The Coyote Boss was a timeless-aged Afrospanic woman, with dark skin, really bushy hair going gray, and a devil-may-care smile that was saying this was the most fun night she’d had in a while. She and Master Logan seemed to be old friends, the way they were talking.

Logan was indeed shorter than average height, but built fullback-solid and with the absolute physical control and economical movement of a master martial artist, his lineage kinda murky fuzzballish. I couldn’t see his full array of Tats, especially since the Soul ones weren’t lit up, but they peeked out of the edges of his ornate robe here and there. He held no airs, however, and was as relaxed and casual as anyone else there.

There was no talk of politics, of war, or of religion. It was past meetings, new observations, food and other countries, lines of drinks, some stories of old fights.

The phone on the table rang.

All cards went down calmly, and the conversations left off as Mr. Hill picked it up and thumbed the button. “This is Hill,” he rumbled.

“Hill.” The voice at the other end sounded strained. “I understand you have some of my men.”

“Luggovian.” I didn’t know the name, but I assumed it was someone up high in the Capricorn branch of Zodiac. “What I have is seven hundred thousand dollars of someone else’s disposable assets, and consideration for five hundred thousand dollars of other assets somewhere else that weren’t put down like dogs.

“In addition, I have a little girl taken by those assets so they could lean on one of my people. Little girls are expensive.” That word just seemed to echo all by itself.

“Now what is going to happen is those assets are going to vanish forever, unless someone else wants to buy them back from me. If they have to vanish, then I’m going ta be wroth, and I will collect my money from Capricorn’s teeth, starting tomorrow morning after I’ve worked my temper ta a nice and unreasonable high.

“Do you understand what I am saying here, Luggovian?” His voice was as level and cold as stone.

I could almost hear the teeth gritting on the other side. “I do, Hill.”

“Are you buying, or am I collecting?” Mr. Hill stated, with absolutely no damn difference for either choice in his voice.

“I’m buying. Where would you like the money sent?”

“Deliver a cashier’s check to the door of Grimm Materials at 9 AM sharp in the morning. SHIELD will take away your assets, but all of them will be alive, and I’m sure they’ll be grateful to you for buying them back.”

The hiss from the other end was not happy, but this was the best ending he could hope for. The time his men would do with a good lawyer wouldn’t be long, it was true.

“A pleasure doing business.” Mr. Hill could have been talking about which tombstone to buy as he hung up.

“Nice,” Master Logan growled around his cigar. Peggy picked up her own phone, hit a button, and said a few words into it.

If there’d been no buy, the heads jutting up out of the ground likely wouldn’t be there anymore. I eyed Marko, a line of sand reaching out under the forward garage door from his missing shoes and feet, and said no more as I heard the first engines pull into the lot. Tires crunched on gravel, and men got out of the vehicles, shouting and calling as the Zodiac shooters outside were dragged unceremoniously out of the ground, to be hauled away in the wagons there.

Zodiac fell under the international espionage cartels, and if called in first, SHIELD had jurisdiction regarding them. They might not get a lot of information out of the men, but they’d get something. Mr. Hill had probably made sure they’d buy back his goodwill that way.

“What were they after, Mr. Hill?” I asked as everyone chatted softly, listening to the cars outside being loaded, voices calling, doors slamming, and one after another, the wagons drove away.

“Everything they could get their mitts on. Processed volturium, for sure, and they were ready to pull up the machines with that rig they backed up to the rear doors. And someone told ‘em the eggheads were going into space, and might have some sweet tech laying around.”

It was my turn to take a deep breath. “Ah, that sunuvabitch.” Mr. Hill just gave me a look. “It’s late, but I need to find out where the bloody Trapster is.”

“Petruski?” Hill glowered, and looked over at Marko tellingly. The Sandman flinched and grimaced once, biting down on his own flare of rage and getting it back under control after a moment.

“Yeah, gimme one minute.” The Sandman got up and walked away after digging out his own phone for a call.

True to form, he was back in a minute. “He’s at one of our old places, down by the docks. I can give you the address.”

Sandman had worked with the Vizard and Trapster for a long time, the trio the heart of what had been the Frightful Four, one of the FF’s more colorful and frequent opponents. Now that he’d gone straight, he wasn’t involved in their shenanigans anymore, but Petruski was a nutcase who loved his criminal life, and was already independently wealthy from his chemical patents and inventions. He did it because he enjoyed being a supervillain and mercenary.

“You all enjoy your game. Have a good night, Peggy.”

Director Carter watched me go as Flint Marko sat back down, but turned back to the game resolutely.

It wasn’t like I couldn’t handle Paste Pot Pete...

---------

“Petruski.”

His hand paused as he was about to unlock the door to the lair. Very slowly and carefully, he turned around to look at me.

His hand started to move.

“I told you the last time that if you spray your goddamn adhesive on me again, I’m going to take your sprayer, ram it down your throat, and hold it down for three seconds. Results left to the imagination of the product’s inventor.” My eyes were narrowed as I glared at him. “You gonna test my speed, Petruski?”

