Chapter Text
♪"I'll break the sky
Because you and I are going nowhere
Kiss goodbye, a hundred times before we get there♪"
Eric reluctantly opened his eyes, the music blaring from his cell phone just barely loud enough to wake him out of his heavy slumber. He had often wondered why he was such a hard sleeper; it wasn't like he really needed it. After all, he was not a person but an LMD - a Life Model Decoy. Created by the defense agency known as SHIELD to serve as impersonators or saboteurs in the form of agents or heroes, LMDs had become an inexorable part of modern espionage...and a real kick in the ass to wake up inside of after watching yourself die.
Forcing himself to sit up, the redhead reached over and grabbed hold of his phone, turning off the alarm. Tossing it onto his old and sheetless mattress, he got up and stumbled into the bathroom, rubbing his eyes with sore hands. What had happened last night? He remembered when he stopped in front of the mirror, leaning in to inspect the blossoming explosion of purple and yellow across the right side of his face. "Right, Big Green..."
It had been an interesting name for a drunken biker, especially one who, as far as Eric could tell at the time, didn't have an ounce of green on or in him him. He'd certainly been big, though; big and quick with his fists, all because Eric had 'accidentally' tripped and pressed himself into one of the waitresses of the dive he'd been at. Now her? She'd been green, an emerald-eyed beauty as stacked as could be. How was -he- supposed to know she was Big Green's daughter? "Ohhh, I get it. She was Little Green, so he...ahhh."
Dropping his hand from his eye, Eric wondered vaguely if she'd still go out with him. Probably not. She had to attend to her dad's funeral, after all. Regardless, maybe he would run into her, he reasoned. It was just the motivation he needed to actually shower today.
Emerging from the stall a few minutes later - less, perhaps, than most would call an actually acceptable amount of time, but he only spent THAT long in there when he --
Oh, his phone was ringing. He ignored it, picking out a clean t-shirt and jeans from his closet.
Okay, no, they were piled in his hamper and didn't REALLY smell, which was a close enough approximation for him to 'clean'. Once he was dressed, opting for his least fragrant black t-shirt and faded old jeans, he picked up his phone and headed into the kitchen, confident that his robo-caller or telemarketer had given up for the moment.
And then it went off again. He ignored it again, heading into the kitchen to pop some bread in the toaster. He didn't know WHY he had to eat - what was the point of a sick robot body when you still had to make toast - but at least it made him feel a little more human sometimes.
He'd just sank back into his morning haze when his phone rang yet again.
Finally answering as he grabbed his finished toast, ignoring the sheer heat of it as it scorched his fingertips, Eric started towards the door. "Oh my god, I'm -coming-. Would you stop calling me? I know I'm beautiful, but you can't see me over the phone unless I install an app for it, and I'm not letting China spy on me. Fool me twice--"
"O'Grady." The Hub's voice, mildly distorted through the advanced vocal filter that she used but nonetheless unmistakable, cut through his rambling like a knife. "Taskmaster's trial is today; the one you're supposed to be a witness at." Just like that, he was awake. The Hub - voice and, secretly, sole operator of the mercenary syndicate known simply as The Org - was not one to ignore or back-talk to casually.
Naturally, Eric did exactly that. "I know! I said I'm going!" He was, too, albeit at his own damn pace. It was fine! He had no respect for traffic laws; he'd be early, if anything. He was already out the door, toast in his mouth, just like one of his favorite anime, which was to say, all of them.
"No, you're not." Even through the tech she used, The Hub sounded...well, cool. Distant, distracted. Eric stopped with his hand on the door of his old Camaro; it was dented and beaten up, and yet he loved it. There was something relatable about the fact that he kept pouring money into fixing the ancient and hard-to-replace parts inside, yet the rust spot on the roof was untouched. Ran like a dream, even if it was looking a little rougher every day.
"Explain," he responded seriously. There weren't a lot of people he'd wake up before noon for, and Taskmaster was only barely one of them. This was a special occasion - the man was his...what, mentor? Best friend? Partner in crime? A little of everything, if also a total bastard in every sense of the term.
"There's...a job. Well, not a job, really; a mission. Not something for hire. Something that has to be done. Today." He hadn't ever heard her sound Like this. Insecure, or worried, maybe. The Hub preferred to talk to Taskmaster. Even though Black Ant technically worked for her as well, she never so much as gave him direct orders. He always assumed it was her way of showing preferential treatment to Taskmaster...
...To her husband. The Hub wasn't just The Org...she was a former SHIELD agent named Mercedes Merced. For years, she'd used Taskmaster, who had issues with his powers that compromised his memory, as her own personal superweapon. Every job he'd taken for Hydra, he was gathering information for her. Every time he went after a superhero? It was to cover for his actions, to keep the illusion going. In a way that struck Eric as deeply twisted, Mercedes was the most devoted wife that he'd ever met, but he'd never been able to decide if he liked her or not. Something about the way she handled Taskmaster felt manipulative to him.
