glow-up, but that wouldn't change your bone structure. That just means you were average-looking before." Visi replied. "Average guys get second dates all the time."

"It did change my bone structure. And average is not how I'd describe… okay." Cap's jaw firmed with decision. "I need something to draw on. I want to show you."

"There's a dollar store over there." she pointed, and they got up and went inside.

"There." Cap said, handing Visi the pad he'd been furiously speed-sketching in for the past several minutes. "That's me."

Visi looked down and studied the scrawny caricature of a person that Cap had penciled. Despite the speed at which he'd worked, the likeness was remarkably detailed and textured. Visi raised an eyebrow in awe at the artistic talent she'd just seen.

"You should draw manga." she said immediately. "This is some amazing work."

"That's your review of the art. What's your opinion of the artist?" Cap asked expressionlessly.

Visi looked down at the rendition of Cap's pre-serum self, seeing the skinny, awkward limbs, the posture, the almost visible ribs peeking out from underneath the short t-shirt. Cap had drawn a picture of himself in Army PT gear and boots, from when he'd been struggling through Camp Lehigh as a recruit prior to the actual serum injection. She looked back up at Steve's face, comparing it to the face he'd drawn.

"The body's different, of course, but… it's the same face. The same eyes." She shocked Cap with her answers. "… and the same heart?" she questioned.

Cap took a deep breath. "The entire reason Dr. Erskine chose me is because he didn't want the serum to mentally change the person getting it. Just about the last thing he told me before he died was that more than anything, he wanted me to not let it get to my head. For me to stay the person I'd already been before he'd injected me."

"So that's a yes." Visi said softly. "And if that's true… then I wish I'd known this guy when I was growing up." She handed the sketch back to Cap. "I think I would have liked him."

Cap exhaled as if he'd been gut-punched, almost doubling over. "Really?" He almost begged.

"Uh, I was the skinny dorky kid with asthma too, remember?" Visi quirked a grin at him. "You really think I'd have dropped some ableist shit on you if we'd grown up next door? A guy as nice as you are?" Her expression softened into something more warm and loving. "You've really never had anyone say that to you before?"

"Finally found a landmine." Cap was able to force out eventually. "But it was a good one." He wiped away tears. "Because before you, only one girl had ever said that to me. That's why she was the only one."

"Shit, Cap, we're supposed to just be at the asking-each-other-out stage at this point and instead-" Visi tried to shake off the sheer intensity of her feelings and refocus. "Look, we are both so super emotional right now I don't think we could decide which way was up."

"Please don't use the words 'rain check', I've got a superstition." Cap tried to joke.

"But… yeah, we have gone way past 'Cap' and 'Visi' territory with this." She looked up at him and pierced Cap's heart with that same cute little smile he'd first seen at the leaderboard on cut day, the one he still saw in his dreams. "Hey there. I'm Courtney." She held out her hand.

"It's wonderful to meet you, Courtney. I'm Steve." He smiled back and took her hand between his own for a long moment, and their fingers briefly clenched.

"And despite all these feels we're having trouble sorting through right now, I think we can both agree that Steve likes Courtney… and that Courtney definitely likes Steve." she continued as they released each other's hands.

"Now if we could only figure out where the road went from there." Steve commiserated.

"Look. I get that you like to always be the star-spangled man with a plan-" Courtney began, only to stop dead at Steve's flinch. "… another landmine?"

"Embarrassing one." Steve blushed. "It's okay, it didn't hurt. Except my dignity."

"Oh, you gotta explain this one to me." Courtney asked eagerly.

"No, I don't think I will." Steve replied politely after a distinct pause.

"Spoilsport." She stuck out her tongue impishly and continued. "My point is, for all that you've been trying to corrupt me with your 'actually thinking ahead' stuff, I think the only way we're going to get through this is to wing it. Because we are way deep in the undiscovered country for both of us."

"I just don't want to screw this up." Steve said plaintively. "... but we were already screwing it up, weren't we?" he realized.

"I think we only stopped screwing it up just now." Courtney agreed. "The way each of us was waiting for the other one to make the first move - okay, look, I love romcoms, I admit it. But that's to watch. Not to live through."

"You're right." Steve nodded back. "So… well, to continue the earlier analogy, the way you get through a minefield is one step at a time. And checking in at every step to make sure you're not about to push on something too hard and trigger an explosion."

"Yeah, kinda like that. We… we hang out, we relax, we get to know each other…" Her voice caught briefly. "And if we work out, we work out. But even if we don't…" she trailed off pensively.

"I'm still with the 'wanting it to work out'." Steve admitted frankly. "But I think I get what you're saying. Even if we don't go the distance – God forbid – but even if, as long as we really did our best at it, then we can… our friendship can survive it."

"Yeah." Courtney nodded her head vigorously. "Like that. I mean… life is short. Grab that opportunity now, might not be there tomorrow."

"Okay." Steve nodded, as him and Courtney both took a moment and caught their breath, letting the recent intensity cool down to a nice warm glow. "So… what do two good friends who are slowly exploring something more go do on a Friday night?"

"They… go to the movies?" Courtney tentatively offered, and then broke out in a beaming grin at Steve's smile.

