(Chapter 8)Meet the Family

I hadn't been utterly shocked. I had considered that Drama might be Hydra. But it hadn't really seemed to matter at the time, she'd seemed so patriotic and sweet, I'd convinced myself I was considering that she might be Hydra to make myself feel better about manipulating her. So when the moment finally came, I only felt pretty dumb. Just goes to show: No matter how nice somebody is to you, no matter how polite, thoughtful, or decent they've always been when you're around, they might still be rude, careless, or cruel to others.

I'd managed to beg off saying yes for a day, during which I tormented myself and ate far too many sweets. I plotted up the obvious escape routes. I could find Coulson and tell him about everything - How I'd gotten here, what I knew, who my girlfriend was. I could contact Stark, help him find that element his dad hid, and hide in his basement for a few years. There were other plans, some more plausible than others.

But I hadn't. The reason I told myself was that I knew Hydra could give me access to two things: The Tesseract or, if that failed, the Scepter that contained the mind stone if we repelled Loki and Thanos' goons. In the long term, if I could get access to either I could use the stone's own power to destroy the stone. That would avert the Snap. If I did it fast enough, it would avert the invasion of New York. It also helped that, for me, Hydra were movie villains. I didn't have the kind of natural, visceral repulsion from it I might have had from Nazis.

So I was now in Louisiana in front of a big planter-style house for Thanksgiving in a nice button up and slacks, with my best mom-pleasing mindset and a set of pie supplies in a grocery bag. Drama was standing next to me, fretting in jeans and a nice blouse. "It'll be fine," I said, reaching out and pressing the doorbell.

"Take this seriously," she said, panic in her voice.

"Dear," I said, "I don't think looking like a nervous animal will make a good impression." In truth, I had set my 'focus' on my conscious control of my emotional expression and I had no intention of changing it for the rest of this terrible day.

She chuckled a little at that, which was good because her mom opened the door right then. Mrs. Albertson looked maybe fifty, though she had to be older, with slightly curly blonde hair in a cardigan and knee-length dress. She hugged her daughter, who was not holding any of the supplies. "Well, get in here," she said happily, touching my shoulder as I came through. "Put those in the kitchen, honey."

"Yes ma'am," I said, smiling. "Drama said that you didn't want my help cooking the meal."

"Oh, honey, I'm sure you're very good. I just have control issues, please don't take offense."

"Well, I just want to do whatever makes things easier on you, so if that's a chat while you cook or staying far away in the living room I'm happy to do whatever."

"Well, that's very nice of you, honey," Mrs. Albertson said as I pulled the pie supplies out and laid them out in an orderly, unobtrusive form. "I'll be sure to holler if I need company, but I think my husband wants to meet the first boy our Drama's brought home."

I grinned and took my leave of her with a, "Yes, ma'am."

Drama's dad, Mr. Gregory Albertson, was a serious dude. He'd fought in 'Nam in the early 70s, where he'd met Mrs. Alberson's brother, who he'd later go on to work with on numerous campaigns. Mr. Anderson was the financier after rising through Roxxon, Philip Holt, now the governor of Louisiana, was the glad-handing machine politician. No way of knowing which of those two was the "original" Hydra member, but it seemed likely one of them was. I didn't even know if that mattered.

Mr. Anderson was about sixty, a broad man with a thin layer of weight of extra weight over old muscles, and he still kept his hair short and professional looking. He shook my hand with an amicable smile before sitting down into a smooth leather chair in the living room, "So, Drama tells me you work in energy. Tough couple weeks?"

I wasn't quite sure which way to answer and please a Hydra member. Do you give them the pitch to let them know you were savvy or do you tell them the truth to make them feel included? "You want the corporate bullshit or you want the straight truth?"

"Hmmm," he said, "Corporate bullshit."

"Obviously, we're making changes to our long term strategy. Over the next year, we're moving away from wind production as a research avenue, doubling down on batteries as we start moving towards an abundant energy environment, and making more conservative projections on our solar expansion. Still, we have good reason to be optimistic that in low cost areas for solar, we'll remain competitive and be able to out compete even with Stark Industries. In rural areas, especially sunny ones, we have every reason to think we'll be outperforming the capital heavy strategies of Stark Industry for the next fifty years. Our product also has a broader international range and will be less closely held."

"Not bad, not bad," he said approvingly, "Now what's the straight truth?"

"We used to have to put our belt through the loops twice and now we're running out of notches, but I think we'll be fine in the medium term."