"More important than vouching for Tasky? It's going to look REALLY bad if I don't show up." He wasn't sure that was true, but he wanted to be there; the guy needed all the character witnesses he could get. Sure, him and Tony had their friction; that was just mercenary life, really. But they were best friends. In the end, each was the only one that the other had ever considered worth more than money. They'd proven it time and again, and he didn't like the idea of abandoning his best pal to a trial packed full of superheroes without his most reliable backup.
"...I know, Eric. But this isn't about Taskmaster. We've got that covered, it'll be fine. This is about you. There's someone coming after you; I don't know who it is, but they've been making waves and causing damage. Can you think of anyone you've pissed off lately?"
Yes.
"...No."
"Very convincing," she deadpanned. "Look, the thing is, someone has it out for you. I dug into this a little bit, and whoever it is, they're -really- taking aim for the Black Ant. You have to handle this; if you show up here and they disrupt the trial, it could destroy the whole defense planned for Taskmaster. His lawyer's entire goal is to underline the difference between Tony and Taskmaster; if he's jumped by a supervillain or something in the middle of the court, that's EXACTLY the kind of thing that makes people think there isn't a difference at all."
This was new. The Hub - Mercedes, Eric reminded himself - had never sounded so fretful. Maybe this was important after all. Starting his car, Eric began cruising down Yancy Street, but he only got about a quarter of a mile before he was forced to slow down due to an obstruction: a gigantic, floating inflatable Ben Grimm taking up a good portion of the road on the back of someone's bicycle. "What is it, the big honeycomb's birthday? Get that outta here!" Eric leaned away from his phone, yelling out the window.
"Fuck you, dude! He's a national hero!" A small middle finger emerged from behind The Thing's giant rubber butt.
"Hey, fuck you!" Eric fired back. "I've met him! He pays women to rub Nutella in his weird fissures!"
"Can you stop arguing with six-year-olds and focus?" Mercedes asked on the other line, sounding irritated.
"She was at least seven."
"Look, just listen. You need to sort this out. I know you were looking forward to a little vacation or whatever, but--
"Excuse you, it was a Sabbatical. A Black Ant Sabbatical. A Black Sabbath." Finally managing to get past the little mini-parade, Eric turned the corner and headed for the freeway as he checked his hair in the mirror. It was still there. Good. Sometimes it wasn't! "Hey, Mercy; you ever wonder why LMDs gotta have a Lego man situation going on?"
"No," Mercedes answered, her long-suffering tone making it quite obvious that she wasn't in the mood for this. "...But if you really need to know, it makes repairing the neural network a little easier if you don't have to actually sift through all that hair. Not like you want to shave their heads."
"Huh. That actually makes sense. Anyways, where should I start? What should I do?" He'd really set the whole day aside for this trial -- he wasn't expecting to just have to skip out on it.
"Literally anything that the Black Ant would do. Just...go through your usual routine, but don't see any of your merc buddies, don't go to the trial, and don't call me back. Chances are, they'll be wondering why you aren't going to the trial if they know about it themselves. Try to find a good reason to not be here. Anything else?"
"Is Taskmaster gonna be alright?" He finally asked, almost hesitantly.
"...He'll be fine. You need to focus on you, Eric. This isn't about Taskmaster. This is about you."
He had no idea when the last time that he'd heard that was. Maybe when he'd been an Avenger? Eric liked Tasky, he really did, and he'd do almost anything for the guy, but there was no denying that despite the fact they were supposed to be partners, he always felt more like a sidekick. He knew that worrying about this wasn't entirely fair; after all, in every meaningful sense of the term, Tony kept true to their original agreement. They split the pay for any job they did together 50/50, didn't lie to each other about any contracts they were taking, and Tony had gone out of his way to push Mercedes into using her resources as The Hub into ensuring that Eric got a fair share of work.
He was grateful, really.
So why did he feel like...well, less? Less of a mercenary? Less of a man? He could argue it was because Taskmaster was twenty years his senior, and had been training mercenaries for just as long, or that while the Black Ant had made a name for himself, the more experienced gun for hire had built up a much more serious reputation...
...But as he cruised onto the freeway, letting himself fall into one of the few hobbies he had always truly loved of simply driving, he knew that the truth was both simpler and a lot less easy to swallow: It was because Taskmaster always treated him not like Black Ant, the LMD mercenary, but like Eric O'Grady, the man who had died. The one whose face he wore, whose eyes he looked through, whose brain he supposedly had.
He felt like a sidekick because Eric had been a sidekick. Black Ant was a partner, but in the same way that he sometimes saw not Taskmaster, but Tony, Tony sometimes saw Eric, not Black Ant. "God help us two idiots," he muttered to himself. Enough ruminating; he couldn't even spell the word in his own head. Mercedes wanted him to come up with a plan to feasibly ditch the trial? Gosh dang it he'd put on a total show. An acting tour de force! He'd show her! He'd go somewhere totally new!
He'd barely gotten halfway to the Pop-Up With No Name, a series of tents that had replaced the favored bar of the supervillains of New York after some business with Spider-Man [totally not related to them, for once], when he realized that was about the most Black Ant hobby he could have picked; drinking at a bar full of low-level supervillains?
"Aw, dang it."
Okay, so maybe he needed to actually think through this.