"So, 'Typecast 2'. What's it about?" Steve asked her as he came back down the aisle with an armful of snacks and took his seat next to hers. They both reached into the popcorn bucket at the same time and wordlessly grinned at each other over the brief sparks when their fingers touched.

"The first one in the series was about this struggling actress who gets this big role from a movie star that mistakes her for his childhood best friend, but it turns out he's got a secret too, and they spend like ninety minutes falling in love with the people each of them thought the other one was before finding out who they really are, and then they realize they like the real person even better." Courtney explained eagerly.

"I see what you mean about entertaining to watch but not to live through." Steve acknowledged. "Because you think that starting a relationship based on a lie would be a recipe for disaster."

"Way too often." Courtney agreed, before continuing quickly. "But the whole warm fuzzy is about anticipating the disaster but then feeling the relief when it's miraculously avoided at the last minute. That's called tension and then catharsis, and scriptwriters use it all the time to hook in the audience. You gotta love movie miracles, right?" She finished brightly.

"Well it must be working a movie miracle if it got you to come back for the sequel." Steve teased her. "Especially since I can't see how that premise even allows for one."

"Oh yeah, it's good odds that we're about to suffer through the adventures of 'Typecast 2: The Search For More Money'." Courtney laughed softly. "But hey, if this turns out to be a 'we hacked out a sloppy sequel just to chase more box office' thing then at least we'll probably have watched a comedy."

"You know, that was how a lot of the B-movies back when I was a kid made money." Steve agreed. "If you didn't have the time or the talent to be good, then at least be so wildly bad that people still paid to point and laugh."

"I guess Hollywood's Hollywood, any time and any universe." Courtney matched his grin. "Hey, did you get any snacks besides popcorn?"

"Didn't recognize the names, so I grabbed a random selection." Steve searched quickly through the several packets of candy he'd picked up. "Do you like… 'Sour Patch Kids'?"

"I fuckin' love Sour Patch Kids." Courtney gently took the packet from Steve's hand and opened it, and then handed him the first piece.

* * * * *
​

Author's Note: Shroud foreshadowing! Yay!

I had planned to drag out the misunderstanding mambo between our two crazy kids for a while… and then the characters wrote themselves and got to the confession of feels in just two chapters. This story has gone epically off from what the original draft version was, but as long as it can still continue to help write itself for me then I'm still good with it.

Oh well, at least they're still in 'let's take this one date at a time' mode instead of leaping straight to endgame. I need some kind of arc here, after all, not just a short flat line. And Courtney still hasn't come clean with all her secrets to Cap… you can probably spot the subtle moments where she pulls back, before reaching out again.

Because this is why Courtney is so much milder around Cap than she was around Robert at this same point in canon, even if she's not consciously aware of why yet. In the game there's so much edgy intensity with almost every interaction Courtney has with Robert before episode 7 because until Courtney can confess her guilt to Robert – until she can finally come clean and admit the truth – she needs her defensive walls up in order to be near him at all, and her defensive walls are made out of acid, inappropriate jokes, and cussing. Paradoxically, Visi's slightly increased pace of cussing from her recent low spike means she's relaxing more around Steve, so maybe it's more of a horseshoe than a graph. But still.

Anyway, Courtney's guilt over the almost-death of Mecha Man is obviously not a bar to her interacting with Cap… in fact, being near Cap, being in the moment with him, is her respite from that guilt. Her only temporary respite, of course, because she still has to ultimately go back to work in the morning. So it's still an obstacle in her and Cap's relationship as well… just a more subtle and longer-term one. But hey, that's why this is a story, not a snapshot.

And I really do believe Courtney would have accepted Skinny Steve, whether as a girl of the same age in the same neighborhood or the woman she is now looking back on Steve as he was then. Because she has a valid point; she'd have been in no position to judge Skinny Steve's asthma and physical limitations, she shares some of them. And she is someone who isn't looking for just a pretty face, she's looking for a nice guy who genuinely believes in her and can help her believe she can be better, which, uh, Steve Rogers.

And yes, that is four of the classic Serpent Society members from the Captain America comics. When I needed a quirky squad of villains in a hurry I decided to indulge myself with a tiny in-joke. And yes, the 'Endgame' reference is deliberate, you know me.

Finally, can somebody tell me how Sonar suddenly became episode MVP? Because even I don't know how! Dude hasn't even been bumping cocaine recently, he's getting validated and high on life!

 

[cliffc999]

Earth-MCU
Insight Day: D Minus 83

"And now Mr. Anthony Stark, a close personal friend of the deceased, will say a few words." the master of ceremonies intoned into the PA.

Tony Stark stepped up to the podium that President Ellis had just vacated, and looked out over the teeming crowd with bloodshot eyes only mostly hidden by his dark classes. A murmured command to JARVIS projected the eulogy that Pepper and several of Stark Enterprise's best PR people had helped him compose onto the heads-up display in the interior of his glasses, and Tony took a deep breath and tried to steady his shaking hands. It was a crisp late fall afternoon at Arlington National Cemetery and the empty coffin representing Captain Steven Rogers was about to be interred with all due pomp and circumstance.