"Not a lot of people can say that if that's the straight truth," Mr. Anderson said, leaning back in his chair. "Things are crazy down at Roxxon, especially with the blow-up and this coinciding so closely."

If I had gotten this news in other contexts, I would have pumped my fist in the air and started laughing. I had known the Oil & Gas industry was getting hit worse than I was, the news that the blow-up was also wounding them just made it better. Roxxon didn't quite have the reach of Exxon-Mobil, most companies seemed substantially more aligned by nation in this world, but it was almost Standard Oil here in the United States and it had fingers in a lot of other pies. Watching it choke was going to be deeply satisfying. Hopefully, the proximity to the blow-up would stop them from risking blowing up New Orleans. "Rough," I said instead.

"We'll soldier through," he said with a shrug. "Roxxon hasn't survived seventy years without learning to roll with the punches."

After that, there was some innocuous conversations about business and

"You follow politics much?"

What do you say to this question to impress a member of an international conspiracy of authoritarians? "Oof, topics to avoid with the in-laws," I said with a laugh. He laughed too, but he didn't say anything so I went on. "I think it's important to have the right people in place, but I think most politicians are too eager to bend to public outrage rather than doing what needs to be done."

"Careful, my best friend is the governor," he said.

"I don't know a ton about governorship decisions in Louisiana," I said, which was a lie. I read around twelve hundred words per minute since my transition and I kept a steady stream of news from everywhere. Holt sucked. "His energy policy seems a pragmatic mix, that's about all I pay attention to." He wasn't a climate change denier, which was above average in 2009 oil state GOP governors, but other than that he had nothing at all going for him. "I hope you don't take offense."

"No, no, I think Phil would agree with your assessment," Mr Anderson said. The conversation turned back toward more innocuous topics. I thought I could see he was taking my measure and I thought I could see the approval I was getting were a good sign.

I pushed away the thought of how strange it was to be seeking the approval of a fascist. I was working assets, that was all.

As more extended family streamed in, I kept up a positive affect, smiling and grinning and asking a lot of questions and talking as little as possible. I held Drama's hand and talked to her in the spare moments, but once there were fourteen or fifteen people I slipped into the kitchen to talk to Mrs. Albertson.

"Good to see you again honey," Mrs. Albertson said, from where she was stirring a pot. "Trying to escape the crowd?"

"Parties aren't really my thing," I said.

"That's what Drama said, well, I get it, don't worry." she said, "Small family growing up?"

'Canonically' I was an only child without grandparents or aunts or uncles. "Yeah," I replied. "Pretty much just me and my parents."

"And now it's just you," she said with sympathy.

"That's the size of it," I said. My real parents were presumably still alive back in my home reality, but Don and Suzi Trent were dead as doornails. My backstory, told by my passport and their obituaries, was that I had been out globe trotting when they'd died. This was a convenient excuse for why I had no friends.

"Drama says she worries about your social life."

"I mean, I make it to church and work and I have a girlfriend AND I travel. How much of a social life can I have?" She hmphed at me with disapproval. Was she worried that I was a spy? Or was she just concerned that someone without any ties clearly had a lot of capacity to cut off her daughter? Well, either way, probably better to try and head this off at the pass. "Okay, that was glib. Look, I had some friends before my parents died, but… well, I don't think most people my age are really able to deal with someone so disconsolate. I wasn't in a good place, either, I don't know. Maybe it was my fault. It's just hard to get back out there for friends at twenty eight when the biggest experiences of your life aren't really there with most of your peers. I'd like to make connections, obviously, it's just hard." It wasn't hard to sound sad as shit, either. Being moved to another universe from your friends and family sucks.

That got a coo of compassion, "Oh, honey, well, you'll find your people soon enough. You found Drama, after all."

After that, I mostly asked Mrs. Albertson questions and listened to her answers while she cooked. In the old world, the main limit to that sort of thing for me was that inevitably you actually want to say something in a conversation. That was no longer a problem. Then there was a noisy dinner with lots of humor and food, a football game (I rooted for whoever Mr. Albertson did), a phone call to Drama's brother in Iraq, and a card game. I didn't throw it, but I didn't deliberately, relentlessly crush everyone like I had with Klaue.

When we were heading home, Mr. Albertson gave me a firm handshake and a business card, "That's a major finance officer I know," he said, "If you can show him how you stay afloat in energy, I think he'll write you a big check. Give me a couple days to warn him you'll call." I smiled and thanked him, accepted a big hug from Mrs. Albertson, and headed out the door with Drama on my arm.

"You did good," she said, "They really liked you."