He very carefully spread his hands wide, and adopted a false smile. “Dynamo. Funny seeing you here. Did that sell-out send you here?” he asked, looking around shiftily.

“You sent some people to visit his place, he couldn’t send someone to visit yours?” I asked him, and his eyes flickered. “You’re lucky he sent me, and not the Fixer. Ebersol likes to have these conversations with the other party complaining about the holes in their legs. It speeds up the conversation a bit.”

His cheek twitched. If the Fixer had time to prepare for him, he was a dead man. Norbert Ebersol had a dangerous, vindictive, and rather sadistic reputation.

“Your real problem, of course, is Mr. Hill.” I watched him tense. “Yeah, he knows. And you know, Mr. Hill is really, really serious about money. And you... just sent over a bunch of people to rob him.”

I let the silence drag out. Mr. Hill’s reputation spoke for itself. Beads of sweat started breaking out on this idiot’s forehead. He’d seen them vids of Mr. Hill fighting. Piston Punches faster than the eye could see were not something little strands of adhesive, however strong, were going to stop. The shockwave alone could kill a normal human. He wouldn’t even see the punch!

Mr. Hill was not the Fantastic Four. He was not a foolish superheroic type.

“What... what do you want?” Petruski asked, rather shakily.

“Well, there’s three ways this can turn out,” I told him coolly. “First of all, I can walk away right now, and leave this all to Mr. Hill. He’ll figure out a number. It may be a number you can’t pay. If you can’t pay it, Mr. Hill will still find some way to make you pay. It would probably be better for you to borrow it from some really bad people than for you to have Mr. Hill make you pay.”

And that was pretty true. Mr. Hill’s compensation tended to be of the permanently-suffering kind, or the ten-thousand-feet-under kind. You did NOT rob him.

“Two, I can wait for Jenkins and Ebersol to come in later on this morning, and let them know that after they gave you some business, you sold them out and tried to rob them and their business and tech. I’m pretty sure about the agreed-upon protocol between supervillains for that kind of behavior, especially the smart and vicious ones, but I’ll leave you guessing as to what happens to you. Ebersol is supposed to be especially good at it, I’ve heard.”

The Trapster’s face twisted in a grimace. Yeah, he was a fricking artiste in his own specialty. It wouldn’t matter if he went up against the Fixer.

I let the silence drag on until he finally asked, “What’s the third choice?”

“You can come with me and buy back your skin.”

He stared at me for a long moment. For a second, he glanced back at the door, and the Vizard who was probably within.

If Wittman tried to make trouble with me, well, he didn’t remember the last time we’d met, either. It was like these people didn’t think the Richards had friends or other people working in the Baxter Building, or something.

Actually, if Petruski tried to sound an alarm, I was going to make him dance and haul him back to face some extremely unwelcome music regardless.

“I’m coming,” he muttered in defeat, and came down the steps.

-------

Ebersol and Jenkins saw Petruski working away on one of the side computers when they woke up. He rather stiffly didn’t look at them, and by the expression on my face they knew better than to argue, or ask why I was still there.

They cleaned themselves up in the showers, and started their final calibrations after a quick breakfast and coffee. When Petruski finally sat back from the computer, and I nodded shortly, he got up and walked out hastily, not meeting their eyes.

Coincidentally (not), Mr. Hill was coming into the lab from outside, just arriving, and they met at the door.

Mr. Hill looked down at him, stony eyes as cold as the grave. Petruski went white as a sheet, and got out of his way hurriedly.

“Nichols. Walk the thief out.”

The shift manager, already fully briefed on what had happened last night, just stared at the Trapster, then led him out of the building.

Ebersol and Jenkins looked after him, all sorts of questions on their faces. Mr. Hill answered the unspoken questions.

“Petruski thought he’d get in a dig at Marko, and sold your purchases and intentions to Zodiac. They hit us last night, and kidnapped Joey’s daughter to get him to open the place. The girl was here watching over your stuff and working, and the matter was resolved.”

The expression of both men changed, looking back and forth between us.

“Resolved,” Mr. Hill repeated pointedly, and both of them nodded. “But don’t you forget it. Capricorn branch, if it means anything.”

“Never done business with them... but I have with Sagittarius and Virgo, neither of whom get along with them,” Ebersol muttered, turning around to go into his office to make a call. Mr. Hill didn’t say anything as a whole lot of swearing soon erupted out from behind the door.

Jenkins tapped the calibrator in his hand thoughtfully. He didn’t have the kind of contacts the Fixer did. “What was Petruski doing for you?” he asked me neutrally.

“Formulas and processes for everything I could remember him using. Some really sweet stuff in there. I even said I’d register the patents under his name, so he gets credit for the work. I also said if he was willing to get out of his business, I’d hire him. He’s as good in his specialty as the Fixer is in general.” I gave Jenkins a thoughtful look. “Don’t feel bad about purloining Wittman’s tech. He had to know about this, too. But,” I cautioned him, “it might not be bad to have some plans for dealing with the Frightful Four at some point.”

“Can I look at some of the specs on his stuff?” Jenkins asked after a moment of thinking about that.

“When you’re done with the calibrating.” He nodded and got back to work on his suit.