"We are gathered here today to… I can't do this." Tony pulled off his glasses angrily and slammed them down on the podium. "Because the truth is, most of you are here just to get your faces on camera. Or to network with all the other Very Important People here. Or to try and bask a little in the reflected glory of someone you didn't even know and didn't remotely understand!" he ranted angrily. "… any more than I did." His voice broke.

"I hate that it took almost a month just to get to the funeral at all because we had to give enough time for all the invitations to get sent out. I hate that I look out and see a crowd that's 99% politicians and diplomats and celebrities and barely anybody who actually gave a shit about Steve Rogers as a person. I hate that I can include myself in that fucking category because after the Chitauri I didn't remotely touch base enough. I hate that I built the custom equipment that helped him go on the last mission that he died on, and I hate I just sat through words and words and words about soldiers and sacrifice and all that crap and barely anybody said a damn thing about-!" He clutched the podium almost hard enough to warp the plastic and fought back the edges of a complete hysterical breakdown. "I could do this all day. But it all boils down to that I hate that we had to have this funeral at all, because I hate that my friend is dead. And that I wish none of this had ever fucking happened." He choked and sniffled loudly, tears flooding down his cheeks. "That's it. I'm done. Go have your big 'Yay the Captain's dead' party without me."

Furiously waving away the various flunkies and Secret Service agents who tried to draw him aside, Tony grabbed his glasses and forced them furiously on his head as he walked hurriedly to the nearest building and trudged randomly through the empty halls until he found an unoccupied conference room he could just flop into a chair and collapse in.

"Tony?" Natasha's voice broke through his silent weeping after he didn't know how long. He looked up to see the grave-faced Agent Romanov, in a tasteful black mourning dress today instead of her usual agent-gear, standing in the doorway concernedly. Behind her he could see an anxious Pepper and several other people he knew.

"It's okay, guys, I'm not going to jump out the window or anything." Tony joked weakly. "Plus, I think we're on the ground floor."

"If it helps, I think Steve will appreciate your eulogy today the most out of all the ones he'd gotten." Natasha said sincerely as she took a seat adjacent to him – with an empty seat in-between him and her, he noted.

"Yeah, he could be a surprisingly sassy little shit when you got him going." Tony laughed bitterly.

"Did anyone ever tell you what the first words out of Steve's mouth were when he heard that SHIELD had overridden Fury and sent that nuke?" Clint Barton nodded to Tony. "He had his mike off, but Thor was close enough to hear him. It was impressive enough to make even a god blush."

"Wish I'd have known that before I gave the speech." Tony tried to joke. "I'd have read it right off the cue card."

"There is still time to return and do so, or have me act in your stead." Thor said with rough humor, dressed incongruously in a formal suit instead of his usual Asgardian regalia. "On Asgard…" He began more soberly. "The fallen are mourned with seven days of sorrow. We weep. We acknowledge our grief, our pain… we feel the empty place where they whom we loved once stood. But on the eighth day we feast, and laugh, and celebrate… not at their being gone, but at the privilege of having known them. To have been fortunate enough to share their battles and then live long enough to be able to sing of their deeds – aye, and their jests, and their foibles – after they have departed."

"That's a great thought, man, but I think I'm gonna need way longer than seven days." Tony sighed, before something occurred to him. "Loki. He… during that mess with the dark elves earlier this summer. And sure, nobody else in this room liked him at all, but he was still your brother. Did it stop hurting for you? After seven days?"

"No." Thor admitted frankly.

"Hey Pep." Tony looked up her as Pepper drew near and sat in the empty seat adjacent to him. She laid a hand on Tony's arm for silent reassurance, listening but not pressing. "I'm just gonna apologize in advance for the completely terrible person I'm going to be for the next few days. Weeks. Whichever."

"You won't be the only one. I'm already on a week's suspension for what happened in the last unarmed combat class I taught." Natasha admitted in a rare display of emotion.

"I'd have broken his arm, not just dislocated it." Clint said vehemently. "Some of the younger agents just don't have any proper respect."

Tony looked at Natasha searchingly. "Tasha, were you and the Cap…" He stopped and visibly reframed his words. "I know you were partners and friends. Was there… anything else?"

"No." Natasha said kindly. "Which I think made me about the only single woman in the Triskelion who thought that way, but he was more like...?" She shrugged. "I encouraged him to at least think about taking one of those ladies' offers, but he wouldn't even look."

"I don't know whether to be sad that means Steve never found anyone again, or happy that it means at least you aren't going through a double-wide ration of this grief shit right now." Tony said roughly. "But now that we're on the topic did you guys ever think that maybe working full-time in the agency that was founded by his time-lost love might have gotten a little in the way of him ever getting past her?" Tony said archly. "SHIELD may have been where the world needed Steve to be, but I was really starting to wonder if it was where he needed to be." He looked down guiltily. "Wish I'd gotten around to actually telling him that."

"Yeah. We saved the world, then we drifted apart." Clint said. "It's like we only see each other at alien invasions and funerals. We couldn't even find Banner to get in touch with him."

"Perhaps that was a kindness. It's not like he could have come here even if we had found him." Natasha said softly.

"Pepper, remind me to revisit that question again sometime later in a few months when I can requalify as an intelligent life form." Tony said. "Because for the next while I'm going to be lucky to get as high up as proto-hominid."

"If we can use Steve's death to help motivate us to do more, then I think that would be the best tribute we could make to his life. That's a wonderful thought, Tony." Pepper agreed as she pulled out her StarkPhone and smartly tapped the touchscreen several times.

"Excuse me." A young blonde woman said from the open doorway. "Is everyone all right?"

"Fuck off, Agent, we're having a family moment here." Tony snarled at her. "Who even let you into this funeral?"

"Tony." Natasha gave him a firm look. "Sharon is Peggy's niece. She was here today for her family."

"Shit." Tony facepalmed. "Sorry, kid."

"I entirely understand, Mr. Stark." Sharon Carter replied compassionately. "I've barely been able to avoid having hysterics myself, and I hadn't even met Captain Rogers yet." Her expression fell. "They were still arguing about the exact logistics of how it would work, but I'd just gotten promoted to be the head of his new… support detail. We were already scheduled to have been introduced just a week after-" She trailed off despondently. "I don't know what I'm going to say to Aunt Peggy after the ceremony today. I'm not even sure she understands that he died again."

"… I need alcohol." Tony said into the gloom. "Anybody who wants to, come on back to the suite with me and let's all give room service a nervous breakdown with how many orders they'll have to fill. I think this occasion desperately needs a good, old-fashioned Irish wake."

"I'll have to take a rain check." Sharon replied seriously. "But I'll tell Director Fury that you're just heading back to your hotel to rest and that he doesn't need to… follow up."

"Tell Fury that unless it's literally the end of the world, if he calls me before I call him first then I will deliver my answer at muzzle velocity." Tony said. "Let him sit and stew over whether I'm being sarcastic or not, because even I don't know right now."

"I will." Sharon nodded sympathetically and departed.

"Tony." Pepper drew him into a hug. "We'll never stop missing him, but at least… at least his war is over now. Take what comfort from that you can."

"Day is done. Gone the sun. From the lake, from the hill, from the sky. Rest in peace, at duty's end. God is nigh." Clint sang his preferred version of 'Taps' softly as the distant *crack* of the 21-gun salute echoed across the grounds.

* * * * *
​

Earth-Dispatch
Arrival: D Plus 23

"Cap, why did I find a box of nicotine patches on top of my locker last night?" Visi asked him firmly, sticking to their 'no real names at work' agreement.

"Because I wasn't able to open your locker to put them inside." Cap replied immediately.

"Smartass." She crossed her arms at him and faux-glowered. 'Didn't we agree we'd actually talk to each other?"

"And look, now we're talking." Cap grinned at her.

Visi pouted at him. "If this is what you're like when you're more relaxed, maybe I should find a stick to shove up there again." She quirked a grin to take the edge off her words.

"Really, Visi." Cap entreated her. "You already know what smoking does to your lungs, and what's already wrong with them, so rather than repeat the broken record the only thing I could think of was to politely offer an alternative."

"I've been cutting back recently." she deflected.

"Okay." Cap said, holding up his hands. "Landmine. Got it."

"… thanks for caring." Visi acknowledged. "And for not pushing." She put the box of patches in her jacket pocket and he acknowledged the gesture with a nod and a brief hug. They'd only just separated in time when the door suddenly opened behind them.

"Morning guys." Robert greeted them as he entered the lobby. "Oh, Cap, that reminds me. The 'no joint patrols' restriction is off. You haven't had a single slip on the emergency calls you have done together, and two weeks is long enough to make the point."

"Thank you." Cap acknowledged.

"That having been said, you're staying in for at least part of today." Robert said. "The new training schedule is starting to strain at the edges what with the extra classes we're running, so we need you to teach more than we need you out on the street. We'll try and find another hero from the branch office's other team to swap into your slot, but we have more people qualified to patrol than we have who are instructor-qualified in multiple disciplines. Come see me after morning roll call to help work out your new schedule."

"Understood." Cap said, and they both headed in.

Later that day Visi finished filling her lunch tray and walked over to the nearest empty cafeteria table with just a tiny little bounce in her step, while softly humming the theme song to one of her favorite cartoons under her breath. She knew she was making an idiot of herself acting this way, but a lot of the time she felt like she just couldn't stop. While Steve and her had only gone on three actual date dates in between the movie theatre and now, now that they'd finally stopped their idiot 'you go first' dance there was no barrier between them just hanging out whenever. And even though things somehow hadn't gone beyond holding hands and kisses on the cheek yet, the shiny honeymoon glow had yet to fade.

Visi smiled slightly at the memories of how much fun she'd playing tour guide for him through several of the tourist attractions in downtown LA the day after the movie theatre. Then Steve had spent the next Saturday showing her this awesome little flea market he'd somehow found tucked away into a corner of Torrance she'd never visited – she'd even managed to pick up a couple things for her place there, and wasn't that just a weird new thing, her actually having things. And just last night they'd ended up almost randomly picking a Dave & Buster's to go to, of all places, and she'd been surprised and delighted to find out that her new boyfriend could hustle pool as well as she could. Together they'd teamed up to clean out some overconfident frat boys who'd thought that beating Steve at the game would impress her or something, and she was still wondering what to buy with her half of the takings as a suitable trophy for the achievement.

She reached her table and sat down and picked up her fork, only to immediately drop it and look up as a looming shadow cut off the light. Another person coming up behind her on her other side made her put both hands on the table and start to push off and leap to her feet-

"Whoa there!" Malevola's deeply resonant voice broke into her reaction, and she relaxed. "Chill, Vis, it's just us."

"Sorry, didn't expect you to be so nervous." Prism said soothingly as her and Malevola took seats on either side of Visi. "I mean, it's been new Visi for the new season for the past couple of weeks, and new Visi's been all smiles."

"What's going on?" Visi asked them, dialing back her wariness… mostly.

"Girl talk, of course!" Malevola grinned. "Like Prism just said, somebody's been in a little mood recently… or more accurately, she's not been in one."

"Did it occur to you that if I wanted you guys to have all the deets, I'd have already told you?" Visi replied wearily.

"Of course it did." Malevola chuckled. "But we're asking anyway."

"Seriously, it's nice that you finally got some and chilled out-" Prism began.

"He didn't fuck me into a better mood, jeez." Visi glared at her. "You know damn well that's a stupid fuckin' cliché. How many hook-ups have you had that didn't emotionally mean shit? Either of you?"

"About as many as you haven't." Malevola said, her voice serious for once. "Which is another thing I wanted to ask you about. You know I'm Sonar's Nar-Anon sponsor, right?"

"The only addiction I've got is smokes, and even that-" Visi waved her hand away. "Why bring it up?"

"To remind you that I actually know a tiny bit about counseling, and…" Malevola's demonic voice usually carried subliminal horror movie overtones even when she was trying to be casual, but with a deliberate effort Visi heard her dial it down to sound more human than she'd ever heard the demon – or half-demon, it still wasn't entirely clear – woman sound. "You spent months acting a certain way. A certain really angry, twitchy, and defensive way. Then you did an almost immediate turnaround right after you met someone new, like you were never that person at all."

"People don't switch up that fast normally. So either somethin's wrong now or somethin' was wrong then." Prism said sagely.

"Fuck off." Visi spat. "He's-"

"Visi." Malevola firmly drove over the outburst. "Nobody was saying that he was the problem, we're not idiots. What we were saying is… actually, what we were asking is, did something bad happen to you? Before you came here?"

"The hell kind of stupid question is that? I was a fuckin' villain, you know that. That whole lifestyle is made out of suck and ass." Visi glared back.

"Actually, no, we don't know that. My lifestyle when I was crimein' was actually pretty sweet." Prism admitted matter-of-frankly. "And this new gig? It's… not bad sometimes, but it ain't like I broke down the door to get into here."

"Not me, either." Malevola nodded. "But you did. And in hindsight, I'm wondering if you came looking for something or looking to get away from something. Add in your defensive reactions, and how you used to react to even the possibility of emotional intimacy like vampires react to crosses, and- okay, there's several possible explanations for how you were acting before, and one of them is assault survivor." she continued as softly as she could.

"Of course I've survived assaults, we only get punched in the face almost every day out there- oh." Visi trailed off as realization sank in. "That kind of assault. No guys, that's what not happened. Not even adjacent to that." She exhaled and relaxed. "You really thought that?" she wondered gently.

"Ain't like it ain't happened all too often in this fuckin' town, whether up in Hollywood or all the way down here." Prism nodded. "But if it didn't happen to you then praise the baby Jesus."

"Honestly, why would you even care?" Visi questioned. "We've been teammates for months already, and you didn't give a shit all through then."

"No we didn't." Malevola nodded back. "And you didn't give a shit about us, either. Nobody here was giving a shit about anyone. But things have been different recently."

"New dispatcher, new schedulin', new vibes…" Prism nodded. "It's like Flambae said your new boy said to him that one time. Maybe givin' a tiny bit of a shit about each other and not just ourselves is how we can lighten things up around here a little."

"I'm fine, guys. Really." Visi reassured them.

"Now? Sure, mostly." Malevola nodded. "My point is, you didn't use to be. And you don't need to talk to us about whatever happened to you before. Like you said, we only just started trying to give a shit so why rush to confide in us? But have you talked with him about it, is what I'm asking."

"… and, that silence is a big loud 'Nope'." Prism looked at Visi.

Visi flickered into invisibility for a moment, before reappearing on her chair. She took a deliberate, deep breath and uncurled from her defensive flinch. "I'll think about what you just said, okay? Now can we get off it?"

"Okay." Malevola said. "And now that the serious stuff is done with, we can finally ask the fun questions." She grinned like the fiend from hell that she was. "You've been going around practically glowing for over a week. Is he really that good in the sack?"

Visi's blush was practically atomic. "We haven't- we're taking it slow, okay?"

"But you are takin' it, right?" Prism said. "You're not still in that stupid holding pattern we were all tryin' not to bust a gut laughin' at?"

"No." Visi gave her a genuine smile. "Yeah, we were being dorks, but we finally had the talk."

"When?" Malevola asked eagerly. "Sorry, but… no, seriously, when? Exactly?"

"… you had a bet going, didn't you." Visi gave Malevola the stink-eye.

"Yeah, and now we're hangin' on your every word. When did you admit it?" Prism begged. "And who admitted it first?"

"… the same day those snake idiots went down, Friday before last." Visi reluctantly admitted. "And, him."

"Whoooooo!" Sonar yelled eagerly from where the guys had been sitting several tables away as he wildly raised his arms in the air. "Yeah baby! That's what I'm talkin' about! And the winner is Flambae, at less than one week and with the first move coming from Cap's side!"

"Hah!" Flambae said arrogantly from where he'd brought his own brown-bag to eat with the others. "I told you! Never bet against the Captain!"

"What's the shouting about?" Blazer asked curiously as she stuck her head in the cafeteria door.

"That was the sound of victory." Flambae posed hammily as he was greeted by a chorus of boos and one furious blush. "A certain pair of people finally acknowledged their feelings for each other, and yours truly won the wager for calling when."

"Oh, really?" Blazer gave a beaming smile to a Visi who by this point was almost starting to flicker into invisibility again. "That's wonderful, Visi! I hope you're very happy together."

"Thanks." Visi managed to stammer out as she tried to relax. "Now can we get some normal back in here before S- Cap gets out of class and makes it down here?"

"Absolutely." Blazer acknowledged. "Don't make it weird for them, guys, please."

"Would never dream of it, boss lady." Punch Up nodded, and everybody returned to their lunch.

Blazer left the lunchroom and then a distant call of 'Robert? I need to see you in my office!' sounded out.

"I hope that doesn't mean more work for us." Sonar shrugged, and everybody returned to their lunch.

"I fuckin' hate you." Visi mock-glared at her female teammates, and they both let her furious glare slide off of them as if from a force field as they got up and found their own seats.

Fortunately, the normal mood had managed to restore itself before Steve made it in and the rest of the day passed without incident, except for a mild round of catcalling when she greeted him with an unashamedly enthusiastic hug right in full view of the entire cafeteria.

Although at their end of shift Visi did wonder why she saw Blazer standing next to Robert's cubicle, just standing there and eating from a box of donuts while looking down at him with an uncharacteristically smug smile on her face.

* * * * *
​

Earth-Dispatch
Arrival: D Plus 24

"Okay, folks, this one's all hands on deck." Robert said grimly into their headphones. "We've got an entire oil refinery on fire. This is a whole-team evolution, so… shit, I can't coordinate that many people from one panel."

"You can't do it at all, this is going to be moment-to-moment shit under highly chaotic conditions and that needs a squad leader on the ground.." Visi said into her microphone.

"Yes, and I was getting to that." Robert said impatiently. "Stand by at the scene and-"

"Look, everybody in this conversation knows who we need here!" Visi shouted back into the open teamchat. "So get him the hell out of the classroom and send him over here!"

"That won't be necessary-" Robert began, only for another voice on net to interrupt.

"Visi's right, Robert." Blonde Blazer said. "I'm already suiting up to head out to the scene myself, but Captain America has more experience coordinating disaster-response than I do. Everybody hold at the scene for command units to arrive, our ETA is three minutes."

The entire Z-Team was already drawn up at the Torrance FD command post set up outside the blazing refinery when Blonde Blazer soared down out of the sky, Captain America being held up alongside her in one arm.

Cap immediately did a headcount of the waiting Z-Team, then looked over the assembled firefighting units and counted vehicles and men. Multiple teams already had hoses going on perimeter control, but no one was able to approach the perimeter.

"Flambae, you're the only one besides Blazer who can just ignore that heat and smoke and still fly, and I've got another tasking in mind for her. Get in there right now and start a search pattern to pull out survivors. When we have more location data I'll retask you, for right now minutes count."

"On it!" Flambae nodded.

"Malevola, there'll be people not immediately in the flame but who are cut off from the exits. That's you and your teleportals. Get a facility map from next to one of the fire escape doors, then start searching likely places that people will have run to – break rooms, basements, traffic chokepoints away from the flames. Don't get close to any of the primary fire zones."

"On my way." She nodded, and a glowing red tear in space opened up and she stepped into it.

"Refinery foreman?" Cap called out, and one of the smoke and grime-covered men there answered. "If you haven't already head counted your people, do so. I need the names of the people you can't account for, and then I need you to call your head office and all get their mobile phone #'s from the records."

"Mobile phones?" the foreman asked puzzledly, only for Cap to ignore him and talk into his headset.

"Robert? As soon as the foreman here gets you that list of phone #'s, set up a tracking algorithm off the local cell towers and start triangulating those phones. That will hopefully help guide us to them in all this mess."

"And if the phone isn't there to ping any longer?" Robert asked archly.

"Then we'll know that the person carrying it is probably already dead and focus first priority on the ones likely still alive." Cap said immediately. "Fire chief? How much foam concentrate do you have? In gallons. And in what ratio does it mix with water?"

"I've got… maybe five hundred gallons here, I can get more from the station if I call for it. And the ratio is one part in one hundred."

"Ma'am?" he turned to Blonde Blazer. "I'll need you to go and get one of those large metal dumpsters, the kind they use at construction sites for hauling away wrecked building parts. That's going to be our bucket brigade. We dump gallons of foam concentrate in it, then fill it with the hoses, then you dump the whole thing right on top of where the fire's the hottest, and repeat step one. We don't have a firefighting plane right now, so we'll improvise one."

"Good thinking, Captain. I'm on it." Blazer nodded and flew off.

"Fire chief?" Cap said. "He is superstrong and very tough to damage," he pointed at Punch Up, "He is made out of living clay-" Cap spent about thirty seconds summarizing the powers and abilities of most of the Z-Team. "You know the most about the actual mechanics of firefighting of anybody here – figure out how those powers could best be used to supplement the abilities of your people to solve the problems we're facing, and get me a short list in a few minutes."

"How did the fire start?" Cap turned to the foreman.

"We don't know. Everything was fine one moment, the next thing we had catastrophic alarms in multiple places. Pressure spikes, valve failures… everything." The foreman said.

"Weren't there safety systems? Failsafes?" Cap asked.

"None of them worked." The foreman shrugged.

"Shit!" Visi swore. "That's sabotage."

"Chase, this is Cap." He said into his microphone. "Preliminary indicators are that this refinery fire was deliberately set. We may be being distracted from something. Have all other heroes stay loose for possible 911 calls out in town and keep a very close eye on the camera grid."

"We're on it." Chase said.

"Visi, Sonar." He said. "The distraction might be from something else going down here. Sonar, use your ears. Visi, sneak around. Stay where you can support each other, but if there is something or someone hidden around here, I want you to find it. Also, Visi? Oxygen mask."

"You know I hate those things-" she protested.

"This air is full of smoke, petrochemical fumes, and dissolved plastic solvents, and the longer that fire goes on the worse it will get. I can already see you starting to cough a little, and by the time we're done here there's going to be an air quality alert across most of the town. So either you get your head in a pressurized oxygen environment or I will bench you and send you to go sit in the SDN medical clinic until tomorrow morning." Cap said firmly.

"Yes sir." Visi growled frustratedly, before melting helplessly at the naked apology in Cap's eyes. "Give me one of those damn air tanks." She snapped at the nearest firefighter.

Flambae whooshed overhead, carrying a badly burnt man to where the paramedics were waiting at the casualty collection pint, then swooped back into the flames searching for more.

"Got it!" Blazer called out, as she arrived back carrying an extremely large metal bin on her shoulders. "You can start filling it now!" she called to the firemen, and several hose teams set up and got to work while another firefighter climbed up to the rim and dumped in an entire 5-gallon container of foam concentrate, then reached down for another.

"All right." The fire chief came up with the foreman. "The real problem is these three valves are stuck open. Someone has to turn the manual shutoffs to cut off the fuel supply to those burns. After we do that, we can start putting out the fires we already have."

"Worse yet, because we've completely lost the automated pressure interlocks, all three have to be shut down almost simultaneously. Otherwise we build up too much pressure in one of the loops and tear the whole thing open, and then we get an entirely uncontrolled dump of the gasoline tanks right on the fire." The foreman pointed out.

"Flambae, muster up, we have another tasking." Cap said. "Golem, this valve's closest, you take it and stand by. Blazer, you take valve number two, Flambae takes valve number three. Take your positions, wait for the call."

"Uh, h-hello?" a new voice broke out. "I, uh, f-figured that if there was a fire, then, I maybe could…?" Cap turned to see a very awkward-looking young man, the first person he'd ever seen to be as physically unimpressive as his pre-serum self even if they were taller. And one who seemed to also incongruously be soaking wet from head to toe, even though they were outdoors on a dry day near a refinery fire.

"Waterboy?" Blazer greeted him puzzledly. "I thought you were on vacation, or else I'd have called you."

"I, uh, I was, but I was still in the area? So I, suited, I mean, I reported in?" he stammered.

"Welcome aboard, son." Cap greeted him reassuringly. "I'm gathering from your chosen name that you can control water?"

"I, uh, I make it." He said. "And control it. And-" he ground to a halt.

"This is a class B fire – gasoline, flammable fluids – so you can't pour water on it directly or else you'll spread the burning fluid. But you can help Blazer fill the tanks we're filling faster, so we can make more foam to dump on the fire." Cap explained reassuringly.

"Oh he can fill them much faster than the hose teams can." Blazer agreed. "Wait here, Waterboy. As soon as I finish helping turn some valves, I'll show you where you can help."

"Uh, t-thank you M-Miss Blazer…" he choked out.

"Right." Cap nodded. "And as soon as we shut those valves and stop dumping more accelerant on the blaze, we can move to dumping the aerial foam loads on the the largest already existing fires, extracting survivors, and clearing away wreckage to open up routes for the fire department team to enter behind us…"

* * * * *
​

"Describe their actions again." Toxic marveled yet again at how the toneless mechanical voice produced by the voice distorter in Shroud's mask could still somehow convey a subtlety of emotion even when he virtually never shifted its pitch, raised its volume, or varied from his metronome-like cadence.

And right now the boss was conveying that he was just a weeeee bit frustrated, so Toxic dialed back his usual attitude to answer the question literally.

"They all came straggling in there as they usually do, depending on where else they were, but instead of charging in by ones and twos like they usually do they just form up and wait. A couple minutes after the last one gets there Blonde Blazer herself comes swooping down carrying that new guy, the flag-man-"

"Captain America?" Shroud asked.

"Yeah, him." Toxic affirmed.

"I dislike imprecise references when I am trying to gather precise data." Shroud glowered. "Continue."

"Anyway, guy just takes one look around blink-blink-blink, and then with zero pause he starts shot-calling. You go here, you go there, you do this, you do that. And nobody argues with a single word he says, they just bounce. Even Blazer was obeying orders, and she's supposed to be that guy's boss! That part I really didn't get."

"The answer is self-evident. He had specialized knowledge applicable to the problem that she did not, and she is not egotistical enough to be above delegating authority in a crisis. Continue."

"So anyway they pile on in there with a plan, and at this point you can get all the exact who-what-when-where from the film I was taking so I'll just talk about my subjective impressions. Which is that SDN's little fuck-up squad is not fucking up so much anymore. It isn't just that they had a guy there who could come up with an awesome plan right off the back of his hand, it's that they followed the plan. That would have been still a big change even if their planner had been an idiot." Toxic finished.

Shroud took the mobile phone that Toxic held out to him, the one that he'd used to film as much of the action as he could while he'd stood with the crowd in his civilian clothes pretending to be just another rubbernecker, and used its Bluetooth to upload the video into his own implants. He then sat there and thought, analyzing the video as the lights of his cybernetics glowed slightly more brightly. Toxic stood and waited for the boss to finish thinking.

"There are several heroes not visible in your footage. Were they simply engaged elsewhere, or were they not helping fight the fire at all?" Shroud finally asked.

"A couple of them were just out of angle but yeah, the bat guy – Sonar – and our little Invisigal weren't near the fire at all. It's no mystery why she was held back, what with her lungs, but… ehh, I suppose he was mostly useless as well. As is, all they did was meander around the grounds trying to look busy." Toxic shrugged.

"No." Shroud continued after a momentary pause. "They were searching for you. Our good Captain was intelligent enough not only to hypothesize that the fire was deliberately set, but to dedicate his two best scouts to securing his perimeter against the possibility the fire was a lure to an ambush. Fortunately, even Invisigal has never seen you out of costume."

"Well, we were lurin' em out, weren't we? But not to ambush." Toxic agreed.

"Yes, we were." Shroud rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "But our evaluation run of our enemies has turned up a very disturbing anomaly."

"The Captain." Toxic nodded. "Well, he's no pushover in a fight but he ain't no Blonde Blazer either. Want me to round up a crew and go kick in his door? Or you got a plan to bait him out into another trap run? Because if we could take Mecha Man, we can take him."

"No." Shroud said. "Unless you believe that ridiculous child's fable that SDN put in its press releases, Captain America was clearly dispatched here. Until we know who was willing to augment SDN with an elite military special operative and why they were willing to do so, we do not know if assassinating him will solve our problem or expand our problem."

"… you're right, I wasn't thinking. What if we kill him and then his CO gets pissed and just starts sending more guys? Or shit, fucking drone strikes?" Toxic agreed.

"Correct." Shroud agreed. "The Captain is a very irritating anomaly in my data. Until we know more about him, my strategies will be incomplete."

"So what's our next move, boss?" Toxic asked.

"To remind Invisigal of precisely how much she owes us." Shroud answered after a thoughtful pause.

* * * * *
​

Author's Note: My middle arc is still rewriting itself in my brain even as I try to get it down (for example, I hadn't originally planned on Shroud showing this early), so I still don't guarantee a 1/day chapter pace for the next few chapters. Still, at least chapter 8 finally started flowing together once I had the brainstorm to open it with Cap's funeral.

I hadn't even planned on showing Cap's funeral when I started out doing this fic, but I got to this chapter and realized that it was a necessary emotional beat. And I literally teared up at several points writing that sequence. You could just tell how Steve's loss was savaging all of them, even if some Avengers were more stoic or philosophical than others.

And yes, Sharon gets a cameo. The poor girl really loses out in this timeline, so the least I can do is toss her a kindness. I was very much rooting for MCU Sharon Carter when she first came in, and then after TWS gave her such a nice setup they just seemed to change their mind. She only got a few minutes in Civil War and then she just ceased to exist after that, until the TV series brought her back to be utterly run through the mangler. God, that pissed me off. *sighs* At least in my fic I can allow her to pay her respects and be given a moment, even if I just wrote her entirely losing out the Captain America romance race.

The refinery fire is just a random call in episode 5 that's no worse than any other call. I decided that no, it was serious business. And yes, in my version Shroud set a refinery on fire just to get more data on how much the Z-Team was improving, as it was becoming apparent around town that something was getting them to not fuck up as often. Shroud is a fucking asshole.

And yes, Shroud is adding two plus zero to get four. That is a classic weakness of Thinkers when the actual solution to the puzzle is far less logical than the obvious solution to the puzzle.

 

[Lillie Jones]

thanks for the chapters